Mudjack
Funny you should bring that up. A friend and I are starting Hamster Productions. HP is going to be doing vanity CD's and videos. This is what I have and how I set it up.
1. Computer: Generic 350MHZ clone 64mb ram & 4 gb hd. Winblows 95.
2. Sound card: Sound Blaster Live. @ $200.00 (Cheeper on web ~ 175.00. This is the cheepist card I could find with the digital input (S/PDIF) We are using DAT for field recording, so want to keep things digital.
3. CD R: Smart & Easy IDE. Came with some of the best software avaible. Sonic Foundry & CD Archecht. This will record at 4x. Cost: $209.00 at a local "BIG COMPUTER STORE!!!"
4. Sure Thing: $40.00 graphics program. Makes nifty CD covers and jewl box inserts.
Would I want to crank out 1000 cd's on this thing? Uh, no. It takes about 15 min to record a 50 min, CD.
Here's the deal. It costs about $1.20 to buy a cd blank with a jewel box. From Oasis you can get the same thing (in a 1000 units) for under a buck. If you don't want the jewel case, just the Cd, and put them in a blank jewel case you can get down to about $0.55 each. You could put your bit of cash into a nice two-three color graphic on the CD.
You can get quanities less than 1000, but the cost is only about $100 less for 500. So the best value/cost knee is at about 1000 units.
If you are in the San Francisco Area, I could show you my setup.
-Fadac