When CDs were introduced in the early 1980s, the idea of being able to produce them at home was pure science fiction. What a difference several decades of accelerated techno-evolution make! Today, professional looking (and sounding) CDs are not only easy to make at home, the technology has become cheap enough that nearly everyone can afford to go into the desktop record business. If you've thought about starting your own garage label, or just burning your PC's MP3 collection and old vinyl to disc so you can listen to it in your car, here's the gear you'll need.
 The Music Machine
These days, there's little excuse for not having a CD-RW (Compact Disc-Rewritable) drive. Prices for these drives have plummeted to bargain basement levels. Worth a look are Sony's Spressa and Samsung's SW-408 drive. Both will burn entire CDs in less than 10 minutes and are available at street prices under $100. You can get internal drives like these, or if you don't have a spare drive bay on your computer, there are a variety of external models available that connect through USB, FireWire, and even parallel ports. CD-RW drives allow you to feed blank CD media into them to copy audio CDs, desktop MP3s, even the contents of your entire hard drive for backup storage. For music files, you use CD-R media, for data, you can use CD-RW. "Rewritable" means that you can make successive backups on the same disc (not something you want to do with audio files). Most CD-RW drives come with software that allows you to manage your digital audio files, to convert CD audio files to MP3 format, and to burn files to the CD-RW drive.
The Medium is the Message
Blank CD-R media is so prevalent now that even some drugstores carry it. Consumer electronics chains like Best Buy and Circuit City frequently have super sales on some brands where you can get 50 discs for under $10. Discs can even be purchased in different colors like blue, red, amber, purple, even black. The government uses different colors to signify level of classification, but you can use them to give your home releases some extra flair.
Presentation is Everything
Once you have your music duped onto disc, the music factory assembly line doesn't stop there. An impressive variety of packaging and labeling kits allow you to print professional-looking CD booklets, tray cards and CD labels on your inkjet printer.
 While many CD-RW machines and CD labeling kits come with cheapo label-applying machines, the hands-down best of these gizmos is the CD Stomper. It is bigger and sturdier than its competitors and built for a lifetime of label application duties. It looks cool, too! CD Stomper also carries a full line of CD packaging and supplies as well as printing software.
Neato makes a label applicator (although it's rather chinchy and hard to use), but their strong suit is the labels themselves. Neato supports just about every format imaginable including DAT, slimline CD, Jaz, Zip, and audiocassette. When you order labels from them, you also get their free "Production Assistant" CD-ROM, which has copyright-free artwork, design and CD production tips, and other helpful information.
SureThing's award-winning CD labeling software is the best in the business and by far the easiest to use. Unlike programs that come packaged with most labeling kits (like the above two) and only work with that manufacturer's labeling media, SureThing supports a wide variety of manufacturers' products. You can download a free 30-day trial version of the software from their Web site.
 [Note about labels: It's important to use a labeling machine when applying CD labels because ones that are adhered off-center (or that don't cover the entire CD) can cause the disc to spin unbalanced, which can damage CD players.]
All of the hardware, software, and supplies mentioned in this article are available at your local consumer electronics superstore. In some of these stores, on a single aisle, you can start at one end with the CD-RW drives and end up at the other with your cart filled with everything you need to go into earnest CD production. The record companies of the world must be turning over in their graves. Oh wait, they're not dead yet -- or are they?
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