Sam's Blog

After a small amount of trouble with getting my website to open in dreamweaver i have finally got alot closer to finishing.

I have completed:
The home page which contains a small bio, links to the other pages, an image, a logo and a mulitrack player.
The studio/ equiptment page which contains an explination of the page, many images, links to the other pages and a single track music player.

The profiles page which shows 4 of the people i ahve worked with with links to their induvidual profile page, a multi track player, links to the other pages and images of the artists that are also links to their profile pages.
The gallery page which contains the links to other pages, the main logo, a single track player and many images of the ongoings at the ‘studio’.
Finally the contact page which contains all my information to contact me (some of which is vague or false to stop me being hassled incase the site is handed out.) It also contains a single track player.

All i have left is the dates page which will hopefully have an interactive calender in it and the induvidual profile pages which will contain links, a small bio and a multi track player where you can select the song.

I have designed my final home page for the overall theme of my website.

I have chosen a bear as the two genres of music i record most/best is acoustic or heavy metal. A bear looks soft (like acoustic music) but is really scary and powerfull (like heavy metal.)

Here is what it looks like.

Its a fairly basic layout with a quirky look. I think it does well to draw in the eye and keep interest.

I may still make minor changes such as fonts, but this is the final design plan.

As i am d0ing a producer/recording studio website i intend to have a music player to show the work i have done. So i have looked a few different free players and i am going to show you them and then tell you my decision.

The first one i looked at was the Premiumbeat free flash music players.

http://www.premiumbeat.com/flash_resources/free_flash_music_player/

Premiumbeat give you the option of four different players. These are:

The mini player (first picture) that is simply just a play button with a volume option. It is the simplest of the four premiumbeat offers and comes in a  variety of colours.

Directly below this there is the next most basic player, the single track player. It is a bit bigger then the mini player and has the same features in a different style. The other feature it has is the bar that lets you know how far through the track you are and lets you skip through the song.

The third player down is a similar design to the single track player and share all its features plus a display section that lets you know what song you are listening to and who its by. This player also allows you to play mutiple tracks one at a time. Hence the name Multiple tracks player.

Finally, the bottom player. Again it shares the features of the multiple track player but has more. The extra feature is a menu with the tracks listed so you can choose which song to listen to with just a click. This is the Multiple tracks player with menu.

This website gives you the option to download each of these and gives you instructions of how to install it into your website by editing the codes. I think if i am to go with this player i will use the Multiple track player on the home page so it plays a variety of tracks i have recorded at random. However on the artists profiles i am going to use the Multiple track player with the menu so you can click through the artists tracks.

The second and final website i looked at was http://www.flashmp3player.org/.

However the only option this site offers is a fairly large menu player that i feel would be too large for my home page. It gives clear instructions on how to use and install it but i think i am going to go with my original plan and use the two premiumbeat players.

I will get some pictures of my website home page designs up as soon as i can. I have one almost finished but photoshop stopped working so i have not had a chance to finish them properly. Here is a very basic first design for a home page however its not quite finished because i have not had the chance to continue it.

In this blog i am going to look a bit more deeply into what i want my website to be like.

Website content

Home page – This will contain a basic introduction and explanation of the website and a music player. This will also contain a news section.

Dates page – This will be a diary like list of work i have either currently or coming up.

Equipment page – This will be a page that explains what equipment and resources are available along with a few pages.

Artist page – This will be a page that shows the profile of the artist i have worked with and what we produced, it will also contain pictures, a small bio, links to their websites and maybe videos.

Contact page – This will be a simple contact page that gives my details if anyone is interested in working with me.

The over all look of my website is not going to be too colourful, mainly blacks and whites with a few colours threw in there. It will contain many pictures to make it look more interesting and have an interesting appearance that draws in the readers eye.

Target audience

My website will not have a specific age for its target audience. However anywhere from 16 – 40 is the expected audience. The users of the site are expected to be musicians/artists who are looking for their work to be recorded and produced or other producers just to see local competition.

Budget

As a student i will have a restricted budget to make this website that will just cover hosting and the additional pages required. The way i hope to make money back is by either beginning to charge for the work i do or asking for donations when i give out the final product.

I have not had a chance to use photoshop as of yet but as soon as i do i will upload some designs of how the website is going to look.

My next few blog entries will be the beginning of my interface design assignment which will involve planning and explaining the ideas i have for the website i am going to create.

My website will be a place to display/show off all of the music i have recorded and produced. I am doing this because its a way of showing people what i have to offer as a music producer and maybe getting more work and even earning money through the exposure the site gives. I chose this over a band website as the bands i have been in are either no longer together or in early stages.

I hope for my web page to have a nice layout that draws you in, quite a few pictures, an audio player to show my work and lots of pages informing you on things such as equipment, contact, people i have worked with and their work and maybe a few videos etc.

I have looked at a few similar sites that i may take inspiration from.

http://www.noisyfred.co.uk/

http://www.thepaddocks.net/ (A studio, not a producer. However it still contains good ideas)

I realise for a first website mine will not be as professional as the two above, however i am going to achieve whatever is the best of my ability which will hopefully be something similar.

I will continue with a more detailed run though of what i wish my website to include and a rough plan of how i would like it to look.

In my last post i had a look into how the internet was made and i was surprised at what i found. First of all i found out the internet dates back to 1957 which is much longer ago then i had first suspected. Before research i would not have dated the internet back any further then 1980.

However i think the internet has massively changed society, these days you cannot look anywhere without seeing  a link for a website or something internet related. It has affected everything from social lives to businesses. On the social side of things there are websites like facebook, twitter, myspace and even sites like this one that lets you connect and communicate with friends and acquiescences on-line and let them know what your up to. Also mainly in younger generations messenger services like windows live (msn) or aim that lets you chat to friends and get instant replys.

The internet has effected business’ more then anything opening up a whole new world of options. It has made smaller business be able to reach a whole world of customers when they could not before. A huge part of this is advertising as well, wherever you look on-line there is adverts and links exposing companies to a much wider audience. The music business has had the largest affect from the internet as it is making new bands get easy exposure and current acts have their promotional websites and online music videos. On the other hand illigal downloads are having drastic effects on record sales and the internet is stealing thousands of jobs within the music industry.

Overall though i defiantly think the internet has been far more beneficial then anything else and it would be interesting to see what the world would be like without it again.

The internet made its beginning in 1957 during the space race between the Soviet Union and the USA when the USSR launched sputnik into space. It was the USA that began to create what they called Advanced Research Projects Agency which was the the start of the internet – the ARPANET – a defence network which played a main part in bringing to

Arpanet Overview

internet to where it is today.  Another American network that was fundamental to the history of the internet was the RAND corporation - a military network. There were two other networks that were also fundamental to the history of the internet. One of which was a commercial network made in England by the NPL or National Physical Laboratory and the other was a scientific network, CYCLADES, which was made in France.

By February 28th 1990 the Arpanet was shut down, however the internet was finally up and running. A year after this the World Wide Web is up and running  and by 1996 ten million hosts are online and the internet is all over the globe as it is in almost 150countries round the world. From 1997 onwards all different companies and sources begin to use the internet such as schools and doctors.  From then on it advanced through dial up to broadband and brought us to today where it is used by billions everyday and depended on by mass amounts of people.

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