Communication is key

[markus]

Well, I hope this is not taken as a rant. I still think the concept of this project is absolutely great. But I am a bit disappointed about the way this site communicates – or rather, does not communicate. Namely between the initiators and the users. What I write here can already be found in a similar way in some threads of this forum.

Library:
When or which instruments will appear in the library is not clear to me. There is no feedback if and when a submitted sound will be published. In a week, in one or three months? Or not at all? One doesn’t know.

Technical problems:
In the “website feedback” thread, the same problems are brought up, over and over again, and there is no discernible change, nor any visible exchange between users and admins. The same old error messages when writing a post or trying to edit one’s own profile eventually get on everyone’s nerves. The search for a contact option to draw attention to this is in vain: no contact person, no mail form, no e-mail address.

And I suspect that this (and perhaps other points) will lead to it becoming quieter and quieter here in the forum. That’s a pity, because the creative process also thrives on creative exchange.

Do I see this too narrowly? Am I too impatient? What do you think?

[avant5]

I have to agree with Markus’ concerns here. It’s a bit odd to me, because Christian is still producing Pianobook videos on Youtube, so from that perspective it looks like an active project. But when I come here to the site, it has a bit of a ghost town feel.

I’m finding a lot of posts on the forums about people having submitted updates and instruments but have heard nothing, some of them are almost a year old. I’ve been cross-checking some of those posts to the instruments, figuring that perhaps the instruments were updated but nobody bothered to update the forum post. But I’m finding the forum and the lack up updates on the instruments to be in sync with each other.

I have my own updates to submit, and have time to do a lot of conversions now, but I don’t want to waste the time putting activity into a dead project if my submissions will just sit idle for 12+ months and not be available for anyone to use.

[Peter H]

‘+1

yeah, IMO the great and many submissions shows that it the initial idea was well received and produced a lot of feedback, but the forum activities and the Pianobook administration is a little bit intransparent and not very responding.
Maybe Christian or the other Pianobook officials should invest a bit more time in Pianobook or make it somehow “open” to willing external people like us.

[guildorf]

Thanks much for the update video! It’s good to associate the person and the passion.
Site suggestions for the long run:
Have a counter for topic views, a good numeric indicator of interest in a given discussion, or at least, it’s title, among those who may not choose to post.

Implement a simple voluntary rating system, where submitters would mark a specific submission as open to a rating process. The Reaktor User Library and vst4free.com use a basic star rating, one through five. I typically weigh the uniqueness of a sampleset, instrument or plugin etc against the star rating, so might download something of interest rated on the low side, just because it was uncommon or unique. With things that are very common, I tend to stick to the fives, or rely on related author descriptions and user discussions for enlightenment.

Private messaging…a nice option

When websites grow, so does the cost in man-hours, site design, and hardware. It never gets easier, until the work load and costs can be distributed among competent helpers.

[Synthiemental]

Yes, particularly the forum and feedback / support part of the whole project seems to have been neglected a bit.

For example I have submitted SFZ mappings for various Pianobook instruments multiple times without ever receiving any feedback unfortunately.
Maybe it’s too difficult to keep up consistently with user inquiries in a non-profit project that has no professional Help Desk?

I have no worries that Pianobook is dead, it’s clearly alive as ever, with great libraries being released on a weekly basis. Maybe the people in charge simply need to set up a routine of regularly checking the forum and inquiries, eg setting aside one hour every week for this task. I understand that building and trying new sample libraries is more fun of course.

[Zachary Miller]

I agree with the progress on sample instruments. Especially for those of us who spent many hours on a library, it’s a bit stressful seeing if all your work will never see the world.

I’m looking forward to what the new site brings, however! I’m optimistic about it, but we’ll see how it turns out.

[D L]

Maybe someone could create a temporary website to upload these samples not getting responses, I hate to see so many possible instruments go to waste

[Author]

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