Help Bart to go to NAMM

[univalve]

http://teespring.com/EffectsDatabase

[bRad]

I bought mine!

[univalve]

Awesome!
Me too

[jrmy]

Awesome! Also, Teespring (the company he's doing it through) is based outta Providence. I know a buncha those guys. Will have to get a shirt....

[dubkitty]

sure...just as soon as he's willing to pay for my vacation in the Low Countries to collect information for a website with paid ads all over it.

[excane]

Done.

Bart's a standup dude.

[univalve]

Done.

Bart's a standup dude.

Yeah, Met him this Year at musikmesse in Frankfurt. Had a Beer together and a good conversation. I appreciate his work and he gives us Pedal addicts pretty good first Hand Info and footage. So nothing wrong for me with supporting him and getting a Shirt with the fuzzmonster

[Glenouille]

Done.

Bart's a standup dude.

Yeah, Met him this Year at musikmesse in Frankfurt. Had a Beer together and a good conversation. I appreciate his work and he gives us Pedal addicts pretty good first Hand Info and footage. So nothing wrong for me with supporting him and getting a Shirt with the fuzzmonster

I do agree so I bought number 50.

[goroth]

I'm in.

[DiscoFreq]

Hey Univalve, thanks for sharing!!!

And thanks to the others for buying shirts

sure...just as soon as he's willing to pay for my vacation in the Low Countries to collect information for a website with paid ads all over it.

I hope you're joking, but the part about the ads makes me think you're just bitter and envious...

So here we go again:

Ads
I work on this site for 10 years and spend most of my spare time on it, the first years without any ads at all, but the costs have risen a lot since (over 200 euro a month now!). I also buy a lot of old documentation that is (or will be) online for free and have some interesting plans, some of which cost money too.
Most of those ads are not just copied from some advertiser (as 99% of sites do), but a system I made myself that really shows the most interesting related stuff first and which helped me and a lot of others do a lot of good deals (before and after I made that system public). From time to time I get mails from people thanking me for that, for ads! How often does that happen?
It's not one of those blogs posting articles full of links to Amazon / Musician's Friend / ... all the time, there's only news/reviews/interviews on the frontpage and you have to browse (or google) the site to go to what YOU want (or you wouldn't arrive on any of the pedal pages).

Do you pay for any newspapers or magazines? I bet there's a much higher percentage of the pages covered with ads than on my site (especially in US/UK magazines) and reporters (of related magazines) are paid to go to NAMM (probably even their beer is paid for).


Shirts
The logo was designed by David Medel who also works for Fu Manchu, Catalinbread, Earthquaker Devices. People have been asking for shirts with that logo for months, but I was afraid there would be less time for the site if I had to sell T-shirts.
People who bought one (voluntary!) include Mike Matthews (!!!) from Electro-Harmonix, Jim Roth from Built to spill, Rebecca Dirks from Premier Guitar (she bought 2), Blake & Holly from Gearphoria, several pedal builders and brand owners (including Brad ),... (they told me, I can't see their names in Teespring).

You don't have to buy it and it's not like you're just sending money to me (a few people offered to do that but I refused). You get a cool shirt (you can just buy it because of that) and you'll see cool people wear it (when the campaign is over).


"Vacation"
I only have 20 days of paid leave a year (the legal minimum here) and taking unpaid leave is not obvious at all (though I hope I can). I take 5 days off for NAMM and 3 for Frankfurt (as I do every year) while I also have a girlfriend and a son (his first birthday was 3 days ago) and like to spend time (and vacation) with them as well.
I'll arrive in LA on Wednesday afternoon and will go to the show all 4 days and update the site in the evening (or night) until I have to leave to catch my plane on Sunday evening.
It costs me close to $1500 for hotel and flights only and I don't expect to sell enough T-shirts to cover all that. In 2011 I went to NAMM as well and paid it all myself, but the site costs are much higher now (as mentioned before) while the ads are doing really bad (since May 2011) and since I have a son now, I can't just use a lot of my own money for this anymore.

So yes, it's totally scandalous I'll enjoy doing all this, have dinner/beers/fun with nice people, talk to longtime friends and acquaintances (good translation?) or sleep in a hotel while people paid for a T-shirt.


Why me?
As I said before, I work on EffectsDatabase (first DiscoFreq's Filter Site and DiscoFreq's FX Site) since 2003, there are over 2000 brands listed (and hundreds of smaller brands in the queue) and I know most of the products and a lot of the people behind those brands.
I usually know what's new and I see much more new pedals and pedal brands than others (because I only look for pedals) including very small booths (or shared booths), booths with cheap/Chinese/OEM pedals, non-pedal booths with a pedal in a corner,...



If you create a site that interests me and sell a cool shirt, maybe I'll buy it, it's that simple.

[jrmy]

Hey, I bought one! Excellent shirts, and I've certainly gotten the scoop on plenty of great gear from EffectsDatabase. And the shirt design is totally killer.

Also, congrats on your son's first birthday!

[dubkitty]

ooh, somebody's a little defensive.

[hollowhero]

Bought one today. Love the site and the design

[goroth]

I think the t-shirt crowd funding concept is actually pretty reasonable. I get a sweet t-shirt from a brand/company/person/whatever that I like, at a decent price and I know where the profits are going. Seems win win for me.

[jrmy]

My shirt arrived today! Looks killer - the graphic is HUGE! I'll have to post a pic later on...