Night Sins by Mark Snow

[ty7du]

I just wanted to share with you that there is a limited edition of 1000 copies of Night Sins (mini-series from 1997) by Mark Snow.

https://buysoundtrax.stores.yahoo.net/nisiorsobyma.html

This could go out fast, two weeks maybe...you never know.

[SadEyes]

This could go out fast, two weeks maybe...you never know.

I wouldn´t bet on that, since it´s BSX...

I asked myself many times, if they just produce more CDs, than they say they are. This came to my mind for a number of reasons, one maybe, that over at La-La-Land they could sell almost all 3000 copies of John Carpenter´s music for "Big Trouble in Little China", whilst BSX still has their Carpenter-Titles, which are limited to 1000 units (so they say), like "Prince of Darkness" and "Halloween III", that came out 2 years ago. Same with the Mark-Snow-Titles, "Jake Speed", "Conundrum" and "Private Fears", all limited to 1000 units, all still available after years. To be honest, I can´t remember a single CD, that was sold out at BSX.

Nevertheless, a new Snow-CD is always welcome and the audio samples sound just amazing. Oh, and the first 100 copies will be signed by Mark.

[The New Number 2]

Unlike "Conundrum", which was about half the length of the boot, "Night Sins" appears to be the exact same contents of the old boot.

[ethsnafu]

Boot being bootleg right guys?

Alex why is that the case? Are their releases in some way inferior or just not as widely publicised? I seems odd that Carpenters titles would struggle to sell even a thousand copies. Could it be the case that they advertise a limited run to encourage sales when there is, in fact, much more to be had?

Eth

[The New Number 2]

BuySoundtrax has notoriously bad customer serice. For a few weeks at FSM, for example, we had a new thread started by someone who can't get replies via phone, e-mail from them at all, when no CDs arrived.

then otjher people would start posting in the thread too about the same problem. Eventually thread were locked, many deleted, and they asked people not post them anymore.

Instead of apologizing, instead of fixing the problem (Varese Sarabande, FilmScoreMonthly, Intrada, Perserverence rcords, Percepto Records -- just to name a few -- always reply and delivery promptly), artwork designer/website designer Mark Banning would make a post asking for the order number.

At one point they had a veiled coyness of harrassing a member (Iforget which at this point) over their order when the member was rightfully vocal about his issues.

Some people seem to have no trouble with them, but the other half just can't seen to get BSX to understand and fix their business problems. They could learn a lot from Intrada Records and Screen Archives Entertainment.

This put a damper on their sales, and of couse visability. Who wants to order from a label who does that? A label that also, by the way, from time-to-time sells bootlegs on their site, for a brief period -- blink and you'll miss it -- and take it off like it never happened, and never acknowledge the criticisms from people who talk about it (like on the FSM board).

I've not seen any threads as of late about order problems from BSX, or seen any threads talking about them selling bootlegs -- though it doesn't necessary mean they are not. Take from that what you will. Maybe they've cleaned up some.

It's a shame it's gotta be that way. Just today at the FSM board, Mark Banning said BSX has several Mark Snow scores coming out in 2011. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. When I start hearing about how they've improved, I will of course promote the change.

[Earthnut]

I love Mark Snow's music just like all of you, but don't need any more aggravation in my life. Is it safe to order this CD? I really don't need it, I want it since it's Mark Snow. For some reason I can never get enough of his music.

[ty7du]

Well..I ordered from them, and I eventually got them...but they weren't wrapped with bubble-wrap, so the cases were badly damaged (but I've got plenty of spare parts) but thankfully the CDs were okay.

If you can get the soundtrack elsewhere, it would be better because I'm not so sure they're that cheap either.

I did order from Varese and got those bubble wrapped and (relatively) unharmed...but was disappointed to hear a badly linked back-to-back track on Sean Callery's 24: Redemption soundtrack...it sounds like it's supposed to link but doesn't...otherwise, a fine CD.

And Mark, thanks for moving the post to the right location, I had a blank moment when figuring out where to post it :D

[SadEyes]

I moved the topic, Josef.

Concerning BSX and their bad service, all I can tell is, that I ordered from them some time ago three times. The first order got to me without problems, but the second and third order didn´t arrive and it took me a while, to get my money back, since they really hardly respond to mails. So, I just don´t order from them anymore, I get most of my scores from Screenarchives.com, they are fast and reliable, even to Germany it normally takes not more than 5 to 7 days for my order to arrive.

@Mark That is something, I also wondered. BSX does make advertisements, like the other Score-Labels, I regularly get mails from them, in which they inform me about new releases. And of course, there are the worldwide Soundtrack-Forums, where people call attention to their releases. So, it can´t be a lack of advertising, concerning the fact, that you don´t have to order from BSX to get their CDs, which makes it very unlikely for me, that their bad service really holds back the CD-Orders, although I had this thought too.

For some people the autographed booklet, that BSX offers for many of their releases, is the main reason for ordering there, because if you buy the CD at Screenarchives for example, you don´t get an autographed copy. But you have to decide, if it´s worth the trouble that you probably will have with them. A dear friend of mine opened a new Soundtrack-Store some time ago, you can find him under www.score-search.de, he gets the autographed copies too, in fact, he specialised in limited and signed Score-CDs. I ordered "Night Sins" from him, he also sells the autographed copies, so I don´t have to order from BSX to get my booklet signed. Unfortunately he only ships within Europe, but he is a very nice guy and if you ask him, maybe he´ll make an exception.

So, even if some people refuse to order BSX-CDs due to their bad service and the things, they do around their releases, it is very unlikely that they even don´t sell 1000 copies of titles like "Prince of Darkness" or "They live" with the help from other soundtrack stores. They even released a Jerry-Goldsmith-Score, "The Going Up of David Lev", limited to 2000 copies, which seems to be not even near a sold out. Ok, this is an obscure title from Goldsmith´s body of work, but I bet even if BSX had released Goldsmith´s "Alien" as a 2000-units-limited-edition some years ago, it still would be available from them.

[ethsnafu]

What a fascinating read folks and thank you so much for enlightening us. This is turning into a very interesting discussion.

Now I would assume there is one dominant factor which compels composers to release their work and that would be financial. Evidently they want to provide for the clamouring fans but as they are not doing so for free and gratis I would assume a few extra dollars helps the cause. That being the case, why do individuals release their work with a company that, if we are to believe what they say, struggles to shift even a 1000 copies of soundtracks that really should have no trouble finding buyers? As composers, individuals like Mark Snow must surely have some insights into the world of soundtrack collecting and I would have thought that releasing your work with a company that has a poor relationship with its customers and on which struggles to sell very many copies would be something they would shy away from. Put it this way, based upon what I have read here I would not order from them so a potential customer of Mark's "Night Sins" has been discouraged to make a purchase.

The world of selling soundtracks is a curious one it would seem.

Eth

[SadEyes]

That´s a good point, Mark. Why would anyone make business with a company, which apparently can´t sell their products? But Mark Snow does business with them, they recently said, that in 2011 more Snow-CDs will be released by BSX and Alan Howarth does also. He´s even got his own label, "AHI", which is represented by BSX, all the Carpenter-Scores there came out via his label under BSX, some of his own scores too. But on the other hand, Howarth also worked with La-La-Land for the release of "Big Trouble in little China", they limited the release to 3000 units and according to them, there are only 200 copies left, so they almost sold 3000 copies within one year, whilst BSX still has their 1000-Editions of Carpenter-Scores since years.

So, I don´t know, if they really don´t sell more of their CDs or if they just cheat, making 3000 copies and telling everyone, that there will be just 1000, so that everyone will grab his copy fast. Perseverance Records did that several years ago and they still couldn´t get rid of that. They released the music from "Loch Ness" by Trevor Jones as a limited edition and the CD got sold out. Some time later, they put the CD back in stock, this time unlimited, you still can purchase it from them. This year, they did a similar thing with Paul Hertzog´s music for "Kickboxer". They released the CD several years ago, limited to 500 units, the CD got sold out and you had to pay astronomical high prices for it on Ebay. This summer they released the CD again, again limited to 500 units, claiming that they had a contract about 1000 copies and they just pressed 500 units in the first place. Why they didn´t produce the other 500 copies right after the sell-out? I don´t know.