Six Months On...

[Dubsounds]

The Dubsounds site and forum will be six months old on the 20th Nov

Its gone far better than I ever expected and I'm very happy with the cosy atmosphere we have here.

With the imminent arrival of "Dub&Spoonz FM" my ever expanding collection of analogue curios and the odd bit of tinkering, there's more than enough to fill that ever shrinking void I call "free time" but I'm not one for complacency.

What this thread (and the lengthy preamble) is all about is to ask YOU if you have any suggestions on how we can promote the community further and improve the site as a whole.

Here's a few of my own observations.

Looking at the site stats, the "Music" section of the main site just isn't working. I think it would be a good idea to lift the gateway off the site completely to enable direct access to all visitors.

The trader section is redundant. It's far to cumbersome to update the main site on a regular basis and I'm considering replacing the page with a link to the trader section of the forum instead as it's far more dynamic and can be updated by everyone.

Did anyone find the chatroom useful? I pulled it down a few weeks ago in a trimming and slimming campaign on the forum because I rarely... if ever had time to use it. It's still there (unlinked) but I really feel it was premature and should come back when we have enough members to make it worthwhile.. agreed?

I'd like to see the forum spread its wings a bit and would definately welcome more members. My association with Numan sites ain't a bad thing but this site isn't about that, its about analogue synths and retro gear, DIY electronic music and recording techniques which is a much broader genre.

Do you use any great sites/forums out there that we should be linked with? If so, do you wann atake care of a bit of flag waving?

I want all of you to have your say in how things develop and would welcome anyone going back to their own communities and spreading the word about what we do here (you don't need to check with me first ).

In short, pull up your soap box and tell me what your dream site would be like. You never know until you try I guess.

Cheers,

Shaun

[spoonz]

Happy half birthday to you da da dum dum dummm dum

Shaun

I asked this question of Daniel and this was his suggestion

Would it be possible to have webspace for people to sign up to (for a small fee?) to upload music to share with the forum? I would happily pay something via paypal to use/rent webspace administrated via Dubsounds. (this would also take some of the work away from Shaun). This sort of thing could also have voting &/or a sort of chart for members to show what tracks/songs they liked most ? OR a section offering sound samples of various synths.

Me personnally I have never used the chat so i'm agreed on that point.
The one thing though is that it might come into use with the radio thing for requests. I like the idea of playing something requested rather than random collection stuff.

I like the Dubsounds label idea and if I had anything worthwhile to offer I would love to have my own stuff there so I can't understand the lack of response to that.
I know there are some talented people out there so why not contribute.
Nothing to loose it seems to me.

The radio thing I am pumped about if it works ok. Just hope people listen even if it's to laugh at my record collection.

Col

[MrArkadin]

How about making the whole forum viewable by guests, then if they want to post they have to sign up as usual. i find i like to get the 'vibe' of a site before registering (exception being this one), so the pre-registering may be a bit offputting to some casual surfers.

[secretagent]

Competitions such as the telekon 25 on afenet seemed to generate alot of interest,although i know its a huge amount of work for the organisers.

[Dubsounds]

Thanks for the great comments so far guys.

Antony, I've taken your advice and made the forum browsable by guests. The only exceptions are the technical help and Polymoog owners club. The reason I've kept them "members only" is because its feasible that some of the free technical advice given out there could be potentially used to resurrect non-working synths to sell on for profit and that goes against what we stand for in here. I'm hearing whispers that this may already be the case

Sadly, there's no way I know of yet to grant guest access to my FTP for the direct upload of music and samples. I agree with Daniel that it would be a great asset to do so, but it's something I will be suggesting to Joey (who runs the server) as something to look at in the near future. If there is any way we can do this without compromising server security, we'll try it.

Martin, the "competitions" idea is something I've been mulling over quietly for some time. What I was thinking was to collaborate! Say for instance, I upload a drum track. Then someone does a bass line, then a pad, some vocals etc. Instead of competing against each other, we could end up writing tracks together. How does that sound?

Colin, nuff said mate... we're singing off the same hymn sheet ;D


Right then... what about the rest of you?

What is your idea of a dream site?

[dlm21uk]

Shaun. Dubsounds IS my idea of a dream site !

I will search other related forums & groups and advertise Dubsounds as much as I can. Also if I can think of any other suggestions I'll post them in for consideration.

Daniel. ;D

[secretagent]

admin said:

Martin, the "competitions" idea is something I've been mulling over quietly for some time. What I was thinking was to collaborate! Say for instance, I upload a drum track. Then someone does a bass line, then a pad, some vocals etc. Instead of competing against each other, we could end up writing tracks together. How does that sound?



What is your idea of a dream site?

Hmmmm interesting,what about this;

For this example lets say 8 of us lay down a drumtrack,

All 8 get posted anonymously,then on a first come,first served basis all 8 pick a track(not there own)

This way every track will be worked on.

Then we all add another part to the drum track we have chosen,it can be any part,bass,piano,pads whatever.

Then back to the site,and we repeat the proccess but every time you have to choose a track/song you have not previously worked on.

This way,at the end we should end up with 8 original songs all of which have 1/8 contribution from each competitor.

The 8 songs then go before the rest of the board and a favourite is voted for,

Shaun masters it,we release it and we all make a million pounds each.

[Minimoog]

What a class idea!

[Synth Man]

I love this site. As for the Live Chat, it would have been better if it was simpler and more people used it.