My newest idea!

[Bluesberry]

I'm still a bit worried that the posts will be more "professional" if we open up for all the other recorders out there, especially if we also open for DAW recordings. I think we at least should limit it to stand-alone multitrack-recorders. The reason for my worry of course is that some will feel reluctant to post ....  

I agree with Geir here.  There is something very unique about the guy who is recording using a stand-alone, studio-in-a-box machine like our beloved BR machines.  It is possible to have so much studio gear nowadays, the whole DAW thing is endless and can be very expensive, but you can have literally studio quality gear and recordings with that stuff.  We BR folks have chosen to limit our gear to the bare minimum and to use it to its full potential to squeeze every drop out of these.  And we end up making some pretty darn good music, but it takes more work and creativity and fiddling around.  Our focus is more on the music and songcraft than recording details.  There are lots of other sites that are geared to home recording, and they are very DAW oriented.  I joined one of these a while age and when I mentioned I use a BR-1200 I was literally sneered at by the group, these guys are serious about their gear.  They are chasing after setting up home studios that would rival the real studios.  I posted a song of mine on their post your work section (they call it "Bash this recording") and all the comments I got back were about how I recorded it, how to improve recording, drums were very fake sounding, should layer the vocals more, guitars were not recorded as clean as possible, etc, nothing about the song itself, how it made them feel, did they like the song, etc.  It felt all very cold and clinical, and not too friendly.  I haven't posted another song on there since because it was no fun posting to this site.  Sure I can learn a whole lot about recording from these guys, but it was so smug and technical and downright non-friendly.  This site is simply the best there is for posting songs, getting real, positive feedback, about the music first, I haven't found another site as geared towards the sheer joy of making music as this one.  I believe it is because of the certain kind of person that buys a BR machine (back to my original thought here).  We are musicians/songwriters first, recording engineers second.  The $$$ DAW guys tend to be recording engineers first, musicians/songwriters second.  We want to make music, write original songs, play blues backers, make covers, experiment with sound, make silly songs, all as simply and easily as possible, focusing on the music first, the recording technicalities second.  We end up making really good sounding recordings because of the quality of these great Boss machines.  Our recordings would not pass the grade in these $$$$ DAW sites, not professional enough I'm afraid, but for us folks on here we are loving our recordings, we are getting real music out in the world for other friendly, like-minded folks to hear and appreciate.  If we have all these $$$ DAW guys in here, we would be flooded by a totally different kind of mindset where recording technique is way more important that the music being produced.  We do it the other way around here, the music itself is the most important part of the equation.  We don't want to loose that.

[Diego Ayala]

"" from BB "the music itself is the most important part of the equation.  We don't want to loose that."

If there is a vote, I would like to keep the set up the way it is!!! 

If there was any searching for a better system for this forum I would like to devote time to bringing back the easy download process for mp3's...  Although the new downloading procedures works well and it allows for bigger files (> 5 megs) like when using soundclick - it was a bit easier to just come to the site and bamm just download it.  But, i know we already went down this path under a different discussion!?  And it seems to be working alright with the new downloading system.

I think it is great the way it is!  Although there is a lot of music and good postings/answers and tips, and hard at times to keep up --- we have the bumpers that will bump a song/ answers and tips that will make it available to a few more souls in this forum --- i try to keep up with most all the BR units in this forum - and some folks will even send me an e-mail or facebook it w/ a link to a new song - like getting a well meant warm embrace @ the end of a long day - so we seem to care for each other and have formed cyber-friendships...

Anyay, i need to finish up a design for work - so back to listening to my br forum saved music and back to the grindstone.

[Pedro]

For a better perspective I will detail my idea of the portal:

Design:

Wider design
 - Wider design but with the same colors and overall format.

Board organization
 - A new board organization refocused on music.

Functionality:

Listen to all the songs by this user mod.
 - A link in each profile pops-up on a new window and plays all the users songs in a neat playlist from the most recent song to the older. If you press on each song with the right mouse button there is a link that goes to that song topic so you can comment immediately!

5 most recent songs in the community
 - This will display in the portal homepage, this would cover all the finished songs by any user.

Show unheard song topics
 - This would display next to the Show all unread topics link.

PM MP3's attachments
 - For easier collaborations.

View all MP3's of a topic in one page
 - For the collaborations board.

Calendar and Recent festivals
 - This would be placed in the portal and allow for a better tracking of the festivals. Birthdays and other events can also be input.

Shoutbox
 - I think it's cool for chatting.

Newsletter with songs, news and other stuff
 - A monthly newsletter with some random songs from that month, news about festivals, stuff like that.

Other cool new features you suggest

All these features are pretty much finished, since most of them I have been working for some time. These are features that immensely ease the process of listening and commenting songs so the problem of navigating each song and posting will take less time.

[Bluesberry]

This looks very interesting Pedro, it may be really cool.  Sounds like you have been doing a lot of thinking and work on this.

[SteveB]

Adm et al - Yep, some pertinent comments hereabouts. So, a pertinent question: Will there be a subscription-element to the re-vamped site, or will advertising be increased?

[64Guitars]

Wider design
 - Wider design but with the same colors and overall format.

Can you make the width user-configurable in the user's Profile? Some members may be using smaller monitors or even handheld devices such as mobile phones and a wider page may mean a lot of scrolling. But if you offered several width choices in the user Profile, each user could select the width that works best for them.

Listen to all the songs by this user mod.
 - A link in each profile pops-up on a new window and plays all the users songs in a neat playlist from the most recent song to the older. If you press on each song with the right mouse button there is a link that goes to that song topic so you can comment immediately!

YES!!!

5 most recent songs in the community
 - This will display in the portal homepage, this would cover all the finished songs by any user.

Yes, that's a great idea! However, I'd prefer that the number of songs could be configured by the user in their Profile rather than having it fixed at 5.

Show unheard song topics
 - This would display next to the Show all unread topics link.

PM MP3's attachments
 - For easier collaborations.

View all MP3's of a topic in one page
 - For the collaborations board.

Calendar and Recent festivals
 - This would be placed in the portal and allow for a better tracking of the festivals. Birthdays and other events can also be input.

Shoutbox
 - I think it's cool for chatting.

Newsletter with songs, news and other stuff
 - A monthly newsletter with some random songs from that month, news about festivals, stuff like that.

Other cool new features you suggest

All these features are pretty much finished, since most of them I have been working for some time. These are features that immensely ease the process of listening and commenting songs so the problem of navigating each song and posting will take less time.

All good ideas. I look forward to seeing this.

Personally, I'm not interested in chatting, although I know that others are. Perhaps a checkbox in the Profile could allow members to opt out of chat? And maybe an icon to the left of each message to indicate whether the member chooses to be a "chatter" or not.

[Pedro]

Can you make the width user-configurable in the user's Profile? Some members may be using smaller monitors or even handheld devices such as mobile phones and a wider page may mean a lot of scrolling. But if you offered several width choices in the user Profile, each user could select the width that works best for them.

Yes, can be made. But the max widht is 1000px, so it would work with 1024*768. Users with 800*640 would have to scroll though.

Yes, that's a great idea! However, I'd prefer that the number of songs could be configured by the user in their Profile rather than having it fixed at 5.

That is not default and I don't know if is easy or not to do.

Personally, I'm not interested in chatting, although I know that others are. Perhaps a checkbox in the Profile could allow members to opt out of chat? And maybe an icon to the left of each message to indicate whether the member chooses to be a "chatter" or not.

All users can choose to see or not the shoutbox.

[Pine]

Pedro, you are a programming genius and between you and Sargeant 64, i think it's safe to say that the new model will be excellent. Do you intend to keep membership here free?
  What a great Christmas present!  

[Pedro]

Pedro, you are a programming genius and between you and Sargeant 64, i think it's safe to say that the new model will be excellent. Do you intend to keep membership here free?
  What a great Christmas present!  

That is a good question.

In my opinion the best way to maintain a project like this and to ensure continuity while balancing things is to allow for a subscription for those that want to have a greater usage of the server resources and enable ads for those that don't.

This is what I was thinking:

Membergroup	Posts required	Songs allowed to post	See ads
Newbie	0  posts	10 MB (or 2 songs)	Yes
Jr. Member	50 posts	25 MB (or 5 songs)	Yes
Full Member	100 posts	50 MB (or 10 songs)	Yes
Sr. Member	250 posts	75 MB (or 15 songs)	Yes
Hero Member	500 posts	100 MB (or 20 songs)	Yes
Unlimited Member	Subscription of $30 per year	Unlimited songs + other goodies	No

Notes: The ads would be small and not in posts. The songs could be managed, meaning that you could delete one and add another, maintaining the song limit.

This would ensure that new users post more feedback on other people songs before they post more of their songs and a balance in terms of expenses.

What do you think? Do you think it's fair?

[Diego Ayala]

I took a lil'break --- I think what you have proposed looks darn good!

But, are you going to open it up to everyone out there?  or is it going to be primarily geared towards the BR users and friends?

I definetly do not want any adds!!!

Also, could we change the size/song from 5 megs?  and just use the total megs/member group?

Back to work - i go!!!