Show HN: I'm building a github for guitarists and bass players | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: I'm building a github for guitarists and bass players

myamphead.com

17 pointsinkaudio21 comments

"ShowHN: I have an idea and I signed up for launchrock!"

1.) I have an idea I've been working on but stopped. 2.) I want to gauge interest before I spend any more time and money on it. 3.) I using launchrock to evaluate all the above.

I notice there is interest,

Why github analogy? because github is a place to share source code, not just software.

As a guitarist and bass player I see a rig setup with it's settings as part of the source to a great sound, the rest is in your fingers. You can't share your fingers but you can share your rig setup and settings.

You posted a "Show HN" but only have one thing to show: a launchrock sign up page.

If you're going to submit an idea to HN, it should be accompanied by more than a Launchrock spashpage. I get that your goal is to gague interest, but please, give us a little more effort than a one-liner and a splash page. How about a blog post outlining your idea with some details on how it would work. "Github for X" is a great jumping off point, but it doesn't tell me anything distinctive about your project.

I understand your point, but I spend the better half of the last decade building things and blogging about it and nobody cared. You've never heard of my past projects and they are nowhere to be found because nobody cared. I was not going to repeat that.

I really didn't know if anyone would care to look, in fact I thought my chances were very low, so this is actual a first for me.

I'm right there with you :) I'm 35 years old (old for this business), started developing my business ideas at 20, and am still plugging away at what most people would consider crazy (a service-based startup) ideas. Success has only started to develop in the last three years. It's a long, difficult journey.

I'm intimately familiar with failure. I can tell you this though, the moment I'm not prepared to commit 100% effort to everything I do is the day that I re-evaluate my choice to remain an entrepreneur. There are too many people out there who are willing to put in 100% all day every day. Even if the momentum of this submission catapults you to point of progress that you've never seen before, you'll have to be ready to commit that 100% effort to stay ahead of the inevitable onslaught of competition.

I would encourage you to try to understand what was different this time around. I would be willing to bet that these factors were not all mutually exclusive from your previous efforts. There's no telling if this will lead to a viable business, but if you can figure out what got you noticed this time around, you may be able to repeat it again in the future.

I was about to sign up, but "Github for X" really bothers me.

Good luck to you, but i think you can be more creative than defining your entire product as little more than an amp setting sharing site based on a project hosting site based on a project hosting site based on a project hosting site based on a project hosting site based on a project hosting site based on a project hosting site.

Why?

By framing it as 'GitHub for Guitarists' I immediately had an idea of what he was trying to do. I doubt that there will be any confusion between My Amp Head and GitHub.

Also, this is suggested by pg himself in <http://ycombinator.com/howtoapply.html>.

Now, I just need to learn how to play a guitar or a bass.

So pg is right because he is pg?

I'm not suggesting there will be any confusion, i'm suggesting that he's (assuming a "he" here) limiting himself by saying his entire project is just a cheap derivative of github.

It gave you an idea of what he was trying to do? How? I assumed it was maybe a tablature hosting site or something. It gave me no idea whatsoever of what he was doing until i read his page.

Furthermore, why github? Why not bitbucket, or codeplex or any of the other millions of code hosting sites? Is it just about what's "hip" right now on HN?

Why not entitle it, "I'm building a site for sharing amp settings". Just as short, and it actually tells the reader what his app is about, unlike the current title.

Agreed. I thought it was a place where you could push samples and other could collaboratively contribute audio to your projects. Now that got me excited. Instead, it's another patch sharing site, which have been around since the earliest days of Geocities. Bleh.

EDIT: I love that GP used the phrase "pg himself", which (in my experience) is generally used for Jesus or other god-like figures.

There's a site like this: http://www.kompoz.com/compose-collaborate/home.music

I stumbled on it a while ago, but i've never used it myself.

Actually it is a place where you can 'push' samples. It is not a patch sharing site, although it's similar. But it's not made for people who use patch. I imagine band members using the site to collaborate on creating their own unique tone, sounds, samples base on analog equipment.

No, just saying that this is advice given to YC applicants on how to quickly describe their startups. I referenced pg because, you know, he wrote the article and it seemed applicable.

Maybe it's because I really don't know much about music or guitar/bass players, but the impression I got was he was trying provide some of the collaboration features that GitHub does -- a place to store public work, a way to comment or fork others work, a place to educate and be educated.

As for "why GitHub?", I have no idea. Bitbucket and CodePlex would have worked. However, I know more about GitHub and certainly use it more that than the other two. So, at least for me, the comparison worked.

And, of course, you are right. There are any number of ways he could have described it, many that would have worked just as well.

I do, now, see where you are coming from -- the title didn't really convey the right idea for you. That, I think, is actually useful for the OP. Thanks for the explanation.

Just to add a counterpoint, I had a lot of trouble making the connection. I wasn't sure how github would map to "guitar and bass players".

Is it sharing instruments used on recordings? Is it sharing what equipment you have? Is it sharing settings (yes!)? Is it sharing sound clips (yes!)? Is it some other really smart way to do something similar to GitHub using musical instruments that I haven't thought of?

Honestly, mentioning GitHub here seems like more a publicity move than a useful comparison.

Of course he's being more creative. Did you visit the linked site? "GitHub for X" is a great one-liner explanation in a headline among dozens of other headlines being scanned by busy HN newsreaders.

There could be some neat stuff here in the end, but as someone that has several amps, a dozen guitars and 50 pedals... I find this somewhat useless, at least on just the basis of just sharing settings. The specific settings on most of my stuff is very dependent on the room, guitar and how loud I'm playing. My main amp these days is a '65 Fender Bandmaster. About the only relevant thing to tell someone about the settings is that I use the vibrato channel exclusively. Volume is just based on the room/volume, and the tone controls are normally somewhere mid-way and I mess with them while I play to make it sound good by ear.

Now, if it was sharing Sysex for keyboards, that could potentially be useful.

It also allows you to share rig setup(I will add to the page), so you could share your pedal board setup. Everything that goes into creating your sound with a guitar or bass you can share. As room consideration I'm thinking this mostly for recording applications and think most people don't record too loud. But that's an interesting thought.

Even without recording too loud, room can have a HUGE impact on recording. As can mic, pre-amp, mic placement, speaker cabinet, pickup selection, pick choice, string choice, playing style.

I'd try to minimize or at least make transparent those choices. Either:

* Suggest an ideal circumstance (SM57 close mic'd as a reference or something), and note how this recording differs from the ideal

* Make people list all of the components that went into the recording

It's still going to be hard, because individual playing style can have a really big effect on sound (ie, Jaco is always going to sound like Jaco, even if you give him someone else's bass).

That being said, I think it's really useful to hear lots of examples. Just be careful about misleading people with regards to why things sound the way they do.

You are 100% about all those things. The shape of the walls in the room, the room ambience - recording in a cave will sound different from recording in your bedroom. Also the type of guitar the body material, neck material.

I will consider these things in my design. I will write about what I was thinking on my blog, but as previously noted I didn't know if people would care for me to even bother.

I cant picture how the end result will look, but a decent idea to start with. If I randomly came across this I would at least spend some time checking it out.

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