Minor board reorganization and Songcrafters' philosophy/direction.

[Bluesberry]

and the ultimate thing is we get out of this site what we put in to it.  We put a little in, we get a little back, we put a lot in, and it rewards us with a lot back.  I have been rewarded in a significant way by being a member of this site.  The most important site I visit, the only one that really matters to me in the long run......what I mean by that is that If I had to choose, and could only visit one internet site from now on, this site would be my choice.............sad? maybe, I am a little pathetic, maybe, but this site has had such a huge impact on my musical life that it is the top site for me...............and all the beer tonight is making me sentimental..............long live songcrafters..........god bless you one and all..............

[64Guitars]

I like less boards. I would go so far as to say combining Covers and Originals into one board would help a lot. I very seldom go to the covers board. I'm not sure why, honestly. But the Originals board I frequent at least every other day. (Although I've been remiss in my commenting, which I'm suitably ashamed of.)

I'm not sure about combining Originals and Covers into a single board. Like I said in another post, I think there are quite a few members who aren't too crazy about covers. And even those members who like both covers and originals are bound to like one a bit more than the other. Having them in two separate boards allows people to get the most out of their limited time available to listen to song posts and read comments. For example, if someone prefers originals, they can start with that board and see how far they get. If they get through all of the new messages there and still have some time left, they might go to the covers board and start listening to some posts there and reading the comments. But if all of the posts were combined into a single board, they wouldn't have that option and might miss out on some originals further down the page that they didn't have time to get to because they were listening to some covers.

For the record, I'm not one of those members who doesn't like covers. I love covers. That's all I've posted here because my few songwriting attempts were rubbish and not worth posting. But I very much enjoy listening to other members' original songs too.

For my own personal site usage, the organization of the boards doesn't matter because I always read posts via the "All Unread Topics" link which shows a mix of topics from all of the boards. But I also realize that a lot of our members don't have time to read every post, so some organization of posts into separate boards is necessary to allow them to choose what they want to listen to and read.

Is it okay if I submit members only in general instead of DIY?

Certainly. Although I hope that most members will choose to post their DIY songs in the DIY boards. But we won't insist on it. If any members choose to post all of their songs in the General board, that's fine.

Would it get moved if I did?

No. Not unless you ask us to move it because you accidentally posted in the wrong board or changed your mind.

If I don't use a drum machine, but instead get a drum track from a friend in London does it qualify as DIY? What's the difference if I use a drum machine or a r.l. drummer a few thousand miles away?

If I use the built in Drum Machine on my 900 I can post in DIY. If I don't program the drum machine is it still DIY?

There are no restrictions on how you make your drum track except that it has to be legal. You can definitely use a real drummer (member or not) and we'd love to see more posts with real drummers. You can use the drum machine built into your recorder, a separate outboard machine, or a software sequencer such as Hydrogen, BR Rhythm Editor, or your favourite DAW. You can use drum loops chained together in your favourite DAW or whatever (as long as the loops are legal). You can load a midi file into your BR's drum machine, or into Hydrogen, BR Rhythm Editor, etc. You can use a backing track as long as it's just drums and it's legal. Feel free to use any of these techniques for your drums. If everything in the song apart from the drums is performed by yourself or another member, you can post it in the DIY boards, regardless of how the drum track was made.

Ideally, we'd love to hear people playing the drums themselves in their songs. But making that a requirement would be far too restictive. There aren't a lot of people here who play drums, and Boss includes a drum machine in their recorders for a good reason. So we felt that it was reasonable to allow people to make their drum tracks any way they can, as long as it's legal.

As an alternative, why not have one board for finished music and have tags for what is 100% member certified and Covers and everything else? Then make a songs list that you can sort. Ie, not necessarily a separate board to post, but a heading you can click that lists all the songs that you can sort by post date/time, most recent comment, cover tags, or member name, or a bunch of things, really. (There are some sites that do a great job of this.)

That's a great idea. Unfortunately, the software this site runs on doesn't have any such tagging feature, so I'd have to spend a lot of time modifying the code to make this possible. That's not something I'd want to tackle right now because I've got a lot of other things I want to do to improve the site. But one of those things is the song database I mentioned earlier in this topic, and I could probably use that same database to keep track of paramaters such as original/cover, member/non-member, complete/incomplete, etc., then allow members to filter the topic lists based on those parameters. I can't promise anything right now but I'll definitely think about this some more while I'm working on the song database and see if I can work these parameters into it. The filtering will require a fair bit of programming, so I don't think you'll see these changes anytime soon but it's a definite possibility in the future.

If I have backing vox from a friend in London (harmony vox on the chorus) does it negate it's DIY status?

If she's not a member, then yes. But you can post it in the General board instead.

What if I get her to sign up but she never posts a song or a message?

Technically, if she becomes a member, you can post it in DIY even if she never posts. However, don't you think it would be common courtesy for her to at least pop in once in a while and thank people for the comments on her work? That's one of the things I have against posts that use non-members. Our members take the time to listen to those posts and comment on them, but some of the musicians on the song will never be around to say thank you for those comments because they aren't even members. That doesn't seem right to me, so I'd prefer that collabs are with active members whenever possible. But that's not a requirement; it's just my opinion.

P.S. - Boss - I think highlighting the Boss information is a great idea, but I certainly wouldn't want to do it in such a manner that would (inadvertently) discourage another platform or cause them to feel less than welcome.

Exactly. I don't want to chase anyone away who doesn't use Boss. But I can't help thinking that we should maybe stop pretending that we support all recorders and DAWs equally. We never have and I doubt that we ever will. So maybe we should make it clearer to the first-time visitor that we're primarily a Boss site so that new Boss users will know that this is a good place for them to be. I'll need to discuss this further with the admin team at a later date (let's get these board changes finished first), but it's good to get some feedback on this. Thanks.

[IanR]

Can I please have a family membership??

[64Guitars]

I share Sai's concern over discouraging posting of music involving non-members.  The majority of my postings (virtually all of the reasonable ones!) have been False Prophet colaborations involving one luddite non-internet member, as well as Nick (Nightcaller) and myself.  It would be a shame for Nick and I to have to stop posting these and getting the group's valued feedback.

Paul. While I was replying to T.C's questions just now, I realized that I failed to mention something in my reply to you which could be important. That is, drum tracks can be made any way you like, including with a drummer who's not a member. As long as everything else in the song is performed by a member, you can post it in the DIY board. So, if your "luddite non-internet" member happens to be the drummer, then you can post your False Prophet songs in the DIY boards because the drummer doesn't count and the other members of False Prophet are Songcrafters members. But if he's not the drummer, then you should post in the General board until he becomes a member of Songcrafters.

I hope that helps.

[64Guitars]

Crikey

I though we just finished the last redecorating.

I'm still not used to it and we are changing again.

I know that someone always has to pay for anarchy but I still lean towards less rules and more freedom.

None of these comments help you make a decision but I do want to say that there is an awful lot of fussing going on.

I think we need to have these discussions every now and then so that the admin team can get a good idea of how the majority of members feel about the site. We know that we'll never please everyone, but if we know what the majority wants, we can make slight improvements to the site that will please most members. Most things can be decided by the admin team without consulting the members. But sometimes it's good to get some reassurance that we're on the right track.

[Tony W]

^ I can't help but want to mention Tangles Wires at this point. They are a staple in this community, yet I don't believe Sasha has an account. I feel its worth mentioning.

[T.C. Elliott]

Given that, we know that the only realistic outcomes are:
1. The DIY are hugely successful, thus relegating the General Board to the same status of low activity some board are currently in.
2. The DIY are a failure, thus causing the General Boards to be the main successful board and making the DIY unnecessary.

If 1 is the outcome, we have changed nothing
If 2 is the outcome, we have alienated yet another group of members and have made the DIY unnecessary (which is the prediction in the first place)

Outcome 3: With the restructuring to lesser boards postings on the various boards begin to equal out. I know they'll never be equal, but they could be more in line with each other. I think that's the goal here. I honestly believe they will start to equal out with the suggested changes. I'm not sure how much. Maybe quite a bit (good) or maybe not much (more or less the same.)

[Bluesberry]

Outcome 3: With the restructuring to lesser boards postings on the various boards begin to equal out. I know they'll never be equal, but they could be more in line with each other. I think that's the goal here.

this is the same way I see it also, a leveling out of the three boards into equal importance.  The only way to know for sure is to try it.  

[FuzzFace]

All I can say is, when Optimus Prime died, and they replaced key characters with a whole bunch of new ones, nothing was the same again.

* * *

That being said there should be a "Manifesto" tab on this site to communicate the vision of the site owners, so that newcomers can quickly judge for themselves whether to get in or get out.

[Bluesberry]

how about a downloadable hologram that explains everything, looks good in a bikini and cooks a mean bacon and eggs, is that too much to ask.