Harmony Central forums

[nickwellings]

Anyone here like to go there occasionally??

I sometimes go there as it's a good mix of real gear talk and amazing dumb humour.

However they have revamped the place and installed new forum software, and it blows. Just like Line 6 did, they've gone to a badly designed new forum platform which doesn't even display post counts or last person to reply etc etc.

Lots of people are angry about it. It's a real shame, as the old one was totally fine and very easy to use.

[heem6]

The Eddie Van Halen funny pictures thread on HC is a classic - and is over 300 pages, I think. ! I haven't been to the forum since the change, I'll have to check it out. I think I remember checking it out when it was in beta testing and didn't care for it then, though.

[nickwellings]

It's much the same as the beta you saw Jim. Many people have just left and gone elsewhere.

You know the rule "if it ain't broke...?" obviously harmony central forgot it...

[heem6]

Man, they've really shot themselves in the foot. It appears that the Reviews section is broken, the main site is harder to navigate, and ... who thought it would be a good idea to do a WHITE forum?

[nickwellings]

Yep! Terrible, really. Even the mods are saying it is a catastrophe. They probably did the "let's go with the cheapest guys!" thing and failed hard. About 80% of people have just vanished. 15 years of a fine old forum, with no real problems, gone in an instant.

+ worse, all those really handy reviews gone, as you said. I have bought guitars amps and pedals, on the basis of those reviews.

[heem6]

That used to be the first place I would check for reviews on guitars and gear. I mean, you had to read between the lines on a lot of the posts, but it was still a really valuable source of information. There's old reviews on HM's that you know will never get reposted.

One of my favorite reviews was one for an old Peavey Tracer. They were talking about the Kahler Spyder bridge on it, and I hope this was just a made up story, but they said, "My Tracer was in it's case in the back of the Bronco when we got into an accident and we rolled the SUV 8 times. My brother died in the accident. But when we opened up the case, the Kahler was still in tune!!"

Luckily, I saved A LOT of the Eddie Van Halen photoshops and stuff from the Funny /Fail /Owned Pictures threads in the Amp forum. Maybe I'll post some of them here occassionally.

This sucks. Same thing happened to the Lynch forum when he hired some yahoo to come in and redo it "professionally." It's never been the same.

[lbeast]

I guess my old posts about HMs is gone as well.

[heem6]

This is on their website:


Announcement: WE LISTENED: IMPORTANT NEWS REGARDING THE FUTURE OF HC

All of Harmony Central, including the highest levels of management, have assessed the situation with HC 2.0.

Everyone is in agreement that the site is broken and that the sentiments of the community are largely valid. Frankly, we are as disappointed as you are.

We assure you that the current situation will not continue. A contingency plan that responds directly to the requests of the community is almost complete, and will be put into place as soon as humanly possible.


Please stay tuned for further developments. We appreciate your patience during this extremely trying period. We are doing everything we can to deliver the Harmony Central you have come to expect.

Sincerely,

Your Harmony Central Team
by Anderton at Apr 15, 2010 5:22 PM

[nickwellings]

Hm! I wonder what they will do?

Will they revert back to a feel similar to HC 1.0? Damn big mistake to even attempt an upgrade. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The place is totally dead now, and everyone's left. It took 15 years to get the thousands of members and they killed it in 1 day.

That'll go into some internet do's and don't's book somewhere.

[heem6]

The Harmony Central website is down right now. I read a blurb on one of it's Google listings that said they were taking down the Jive Software/2.0 Interface that drove 30 - 50% of their traffic away. It was schedule to come down this morning at 3am.

Guess they didn't make sure their old website software was up and ready to go first.

You're right Nick - this will have to go down in internet history as one of the worst planned, worst conceived upgrades ever.

P.S. I think all the user reviews still exist and will be posted with whatever format they go to, El Beast.

[halo71]

HC much like UG, I visit very rarely. Nothing personal to the youngins, but UG is full of kiddies that promote nothing but Schecter and LTD guitars. And a lot of misinformation in general. And not that I have anything against Schecter geetars either! ;D

Wish I still had that '83 Schecter I once had! As well as the XXX and a few other Schec's I have had in more recent years.

[heem6]

Any suggestions on guitar forums that have as many people visiting them as Harmony Central?

[nickwellings]

HC had the most I think. A lot of people go to The Gear Page, but it has a reputation for "cork sniffery". Well deserved IMO. I know people did desert to some guy called Mark Wein's site (think that was his name)

You may like the site Dinosaur Rock Guitar. Big emphasis on 80s people and guitar heroes. And also Guitars101 (I think is the name) has a big bootleg section and a lot of users. Good forum.

I sure hope HC keep those reviews on file....I used them A LOT.

[heem6]

Thanks for the suggestions, Nick. I used to belong to Guitars101, I'll have to go back and check it out again - as well as Dinosaur Rock Guitar.

Yeah, man. We can't lose those reviews! By the way, here's a few Eddie Van Halen photoshop from HC: (Hope we don't lose that thread!)

[Bodaggit23]

Rofl at those pictures!~