Question for Coaches

[singerskates]

This past weekend there was a competition where quite a few skaters were using music that I edited and remastered for them. For the most part everything went off fine. But there was this one case where a dad tried to copy the original CD I had created for his daughter and when his daughter was up to compete the CD that the dad made from the original didn't play. Now I keep telling people that they should have two CD's and one tape for competition. But the dad seemed to think that he could make an extra copy instead of paying me for a copy of the master CD. Either he ripped the original as a MP3 or even though he may have saved the song as .wav file and forgot to finalize the CD making it either a MP3 CD that doesn't play on regular CD players or a coaster (good for nothing). His daughter was stuck skating to someone else's music instead of hers. After that he was made at the daughter's coach. I'm not a coach but a program assistant, adult skater, webmaster and music editor. The girl's coach told me to stay away from the competition rink until the family left. I guess the dad thought I made a bad CD. I didn't. His daughter was skating to the CD's I created all season and they worked just fine. I know it wasn't my fault the copy the dad made didn't play. It was his.

What can I do so that this doesn't happen again? How do I write a disclaimer? What should I say in it in relation to editing and remastering and creating figure skating CD's?

As far as the coach, she is now going to make sure that the CD's the parent and/or kid skaters bring to competition play before hand. The coach didn't know that the dad did a switch and left the master I made for his daughter at his house until her skater was on the ice competing. I don't think it's her fault either that the dad made a dud CD. The coach had me make another CD and is going to keep it herself just for when the skater competes. She'll use the other CD's for training.

[thumbyskates]

I keep copies of all my kids music on CD, and they only ever receive tapes. I never hand out CDs for music, because of scratching, copying whatever it may be. On tape I know they will play.

[jskater49]

Our coaches have always cut music for us, provides us with two CDS but never says we can't make copies and frankly I wouldn't buy music under that condition. Stuff happens - we lose them, they get scratched and we have to make copies. (sometimes the night before!) I wouldn't cheat and make a copy if that was part of the deal, but I wouldn't make the deal to begin with.

J

[vesperholly]

The current situation aside, why don't you just include two copies of the program in the price? Selling people one CD, telling them they ought to have two, and then asking for more money for another CD seems odd. Just bump your price up a couple bucks and include a "master" and a "practice" CD.

Personally, I have always made my own copies of music that has been cut for me. I like to have extra copies in case I lose or break one, and I like to put the program on my iPod.

[Mrs Redboots]

Me too. Actually, I tend to cut my own music anyway, but even if I didn't, I always ask for it on CD so I can copy it to my computer and make a new CD for every competition. Or, at the very least, a new label incorporating the name of the class in question. If I had to pay my coach for every copy, I'd certainly not bother!

[twokidsskatemom]

My daughters coach makes one for us, then she always make news ones the day before a comp and brings them.
She knows as soon as she gives me the first one, we always copy it.I have practice Cds is both cars . I mean Cds scratch, skip, and sometimes dont work at all due to cold.
I wouldnt buy something if we couldnt copy it.

[Isk8NYC]

I don't have any high-level skaters, so I'm in a different boat.


When I make program music for my students, I charge $35 for a 1.5 minute program. For show programs, I give them one CD and I keep one CD. For competitions, I burn them two CDs and record a cassette. I also burn a copy on CD for myself. I carry my copies along with the program notes, to all practices, shows, and comps. However, I ask the student if they have theirs for each practice. I want to make sure they're NOT scratched, and have the skater be responsible for their own recordings. I consider mine to be the backup copy, so we don't lose practice time when they forget theirs.

I don't charge for replacements because very few people ever ask. I just give them my copy and burn a new one for myself. I usually buy the ultra-cheap or "free after rebate" CDs, so it's really just my time that's expensive.

I also purchase all the original music myself. It's a business expense for me, and I like being able to reuse cut music for other students. If I had to buy an entire CD I hated just to get one track, I'd probably ask the skater to reimburse me, but the situation hasn't arisen as yet.

I'm not looking to make big money from the music editing. However, having music for programs and/or comps leads to lessons for me, which is fine. I look at it as "customer service."

I wouldn't take a chance on recording a new one the night before after the screwup I made with my own kids' cassettes.

[twokidsskatemom]

I keep copies of all my kids music on CD, and they only ever receive tapes. I never hand out CDs for music, because of scratching, copying whatever it may be. On tape I know they will play.

What would you do if they went to a rink that didnt do tapes anymore?Our rinks dont have tapes, just Cds.

[Tennisany1]

Our rink only uses CD's as well. When I get my daughters music, I copy it onto our computer and make 3 copies. Two go in the practice bag, one to her coach and the master in the competition bag. Before a competition I always play the master and the practice ones at home to check them and then put them all in the competition bag. Her coach keeps the tape and takes that along with her copy of the CD to the competition. We hand the master in at registration and keep the others for back up.

It may sound crazy to have so many copies, but I have seen too many kids standing in the middle of the ice waiting because their CD won't play and no one can find a back up.

I wouldn't buy music from someone if I had to go back every time I wanted a copy. I agree with whoever said just put up your price and include 2 CDs and a tape with each order. Unfortunately it is your reputation when music you provide doesn't work. It is unfair because it wasn't your fault, but I think it would be better for you if you let people know you will make copies if they need them rather than have your music not work.

[singerskates]

The music I created did work and still works. The dad's copy of the music I created didn't work. The dad should have brought the original master CD too.

OK, I'm going to put up my CD editing prices for spring skating and provide 2 CD's (the skater’s coach will run off a tape version) for the skaters, one back up for the coach and when I'm all done doing all the coach's skater's CD's I make a compilation CD with all of the coach's skaters' music on it for back up at the practice rink for days when the skaters forget their music. I’ll come up with the new prices after I compete in Adult Canadians. I charge different rates for recreational, StarSkate and Competitive and program lengths.

I still would add a disclaimer saying that if anybody else creates a copy from the CD's I've created other than me, I am not responsible if the CD does not play. They may make copies at their own risk.

[Mrs Redboots]

Some rinks here don't use CDs, it's mini-disks or nothing. Which is much more awkward for those of us who don't have mini-disk facilities; we can get a friend to organise our music on to mini-disk, but then we don't have a spare copy as back up.

[twokidsskatemom]

Some rinks here don't use CDs, it's mini-disks or nothing. Which is much more awkward for those of us who don't have mini-disk facilities; we can get a friend to organise our music on to mini-disk, but then we don't have a spare copy as back up.
I have never seen this till last month !! I was running the practice music for a USFSA comp and two of the coaches handed me this very odd looking Cd. It did fit the Cd player fine and sounded fine too. Just looked strange.
I can see not having anyone sell or give music that someone edited to another skater to reuse later. I know we wouldnt deal with anyone that didnt want me to make copies. I have two small skaters and its better off to be safe.! They play their own music over and over every day.

[slusher]

My old coach's practice was two CD's, one tape. If you lose them all, it was $5 to replace them. It you forgot your music at a rink there was a dollar ransom to get it back from whichever coach kindly picked it up for you.

However, the current practice at my last couple of competitions is that at registration, the music is loaded from the cd into an mp3 on the competition computer, then all solos are played from the mp3 at rinkside. The back up is the CD that you handed in. If they have a problem playing the CD to create the mp3, it gets solved before the skater ever steps on the ice.

[cathrl]

I'd say that it's never the person who made the music's responsibility if it doesn't play - provided it played when you handed it over, on a range of players. Even if they use your original, you have no control over what they've done to it. They paid you for the CD, it worked when you handed it over, end of story for you. If it doesn't play three weeks later, that's sad and you should probably replace it for free as a mark of good faith unless it's physically damaged - but it's not your fault. Last year's novice solo ice dance qualifiers at Sheffield, a good 30% of CDs wouldn't play, and there seemed to be no correlation with coach, rink, music supplier, or anything else we could think of. I don't think you should say you're not responsible if copies don't work, because that suggests you are responsible if the original stops working or fails on a particular player, and you're not.

I don't like using tapes for competitions or tests, because they don't always run at the same speed. I saw one skater at our rink almost fail her test because our player ran faster than the one she was used to, and her music was towards the short end of the time limit already. The judge hauled her coach over and told him just how close she was to the time limit.

Plus, many rinks won't take tapes for competitions in the UK - from memory, Oxford's the only one I've seen in the last year or so which still does. Deeside only takes minidiscs, which is horrendously scary, because I have a friend of a friend who makes one for us, but I have no way to test it myself. I sit there with my fingers crossed until a) something comes out, and b) it's actually my daughter's music.

Aside: if you do make copies of your music, don't, whatever you do, use an ordinary pen to label the CD. We had one at work that someone had stuck a freezer label on and written on it in Biro, and the laser in the CD drive reacted with the ink somehow and burnt a neat little hole right through the CD.

(Not a coach, I'm afraid - but I do consider myself the person responsible for my kid having working music, even though I didn't cut it).

Slusher, that's an excellent idea! I wonder if our rink's system could be hooked to a laptop?

[kateskate]

At a competition last year my music didn't play. My coach had made the CDs for me and they played at my rink and on his CD player but they didn't play at the competition rink. I had a mini disc of each as a back up and that didn't play either. The mini discs did play at my rink and at home though.

Eventually the rink managed to use another CD player which did play the CDs.

I certainly didn't think it was my coach's fault. The music played fine on our rinks' system and at home, as did the mini discs. And they eventually got the CD to play at the competition rink.

However, he had also copied CDs for other skaters and they and their teacher did get a little cross with him, which I thought was unfair.

The CDs worked and so he had done his job.

[sk8_mom]

I wonder if our rink's system could be hooked to a laptop?

We play music during our son's hockey games with a laptop. All we needed to hook into the rink's sound system was a special adaptor plug (around $10) and then the adaptor plugs into the earphone jack on my laptop. I have no idea what the adaptor was called - but its round and about 2 inches long. You'd have to check out your rink to see what it needs.

We just loaded the mp3's into a playlist in Windows Media Player. Its a pretty simple setup, but it works great. Haven't tried it yet for skating, but I imagine it would work just fine.

Just remember to have the arena staff turn on the sound system!

[Isk8NYC]

I skated on an empty freestyle session today. At this particular rink, they loan you a boombox from the office if you want music. I didn't have any CD's, just my iPod, so I didn't bother.

I found out that I could just connect the iPod to the sound system and skate to my playlist of skating music. How nice not to need headphones. (I was the only skater - heavenly!)

You can connect the headphone jack of pretty much any device to the rink's sound system. Sometimes, you need an extension cable, other times you might need an adapter to convert the other end of the cable from a small connector to a stereo connector.

Since I never know what a particular rink's setup will be, or what type of music my students might turn up with, I carry a small toiletries bag that contains a bunch of audio gizmos from Radio Shack and even dollar stores.

It contains:
Extra set of headphones - just for sanitary purposes; came with my boombox.
1:2 headphone splitter - so two people can listen to the music at once.
Mini-speaker system - Runs on batteries and plugs into the earphone jack. Not terribly loud, but it was only $5.
Headphone extension cable - has the small headphone jacks at both ends; can connect to the microphone jack for recording/playback.
(2) Connector adaptors - Converts the small headphone jacks to the larger stereo jacks.

[Mrs Redboots]

I found out that I could just connect the iPod to the sound system and skate to my playlist of skating music. How nice not to need headphones. Our elite skaters have done this all season, with their various OD and FD music on their iPods. The connection from rinkside to the main sound system is a bit iffy, but most MP3 and similar players can be attached if you have the relevant jack plug or adaptor.

[Virtualsk8r]

If you professionally cut and edit skating music, then I would assume that you have a label affixed to the cd's and cassettes that you supply your customers. If the 'competition' cd did not contain your name, email and phone number or business logo - indicating that you were responsible for its creation - then the parent is entirely to blame. The coach involved should apologize to you. The fact that you were at the rink is not relevant. If you did a professional job in duplicating the master for the client and the cd worked, then your responsibility to the client is fulfilled.

Do you think that Lenore Kaye is at all Olympic, National and invitational competitions to be responsible for the music she cuts for the world's top and not-so-top level skaters?

My guess is that the parent did record the master as an mp3 - or forgot to finalize it. Would that parent let their skater wear a new pair of skates or a new dress to a competition without trying it out first? Same holds true for cd's -- test before the event and have a trusty backup.