Why don't you use it?

[RedHouse]

I personally have never felt welcome here and have endured name calling and other bs from certain members here.
I poke in to read once in a while but won't participate because of my past experiences here.

This place can be finicky, stand fast, the BS will subside.

[ken]

Why don't I post there?

I'm too ugly to work in radio, that's why.

Ken

What I said was with tongue very firmly in my cheek.

This weekend alone I wrote some new pages for the website, wound a batch of pickups, and also now have two guitars and a bass and some amps to fix too. After that, I have photos of new pickup models to add to the site, a couple of machines that need repairing, etc.

Unfortunately, there is only one me and no one to delegate to for some of these things. Wife says life would be perfect for me if only I had 48 hour days.

There is no parole from rock and roll,
Ken

[Peter Naglitsch]

Man, this is beyond belief!

It's NOT a bloody beauty contest, you don't have to show you look like Brad Pitt or you play like Larry Carlton and Robben Ford put together.

Also, you don't have to actually SHOW anything, sound clips are more than welcome.

Talking 'bout of men and mice...?

Like Ken said, though in cheek. I'm in the exact same spot as Ken, running my busines at nights and weekends as I still have my day job. Three guitars in for a re-finish, a couple of pickups to wind, a couple of pickups to develope (always experimenting) and as I wrote, a new web site to build. This isn't my no1 priority, but clips will apear eventually

[Possum]

...

See thats where the difference comes in, I have NO day job, this is IT for me. So you bet I want links to YouTube videos and I want my name and products out there as much as possible. Its called advertising and my life depends on it :-) Wouldn't have it any other way Most members are hobbyists who don't care if anyone knows about their work; the Showcase is open to all types of members, I purposefully limited it to 3 products for each person so no one will try to dominate there, and hopefully keep quality up. It would be nice to see more entries, I was rather disappointed in so few entries after all the support for the idea, its YOUR showcase so its up to the members to make it interesting!

[Dave Kerr]

I'm one of those hobbyists. The issue with me is arranging talent (the younger generation in my house) to demo what I've made, seems there's always something more important to do than to noodle around in front of Dad's video camera.

[Bruce Johnson]

I'm one of the pros, but in my case, I only build pickups for my own line of basses and a few of my regular clients. I'm not trying to sell pickups directly. I may eventually, but right now I'm too heavily booked up to start up a new product line.

I enjoy reading this forum, and I contribute technical help where I can. But most of what you guys are doing is a different game than what I do with pickups.

The Showcase looks like a good idea that more of you should take advantage of.

[David King]

Like Bruce I put my pickups in my own basses mostly.
Perhaps someday once I've decided which models I want to bother with and how I'm going to make them consistent and I've had time to photograph them, record them, build a website around them... Oh and figured out how to make a profit at the same time.

Right now pickups are still slightly fun for me. The moment I have to start making them on demand I bet I'll start dreading the whole process.

[Zhangliqun]

I'd like to do it but I don't have any access to video equipment, can't even take a decent picture of my stuff with a camera. I have some soundclips so I may yet do it, but would like to have something visual to accompany them.

[jason lollar]

I will post some stuff- I went to my CP and did the join group etc like it says in the instructions about a week or two ago and never heard anything back.
Was there some kind of snafu?

[chevalij]

Ya see, I did it the easy way. A customer of mine posted a youtube vid and I never even had to ask. Any he's a really decent player which helps

[SkinnyWire]

Most members are hobbyists who don't care if anyone knows about their work ...

Or, they're people for whom word of mouth has been sufficient, obviating the need to advertise.

[RedHouse]

Or, they're people for whom word of mouth has been sufficient, obviating the need to advertise.

Oh yeah!

[RedHouse]

...See thats where the difference comes in, I have NO day job, this is IT for me....

So forgive me but I have to ask, what happened to all that graphics design stuff you've been talking about? is it all in the dumper, or did you just decide to give up your day job and gamble on the world of custom pickup winding?

[Possum]

...

Red House, see you only read about the first sentence of anything I write and then misquote me most of the time I've explained this a couple of times already, but again.....

I quit about a year ago, fuck graphic design Its more crowded a field than pickup making and full of hack designers with no education and no talent.
I don't think I was meant to continue in that field, after the big internet biz meltdown from generation "X" selling ideas that never existed for millions of dollars to gullible investors, 'scuse me while I take a breath....I lost all my clients except Shrapnel Records. I was never able to hook up with any solid clients after that. Shrapnel drove me crazy and refused to pay going rates, then on top of that they would take my invoices and decide not to pay in full saying I was playing games and overcharging them. It was high stress work too boot and contributed to a health breakdown about 3 years ago where I wasn't sure I would ever be vertical again for a whole year.

So a year ago I did some calculations and figured I could at least make the same shitty amount of money making pickups, something I enjoy immensely (did I spell that right?) without the horrible deadlines and stress of trying to make record release dates and working with famous guitar players who know nothing about art and have no taste at all :-)

So yeah, I took the big leap of faith and glad I did. I'm starting to get my act together better and things are getting better rapidly. Yeh its still alot of work, but now my success or failure is all on my shoulders and not whether or not the indy record labels are sinking or swimming, mostly these days they are sinking because they're not keeping up with the times and the internet revolution. I made alot of suggestions to Shrapnel that fell on deaf ears, like sell SONGS on their website. Do a golden oldies shred tour etc. Oh well, not my problemo :-) So, yeah I went "pro."

My wife stayed in web design and made herself a nice money machine niche in the real estate world where's she's queen bee. Here is our old portfolio site that was in progress 'til the meltdown, I keep it around to look at once in awhile. There's a ton of stuff there, you have to find the tiny "next" link on the left side of the art pages to move through it; alot of EMG stuff and Shrapnel stuff plus some of my wife's early real estate work:
Stephens Design

[RedHouse]

I read your posts Possum, rest assured.

I was just curious because I think your website looks very cool and it made me wonder why you didn't do that stuff any more, thanks for sharing.