New Music Man Website and Sterling Blog

[Gear]

Hey... there's a brand new Music Man Web Site - Launched today - just hours ago!!
Check it out - Welcome to the Ernie Ball ® Music Man ® Company
With a great Blog from Sterling...
It looks great, has more instruments and options...

[Smellybum5150]

WOW!
I spent the first 10 minutes watching the images before even thinking of clicking anywhere!!!1

It's like Tuesday Torture every visit - COOOL!

[brasco68]

Loving it! Awesome job Sterling and team!

[silversurferoz@]

Takes forever to load (and I'm on a fast connection) . And when it does, there's nothing 'wow' about it
The old 'build an instrument' functionality isn't there. The colour selection area doesn't show the instrument in the colour.
Sorry but I expected a lot better.
I love my MM sticks - I have 4, but I have to say that I'm sorely disappointed with the site.

[RocketRalf]

^^^^ I guess you need a better monitor. Every single photo in the web page is gorgeous. The photos for each color more than make up for the instrument builder. If you really want to see a particular instrument, you can ask for it here on just try, Adobe Photoshop on it, it should be a breeze.

[DavidOfOz]

Originally Posted by silversurferoz@

Takes forever to load (and I'm on a fast connection) . And when it does, there's nothing 'wow' about it
The old 'build an instrument' functionality isn't there. The colour selection area doesn't show the instrument in the colour.
Sorry but I expected a lot better.
I love my MM sticks - I have 4, but I have to say that I'm sorely disappointed with the site.

I suppose it's impossible to please everyone all the time. Personally, I like the new site, and it seems to me that for what we may have lost from the old, we've gained a lot more in the new. Okay, so there will be some bugs...but that's normal for any new web development (I know that from first hand experience as a web developer ).

The old "instrument builder" had it's limitations too. You couldn't see every guitar model in every possible colour and configuration. At least with the new site we get a really clear picture that help get a good sense of the selected colour, even if it's not in the extact model. And RocketRalf's right...if you want to see the exact colour/config of a particular model...just leave a message in the forum for Foggy!

As for speed, BP and others have hinted elsewhere that they are aware of the speed issue and are working on it.

[Big Poppa]

I can make the worlds fastest website...it would be text only. Everybody wants features and bells and whistles.....

[Colin]

I love it!

[DavidOfOz]

Originally Posted by Big Poppa

I can make the worlds fastest website...it would be text only. Everybody wants features and bells and whistles.....

I like bells and whistles.

How's this for feedback: I happen to know of one 14-year old who has just spent an entire afternoon browsing the new MM site. Hmmm...can't be too bad if the discerning youths of our instant-gratification-world aren't worried by the speed of it!

[Big Poppa]

I wish that we could launce a site that would make most happy./ I think we may have......There will always be bugs as this is a loarge and complicated site. I love the phtography

[dkassenbrock]

It is indeed a great site...I love seeing the raw materials being processed into works of art. This new site gives me GAS in a big way! After I get done (paying for) taking the kids and grandkids (and mother-in-law) to Hawaii for our 20th anniversary (and my 50th bday) I'm gonna probably need to talk to Pete D. about a Sterling 5 -Capt. Don

[Gear]

Originally Posted by Big Poppa

I wish that we could launce a site that would make most happy./ I think we may have......There will always be bugs as this is a loarge and complicated site. I love the phtography

I think it's a great new site... the reason I started this thread - I saw the new site when it launched and thought it should be mentioned.
I'm sure someone else would have started this thread sooner or later.

The new photos are great - as mentioned above by others.
As for speed - yeah, well - My old Atari 1040StE with it's Internet software (yes, you can) is text based only, and I can safely say that most people would want/need more than that

[DaPatrooch]

I really love the new site. HUGE step up from the previous site, and I must say I'm very pleased. There are also really cool color combinations on some of the pictures of the guitars, and the angles and overall photography of the guitars are amazing!

However, there is one little mistake. In all the regular models (by that I mean non-BFR), in the little color section on the left side, instead of Sapphire Black, it has Walnut Burst. And I believe the JPs are missing Pearl Redburst in the color section. Just one minor error haha. But really great site, I love looking at all the pictures.

[GoKart_MoZart]

The process photos are outstanding. The fact that so many of the pictures include human hands just speaks volumes.

[silversurferoz@]

Originally Posted by DavidLeeding

I suppose it's impossible to please everyone all the time. Personally, I like the new site, and it seems to me that for what we may have lost from the old, we've gained a lot more in the new. Okay, so there will be some bugs...but that's normal for any new web development (I know that from first hand experience as a web developer ).

The old "instrument builder" had it's limitations too. You couldn't see every guitar model in every possible colour and configuration. At least with the new site we get a really clear picture that help get a good sense of the selected colour, even if it's not in the extact model. And RocketRalf's right...if you want to see the exact colour/config of a particular model...just leave a message in the forum for Foggy!

As for speed, BP and others have hinted elsewhere that they are aware of the speed issue and are working on it.

Hmm touched a nerve there, obviously. And from a first-time poster on this forum, I guess that's not really the best way to start a relationship, is it!!
However, being a web developer, and particularly for Flash and standards-compliant HTML/CSS websites, I passed the site through the stringent testing processes that I do to my own client developments prior to publishing, and as I said, it falls short of expectations.
I don't accept the argument that it's ok to publish a site that has bugs in it, but I guess I have clients that are a lot more stringent about that than MM.
It is, however, a great improvement, and I know that things will improve in time.
Granted, there are some great photographs. Really interesting information, absolutely.
Just overly slow to load, and fails validation due to sloppy coding - for instance:
Re-use of ID attributes (header and navmenu)
Incorrectly nested elements..etc.
Also, the Adobe AC_RunActiveContent.js file (which doesn't validate properly anyway) could easily be avoided using UFO or FlashObject.

A little more attention to detail required by the developer perhaps, but kudos to the designer.

Work in progress..