Community Role Discussion (was: MOD community video and website page)

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#1

Hi everyone

We are proud to present our new community video: Funk-o-mmunity

A huge thanks to @dreamer @JFerraretto @Clement @tourneriff @IngoRieber and @malfunction54 for the participation and effort.

Together with this video we are also launching a new page for the community in our website.

The objective of this page is to provide visitors with a glimpse of the amazing talent that you guys have, be it on your artistic performances, demos, tutorials or other material that you produce in this great community spirit.

As you can see, the page is not yet final and I would like to ask for your help in order to finish it.

There are 4 areas:

1 - artist performances
2 - sound demos
3 - tutorials and guides
4 - unboxing, first impressions and reviews

I have created Youtube playlists in our YT channel and embedded them on the site, so that as new videos are added to the playlists, they already appear on the page.

So what I would like now, before publishing the page in the actual website, is to populate this playlists properly.

For that I kindly ask you to suggest videos that you think would fit and that you’d like to promote. We did a bit of crawling in YT to make a preliminary list, but I believe that you would do a better job than me. Also, when doing this searches, many great videos might have been left off and I am sure that each of you can suggest and indicate better options in many cases, specially for the artist performances.

Here is a spreadsheet where we can list the videos:

There are many here from whom I already saw some sort of material: @Elk_wrath @redcloud @daniel @dan_remaincalm @MikeFlynnBass @solobasssteve @domlo @GMaq @spunktsch @LorisDonatelli @plutek @rogeriocouto @Schwalb

But I am surely missing a lot of people, so if you think someone is missing, please tag here so that we can have a nice collection of videos for the delight of our visitors.

Some additional help that is welcome:

If someone here likes WordPress and would like to step up to actually maintain the page, let me know and I would be glad to create a user in our Wordpress site. We use a compliant Gutenberg theme and the edition of the pages is quite straight forward.

Proofreading of the copy is also very welcome, in case someone would like to step up for that. I do not want that community members feel not represented…

That all being said, shall we start curating good playlists for our potential new community members? :slight_smile:

Yours trully

Gianfranco

20 Likes
#2

Great video and nice song!
:grinning::grinning:

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#3

Thanks @QuestionMarc :slight_smile:

What about the users content for the page? Would that be something you could shed some light on?

1 Like
#4

great idea and nice video.

I added two YouTube videos to the list. Altough one is for the duoX but its in my optionen the best demonstration of the platform and what its capable off. But its not guitar specific - which was the new strategy for the dwarf.

also the loopop Video is great as a very thorough overview. But its also based around synths.

5 Likes
#5

@gianfranco,

New member @coffeetableworkshop just published a video:

Stretching Out - Coffee Table Workshop

Here’s another video that comes to mind:

@spunktsch, the Benn Jordan videos are the reason I said to myself: “I need a Mod Duo X”. A true testament to its power.

4 Likes
#6

yes - me too for the dwarf. I even bought a Launchpad and rebuild that setup just for Guitar instead of Vocals.

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#7

Thanks @QuestionMarc and @spunktsch

I actually have a separate list that already includes these. They are what I call “youtuber” videos.

Maybe something worth opening up for a bit of discussion here is this categorization.

We have the community of users - people who actually bought the device - then the youtubers - people who have a channel with some sort of visibility and to whom we send units for free in exchange of exposure - and the artists - people who have a professional artistic career and to whom we gave a unit for free plus the help to integrate it into their setups in exchange of some publicised opinion that brings trust. And of course, we also have the developers.

We do not work with commercial endorser artists (people who do not actually use our unit but we pay so that they say they use it). I find it to be a tad too much dishonest for my taste.

Where to put each? Where do we draw the lines?

Having given up living in my original country, where there is a strong class struggle, my natural tendency is to avoid categorisation as much as possible, after all we’re all musicians of some sort. Some of us are professionals and some of us are doing it only for fun, but does that actually matters?

If I could have some insights on this it would be awesome. I really want that the community page of our website is a place where we all feel represented.

3 Likes
#8

Here’s a brief take, @gianfranco:

A. You must separate them anyway. Instead of categories of people using them, use the criteria of purpose of the video: songs/tunes using MOD devices, demos, unboxings, tutorials, semi-tutorials (when the person talks about how to do it and also showcases the device), thorough workflow description, basic programming description, etc.

B. The “Youtubers” videos should reside in their own area, be them from people, “shows”, or stores. It naturally requires some description on the website, such as the one below:

It’s not enough to simply say “The Super Fun Awesome Happy Time Pedal Show demo of Mod’s Reverbs”. Put a little blurb about the show, the people in it, and then what they’re doing in the video. By the way, this one is with tons of praise, very tempting. (MOD doesn’t really have a good track record in documenting/describing anything, so please put some thought and work into that.)

C. If useful for browsing purposes, tag them also by instrument and/or type of music. Guitar, bass, vocal, electronic, metal, ambient, etc. Videos can have more than one of these, so tagging is better than separating;

D. Of course, label them by language too. If the video has 10 minutes of which 8 are talking, it’s useful to learn ahead of time if one is going to understand it;

E. Regardless of us all being musicians, of more or less importance, highly recognised or otherwise anonymous, if there’s a commercial relationship between MOD and that person, it should be disclosed.

3 Likes
#9

Related - MOD was mentioned a few times in a recent Hacker News discussion, and the only feedback comment was “The first site is remarkably brief about its actual capabilities. Is there somewhere with more information about it?”

Pretending I’m a visitor with no prior knowledge, I’d tend to agree - there’s very little information presented about the features and capabilities of the device. For comparison, check out the landing pages for the HR MX5 and the Helix Stomp. I think the MX5 page does a pretty good job and the Stomp page is also good, and while I prefer text as an information medium, both pages provide introductory videos. Being honest, the MX5 video is mostly flash/fluff while the Stomp video is comprehensive and explanatory.

I understand this is a topic for the newly introduced Community page, but your product landing page could really benefit from applying some of these same initiatives.

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#10

I’ll have to agree with @QuestionMarc and @unbracketed.
I get that the purpose of the community website is to showcase that but I would stash that for now and focus on the start page with incorporating the video.
Don’t get me wrong. The video is cool and effort is great but the mod website is all over the place again. It’s difficult to find hard facts and a short overview in general so I would concentrate on that.

And this might be even more of my own preference but why draw away from a great looking product with those cut and paste stock footage images? I’ll liked that old design way more with the focus on the product.

Just as an example: Lifeline Console — Excite Audio

In my opinion this short but informative and features the highlights just enough.

As for the Videos: I’d also separate them. Most professional youtubers state in the begging how they affiliated with that product. So I wouldn’t worry too much about putting that in an extra category.
Plus the video look and sound more “professional” than a 45min screencast or a one angle smartphone video. I’d always go quality over quantity here.

2 Likes
#11

Hi Gentlemen

I think we are getting a bit off-topic here.

I am all down to discuss the website as a whole and I agree there is a lot of information missing or that things are “all over the place”. I am trying to tidy things up.

What I wanted to get input here is about the community page and most of the comments I’ve got are about product pages :frowning:

That is exactly what I am doing @QuestionMarc. We have 4 types of videos:

  • artistic performances (our products must be in use, but they are not the purpose of the performance)
  • sound demos (the purpose is to show what can you achieve with our product)
  • guides and tutorials (the purpose is to show how you accomplish things with our products)
  • unboxing/first impressions/reviews (the purpose is to show what is the product and the experience of getting one). Maybe this could be separated in two.

Now, the philosophical question I put here is: in any of these purposes, we have different sources (users, youtubers, artists) and I wonder if these sources should be separated or not. Should we have the videos of users, youtubers and artists in the same page or shall we have a page for each? As I said before, I have a bit of a hard time separating, as there is a lot of overlap. Since this is such a big question mark in my head, I resorted to you guys to understand how you feel about it.

If no one actually cares, it is ok.

Now, since the topic of the other pages has emerged, let’s talk about it, but not here :slight_smile:

@QuestionMarc @spunktsch @unbracketed can I count on you guys to have a structured discussion for the product pages? If yes, I’ll open a separate topic for that. I would be very glad, to be honest.
With the 200 hundred hats I am wearing at the same time, it gets difficult to stop, step back and look from the outside. If you guys can assist, it is much appreciated.

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#12

This is still a little off topic here (but not really) but let me elaborate on what I ment.
I think the time thinking about what video goes where, how to categorize them what video should you explain and so on is better spent elsewhere. Just pick two good videos, stick them to the landing page, have a short text explaining it and have a community section on the landing page more towards the end with the initial video and two good ones that support that. Everything else is just time-consuming with too little to gain. Or if absolutly necessary have a curated (!!) list with some(!!) videos.

sure, no Problem. I’d like that.

5 Likes
#13

I’m sorry for derailing the topic.

Sure, I’d be glad to help with my insights and opinions.

Now, and I’m sorry if you feel like you’ve already explained this, but what is the purpose of this new Community page? Is it intended for existing device owners, prospective customers, or both? Is it trying to fulfill different needs than what the forum currently provides? Is it meant to convince people that they should purchase a Dwarf?

For me personally, I’d be most interested in sound demos and/or detailed tutorials if they’re done well. There are moments to enjoy artistic performances, but every site has a hip-looking musician(s) playing upbeat riffs and technical solos on their equipment so I think there is limited value in trying to curate and promote much of that content. I might be in the minority here, but I think unboxings and reviews are more the province of MOD user testing and I’m skeptical whatever audience you’re targeting would get much from those. The reverbs review linked above I’d consider more in the sound demo category because it’s carefully focused on one specific aspect rather than “here’s a few basic things the device can do”.

3 Likes
#14

That’s me! :slight_smile: I guess I didn’t connect my name with my handle.

Also, what does it say about bassists that we’re all headless in the video? We have “faces for radio”? :rofl:

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#15

The purpose is to show to non-customers how the community uses the device and also how they interact. I believe that the key takeaways for visitors of the page are:

1 - the MOD devices can be useful in many different use cases and it adapts to the user needs

It is difficult - if not impossible - to explain all that one can do with our devices and I believe that a “show, don’t tell” approach is more useful in this case

2 - if you join, you are also being embraced by the community and you will be able to learn a lot

Being a musician is a learning path, not only of the instrument, but also of the equipment and the sound design it involves.

6 Likes
#16

Whatever content you decide to feature for this, I’d echo @QuestionMarc’s advice from above and make sure to have a good amount of supporting description text so you can benefit from SEO and to help attract visitors from a wide range of search terms. That way people who are searching for “MIDI drum pedal” or “guitar synth” or “reverb effects” or “band in a box” or “record my jam session” or “looping pedal” have a chance to find the site.

For this I would emphasize the forum since it already serving that purpose successfully. In my opinion the forum defines the MOD community and it stands out as a valuable and useful resource. You could highlight the longevity of the forum and share some general participation stats. Many people might appreciate that basically everyone in the company participates - engineers, designers, and executives - whereas in other sites you might get generic responses from a marketer and empty promises to “check with the developers”.

I think many of us would be willing to provide a brief testimonial and if you shared a very basic Google form you could collect a bunch of statements along the lines of

  • One thing I learned from the forum is ______
  • I was able to quickly get help with ______
  • One of my favorite forum topics was ______
  • The forum was able to help me with ______
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#17

Hi @unbracketed

That is great feedback and is exactly the input I was in need. Thank you very much.

Great idea.

Please check it here: https://forms.gle/LzVzMz2res86zzcR8

If that is ok I’ll make a new post so that the others users see it too.

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#18

hi all

I have created the form as suggested by @unbracketed

https://forum.mod.audio/t/share-your-experience-with-the-mod-forum/9330/2

If you guys can contribute it would be fantastic!

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#19

@GMaq @plutek @Rom @dan_remaincalm @solobasssteve

Please check out the staging version of our Community page: Community - MOD Audio website

I have added some of your YT videos to the Artist Performance section. Let me know if texts and infos are ok please.

#20

Yes, nice page ! Just in case, here is a new tuto Max Gen~ oriented:

Maybe useful for a noob like me in the " And what about development?" chapter.

5 Likes