Equipboard Improvement Ideas

So part of what got me thinking about this was the knowledge you have. The other day, you wrote out a well informed response to someone asking for what PAF style pickup would work well in their SG. Over the years I've seen you do the same with everything from channel strips to amp circuits to hard clipping overdrive pedals. Right now, I think this info goes into forums, and it gets lost.

Check this out as an example. Here's what I see when I search for "best overdrives for blues junior"

https://imgur.com/b3ilo8R

This isn't ideal. I have to go read each one of these sites multiple threads and decipher everyone's opinion and try to see who has similar tastes or knows what they are talking about.

What if I make it possible for Jim to make a page about his favorite overdrives for the vox ac30? And other people could vote on your additions and add their own? I could quickly get a summary and we could add filters so that people could very quickly get to the point of what they care about. Genres, manufacturers, even chips and components eventually. So I could filter by things like germanium vs silicon, etc. That page could very quickly become the best resource for to answer that question.

But yeah, I still love my Talisman. I'm a man of simple taste, and this works for my Zeppelin, ZZ Top, etc. music where the focus is on the dirt. It's replaced my Bassbreaker's onboard reverb.

Imagine a page styled like this, but for “plate reverbs for vox ac30 style amps”.

Doesn't the "Related Items & Pairings" carousel make that redundant? How would they differ?

So for example, we would create thousands of dedicated pages like “best overdrives for blues”, “best PAF style humbuckers”, “best nitrocellulose safe guitar stands” and they would live forever and change over time.

These would all be linked to the item pages so that people could easily see which products are in what lists.

That could conflict with the Gear Guides, though. "Thousands" might also clutter the recommendations. It might be better to keep each item to one megathread, or at least as subsets of overarching recommendation topics.

Regarding linking, perhaps a collapsible mini module could be made on item pages. It could be a button on the side like "See Similar Recommendations" that reveals the "Related Items & Pairings" carousel next to a shortlist of those user-generated pages. A little "See More" link could go with the user-generated pages to open up the main hub.

Also, if we bring in the ability to tag and self tagging (for example, Michael is a guitarist that likes lo-fi rock and blues), we could make some really interesting pages based on personal preferences. Roles, genres, styles, types of products, you name it.

I like the concept, but that sounds vaguely similar to an algorithm. One risks being bombarded with miscellaneous items just because he/she selected a single genre tag. Maybe a filtering system could be added so people can pick which items they wants suggestions for?

But yeah, I still love my Talisman. I'm a man of simple taste, and this works for my Zeppelin, ZZ Top, etc. music where the focus is on the dirt. It's replaced my Bassbreaker's onboard reverb.

But it's listed as "Had" on your page! Did you take a break from it?

Doesn't the "Related Items & Pairings" carousel make that redundant? How would they differ?

They are similar, but I view them as complementary to making the information more useful. So if I make a page for tubescreamer style pedals, it could start by getting it's data from the carousel, but it would have other methods of exploration too. I also think not all screamers are created equal, so a voting mechanism and filters could help you find the ones for your specific needs.

"Thousands" might also clutter the recommendations. It might be better to keep each item to one megathread, or at least as subsets of overarching recommendation topics.

But I think getting more specific is what our gear guides need to be more useful. I like our current reverb guide, but there are big differences between the reverb pedals, even if they are all recommended. I'm totally cool with (and prefer) a solid sounding one trick pony where shoe-gazer people want an all out ambient BigSky. Why not make guides that are more specific? Essentially, that would be the megathread (best reverbs for shoe-gaze), and links to it would be included on tags on the item page.

Maybe a filtering system could be added so people can pick which items they wants suggestions for?

Yes, exactly. I think this is why Equipboard's current category pages suffer. I may want a particular type of reverb, but filtering is not possible. I think the more granular we get, the better the info will be. Imagine if we could use make stuff like show me [reverb pedals] for [indie rock] or [low watt amps] for [blues].

But it's listed as "Had" on your page! Did you take a break from it?

Oopsies. Fixed. I use my own personal page for testing, so I do things like move items around from one list to another or testing the save process and this one fell victim. :) Still love it. Sounds great at 18V and have no plans to sell it.

Michael I totally grok it now and this makes a lot of sense... it would allow lots of people's experiences to be at your fingertips rather than trolling google for days to make an informed purchase on a budget. I gained a lot of my encyclopedic knowledge first hand by buying stuff, lots of it and discarding stuff... repurposing other stuff... modding stuff. Plugging every piece of gear in at a studio where I'm working just to know what everything that I've never used actually does and what its good at. Its not an ideal situation as it gets expensive and makes you look like a hoarder between sell-off cycles and using a studio's gear colelction to the full is time consuming and runs up the bill too... I wish I could just look at one place with all these thoughts on a piece. The EB member reviews really influence my purchase decisions these days. If I've never used something I see how enthusiastic and lyrical people's reviews are and I see how they say they use the gadget or instrument.... but if I want to solve a specific problem and don't know what to do I buy a bunch of pieces and weed through them! which we could cut down on in your knowledge sharing and centralization scheme. I bought a drawmer bus EQ recently and its a shot in the dark, they're always sold out EVERYWHERE and I'm on a waitlist so I'll bet I'll love it but my gut was saying "just get an API or JDK, you know those cold even though they're not exactly what you want viz a viz mastering grade stereo matching and Q control." I let my sweetwater rep talk me into it. Its crazy to do thigns that way when you have a specific need.

I like this new idea of yours. I woulda come here and got the real dirt from guys who KNOW

Maybe a filtering system could be added so people can pick which items they wants suggestions for?

Yes, exactly. I think this is why Equipboard's current category pages suffer. I may want a particular type of reverb, but filtering is not possible. I think the more granular we get, the better the info will be. Imagine if we could use make stuff like show me [reverb pedals] for [indie rock] or [low watt amps] for [blues].

DUDE! like, in studio effects reverb, delay, EQ, compression are ALL lumped together as signal processors.... the site is so guitar centric at that granular level its goofy. I have lots of instruments I need to deal with when I'm doing professional work here. In roder to look up say a style of compression, maybe stereo VCA? You need separate compression categories there. Stomps get them, c'mon!

Some more experiences that inspired this thought for me.

I was looking for a brighter drive since my amp is kinda dark, my tube screamer sometimes gets mushy depending on the guitar and tone knobs. Anyway, I read through a buuuunch of forums, and there were contradictory opinions and no easy way to skim the article and come up with a summary list where I could start to investigate based on my own budget, brand prefernce, whatever. Frustrating.

Also, I just bought a new five guitar stand. I was trying to find a nitro safe stand. I went to sweetwater, GC, Amazon, manufacturers websites and found contradicting information. It was infuriating, and I spent longer than I want to admit finding a simple studio stand that wouldn't eat up my Gibby's finish. I emailed my Sweetwater rep, who finally told me I was good to go. Which is cool, I found my stand, but now that info is lost to the ages. If I could, I'd quickly make a nitro safe EB page, throw my stand in there for the next bloke and posterity.

These are some of the random thoughts that led to the origin of these ideas.

Also, I just bought a new five guitar stand. I was trying to find a nitro safe stand. I went to sweetwater, GC, Amazon, manufacturers websites and found contradicting information. It was infuriating, and I spent longer than I want to admit finding a simple studio stand that wouldn't eat up my Gibby's finish. I emailed my Sweetwater rep, who finally told me I was good to go. Which is cool, I found my stand, but now that info is lost to the ages. If I could, I'd quickly make a nitro safe EB page, throw my stand in there for the next bloke and posterity.

yeah, I'm always on the phone to my sweetwater rep, I liked my old guy, Jim, but Alex is the man with this stuff, but everything he does for me is just info in MY head and his, it only helps his clients and my friends

tangent, sweetwater's customer service is incredible, they school vintage king which is high praise. I have new guys for cabling now, man the dudes at Elite Core in Arkansas are the snake and interconnect lords.... they overnighted me new insert snakes at no additional charge, I'm so happy with them

Same here, spent a lot of time figuring out what power supplies can fit under my Pedaltrain NANO MAX. I'd love to whip up a list on Equipboard for that that can live forever.

Instead of wading through 7 gear slutz threads from various years, it would have Equipboard's relatively modern design language, list out the relevant products, each "upvotable" by the community and each with little speech-bubble type comments from anyone who wanted to chime in a personal experience, kind of like when you're reading up on movie reviews on Rotten Tomatoes:

https://i.imgur.com/LyRWLWN.png

Instead of wading through 7 gear slutz threads from various years, it would have Equipboard's relatively modern design language, list out the relevant products, each "upvotable" by the community and each with little speech-bubble type comments from anyone who wanted to chime in a personal experience, kind of like when you're reading up on movie reviews on Rotten Tomatoes:

https://i.imgur.com/LyRWLWN.png

I love the 'rotten tomatoes' angle we could get reviews thtat are for junk gear that sounds incredible like the alesis 3630 or whatnot.... instead of the cork sniffers weighing in on specs we could have like 2 review types between owners and non-owners maybe, like the critical and popular scores

EDIT: or balance user experiences versus collated magazine and blog reviews???

just a heads up, when you talk about combining items in guitar rigs or the studio, that chaining stuff? you should just put my formulas up LOL

HOW WOULD JIM USE THESE? follow that and you're solid j/k

I know that's a joke, but that is actually helpful. It makes all the difference between some good overdrives and the best overdrive for my specific situation. That's what I want to move toward.

by the way, I want your explorer, its so awesome

Some small suggestion for possible improvements:

• editable manufacturer for database items / gear
• merge option (voting system like discogs) for deleting or merging double items
• edition option to show relations / different versions or editions of an item
• time-dependent automatical submitting gear to an artist (automatical voting system like discogs)
• 2nd category option to add e.g. overdrive and compressor to one item

• merge option (voting system like discogs) for deleting or merging double items

THIS! I gave up trying to keep up with all the dupes, I did a ton of fender amps by circuit and people came and kept messing them up more and I was like "KILL!!!!" there is no difference between a 64 and 65 in a lot of theese amps other than maybe speaker supplier....

Double post? What's your point?

just nevermind, pun intended

One other cool improvement would be a direct messaging system here in forum or in general equipboard to contact other users (to avoid spam regular ignore options or so are obvious)

One other cool improvement would be a direct messaging system here in forum or in general equipboard to contact other users (to avoid spam regular ignore options or so are obvious)

I'll second this

This doesn't really improve the site, but it would be cool to add a "joined on" date to user profiles.

This doesn't really improve the site, but it would be cool to add a "joined on" date to user profiles.

I support Clifford's right to flex on all the newcomers :)

If this were a profile option, those that don't want to admit to themselves (and the world) how long they've been at this could keep things private. ;)