can I get input from everyone on a web site I'm making?

[halen99]

Hi all. I'm putting together a web site where musicans and find other musicans when they need say a sax player, or singer, or whatever.

I will show you all the beta link where you can register, but not post any project just yet. I wanted to see if I could get some feedback from the songfighters. The website itself does not charge anything. Musicans however can place bids for work. Or you guys could even use this site and not charge others, whatever..

http://www.blet-bnsfmrl.org/ultimateband/

there is the link. Feel free to register, or give me suggestions. Thanks.

Eddie

[roymond]

We've seen this kind of thing. Bottom line is if it truly helps connect people, it's good. If it adds tons of unnecessary steps on the way to connecting people, then it won't be very popular.

I see your list of "instruments" but don't you want to include things like "synth" "sonics" "percussion" "tape loops" "sound effects" "mixing" "mastering", etc...?

Good luck!

[halen99]

We've seen this kind of thing. Bottom line is if it truly helps connect people, it's good. If it adds tons of unnecessary steps on the way to connecting people, then it won't be very popular.

I see your list of "instruments" but don't you want to include things like "synth" "sonics" "percussion" "tape loops" "sound effects" "mixing" "mastering", etc...?

Good luck!

Thank you. I will add those items in the list. The plan is to make things easy. I'm making this site because it's something that I myself would use.

[Reist]

That site looks pretty good! Your web design puts me to shame!

[halen99]

thanks for everyone checking it out. Really give me feedback and ideas if you have them. I added the extra categories.

Also if you don't mind, please register. This will give me test data for when I'm working on the rest of the site. Once this is up it's a way for you all to make a little extra $ and have fun doing it.

Again.. The site itself runs for free. I'm not making anything from it.

[starfinger]

nice domain name!

this looks a lot like a stripped-down esessions (which i only know about because it was in the latest electronic musician)

-craig

[roymond]

- It would help if the country list was sorted.

- nitpik - This isn't necessarily your fault (not that everything else is) but why do forms exist that can't handle phone numbers in whatever format people submit them? Parsing ten digits from 1234567890, 123-456-7890, 123.456.7890, 123 456 7890, etc. isn't rocket science, and validation errors caused by this sort of thing is exactly what turns me off of sites that *require* phone numbers, especially if the phone number I give is bogus anyway (since I'm not going to give that out unless and until I hook up with someone for a specific project/purpose).

[halen99]

- It would help if the country list was sorted.

- nitpik - This isn't necessarily your fault (not that everything else is) but why do forms exist that can't handle phone numbers in whatever format people submit them? Parsing ten digits from 1234567890, 123-456-7890, 123.456.7890, 123 456 7890, etc. isn't rocket science, and validation errors caused by this sort of thing is exactly what turns me off of sites that *require* phone numbers, especially if the phone number I give is bogus anyway (since I'm not going to give that out unless and until I hook up with someone for a specific project/purpose).

THANK YOU! Country list will be sorted. On the phone number thing that's just something I've always done. I realize a lot of people will fake it anyhow so maybe I'll just pull out that rule. Again I thank you for your input!

[Reist]

You should add trombone to the list of instruments. (It's at least as popular as tuba)

[spinlock]

Just a personal thing, I like sites that let you do as much as possible without registering. I very much wanted to click on the 'require a piano intro' project, and look at the details /before/ I signed up. Now I'm signed in, I still can't click on it. Also, when I registered, you didn't need a confirmation email from me to activate my account, so why not log me automatically when I register?

It is very pretty. But the only links that work are 'home' 'sign in' and 'sign out'. Everything else just does SFA.
I'm using firefox on a mac, in case that's why I couldn't click things.
I tried to write this using the site email and I got this error:

CDO.Message.1 error '80040220'

The "SendUsing" configuration value is invalid.

/ultimateband/files/send_em.asp, line 28

All the best.

[halen99]

All understood thank you. This site isn't complete yet, just the signup and login are enabled. You'll be able to check out the projects without logging in. Also the support form isn't working right as you noticed.

Any other suggestions would be great as I build this. Thanks again for everyone's input.

Eddie

[halen99]

Hi again. Well I've got a lot more completed on ultimate band if anyone else would like to take a look, register, play around and give me feedback. This site is 100% free too.

http://www.UltimateBand.com

You can setup a profile with a photo, about me, and upload 5 songs.

Eddie

[Hoblit]

ha, you should add a comments and rating section like Ebay.

C- , guitar solo asked for was poor product and it took him over a week to deliver

A+ guitar riff was more than I could ask for and he got it to me in less than three days, would collaborate again!

[halen99]

Thanks for taking a look. Yeah another thought I had was a rating with 1-5 then posting their average rating on their profile. So much I want to add but I wanted to get the basics completed and live to make sure people are gonna use this first. By all means keep the suggestions coming in.

Eddie

[signboy]

The site looks pretty good. suggestions:

It might be more viable to have people type in which instruments they play. If you make a large enough list to include things like didgeridoo, electric pork&beans, and banjo, it will take up a lot of space.

[halen99]

Understood however the system automatically emails people of interest based on the instruments they play when projects are posted so having them all in a database makes that possible. People will spell things differently and such.

Eddie

[king_arthur]

Re: instruments... you might want to just make "brass" a category and then people can list on their profiles what specific instruments they play. Same for "strings" and maybe "wind." From the POV of people doing popular music styles, "sax" probably is worth listing separately, "flute" and "harmonica" would be too. "Steel guitar" maybe? I'm just trying to think in terms of specific sounds that people might be looking for, without the list including every possible instrument, from the viewpoint of the singer songwriter who doesn't really know or care whether the horn parts are played on trumpet, trombone, or whatever. "Piano" and "keyboard" might be something you'd want to separate out.

Also, keep in mind that if I'm looking for horn parts for a song, I would probably want to just get one person to play all the parts, rather than trying to line up and coordinate two trumpets, a trombone and two saxes, each recording separately. Maybe even break it down into "real horns" vs. "synth horns" - if I'm doing a no-pay project, I might happily settle for somebody who can put together a nice horn part played on a synth... I just want my song to sound like it has horns on it. Other people would specifically want real horns, or a trumpet solo or something.

On the section about paying people to play, you might just want to break it down into "looking for volunteers" and "paying gig" or something, and then in the artist profiles, people could indicate if they're willing to do free stuff or if they only want paid jobs. It would probably be more appropriate for the instrumentalists to indicate in their profiles how much they charge, rather than expecting the projects to indicate how much they're willing to pay...

Also, I set up a login yesterday, and the site seems to have forgotten me already... the "forgot password" link doesn't seem to be of any use. Even if you're not doing a "send email and click a confirmation link" thing, it might be good to send an email listing at least the correct login whenever somebody registers, that way, if I'm doing the "forgot password" thing I would at least be able to check that "welcome" email and make sure I was logging in with the correct userid.

Others may feel differently, but... I guess I would prefer that the user interface NOT list my real name publicly, just because I do own a fair amount of recording and musical equipment, and I'd just as soon not give the bad guys any easy clues as to where it's kept.

If you have to be logged in to see the results of a search of the musician database, then you probably shouldn't show the "search our database" link on the front page for people who AREN'T logged in.

Might also want to consider including some "genre" information - again, the list could get out of hand, but if I'm doing a country song, I'd like to somehow highlight the "country" players when I'm searching for musicians...

Charles

[halen99]

All good points. I agree with the real name thing. That will go away. I tested the email me password feature and it did work. But either way I'm going to add a email confirmation for new members. Only makes sense. I am also trying to figure out the paid and free thing. I'd like it if songfight people would use this for collaborating and such.

Eddie

Re: instruments... you might want to just make "brass" a category and then people can list on their profiles what specific instruments they play. Same for "strings" and maybe "wind." From the POV of people doing popular music styles, "sax" probably is worth listing separately, "flute" and "harmonica" would be too. "Steel guitar" maybe? I'm just trying to think in terms of specific sounds that people might be looking for, without the list including every possible instrument, from the viewpoint of the singer songwriter who doesn't really know or care whether the horn parts are played on trumpet, trombone, or whatever. "Piano" and "keyboard" might be something you'd want to separate out.

Also, keep in mind that if I'm looking for horn parts for a song, I would probably want to just get one person to play all the parts, rather than trying to line up and coordinate two trumpets, a trombone and two saxes, each recording separately. Maybe even break it down into "real horns" vs. "synth horns" - if I'm doing a no-pay project, I might happily settle for somebody who can put together a nice horn part played on a synth... I just want my song to sound like it has horns on it. Other people would specifically want real horns, or a trumpet solo or something.

On the section about paying people to play, you might just want to break it down into "looking for volunteers" and "paying gig" or something, and then in the artist profiles, people could indicate if they're willing to do free stuff or if they only want paid jobs. It would probably be more appropriate for the instrumentalists to indicate in their profiles how much they charge, rather than expecting the projects to indicate how much they're willing to pay...

Also, I set up a login yesterday, and the site seems to have forgotten me already... the "forgot password" link doesn't seem to be of any use. Even if you're not doing a "send email and click a confirmation link" thing, it might be good to send an email listing at least the correct login whenever somebody registers, that way, if I'm doing the "forgot password" thing I would at least be able to check that "welcome" email and make sure I was logging in with the correct userid.

Others may feel differently, but... I guess I would prefer that the user interface NOT list my real name publicly, just because I do own a fair amount of recording and musical equipment, and I'd just as soon not give the bad guys any easy clues as to where it's kept.

If you have to be logged in to see the results of a search of the musician database, then you probably shouldn't show the "search our database" link on the front page for people who AREN'T logged in.

Might also want to consider including some "genre" information - again, the list could get out of hand, but if I'm doing a country song, I'd like to somehow highlight the "country" players when I'm searching for musicians...

Charles

[halen99]

I did some changes based on KA's response. Doing more today. Was wondering if some of you that have registered could please update your profile and add a few mp3s... then give me more feedback.

Eddie

[king_arthur]

Just a visual layout observation - that "send a message to ultimate band" block you have over on the left side of several of the screens may be confusing to some people who think it is to be used to respond to the project they're looking at.

I'd suggest just a smallish "site feedback" button with a "mailto:" link in it, in a less prominent location. People who are sending feedback to the site admin expect to have to poke all around to find how to do it...

Oh, yeah, as you can probably tell from that comment, my login is working again.

Charles (KA)

[halen99]

Just a visual layout observation - that "send a message to ultimate band" block you have over on the left side of several of the screens may be confusing to some people who think it is to be used to respond to the project they're looking at.

I'd suggest just a smallish "site feedback" button with a "mailto:" link in it, in a less prominent location. People who are sending feedback to the site admin expect to have to poke all around to find how to do it...

Oh, yeah, as you can probably tell from that comment, my login is working again.

Charles (KA)

Much agreed. I didn't like that form there on every page. It ended up that way because I had in build into the design. At any rate just a simple text link is there now. Thanks once again. I'm really getting some progress on this site today!

Eddie

[Reist]

Dammit. I signed up for this a few months ago, but I don't remember my username or password. I tried getting the password sent to my account, but I have to know my username to do that. Is there a way that users can just enter a registered email address to get their password sent to them?