Band Website

[nate4923]

This is a site I did for my band. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! Thanks.

the link (http://www.the4923.com)

[angerisagift]

when i clicked shows it went all crazy on me. the nav items fell into place, and then a little load screen popped up for a fraction of a second, then it repeated...and repeated again..and again..and again...you get the picture...might want to check that out...
other than that it looks pretty good. fits your style pretty well i'd say

[mac.FINN]

Not bad. Pretty simple and to the point. Nice work.

My only gripe is the sound effects. Loose the cheesy - powerpoint-esque fly in noises. Loose 'em!
:D

[cojemeachin]

I really like it! Great work!
Colour schem perfect!
Navigation nice nad simple, nice effects.

The only one advice, the name of the group, it is reaalu hard to undestand that text...

I would make it lighter, thnx

[mylkhead]

not bad, i checked your portfolio site. And I can tell you have some potential, your timing and animation of your layout is nice.

[reuber1]

Nice work. I didn't hear the noise so I can't comment, but I would lose it too. Without sounds, the navigation seemed to work alright with me.

Also, on the fact that my work cpu doesn't have audio right now, if your player doesn't in fact play music by default and rather the user has to click Play as it says, then major kudos to you. I get pissed off to the max when I go to a site and suddenly I hear music that I never asked for, especially when it's over my iTunes. Very conscious decision.

Nice work, but I agree with the rest of the comments above too. Certainly better than some of the major record label signed band sites.

[Benjamin]

Good design.

One problem is that since it is a Flash site it is not very accessible. What happens to people who don't have flash installed and how is the text indexed by Google? Or do you have an HTML version somewhere?

[reuber1]

How many people don't have Flash? I want to know this. Everyone keeps saying that. For their target, I would imagine most of them would already have Flash. I don't think that's a major issue.

And as far as Google goes, won't it still read any external text files and the file names within the site folder?

[JPnyc]

Well I, and lots of other people who use IE or an IE shell browser, tend to surf with activeX disabled most of the time. IE can't load flash without activeX.

[reuber1]

How many are "lots" of people, though? Lots that you know personally, or is there a stat somewhere that confirms this? I'm not trying to be a dick, I really want to know this. I don't know how many users are aware enough to disable active-X.

[nate4923]

Thanks for the comments guys, I appreciate it. The group name in the top-right corner is hard to read? With my moniter it looks fine, but I will test it out on other computers and if I see it's a problem, I will change it for sure. Thanks for the observation! I thought those sound effects were funny is why I put them in...sure they're corny and unprofessional sounding, but they're funny. Does anyone know where I can find more professional sounding effects? I've gotten all of mine off of flashkit.com and they have some really bad ones. Also, about it going all crazy when you clicked "shows," it's probably because you clicked it when another page was still loading. My preloader always breaks the site when something is clicked while it's doing it's business. If someone could tell me how to make one that doesn't break, I'd be forever in your debt haha. About it being in flash, I've published it for flash player 7, and I figure almost everyone has that, and if they don't...tough luck. Also, if you type "the 4923" in google or yahoo, our page usually pops up on the first page. If "punk rock" or something along those lines is typed, it doesn't show up, but even if it was done in HTML i wouldn't think it would. there are just too many bands out there. Eventually I'm going to make an html version of my portfolio because I do agree it's hard to search for flash sites. Well, thanks again, and thanks in advance for any more comments...

[reuber1]

You can get royalty free CDs from Sony Media for sound loops. Some are about 50 bucks a pop, but you can download some samples from their site for free.

Quick note, though, when I search for a band, I have never (nor have I ever heard of anyone else) searched for them without hearing of them first by using a search engine.

[nate4923]

Quick note, though, when I search for a band, I have never (nor have I ever heard of anyone else) searched for them without hearing of them first by using a search engine.

Amen to that brother!

[Benjamin]

No but someone might well search for the name of a band member, or for the words 'band' and the town that you're based in, etc, or what about for the name of a song?

Also be aware that the Google algorithm ranks a page based on the content of the site. The reason you are top for 'the 4928' is that there are probably no other sites that mention this. Or, if there are, the weight given to the keyphrase appearing in your domain name wins through.

I agree that you will cover the majority of users most of the time with a Flash site. For this site this may be all you want, and that's fine. But to answer your point reuber1, the problem is that you are alienating a small portion of your audience. If you are building a public-facing website it's just not very professional. OK so maybe it's only people who are blind and are using screen-readers. One of these guys may love your music! They may be an agent for a large record company scouting for talent...

OK maybe that might be a bit far-fetched. I'm one of these web standards nuts (http://www.webstandards.org/) anyway, so I'm a bit biased against Flash. To be honest though, I find sites designed in an accessible, standards-based way tend to be much nicer to use even for me as a normal user, without any disabilities. Maybe just because often more thought and planning has gone into the interface, I'm not sure.

[typographics]

To be honest though, I find sites designed in an accessible, standards-based way tend to be much nicer to use even for me as a normal user
i couldnt agree more. i dont mind if a site has some flash included here and there, but building an entire website in flash is...well, nevermind :)

[JPnyc]

Generally if i come upon a site entirely done in flash, I close it and don't return.

[reuber1]

Let me put it this way. I've had enough of web usability to stab my eyeballs out with a spoon. Most of it is obvious, most of it is not, but honestly, a lot of it is really too far fetched, as you mentioned. I'll say it again, I have NEVER (not once, twice, half of a time...zero, zilch, nada, nunca, etc.) heard anyone say "Hey, I'm interested in a new band. I'm going to randomly google and see what comes up!" For music, most people usually get heard of via word of mouth, and things like music discovery utilities such as www.pandora.com, and file sharing programs.

I don't know, maybe I've just heard enough "I can't stand Flash" etc. that I want to puke. If it's done properly (eg. http://www.iso50.com/), it is simply astounding. BTW, after the initial HTML splash, it's all Flash, so avert your eyes I guess. :rolleyes:

[typographics]

everything that man does is awesome.

[ecsyle]

Generally if i come upon a site entirely done in flash, I close it and don't return.
I agree with this post.

Flash is the painful yellow discharge of web development.
I shake my fist in Flashes general direction :mad:

[icekitty37]

wow... dont click bio. it just looped for me. the menu kept dropping in and making noise. didnt go anywhere

[nate4923]

wow... dont click bio. it just looped for me. the menu kept dropping in and making noise. didnt go anywhere

Yeah, as I said in a previous post, it's the preloader that's broken. You probably clicked "bio" when another page was still loading. for some reason if you do that, it breaks the whole page. I need to learn how to fix that.

[nate4923]

Generally if i come upon a site entirely done in flash, I close it and don't return.

Well then, you guys are missing out on a lot of good stuff! There are so many websites that are done completely in flash that are absolutely amazing! Even way before I got into web design, I was 300% more impressed with anything done in flash than I was with anything in HTML. I fully admit that HTML is good, and needed, and I'm learning HTML and CSS for that reason. However, the fact that a lot of the big label bands have websites that are completely done in flash makes me think that i'm not gonna change my band's website any time soon. http://www.greenday.com, http://www.theused.net, http://www.systemofadown.com, http://www.deathcabforcutie.com just to name a few. This matter could be fought to death, but the fact is, there will always be people who like flash more, and people who hate flash. I think whichever is more appropriate for the paticular website, go ahead and use it, and if both is used together, that's great too.

[JPnyc]

For me it's because mouse commands don't work with it, you can't right click, you can't highlight and copy text, and on many of them even the back button on your browser will do nothing (on some it does). I have an 8 button mouse and I'm used to using them. I also use a browser that has something called "mouse gestures" which are a way of giving commands with a gesture of the mouse, and those don't work in flash either.

Flash isn't really a webpage and it doesn't really run in a browser. It's a proprietary technology that runs in a special plugin player and that is what runs in the browser. So your browser never really communicates with it directly. Every command has to be interpreted by the plugin, and therefore they only function if the programmer put those commands in, made provisions for them.

[ecsyle]

Flash is never appropriate for a website.