gchiaren's forum posts 789

I don't think there's any way for community members like us to add more Critic Reviews... I'm 99% sure the admins setup some kind of automated service that searches for pro reviews and surfaces the findings that meet whatever criteria they've set up.

This is correct. I just manually ran the service on the Chase Bliss Audio Brothers AM and it looks like it fetched 3 of them. It did miss Guitar World though, so it's def not perfect.

If you guys are telling us you feel compelled to add more Critic Reviews, you're probably not the only ones, so we'd definitely be open to letting community members do this. To your points we'd probably have an allow-list of website domains that are acceptable and qualify as "critics."

Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Really love this community - always blown away by how knowledgeable and passionate everyone here is about music and gear. Stoked for what’s ahead in 2026.

Will the Board for Item Request reopened? I could not find a follow Up Topic.

Yes, it's open! If you look at the normal add music gear page there is a link at the bottom that says:

"Don't have a product link? Ask the mods to add your gear here."

Hell yeah! Good to hear. Thanks for your help diagnosing 🚀

Ah! This time we were able to replicate the error perfectly. We may have actually fixed it, please try again 🤞

edgedancer, we just pushed a fix. I'm hopeful we squashed the bug, but if not I consider this one critical and need to get to the bottom of it. Mind giving me a couple examples of products you are trying to add via the manual process? Please give me:

• Product name
• Link to back it up
• Image link you would use if you got to that step

I’ve been trying to add the Clark Gainster, with the simple title ‘Clark Gainster’ and this link here: http://www.clarkamplification.com/gainster.html

Thanks. It's not an issue w the name. I think it's something else.

So, I manage to get to the last part of the process where I have to provide a photo. There, I give it this link: http://www.clarkamplification.com/images/gainster/1.jpg I try to add the item, and it spits me back on that form with error: Image Zyte download failed: 520 is that what you're seeing as well??

I’m still not having any luck adding items from independent sellers, just seeing the same 500 error.

Hmm, this is no bueno. I thought we might have fixed it, but I guess not? Can you tell me the exact inputs (just one example is fine) you are using in https://equipboard.com/items/new_manual so I can replicate the issue and fix it once and for all?

yep. i've been getting the 500 error since monday night. i've been seeing new items added though.

also, the link to the duplicates page is gone. it used to be in the upper right corner and it's not there anymore. that's actually the first page i check every time i log on.

Ok gotcha, we're looking into the bug. And bringing back the link to the duplicate queue.

That's a really cult model like the marauder. Not many people bond with the nighthawk.

Ok but... I kinda want a Marauder 😝

I had a Gibson Nighthawk... not my thing at all. I bought it on eBay and it smelled heavily of smoke. From that point on I saw the importance of listings having "smoke free home" lol

(for the record I have nothing against smoking, I just don't want my instruments to smell like it!)

Hmm strange. I was able to get to the final part of the gear add process, where all that's left is to upload an image. Were you able to get to here? Does your error happen before this, or after?

https://images.equipboard.com/blog_content/Screenshot-2025-11-26-at-12.13.26-PM.png

Can you tell me what exactly isn't working? And we will look into it. We recently updated and overhauled this process but there may be some bugs to work out. It would be helpful to know exactly what error you're encountering, and if possible how I can replicate the error.

Hey everyone,

We're closing this thread and introducing a new, streamlined way to request gear additions to Equipboard.

Why the change?

This old forum thread approach worked, but had limitations. We want to ensure every piece of gear added to Equipboard is legitimate, verifiable, and has quality information attached to it. The new system helps us achieve that.

Use the new Request to add music gear form here

When submitting a gear request, you'll need to provide:

• Product name - The full name (brand + model)
• Product link - A URL that proves this gear exists. Ideally this is: The manufacturer's official product page, an online store listing, a detailed review or demo from a reputable source.
• Image link - A direct link to a product photo

Why do we need a product link?

Think of it as a "proof of existence" - it helps us verify that:

• The gear is real and not a typo or duplicate
• We have access to accurate product details (specs, images, descriptions)
• We can reference it later if we need to update information
• It keeps our database quality high

What about super niche or vintage gear?

As long as you can find something online that documents its existence (old catalog pages, manufacturer archives, detailed forum posts, etc.), that works! We just need something to substantiate the request.

Thanks for helping make Equipboard better.

–Equipboard Team

Done!

And I want to stress this point, your own personal Equipboard page, just bear with us - it's going to be completely overhauled. It'll look a lot more like pro artist pages when it's all said and done.

And when someone clicks on your gear, it'll bring up a page that looks more like this. Except instead of the proof/source, it'll be the photo you added of YOUR gear. And instead of the explanation text, it'll be your review, and all the details of your gear will be shown. I think it'll be pretty dope.

More cool features will come on the heels of that, like valuing your whole collection as a whole (an average but still interesting), as well as comparing your rig to other rigs and figuring out who you're most like. We're very excited at what's coming down the pipe at Equipboard HQ 😎

My insurance agent thanks you kindly! :D

I was thinking this actually, when we redo your Equipboard page experience (coming very soon), there should be an option to generate a simplified printable view that you can use for inventory, insurance, etc.

Alright we're starting to take the first steps to vastly improving your personal Equipboard experience, you can now tag your own gear with the following details:

• Color/finish
• Year
• Usage
• Serial number (for your eyes & records only)
• Date purchased
• Do you have the original box/case/papers

To get to this, go to the product page, and just hit save (hit save again even if you already saved it previously). After you select what list(s) the product belongs on, you'll be able to set these details.

https://i.postimg.cc/Qtc5KW2v/Screenshot-2025-11-14-at-6-31-47-PM.png

Yes of course! There are a million strats, a million teles, etc. We want those all to exist as distinct product pages on Equipboard. That's essential for a musician looking for the perfect one for them. Apologies, perhaps using the basic "Fender Stratocaster" as an example was a little confusing, that one exists as a representative model on the site and it's a catch-all for when a more specific Strat variant simply cannot be determined by the source.

Does that clear it up?

Hey everyone-

We just made a pretty big step forward in how gear data works on Equipboard.

Starting today, when you submit a stringed instrument (like a guitar or bass) to an artist, you can now tag color/finish and year. You can pick a specific year or a decade.

Here's a live look at it on Caleb Followill's Gibson ES-325.

Here's the gist of how it works: if John Frusciante used a white Fender Stratocaster from the 1960s, you can now add the base Fender Stratocaster product, and tag it with white and 1960s - those details will now show up everywhere to help distinguish that exact version.

This update is part of a bigger effort to fix something that’s been flying under the radar for a long time: duplicate items. Over the years, we’ve ended up with a bunch of versions of the same product - same model, just different colors or years - and that’s not ideal. As we merge those duplicates, being able to tag color and year directly in submissions should help keep things clean going forward.

Soon-ish, we’ll be rolling this out so you can tag color and year when saving gear to your own Equipboard profile.

What’s still missing (and we’re working on it):

Right now, an artist can only be linked to one version of a product. But someone like John Frusciante has multiple Strats - different years, colors, setups - and those should all be represented. With color and year now part of the mix, the next challenge is figuring out the cleanest way to display multiple versions of the same product on artist and product pages.

It’s trickier than it sounds, since sometimes a single source mentions multiple guitars, and sometimes each one has its own proof.

Would love your thoughts or ideas on how you’d want to see that displayed. This is one of those updates that seems small but actually opens a lot of doors for making Equipboard more accurate (and way more interesting going forward 😎).

How fast and furious does one have to dupe-log to earn the 🔥?

Haha, 5 correct/merged in the last 30 days, and you're on fuego 🔥

(open to changing that if you all have beef w it)

Boom!

Boom, indeed! Updated the GearIQ page and made a couple of adjustments:

• +2 GearIQ for each correct, approved & merged duplicate item submission.
• Reduced the GearIQ for adding a new item to Equipboard from +5 to +1. We want to discourage spamming the site with potential duplicates to rack up GearIQ. Everyone's GearIQ totals should adjust accordingly soon. Most members should see their score drop, but it's affecting everyone equally.
  

From the looks of the dupes leaderboard, Spruce and Edgedancer have been on real tear as of late -- it'd be great to see some scoreboard love for 'em if they're engaging in high-priority activity.

Hell yeah, added an "🔥 on fire" badge to the leaderboard 😎

In your above example, would the title of the Fender Telecaster Custom entry as seen from your personal EB display as 1978 Fender Telecaster Custom — Black + Maple Neck, or something like that?

Something like that. I think it would be the base product name with tags/pills next to the name or under it, so it could look like:

Fender Telecaster Custom [1978] [Black] [Maple Neck]

Maybe even a little [see it] link if you've tied a gear photo to it, and by clicking it it takes me straight to the actual photo of it so I can see YOUR guitar in all its glory, or your actual pedal as part of your board, etc

The image everyone sees in your EB for that item would still be whatever the first/default photo is for the current Telecaster Custom entry, right?

For now yeah. We don't want to let perfect be the enemy of good.

Is submitting a dupe fully gamified?

Not yet, but it should be. Great idea. Let us see if we can cook this one up by the end of the weekend and assign everyone their due GearIQ for the approved dups they've submitted :)

Weird, nothing is working for me on the homepage as far as upvoting goes, but everywhere else looks okay.

Ah yes, your personal home page feed when you're logged in. I think I addressed this in another forum topic, but basically that page is on our old/legacy layout which we're not really maintaining, bc we're slowly switching over to a newer, more modern layout with updated navigation menus, light/dark mode support etc. Most of the "primary" pages are already on that newer layout but there are some stragglers. We'll get that home page feed ported over soon, I promise!

We can now have primary brand names (Electro-Harmonix) and aliases (Electro Harmonix, EHX).

So you want the primary brand page to be named Tom Anderson Guitarworks, right? And the alias to be Anderson Guitarworks?

In their own Equipboards, users want the item pictured to look just like the one they own: matching color, matching fretboard, matching year/vintage details. Who wouldn't?

I agree that it matters, and initially we're going to fix it by being able to add the details/metadata to the item you save to your Equipboard. For example, I own a Fender Telecaster Custom. However, mine's black, from 1978, with a maple neck. We'll give the ability to tag those things. Then if you want to show off your very own one, we encourage uploading a gear photo.

In their hero's Equipboard, users want the item pictured to look just like the one their hero used, and they DO care about details like the year, color, fretboard, etc.

Yup same thing here. Soon we'll make it so that you can attach color/year/etc as further details about a submission.

If their hero played 5 different Fender Stratocasters throughout their career, they want a separate EB entry for each notable Strat their hero played, not just one master entry for Fender Stratocaster that somehow covers all the different makes and models their hero used.

Agree with you here also, and I think we can fix this using the details/metadata we're talking about here. An artist can then have a Fender Stratocaster multiple times, but one needs to be tagged as Sunburst and 1990, one Olympic White and 1972, etc.

Also, we made the duplicate item submission process more fluid, meaning, you know how sometimes you have a thread or case going with customer service at some company, and after some time the thread can be closed, but if you still need help you can reply to the thread and it opens it back up?

That's how dup item submissions work now. So if yours gets denied, don't be offended ;) It just means you can leave a comment with a little more detail about why the products in question are duplicates and should be merged, and it'll "open" it back up. On our end, closing/denying them helps keep the queue moving so that entries don't just stall and become stale because nobody's chiming in.

Finally, a huge THANK YOU to everyone helping spot and consolidate duplicates, we have a long way to go but we're taking this seriously. We made a leaderboard for it too just for fun, you can see it by going to the duplicate items queue, at the top is a link that says Check out the leaderboard. :)

Totally hear you - that’ll get resolved soon-ish. We’re in the middle of shifting the site to a newer, faster, cleaner layout (the forum, for example, is still on the old one). We’re not doing much maintenance on the older layout anymore, since the focus is on improving the new version, but some pages - like your personal homepage feed - haven’t been fully converted yet.

It shouldn’t take too long to get to it. As we move these pages over, it’s been great to take a fresh look and finally squash a bunch of long-standing bugs and little annoyances you all have pointed out over the years. Appreciate the patience... lots of improvements coming soon!

• Should feel faster/snappier
• Now with dark mode™️ for your night time gear doom scrolling sessions ☀️🌙
• Easier to explore other gear setup photos by OP
• If OP tagged their gear and wrote reviews, the info is organized better
• Better share options
• No ads if you're logged in

done!

Done

Removed!

Hey! 👋

Thanks for your contributions - it looks like you’ve started building out an artist page for yourself. Nothing wrong with that, and we’re happy to help with things like name changes.

Just to keep everything consistent across Equipboard, we ask that “pro artist” pages meet our notability guidelines - usually that means having a presence on Spotify, Apple Music, or evidence of performing/touring.

If you're still building up your profile as an artist, one awesome option is to create your own Equipboard (your personal gear page) where you can upload photos, write reviews, and show off your setup. A lot of musicians in the community do that, and it's a great way to share your gear story.

Let me know how you’d like to proceed. Happy to help!

Incorrect Thomann link deleted!

Ok, done. We changed the name on the brand page to reflect the proper styling, Image-Line with a dash.

We also found all items that contained the incorrect "Image Line" in the name, and swapped with the correct hyphenated version. Should be all good now :)

Thanks for pointing this out!

What's the correct style for that brand? It's Image-Line, with a dash, right?

If so, we can convert any item that says "Image Line" in the name to "Image-Line", and make sure the brand name has the dash as well.

Is this correct?

Thanks! Happy Father's Day to you too. Playing music with your kid sounds pretty special :)

i also made a similiar mistake https://equipboard.com/submissions/503242 this is not the pedal in the picture despite looking like it after a conversation with the bassist of the group

Submission deleted

Thanks for the replies so far, here's a visual so you can quickly scan them. Any one make you think -- "damn that's cool, I'd wear that" -- ??

LOGO TEE

https://images.equipboard.com/blog_content/logo-tee-l.jpg

TONE CHASER SOCIETY TEE

https://images.equipboard.com/blog_content/tone-chaser-society-tee-l.jpg

THE MARK TEE

https://images.equipboard.com/blog_content/the-mark-tee-l.jpg

WAVEFORM TEE

https://images.equipboard.com/blog_content/waveform-tee-l.jpg

STUDIO TO STAGE TEE

https://images.equipboard.com/blog_content/studio-to-stage-tee-back-l.jpg

MODULAR MINDSET TEE

https://images.equipboard.com/blog_content/modular-mindset-tee-l.jpg

TONE CIRCUIT TEE

https://images.equipboard.com/blog_content/tone-circuit-tee-l.webp

Recently added, yup! Check here.

I just got notified of this John Frusciante submission. This cannot possibly be a guitar that's not on his page already... can it?

Also, how'd this guitar make it onto the site? Fender Stratocaster John Frusciante's Scratched 1962

Products are generally not supposed to have the artist's name in their title, unless it's a real signature piece. This is the type of guitar that litters our database.

Not blaming anyone, I just need a sanity check that this submission is a duplicate, and this guitar should be deleted... 🧐

Right??