Minimal Band/Composer/Studio Website

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kslight
mixes from purgatory
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Joined: Tue Oct 13, 2009 7:40 pm

Minimal Band/Composer/Studio Website

Post by kslight » Fri Apr 26, 2019 2:18 pm

I’ve had a website forever but I feel like the hosting is overkill for my needs. I am not a band or a studio for hire, but I am a “minor league” composer with a couple film credits and some albums and remixes with various well known people which is why I feel like I should have some place holder out there/way to get ahold of me vs just social media. I’m not selling merch at the moment. Just basically need a glorified bio, some samples, contact links, cool photos?

So while I have a designer assembled website at the moment, which needs a redux, and my current hosting is up for renewal (3 year plan so a fair chunk of change). I’m thinking I just want to draw out something basic off a template so I’m all mobile compliant and everything, so things like bandzoogle or squarespace seem like possibilities.

I have a domain currently that I’m using, and email through that, which it would be nice to keep that at least in the interest of having a pro email address vs some dumb gmail crap.

I feel like I could probably do a better job at marketing myself if I had a better web presence, but I historically have not gotten work that way. With films that are viewable in mainstream international outlets though it seems like I should be accessible on the off chance that someone wants to hire me.

At my current level though I don’t feel justified spending a lot on hosting.

What service are you currently using?

jimjazzdad
takin' a dinner break
Posts: 155
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2012 7:05 am
Location: Halifax, NS, Canada

Re: Minimal Band/Composer/Studio Website

Post by jimjazzdad » Sat Apr 27, 2019 3:52 am

My daughter is a singer and actor who maintains a website for professional reasons. Her domain name and web hosting cost about $30/year; she is in the musicians' union (AFM) and gets a pretty good deal from them. Her site is just a basic Wordpress template that somebody initially helped her tweak. She does her own maintenance now - changing pictures, add to her bio, etc. -and it looks pretty pro for not much time or money. That said, most young musicians seem to forego the website and domain name, and just use FaceBook, Bandcamp, etc. I don't think having a website mean as much to the younger generation of performers and consumers...
Jim Legere
Halifax, NS
Canada

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digitaldrummer
ghost haunting audio students
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Re: Minimal Band/Composer/Studio Website

Post by digitaldrummer » Mon Apr 29, 2019 12:48 pm

I've been using GoDaddy for awhile (off and on). I'm not going to say it's either good or bad (cause it's both...). but you can pretty easily redirect a domain to any Facebook page (which is still currently free as long as you promise to give them ALL of your data) or Bandcamp site as mentioned previously...

here's an example (while we work on a new proper web site...)... http://www.themthatknowtheband.com

and then my other websites are all GoDaddy "instant Pages" which came free with the domain.
http://www.studiodrumtracks.com
http://www.digitaldrummer.net
http://www.doubledogrecording.com

I used to have hosting and ftp space and all that, but I found this much more economical (in combination with cloud storage for uploading files - OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, etc.) and it's much easier to design and manage. You don't need a separate application to do it - it's all online. Of course that means it's limited in what i can do, but I found it mostly meets my needs.

Also, I had an issue with GoDaddy several years ago where they started aborting file transfers (and corrupting files with no error message/warning). I finally talked to someone who knew what was going on and they admitted that they were monitoring traffic and killing large file transfers. when it came down to it they would not allow me to use my hosting (ftp) space for file transfers (which is how I was moving WAV files and Pro Tools sessions around to clients) and told me I would have to purchase a commercial/business site which was around 10x the price at the time. Luckily "cloud storage" is available now for cheap.
Mike
www.studiodrumtracks.com -- Drum tracks starting at $50!
www.doubledogrecording.com

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