Hey Kids, Have You Heard The News? MOSAIC's IN TROUBLE!!!

[sidewinder]

Plus another factor that has got to be very significant for European customers of Mosaic is the huge fall in the currencies (Euro, pound) against the $. That is making the sets at least 30% more expensive than they used to be - potentially a major disincentive and another reason why purchases are iften deferred.

[soulpope]

1 hour ago, sidewinder said:

Plus another factor that has got to be very significant for European customers of Mosaic is the huge fall in the currencies (Euro, pound) against the $. That is making the sets at least 30% more expensive than they used to be - potentially a major disincentive and another reason why purchases are iften deferred.

That`s a significant factor for sure - which is alleviated a bit if buying via an European importer ....

[David Ayers]

It's a contracting market, is all.

Last year my total CD spend was $8.99 plus tax. This year it is £9.99 incl. VAT. My download spend over the same period was zero. Spotify costs me £5/month. Live music, on the other hand...

 

 

Oh and a 7" single for $5.99 + tax. 

Worse thing about this board, you can't post photos - otherwise I'd show you what I bought.

[king ubu]

Hey daddy what dat dere?

[erwbol]

1 hour ago, David Ayers said:

Worse thing about this board, you can't post photos - otherwise I'd show you what I bought.

Of course you can post photos. You just cannot upload them directly for Organissimo to host. Just create an account at postimage.io, upload, and post the resultant link at Organissimo. By creating your own account at postimage.io you can delete your own images from the web any time you like.

Surely you know all this already?

Edited May 3, 2017 by erwbol

[David Ayers]

1 hour ago, erwbol said:

Of course you can post photos. You just cannot upload them directly for Organissimo to host. Just create an account at postimage.io, upload, and post the resultant link at Organissimo. By creating your own account at postimage.io you can delete your own images from the web any time you like.

Surely you know all this already?

[erwbol]

5 hours ago, bigbandrecord said:

  I think that biggest problem with Mosaic business/customer wise is three-fold.. 1.  Way too many sets on back-order and staying out of stock for extended periods of time.....in order to make money you have to have product to sell.   2. Many of you members of this boards buying habits/patterns......I mean things like not purchasing sets when they first come out but waiting till it goes on running low or last chance,  even though you really want the items in question(or so you say you do).  Also waiting around for 6 months to a year for a 10 % sale or free-shipping or whatever.  Some of you act like that miniscule amount of savings is going to change your life. 3. It's obvious as evidenced by these Mosaic buying habit/patterns that it is not about the music for the most part, but is more about buying a collectible......a fetish of sorts.  So as a result the typical Mosaic buyer waits and waits and waits but lo and behold because as of late things go on back-order for 2 years  it's coming back to bite the typical Mosaic buyer in the ass.

   The problem now is that's it's now going to bite all of us in the ass.

Some of us are actually on a (very) tight budget, you know. As Sidewinder said, shifts in the currency market actually make a huge difference. As for (3), what a blockheaded, smug idea.

[king ubu]

 

2 hours ago, sidewinder said:

Plus another factor that has got to be very significant for European customers of Mosaic is the huge fall in the currencies (Euro, pound) against the $. That is making the sets at least 30% more expensive than they used to be - potentially a major disincentive and another reason why purchases are iften deferred.

2 hours ago, soulpope said:

That`s a significant factor for sure - which is alleviated a bit if buying via an European importer ....

 

However, in a longterm perspective, they are still quite a bit cheaper than around 15 years ago, right? Not suffering from weak currency here, luckily ... for me they still feel rather cheap compared to when I bought the first two dozen or so sets in the late 90s and early 00s (around 30% cheaper at least, in between it was even more, the 10% or so raise in recent times doesn't affect that too much, the crazy shipping prices are making a bigger difference, and the fact that customs hit hard on the Spanish parcels, while half the time, they don't crack down on Mosaic's 5$ per disc declaration).

[Scott Dolan]

5 hours ago, bigbandrecord said:

  I think that biggest problem with Mosaic business/customer wise is three-fold.. 1.  Way too many sets on back-order and staying out of stock for extended periods of time.....in order to make money you have to have product to sell.   2. Many of you members of this boards buying habits/patterns......I mean things like not purchasing sets when they first come out but waiting till it goes on running low or last chance,  even though you really want the items in question(or so you say you do).  Also waiting around for 6 months to a year for a 10 % sale or free-shipping or whatever.  Some of you act like that miniscule amount of savings is going to change your life. 3. It's obvious as evidenced by these Mosaic buying habit/patterns that it is not about the music for the most part, but is more about buying a collectible......a fetish of sorts.  So as a result the typical Mosaic buyer waits and waits and waits but lo and behold because as of late things go on back-order for 2 years  it's coming back to bite the typical Mosaic buyer in the ass.

   The problem now is that's it's now going to bite all of us in the ass.

YEAH! So all of you folks here need to stop being smart consumers, and simply spend willy nilly so that the rest of us idiots with more money than brains don't suffer! 

An excellently stupid and insulting post, bigbandrecords!  

[soulpope]

53 minutes ago, king ubu said:

 

 

However, in a longterm perspective, they are still quite a bit cheaper than around 15 years ago, right? Not suffering from weak currency here, luckily ... for me they still feel rather cheap compared to when I bought the first two dozen or so sets in the late 90s and early 00s (around 30% cheaper at least, in between it was even more, the 10% or so raise in recent times doesn't affect that too much, the crazy shipping prices are making a bigger difference, and the fact that customs hit hard on the Spanish parcels, while half the time, they don't crack down on Mosaic's 5$ per disc declaration).

Your`re right - nevertheless actual calculation is not bettered by the historic exchange rate differences ;-) .... don`t get me wrong, most of the items wanted within the last four decades+ I bought anyway :-) ....

[JSngry]

Last I looked, a user does have a certain amount of space on their account to upload items, that can then be posted as attachments using the Insert other media button.

[John Tapscott]

9 hours ago, bigbandrecord said:

  I think that biggest problem with Mosaic business/customer wise is three-fold.. 1.  Way too many sets on back-order and staying out of stock for extended periods of time.....in order to make money you have to have product to sell.   2. Many of you members of this boards buying habits/patterns......I mean things like not purchasing sets when they first come out but waiting till it goes on running low or last chance,  even though you really want the items in question(or so you say you do).  Also waiting around for 6 months to a year for a 10 % sale or free-shipping or whatever.  Some of you act like that miniscule amount of savings is going to change your life. 3. It's obvious as evidenced by these Mosaic buying habit/patterns that it is not about the music for the most part, but is more about buying a collectible......a fetish of sorts.  So as a result the typical Mosaic buyer waits and waits and waits but lo and behold because as of late things go on back-order for 2 years  it's coming back to bite the typical Mosaic buyer in the ass.

   The problem now is that's it's now going to bite all of us in the ass.

Blame the customer?? Sorry. I don't think it's our fault. We didn't ask for the sales or reduced shipping.  Mosaic started it.Sets are expensive enough and so any little break is helpful. 

6 hours ago, sidewinder said:

Plus another factor that has got to be very significant for European customers of Mosaic is the huge fall in the currencies (Euro, pound) against the $. That is making the sets at least 30% more expensive than they used to be - potentially a major disincentive and another reason why purchases are iften deferred.

Don't know how many Canadian customers they have - more than a few that I know of - but that's a factor for us north of the border, too. Sets are now effectively 30% more expensive for us than they were just a few years ago. 

Edited May 3, 2017 by John Tapscott

[Ed S]

Just received my shipment of the Shaw and Condon sets. 

I'm a huge fan of Mosaic as they have led me to music I'd never thought I'd listen to and did a great job with bring OOP music to the public. Like many have said, I'm hoping that the back-ordered sets come back into stock.  There are three of those that I'd like - Savoy, Johnson, and Mingus - but 9 of their 31 currently available sets are currently on back-order.  I think that's evidence of the financial status of the company for sure.  Have to say that there's a cash flow issue on my side as well.  Makes it tough all-around.

[AllenLowe]

On 5/1/2017 at 1:19 PM, clifford_thornton said:

 

(pardon the box above; that was in reference to a prior quote, don't know why the hell it is still here)

just wanted to comment on two things -

1) re: the question of Mosaic buying the rights in perpetuity - not merely expensive but probably impossible in many cases; the majors do NOT want to discard these recordings, though, stupidly,  they may never issue them - what's the old blues song? If I Can't Sell It I'm Gonna Sit on It.

2) re: Clff's concern about the Savoys - from what I heard of their samples there is a lot of noise-reduction distortion on those, done by the same bozos who messed up the Dial sessions; my suggestion it to buy up the individual Savoy reissues that are around on Ebay and amazon; generally VERY good sound. I feel the same way about the Dials; there are perfectly good remasters around from other sources (as a matter of fact a great sound engineer told me he wrote Mosaic a very angry letter about the Dial ef-up.)

[Ken Dryden]

I'm not going to insult anyone who waits for a Mosaic sale, but there have been some nasty surprises like the Stuff Smith set being yanked from sale suddenly because of legal difficulties and the sets that were deleted when the pressing plant disposed of their masters without warning. So late buyer, beware... I waited too long was for the Grant Green set. They were out of booklets, but provided me with a slightly creased booklet with an X over the designated set number that had been used for reference. Of course, I missed a few early sets that lapsed from print that are still on my wish list.

A good friend died in December 2012 and I imagine that his widow is still holding his collection, though she doesn't listen to them. If I can ever get her to sell any of them, I'll have her share the list on this board in place of having her getting gouged by eBay.

 

[AllenLowe]

I certainly hope we will get the first opportunity to gouge her -

 

 

[Scott Dolan]

Allen, the quote box glitch here is incredibly annoying, but I figured out how to get rid of it. 

Simply left click and drag your cursor over it to highlight it, and I mean the entire box, then hit your backspace button.

*poof* 

[AllenLowe]

thanks; it seems to have gone away once I posted -

[Scott Dolan]

It will do that as well, but it'll still be in your post. This way gets rid of it before you post. 

Before I figured out that method, I'd just post the quote box, and then immediately delete the post. 

This new method helps you cut out those extra steps. 

[Big Beat Steve]

1 hour ago, Scott Dolan said:

Simply left click and drag your cursor over it to highlight it, and I mean the entire box, then hit your backspace button.

*poof* 

That's the solution I came up with by trial and error too.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I was once told that the reason for all the back orders was because it was cheaper to order CDs from the pressing plant in large batches so Mosaic decided to switch to a JIT (Just In Time) business model.

I hear that they still order most the paper items up front (boxes/booklets) because they are relatively inexpensive and there is little cost advantage to ordering those later. Then they wait until there are enough orders for a particular set before ordering the more expensive CDs. The money they would've spent on ordering them early is able to stay on the corporate books as cash and not as "stock on hand". It's the classic JIT business model. Generally most companies like to go this way as it allows the company to stay fiscally healthier (for accounting purposes, cash looks better on the books than stock) but it runs the risk of problems with your customers if you cannot order the needed stock far enough in advance to meet the demand.

I imagine a further complication is that most of the remaining CD manufacturing houses likely operate under a business model where they service their bigger customers over their little ones like Mosaic, since that's where the money is. So when Mosaic finally does place an order, it probably gets put at the end of the line.

Edited May 3, 2017 by Kevin Bresnahan

[mjzee]

1 hour ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

I was once told that the reason for all the back orders was because it was cheaper to order CDs from the pressing plant in large batches so Mosaic decided to switch to a JIT (Just In Time) business model.

I hear that they still order most the paper items up front (boxes/booklets) because they are relatively inexpensive and there is little cost advantage to ordering those later. Then they wait until there are enough orders for a particular set before ordering the more expensive CDs. The money they would've spent on ordering them early is able to stay on the corporate books as cash and not as "stock on hand". It's the classic JIT business model. Generally most companies like to go this way as it allows the company to stay fiscally healthier (for accounting purposes, cash looks better on the books than stock) but it runs the risk of problems with your customers if you cannot order the needed stock far enough in advance to meet the demand.

I imagine a further complication is that most of the remaining CD manufacturing houses likely operate under a business model where they service their bigger customers over their little ones like Mosaic, since that's where the money is. So when Mosaic finally does place an order, it probably gets put at the end of the line.

I imagine it a little differently; totally supposition on my part.  Whichever major owns the masters (Universal, Sony, etc.) actually presses the discs and delivers them to Mosaic.  However, Mosaic pays for them (both for pressing and - probably the larger part of the payment - for licensing the music) upon delivery, and it then becomes Mosaic's inventory.  

[Kevin Bresnahan]

1 hour ago, mjzee said:

I imagine it a little differently; totally supposition on my part.  Whichever major owns the masters (Universal, Sony, etc.) actually presses the discs and delivers them to Mosaic.  However, Mosaic pays for them (both for pressing and - probably the larger part of the payment - for licensing the music) upon delivery, and it then becomes Mosaic's inventory.  

The first part of my post was straight from Scott at Mosaic. They stopped ordering the full run of CDs years ago and went with JIT inventory management to minimize stock in hand.

The second part of my post, regarding the CD pressing plants, may be more in line with what you're saying. But that wouldn't explain the fiasco where a pressing plant closed and threw out Mosaic's CD masters. If the CDs were already pressed by the label, as you suppose, this wouldn't have resulted in the set going OOP instantly like what happened then.

Edited May 3, 2017 by Kevin Bresnahan

[sonnyhill]

 

Mosaic is also competing against the likes of this set, which is available at Amazon for under $20.00, including US shipping.  It has significant overlap with the Mosaic MJQ set, which costs about $130.00, including US shipping. 

[mjzee]

1 hour ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

The second part of my post, regarding the CD pressing plants, may be more in line with what you're saying. But that wouldn't explain the fiasco where a pressing plant closed and threw out Mosaic's CD masters. If the CDs were already pressed by the label, as you suppose, this wouldn't have resulted in the set going OOP instantly like what happened then.

Some thoughts; again, total conjecture from me.  If what you're describing happened more than a decade ago, the industry may have changed since then.  I'm thinking of JLH's recent post about how the majors have tightened their operating procedures so that he can't now independently mix his licensed releases.  In any event, what I described wouldn't preclude the major/pressing plant also pressing Mosaic's CDs on a just-in-time basis, with the quantity based on Mosaic's go-ahead.

Or: what you posted doesn't necessarily conflict with my post.  As we know, Mosaic produces their own masters with their own mixes.  If a pressing plant threw out Mosaic's masters, it might have cost Mosaic too much to recreate them, or they might not again have access to the original tapes to recreate them.

On a different subject, one more factor to consider: Cuscuna's nearing retirement age, as other Mosaic principals might be.  It could be that all this is part of a natural winding-down of the label.  It's not like they're a public company, where operating in perpetuity is possible.

55 minutes ago, sonnyhill said:

Mosaic is also competing against the likes of this set, which is available at Amazon for under $20.00, including US shipping.  It has significant overlap with the Mosaic MJQ set, which costs about $130.00, including US shipping. 

To add insult to injury, they might have used the Mosaic box as a source for many of these recordings.