Great Studio Websites

[eastsidetone]

Mine is still being made, but I had say......

Kudos for NOT having any music on auto-play once the site loads!

I was a musician first, and when I was shopping around for studios to record at......

EVERY-TIME a website did this it annoyed me!

1 If your music starts streaming and it's not the same genre that the client plays you can alienate them real fast.

2. No matter how awesome something sounds, it will ALWAYS be annoying when it blasts unexpectedly through your speakers.

[therealbigd]

Originally Posted by eastsidetone

Mine is still being made, but I had say......

Kudos for NOT having any music on auto-play once the site loads!

I was a musician first, and when I was shopping around for studios to record at......

EVERY-TIME a website did this it annoyed me!

1 If your music starts streaming and it's not the same genre that the client plays you can alienate them real fast.

2. No matter how awesome something sounds, it will ALWAYS be annoying when it blasts unexpectedly through your speakers.

+10.

Especially annoying if you're

1) browsing at night when everyone's asleep
2) somebody jumpy
3) trying to listen to or watch something else (don't know about other people but in the age of spotify / itunes on my desktop i choose what i listen to whilst browsing rather than letting studios choose for me)

nothing wrong with audio on a site just have a play button and a volume slider.

[MTStudios]

+1

I was browsing studio websites the other night and this happened, I couldnt get to the x fast enough.

WHY would this help anyone make a sale? If they werent going to listen to your work before youve got no chance now. Equivalent to a sales clerk shouting at you.

Sent from my GT540 using Gearslutz.com App

[Riddler]

Your site is great, the information is all there, clear and easy to read. It conveys the image of a smart, clean, efficient, busy studio. Great job, well done.

The foursquare idea is genius; I may have to steal that off you!

Feel free to check ours out - Grapevine Studios - I'm still fleshing out some parts so there are a few empty menu links at the mo.

Tim.

[Tarekith]

Originally Posted by Riddler

Feel free to check ours out - Grapevine Studios - I'm still fleshing out some parts so there are a few empty menu links at the mo.

Tim.

Looks nice. Only thing I would suggest is that if you are going to be updating your blog often, might want to give it it's own link in the header, instead of being buried one menu deep.

[RealFeel]

Your site is great, the information is all there, clear and easy to read. It conveys the image of a smart, clean, efficient, busy studio. Great job, well done.

The foursquare idea is genius; I may have to steal that off you!

Feel free to check ours out - Grapevine Studios - I'm still fleshing out some parts so there are a few empty menu links at the mo.

Tim.

Thanks so much for the kind words! Your site is great as well! I love the hardwood background, and the social media icons in the bottom left look great.

I'm also a huge fan of the FAQ's section - one thing I've seen on a lot of studio websites that I'd like to have on mine -I just need to sit down and write one.

My only advice would be to figure out how to remove the bottom scroll bar - I think it may be caused by the social media icons being just a little to big - other than that, kudos on a great site.

[Kailas]

Hi friends,

Here is the website of my studio, Octaves, in India.

Octaves Studio

Regards,

Kailas

[J. Mattheiszen]

Originally Posted by Kailas

Hi friends,

Here is the website of my studio, Octaves, in India.

Octaves Studio

Regards,

Kailas

I closed the browser tab as soon as the music started playing automatically. I have no idea what your studio is like, what services you offer or how I can contact you.

So no, that wasn't a great studio website, even if I can't recall what it looked like.

[deft_bonz]

You got a nice design. I didn't hear anything, but that's because I turned off the loudspeakers anyway. But if there was music, I'd also recommend to turn it off.

From the visual point of view: strip down the home page. It was way too much information for one glance. Concentrate on the most important 2-3 points. I'd say everything below the 2 boxes "Twitter" and "News & Updates" should be somewhere else. If someone wanted to follow you, he'd be able to do that over FB, Twitter, etc. No need to post everything on the home page.

Wish you luck with your business.

[Clueless]

"Great" is in the eye of the beholder, but I put a lot of thought into my website. I began with a design on paper, listing all the different audiences I wanted to address on one sheet and all the capabilities I wanted to promote on another. I let those pages collect ideas for at least a week before trying to sort and organize them. Then I organized the main tabs around how I figured the audiences would want to connect to the information--including myself! I like having a website where I can show people stuff without having to apologize.

I agree with others that having music blaring out by default is just dumb: how is anybody to know whether the person clicking the link loves rock or hate it, loves guitars or hates them, etc? The studio should be both a prepared environment--ready for anything--and a blank canvas--ready to be anything. A specific musical selection works against that in the strongest possible terms.

[Davido]

...

[MTStudios]

I'm going to resurrect this thread for a bit.

I just updated my website, rejigged a lot of the pages/info/layout/fonts/etc and am collecting some testimonials from old clients. I'd love some feedback from you guys about how it feels etc.

Midas Touch Studios

Thanks!


P.S. I thought it was worth resurrecting this thread because it's got some good info in it, plus it'd be nice to have an ongoing "studio website critique" thread in here.

[deft_bonz]

Originally Posted by MTStudios

I'm going to resurrect this thread for a bit.

I just updated my website, rejigged a lot of the pages/info/layout/fonts/etc and am collecting some testimonials from old clients. I'd love some feedback from you guys about how it feels etc.

Midas Touch Studios

Thanks!


P.S. I thought it was worth resurrecting this thread because it's got some good info in it, plus it'd be nice to have an ongoing "studio website critique" thread in here.

Good idea

I looked at your new website. I like it, nice colors and pro pictures.

2 things I noticed right from the beginning:

-) The white font on the homepage is partially not readable, because it is in front of the white knob.
-) Minor issue: I expected the pictures in the gallery to pop up within you webpage, not opening another tab/window.


Cheers

[Michael E]

Originally Posted by RealFeel

maybe offer some advice on how to make mine better?

I would replace this photo with something more friendly.

What about not using a closed pose and some kind of smile?
(even some kind of Mona Lisa subtle smile would be great)



Count this as a positive example:

[MTStudios]

Originally Posted by deft_bonz

Good idea

I looked at your new website. I like it, nice colors and pro pictures.

2 things I noticed right from the beginning:

-) The white font on the homepage is partially not readable, because it is in front of the white knob.
-) Minor issue: I expected the pictures in the gallery to pop up within you webpage, not opening another tab/window.


Cheers

Yeah the whole front page drives me a little insane, the rest of the website is ok because all the text is enclosed in a semi-transparent box, but the background photo has too many colours, so there's no way of choosing a font colour that wont mess up, and it's positioned different on everyone's computers depending on resolution and browser settings. I haven't come up with a workaround for this yet, any suggestions would be cool.

The second point bugs me too, it's to do with the thing I'm using to display the photos. There is a little button on the bottom right of each photo when you mouse over that expands them into a display that lets you flick through each photo. Unfortunately it's beyond my control, and I can't make this the default behaviour when a photo is clicked on.

[deft_bonz]

Originally Posted by MTStudios

Yeah the whole front page drives me a little insane, the rest of the website is ok because all the text is enclosed in a semi-transparent box, but the background photo has too many colours, so there's no way of choosing a font colour that wont mess up, and it's positioned different on everyone's computers depending on resolution and browser settings. I haven't come up with a workaround for this yet, any suggestions would be cool.

The second point bugs me too, it's to do with the thing I'm using to display the photos. There is a little button on the bottom right of each photo when you mouse over that expands them into a display that lets you flick through each photo. Unfortunately it's beyond my control, and I can't make this the default behaviour when a photo is clicked on.

Yes, it's not easy to build the "right" font into it. An easy possibility would be to implement the text into the picture. You could do some simple FX with Photoshop. But then you can't easily change the front page without exchanging the picture. The question is, do you need that. A nice pic with just your studio name and a slogan, could stay fixed.

[dabigfrog]

ok, don't know if it's great but it works...its in flash so until i load up ifolio onto the site ...no iphone or ipad access, sorry, trying to fix that quickly!

Santa Fe Recording Studios Frogville Studios


we just went live a few days ago, still tweaking things....

[musimedia]

That is one nice amp collection!

Makes me want to go play with my 1957 Beltone ap-24!

[deft_bonz]

BTW

I also updated my page. The design and the simplicity reminds the same, but I changed the wideness of the columns, changed the pictures on top and added a new subpage "Gallery". And updated some information.

I'd like to hear your feedbacks. What do you think about my homepage?

[jollymix]

hi everybody...this is my first post on GearSlutz

here's my studio website, sorry for the "italian-only" language choice shied

STUDIO EUR - Mixing Multimedia

[deft_bonz]

Originally Posted by jollymix

hi everybody...this is my first post on GearSlutz

here's my studio website, sorry for the "italian-only" language choice shied

STUDIO EUR - Mixing Multimedia

Your website looks nice. After a fast glance at it, I haven't found any issues.

But I saw the patchbay labels from Neutrik
What a PITA to use the software, isn't it?

[IntelDoc]

I did my site using Joomla. I love it so far and have a few cool things for client only type stuff.

1. Client Access
2. Client custom pages
3. Uploader tool that allows 2gig per file uploads (easy for consolidated sessions)
4. Integrated forum (for registered users)
5. Integrated blog that posts out to all my other social networking sites.
6. Integrated audio player through reverbnation - works really well.
7. Integrated ustream channel for streaming shows, sessions, etc

For me Joomla has been great due to the Metadata that you can populate. I went from page 3 in Joomla to Page 1 in about 2 weeks. Definitely worth looking into.

Colorado Recording Studio | Colorado Springs Recording Studio | Denver Recording Studio | Fort Collins Recording Studio | Monument Sound Studio | Chris Andrews | Producer | Mix Engineer | Mastering

[jason baliban]

Just finished mine today. I hope everyone finds it pleasing.

Recording Studio - Philadelphia, Phoenixville, Collegeville, Spring City, Royersford, Pottstown

jB

[88fingerz]

Originally Posted by jason baliban

Just finished mine today. I hope everyone finds it pleasing.

Recording Studio - Philadelphia, Phoenixville, Collegeville, Spring City, Royersford, Pottstown

jB

A fine job!

[jason baliban]

Originally Posted by 88fingerz

A fine job!

Thank you very much

jB

[IzzyRock]

Estudios Bassino | Estudios Bassino

[pkBBS]

I remember bad 90's web pages... I made some for fun when I was in grade school. A 35 second MIDI track would loop the whole time you were on the page, a bunch of useless javascript spheres would follow your mouse -- Gotta love the Bravenet website plugins, hit counters, guestbooks, all while I really had no content on the website whatsoever.

I agree strongly -- NO autoplay music, EVER.

[Clueless]

Originally Posted by IntelDoc

I did my site using Joomla. I love it so far and have a few cool things for client only type stuff.

1. Client Access
2. Client custom pages
3. Uploader tool that allows 2gig per file uploads (easy for consolidated sessions)
4. Integrated forum (for registered users)
5. Integrated blog that posts out to all my other social networking sites.
6. Integrated audio player through reverbnation - works really well.
7. Integrated ustream channel for streaming shows, sessions, etc

For me Joomla has been great due to the Metadata that you can populate. I went from page 3 in Joomla to Page 1 in about 2 weeks. Definitely worth looking into.

Colorado Recording Studio | Colorado Springs Recording Studio | Denver Recording Studio | Fort Collins Recording Studio | Monument Sound Studio | Chris Andrews | Producer | Mix Engineer | Mastering

Nicely done! Yet another example of how much one can do with the right open source tools.

[Virtalahde]

I don't know how other people see it, but I look at website as a representation of the quality of the service. If the website is ugly, cluttered and hasn't been updated for ages, it doesn't give a good impression at all.

My website was a HTML mess for years. A few months back I put a new on online and had it done by a pro. Now updating the site doesn't mean I break up the layout and spend hours fixing it.

That said, I recently looked up for a shop that could make a few custom glass shelves. I actually picked up the one with the most horrible website, because it felt the most pro to me. Go figure.

Nice websites on this topic. I also hate autoplay music and close the page immediately. Some people get annoyed by moving stuff, too, but that doens't bother me as long as everything doesn't move all the time.