My take on Harmony Central

[MrKnobs]

You know, all the hours I've put in here working as an unpaid moderator haven't been completely wasted. I've learned a few things from this ongoing debacle to take to my "real" life.

Most importantly, I've learned you can't buy vision.

Whether it's some 16 year old kid shredding out a "perfect" copy of a Dire Straits tune minus the feel, or Mitt Romney executing a leveraged buy out on some family started business (like Musician's Friend) only to pillage it and destroy it, or just some rich asshole buying a Monet painting and hanging it in his living room so he can appear "cultured," the best most of us can hope for is to remind people of true greatness. Apple is not the same without Jobs, Harmony Central is not the same without Scott Lehman.

Buying greatness does not make us great. If anything, it shows us for who we really are, a pale reflection of excellence, hackers and copycats at best.

And don't get me wrong, it's quite a dilemma, one without any good solution. If you purchase something amazing that a person with vision created, you have two bad choices. You can enshrine it, in which case it can never grow (and therefore will fade away with time), or you can touch it and put your own mark on it. History is replete with attempts to do the latter and almost all fail miserably.

I used to wonder why MF would buy this place, the most popular musician's website ever, then immediately begin to change it. But I think I get it now. It's as if someone who can't paint very well noticed the millions of people flocking to the Louvre in Paris to see the Mona Lisa every year, and thought, "Wow! I could get my art seen by millions!"

And indeed that does work, albeit for a very short time. People come, look at the amateur art, ask, "Um, yeah, where's the Mona?" And the curators / moderators just shake their heads sadly as each week fewer and fewer people come and wonder how the new owner can't see what's happening.

So here we are, in just that situation. No Mona, no tabs, no vibrant forums, a tattered assortment of perhaps 10% of the user reviews, all the things people once came for, gone. To add the final coup de grace, the owners appear to be saying that thing that my colleague researchers used to joke about: "What a fine university this would be without all these damn students milling about!" Except, they're not joking. They don't see the spirit of this place, they don't have the vision. If you tell them that, they tell you that you're wrong instead of telling you "thanks."

What a wonderful forum this will be when all the users have left, and it's just moderators and spambots, running smooth as a top on a single server. Right?

That's how I see it. Your comments welcome as always, at least by me.

Terry D.

[benjamin801]

Did you post that over there? I think it's nicely stated and well-thought out, yet still pretty brutal.

[MrKnobs]

Did you post that over there? I think it's nicely stated and well-thought out, yet still pretty brutal.

I did. We'll see what happens to me.

Terry D.

[sleewell]

well put Terry, you always seemed like a real smart and level headed guy.

honestly at the end of the day whether its HC, GAB or TGP it comes down to the people and not the forum. GAB is by far my favorite now because I have come to really know and connect with many people here and I get the most help with my questions and the lulz are great.

[benjamin801]

the lulz are great.

We've been here for three months and the CharvelDan photo thread stacks up favorably (top ten for sure) to anything I ever saw at HC...and I joined there in 2001.

[sleewell]

no doubt, then the avatar. the gif thread is great and so is the fail/win/lulz thread. funny bunch of dudes here that is for sure.

[GuitarBilly]

I agree with all this but need to add that I think it is the members that made HC great, more than Scott or anyone else.

What I've learned in the short period I've been hosting this forum is that my job is to run a stable software platform, set some limits of what's not allowed on the site (bullying, porn, scams etc) and get the hell out of the way.

What's that saying? "when I get in the way things run, it spells ruin"

Let the members run the show, they know what they're doing.

My 2c.

[benjamin801]

I agree with all this but need to add that I think it is the members that made HC great, more than Scott or anyone else.

What I've learned in the short period I've been hosting this forum is that my job is to run a stable software platform, set some limits of what's not allowed on the site (bullying, porn, scams etc) and get the hell out of the way.

What's that saying? "when I get in the way things run, it spells ruin"

Let the members run the show, they know what they're doing.

My 2c.

But please never stop breaking wall-o-text OPs into coherent paragraphs.

[GuitarBilly]

lol that was post was

It caught me early in the morning too.

[MrKnobs]

I agree with all this but need to add that I think it is the members that made HC great, more than Scott or anyone else.

What I've learned in the short period I've been hosting this forum is that my job is to run a stable software platform, set some limits of what's not allowed on the site (bullying, porn, scams etc) and get the hell out of the way.

What's that saying? "when I get in the way things run, it spells ruin"

Let the members run the show, they know what they're doing.

My 2c.

Spot on. The problem with the HC people is they keep trying to TELL us what we want, instead of ASKING and LISTENING.

Terry D.

[GuitarBilly]

Spot on. The problem with the HC people is they keep trying to TELL us what we want, instead of ASKING and LISTENING.

Terry D.

Just listening to users would've been fine. They didn't even have to ask. We made it easy and told them.

Bill...granted I'm in central Kentucky and you're out in Cali, but if I ever have the chance to buy you a beer, Imma gonna do it.

hmmm beer

[Dave]

The owners of musicians friend don't care. They ran up GC/MF's credit lines and cashed them out, so silly shit like a website makes no difference. Now, if hc had enough revenue to open credit lines then Bain may give half a shit.


However, they don't.

[benjamin801]

The owners of musicians friend don't care. They ran up GC/MF's credit lines and cashed them out, so silly shit like a website makes no difference. Now, if hc had enough revenue to open credit lines then Bain may give half a shit.


However, they don't.

My wife and I are currently watching The Sopranos from the beginning (me for the first time, her for the second). Your description ^^^ reminds me of the mafia "busting out" a puppet business.

[draelyc]

I agree with this thread. Pretty much everything in it seems spot on to me.

[nakedzen]

I think the taoist idea "nothing is eternal but change" applies here pretty well.

[marshallnoise]

I am failing to see why it even matters anymore. The mistake MF made was trying to take a flourishing independent community and turn them into customers. The concept of steering a community forum where grey market commerce was a real and active byproduct of the community (dare I say "the whole point?"), circumventing retailers intentionally to try to drive them to purchase inferior brand new 2nd tier equipment was the failure of MF.

MF wasn't interested in the forum, reviews or community; they saw a marketing opportunity. I don't hate MF for what they did to HC, but vision was NEVER a part of the decision to buy HC. That is where you are simply wrong Terry; you are trying to assign responsibility to MF based on what you saw HC as. You aren't the huge retailer looking to expand it's customer base.

GC bought MF in 1999. HC was sold to MF in 2005. Bain Capital bought GC/MF/HC in 2007. I don't understand why you brought Bain Capital into this. You act as if it was an intentional sabotage by Bain to end HC. More absurdly, you bring Mitt Romney into it as if he had any input into purchasing GC, MF and by extension HC. Just bizarre logic going on here.

What I don't understand either is you laying down at Scott Lehman's feet as if HE was everything HC. The community, as Bill has clearly observed, is who made HC what HC was, not Scott Lehman. Comparing Scott Lehman to Steve Jobs is a baseless comparison too since HC didn't have a "brand." Jobs sold the image of Apple, not computer/gadget based products. Scott Lehman was able to provide a place where a community of musicians could congregate in freedom. Scott Lehman was able to sell to MF a group of potential customers; nothing more, nothing less.

Terry, you spoke, but said nothing at the same time. Congratulations, you missed the forest for the trees.

[MrKnobs]

I am failing to see why it even matters anymore. The mistake MF made was trying to take a flourishing independent community and turn them into customers. The concept of steering a community forum where grey market commerce was a real and active byproduct of the community (dare I say "the whole point?"), circumventing retailers intentionally to try to drive them to purchase inferior brand new 2nd tier equipment was the failure of MF.

Your point might make some sense if it wasn't for the fact that MF kept the for sale forums and made no attempt to stop people from selling or soliciting. And no, it was not the whole point of HC as how did Lehman profit from people selling on the forums? Did he take a cut? No.

Also, forumites are not customers, they're the product. They produce the information and entertainment. They don't pay a cent to MF unless they buy something, and I can tell you that the HC forums don't come anywhere close to breaking even.

MF wasn't interested in the forum, reviews or community; they saw a marketing opportunity. I don't hate MF for what they did to HC, but vision was NEVER a part of the decision to buy HC. That is where you are simply wrong Terry; you are trying to assign responsibility to MF based on what you saw HC as. You aren't the huge retailer looking to expand it's customer base.

If they weren't interested in forums, why not shut the forums down when they bought HC? If MF friend wasn't interested in the reviews why link to them on the MF website? There's only one possible thing MF could have wanted from HC and that was the user base. They lost most of the user base in a series of bad decisions.

It's not what I wanted HC to be, it's clearly what most people wanted it to be as most of the people are gone. Lehman ran it, lots of people. MF ran it a different way, the people left. What could be more clear than that?

By the way, unlike you, I'm not guessing. I know the stated purpose of GC in buying HC. If they weren't still determined to get that, they'd just ditch it as a bad investment.

As for vision, you don't seem to understand anything I wrote. Lehman's vision is what made people come to HC. MF had a vision too when they bought it. Lehman's vision worked, MF's so far has not. Simple.

GC bought MF in 1999. HC was sold to MF in 2005. Bain Capital bought GC/MF/HC in 2007. I don't understand why you brought Bain Capital into this. You act as if it was an intentional sabotage by Bain to end HC. More absurdly, you bring Mitt Romney into it as if he had any input into purchasing GC, MF and by extension HC. Just bizarre logic going on here.

More like you misunderstood my entire point. Where did I say Bain intentionally sabotaged HC? Bain probably didn't and doesn't know HC exists. What Bain does is strip mine companies, leverage them to borrow money, then pay themselves the money and let the company collapse under the debt. I used them as an example of a company that doesn't care what the customer wants. Bain did exactly what I described to GC and GC, even though profitable, will likely collapse under the debt service Bain left them owing.

What I don't understand either is you laying down at Scott Lehman's feet as if HE was everything HC. The community, as Bill has clearly observed, is who made HC what HC was, not Scott Lehman. Comparing Scott Lehman to Steve Jobs is a baseless comparison too since HC didn't have a "brand." Jobs sold the image of Apple, not computer/gadget based products. Scott Lehman was able to provide a place where a community of musicians could congregate in freedom. Scott Lehman was able to sell to MF a group of potential customers; nothing more, nothing less.

So Scott Lehman had nothing to do with a huge group of musicians congregating together and discussing music? He built the place, quite a unique place for its time. The place is what attracted the people. Lehman made a series of choices in building, maintaining, evolving, and moderating HC that caused more people to join and HC to grow to the largest musician forum on the net. He had a vision of what musicians wanted, or at least recognized and respected what they wanted and gave it to them. They wanted tabs, reviews, and discussion forums. And, as you say they wanted to buy and sell musical gear from each other. He made it happen.

If you can't understand that, let's make it more plain. Lehman ran HC a certain way, it filled up with people. MF bought it, ran it a different way, and nearly all the people left. How a business is run has EVERYTHING to do with whether it's successful or not. Give the people what they want, they'll come in great numbers. Refuse them what they want, or try to tell them what to want, they'll leave. Simple as that.

As for Jobs, yeah, he was the icon for Apple, but he also decided what Apple would develop and sell, what people would buy. That's very important.

And every business has a "brand." You seem to be a marketing type that thinks the product makes no difference, it's the marketing that lets you sell ice to Eskimos and rocks as "pets." The product matters a lot. If people don't like your product, in a short time regardless of how brilliant your marketing is, you won't be moving product. People bought iPods because they were better than Walkmans. People bought iPhones because there was nothing else like them when they first came out. People came to Harmony Central because it was the best at what it did.

Terry, you spoke, but said nothing at the same time. Congratulations, you missed the forest for the trees.

You understood nothing that I said, that much is clear.

Terry D.

[marshallnoise]

I am failing to see why it even matters anymore. The mistake MF made was trying to take a flourishing independent community and turn them into customers. The concept of steering a community forum where grey market commerce was a real and active byproduct of the community (dare I say "the whole point?"), circumventing retailers intentionally to try to drive them to purchase inferior brand new 2nd tier equipment was the failure of MF.

Your point might make some sense if it wasn't for the fact that MF kept the for sale forums and made no attempt to stop people from selling or soliciting. And no, it was not the whole point of HC as how did Lehman profit from people selling on the forums? Did he take a cut? No.

Also, forumites are not customers, they're the product. They produce the information and entertainment. They don't pay a cent to MF unless they buy something, and I can tell you that the HC forums don't come anywhere close to breaking even.

MF wasn't interested in the forum, reviews or community; they saw a marketing opportunity. I don't hate MF for what they did to HC, but vision was NEVER a part of the decision to buy HC. That is where you are simply wrong Terry; you are trying to assign responsibility to MF based on what you saw HC as. You aren't the huge retailer looking to expand it's customer base.

If they weren't interested in forums, why not shut the forums down when they bought HC? If MF friend wasn't interested in the reviews why link to them on the MF website? There's only one possible thing MF could have wanted from HC and that was the user base. They lost most of the user base in a series of bad decisions.

It's not what I wanted HC to be, it's clearly what most people wanted it to be as most of the people are gone. Lehman ran it, lots of people. MF ran it a different way, the people left. What could be more clear than that?

By the way, unlike you, I'm not guessing. I know the stated purpose of GC in buying HC. If they weren't still determined to get that, they'd just ditch it as a bad investment.

As for vision, you don't seem to understand anything I wrote. Lehman's vision is what made people come to HC. MF had a vision too when they bought it. Lehman's vision worked, MF's so far has not. Simple.

GC bought MF in 1999. HC was sold to MF in 2005. Bain Capital bought GC/MF/HC in 2007. I don't understand why you brought Bain Capital into this. You act as if it was an intentional sabotage by Bain to end HC. More absurdly, you bring Mitt Romney into it as if he had any input into purchasing GC, MF and by extension HC. Just bizarre logic going on here.

More like you misunderstood my entire point. Where did I say Bain intentionally sabotaged HC? Bain probably didn't and doesn't know HC exists. What Bain does is strip mine companies, leverage them to borrow money, then pay themselves the money and let the company collapse under the debt. I used them as an example of a company that doesn't care what the customer wants. Bain did exactly what I described to GC and GC, even though profitable, will likely collapse under the debt service Bain left them owing.

What I don't understand either is you laying down at Scott Lehman's feet as if HE was everything HC. The community, as Bill has clearly observed, is who made HC what HC was, not Scott Lehman. Comparing Scott Lehman to Steve Jobs is a baseless comparison too since HC didn't have a "brand." Jobs sold the image of Apple, not computer/gadget based products. Scott Lehman was able to provide a place where a community of musicians could congregate in freedom. Scott Lehman was able to sell to MF a group of potential customers; nothing more, nothing less.

So Scott Lehman had nothing to do with a huge group of musicians congregating together and discussing music? He built the place, quite a unique place for its time. The place is what attracted the people. Lehman made a series of choices in building, maintaining, evolving, and moderating HC that caused more people to join and HC to grow to the largest musician forum on the net. He had a vision of what musicians wanted, or at least recognized and respected what they wanted and gave it to them. They wanted tabs, reviews, and discussion forums. And, as you say they wanted to buy and sell musical gear from each other. He made it happen.

If you can't understand that, let's make it more plain. Lehman ran HC a certain way, it filled up with people. MF bought it, ran it a different way, and nearly all the people left. How a business is run has EVERYTHING to do with whether it's successful or not. Give the people what they want, they'll come in great numbers. Refuse them what they want, or try to tell them what to want, they'll leave. Simple as that.

As for Jobs, yeah, he was the icon for Apple, but he also decided what Apple would develop and sell, what people would buy. That's very important.

And every business has a "brand." You seem to be a marketing type that thinks the product makes no difference, it's the marketing that lets you sell ice to Eskimos and rocks as "pets." The product matters a lot. If people don't like your product, in a short time regardless of how brilliant your marketing is, you won't be moving product. People bought iPods because they were better than Walkmans. People bought iPhones because there was nothing else like them when they first came out. People came to Harmony Central because it was the best at what it did.

Terry, you spoke, but said nothing at the same time. Congratulations, you missed the forest for the trees.

You understood nothing that I said, that much is clear.

Terry D.

Terry, HC was a "pure customer base purchase" for MF. MF didn't fook with the private selling going on in forums because if they had, it would have alienated their "bought customer base." They wanted to steer people to MF when they wanted to buy new gear. Simple as that. Forumites are potential customers...to MF. Get that yet?

Yes, MF wanted the user base...to steer them to buy from MF. Yes, they mismanaged the user base. No argument there. MF/GC didn't ditch HC because the members were still a "potential client." The user reviews supplemented their own user review section; it didn't replace it. Most HC reviews have been antiquated for a long time anyway. Best place to get reviews is from a retailer who can actually organize it properly. I think HC did a piss poor job of maintaining those user reviews as there was a lot of gibberish in it. But I digress.

Once again, Lehman's labor of love was played out by 2005 and a significant number of changes had already occurred. OLGA, which was wonderful, had already started dying due to a million other tab websites opening up. The user reviews disintegrated (in my opinion) and the forum was the only thing really humming along. The forum was a potential customer base for a big corporation because the client base was diverse and not pigeonholed like say mylespaul.com or some other specific topic based forum would be.

You are a political hack (some might say I am too, fine) for even describing Bain as a company that merely rapes companies that are in trouble then sells off what is left. GC was worthless when Bain stepped in and even Bain, who has a killer track record by the way, couldn't fix the business model that GC terminally fucked up in the years leading up to the purchase. If Bain wanted to rape GC and dissolve it, why wait 6 years? The debt had been there BEFORE Bain Capital took over. Go back and reread the reports. Hell, even Wikipedia has it right on the purchase of GC.

Scott Lehman created a place for people to congregate. Look at what Bill has learned in the short time here about how to run a successful forum. Build it, lightly moderate it, keep it quasi on topic and watch the freedom bring more and more people. The only vision Scott had was a global one. MF destroyed HC because of costs of running it and probably taking deals on cheaper forum software to make HC not look like a failed experiment to their BOD. Tabs at HC had long been in a downward spiral by 2005, reviews were being replaced by the forum itself and the only thing left was the discussion forums. That is why Scott Lehman sold when he did and he is a smart guy for doing it. MF bought a dying website, period. And the only thing they did was try to implement HC2.0 and yes, that was a massive failure. Now 3.0 is here and it has been mismanaged, again, that has driven people away. If the forum software stayed with what it was for ages, we would still be there. And you are a liar if you think anything different.

I fail to see the comparison of HC to Apple. Not even remotely in the same ball park.

HC was dying by the time Lehman sold to MF who essentially allowed tabs to disappear because they were anyway and continued to allow the reviews to be inconsequential because they had their own review database (yeah it was linked, so what?). The forum, a collection of free willed people died by shitty IT decisions, nothing more, nothing less.

[marshallnoise]

I guess the biggest thing to me is the glorification of HC when HC lost it's luster long before Bain Capital and MF. HC discussion forums died due to a series of IT failures in my eyes.

[MrKnobs]

I guess the biggest thing to me is the glorification of HC when HC lost it's luster long before Bain Capital and MF. HC discussion forums died due to a series of IT failures in my eyes.

The numbers (visits, hits, posts, threads, etc.) show otherwise. The decline of HC began after the magazine people took over, and then pretty much everyone hit the door after the HC2.0 JiveSoft fiasco, never to recover.

I think one thing you and I agree on is that MF had no chance to succeed with HC because the strength of HC (as you said) was independence. This is the same reason that a "pro" review has less weight than a bunch of user reviews. Even if MF really was hands off on HC (they weren't), even if Anderton was not influenced by the fact that manufacturers actually PAY for the pro reviews (how could he not be?) then there was still the taint of bias associated and it was no longer an independent musician forum.

I discussed this in the open forum with Anderton, I couldn't seem to make my point that this sort of thing is questionable in any business, it's called "conflict of interest."

So, we'll see. There are new bosses at HC, they're bright eyed and bushy tailed, optimistic for the future and all that. They certainly have a vision for HC but, like you, I think their vision will conflict with MF's vision and we all know which will prevail when that happens. Good luck to them, I miss the HC I joined in 2001.

As for Guitar Center, it's a $2B/year business that would be in great shape if it were not for the huge debt it carries as a result of the Bain acquisition in 2007. I guess I should say "Thanks, Bain!" as I held a pretty good chunk of common stock in GC that I received about a 25% premium on when they took over. However, principle counts over principal for me in this case and I believe the strip mining Bain does leaving their pockets fat and businesses in huge dept (often with layoffs and closings) is abominable and should be more heavily regulated.

Not sure what you mean by calling me a political hack but I'm pretty apolitical. I like keeping my blood pressure under 150.

There are better places than Wikipedia to get your info on financial matters :

http://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-r ... -PR_238972

Terry D.

[marshallnoise]

I guess the biggest thing to me is the glorification of HC when HC lost it's luster long before Bain Capital and MF. HC discussion forums died due to a series of IT failures in my eyes.

The numbers (visits, hits, posts, threads, etc.) show otherwise. The decline of HC began after the magazine people took over, and then pretty much everyone hit the door after the HC2.0 JiveSoft fiasco, never to recover.

I think one thing you and I agree on is that MF had no chance to succeed with HC because the strength of HC (as you said) was independence. This is the same reason that a "pro" review has less weight than a bunch of user reviews. Even if MF really was hands off on HC (they weren't), even if Anderton was not influenced by the fact that manufacturers actually PAY for the pro reviews (how could he not be?) then there was still the taint of bias associated and it was no longer an independent musician forum.

I discussed this in the open forum with Anderton, I couldn't seem to make my point that this sort of thing is questionable in any business, it's called "conflict of interest."

So, we'll see. There are new bosses at HC, they're bright eyed and bushy tailed, optimistic for the future and all that. They certainly have a vision for HC but, like you, I think their vision will conflict with MF's vision and we all know which will prevail when that happens. Good luck to them, I miss the HC I joined in 2001.

As for Guitar Center, it's a $2B/year business that would be in great shape if it were not for the huge debt it carries as a result of the Bain acquisition in 2007. I guess I should say "Thanks, Bain!" as I held a pretty good chunk of common stock in GC that I received about a 25% premium on when they took over. However, principle counts over principal for me in this case and I believe the strip mining Bain does leaving their pockets fat and businesses in huge dept (often with layoffs and closings) is abominable and should be more heavily regulated.

Not sure what you mean by calling me a political hack but I'm pretty apolitical. I like keeping my blood pressure under 150.

There are better places than Wikipedia to get your info on financial matters :

http://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-r ... -PR_238972

Terry D.

So again, an IT issue killed HC. HCs independence also didn't come from Anderton; they came from the people who participated in the forum. I too joined HC in 2001 and remember the "glory days" such as they were.

Bain bought GC and GC's assets PLUS existing debt of $1.67 billion for $2.1 billion. Shareholders were ecstatic and no one predicted the fall of the markets in 2008 -2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/ ... 2720070627

Right here is where you can see the balance sheet 6 months before the sale to Bain and then the 06/30/07 balance sheet after the sale. http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/ ... 9_110q.htm

They were heavily leveraged WAY before Bain came in.

The change from January 1, 2007 to March 31, 2007 in liabilities increased by a net of $17 million in just 3 months. http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/ ... 3_110q.htm

Then the change from March 31, 2007 to June 30, 2007 was an increase by $13 million more. What is worse is that all before the sale to Bain, their revolving line of credit (high interest crap) increased from January 1, 2007 to June 30, 2007 to the tune of $68 million dollars. Some of which was used to pay other current liabilities.

So what you have is a non-issue with Bain Capital coming in and "running GC into the ground." They had already done that just fine with out Bain's help.

The company was insolvent, period. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/acidtest.asp

(13,624 + 44,920)/387,489 = 0.15

Fail, fucking fail. The reality is that GC was not even remotely "in fine shape." If they were in fine shape, Bain wouldn't have had to come in and bail out stock holders. In hind sight, Bain has prolonged the inevitable and was the only opportunity they had to actually turn around. The economy tanked and that is the way the story ends.

I get you are emotionally tied into the HC thing, but it's time has come and gone.

[MrKnobs]

I get you are emotionally tied into the HC thing, but it's time has come and gone.

I'm not in the least emotionally tied to HC any more than I'm "emotionally tied" to, say, a favorite TV show. I used to enjoy the place, now I don't.

We could argue GC's financial condition for weeks and not agree. It's certainly more in debt than it was before Bain bought it out. Bain made a little money for me when they did that, so I'm not personally affected by it in any bad way, other than I'd really hate to see music stores become local again. I think a more killing blow for HC might come if they start enforcing sales tax on MF.

You keep saying it's the community that made the place. I thought the community was great too, but there has to be a place before there's a community, and the type of place greatly affects what sort of community shows up and stays. You need look no farther than the HC Political Forum to see the truth in that.

Again, whatever you point to as causes, the numbers tell the story. Decline after the magazine people took over, huge decline after the Jive fiasco, another huge decline after Lithium. The community didn't just suddenly get up and leave, they were frustated by things that happened and those things were the result of bad decisions made by GC people.

You seem to be a person that enjoys argument for the sake of argument, I'm not. So, please have the last word if you wish and good talking with you.

Terry D.

[Whatnow2012]

harmany central was good when it was the only thing like it around and when you wanted to learn how to install a pick up or fix your jack or do intonation and all that informatin wasnt as easy to come across in the earlier days if the internet first days it was all in one place and the forums got huge because musicians love to talk about music and music is kind of a lifelong love for many so the forum community thrive and mayne mymebr stay for a long time and posting for like 10 yrears but eventually u could find that information anywhere so hc was all about thr forums and lets face it the user reviews have always been a joke lol people talking about breaking in pedals and stuff lol but the software switch made mad the posters of the forums and they fixed it and then changed it again n half everyone lost thr username and the site looks terrible and there are lots of other music forums around so at one time hc was the only thing like it but now there is no point

[ComOp]

Harmony Central is gonna be huge like Attack Attack! and you'll all be sorry you left.

[GuitarBilly]

harmony central was good when it was the only thing like it around and when you wanted to learn how to install a pick up or fix your jack or do intonation and all that information wasn't as easy to come across in the earlier days

Yeah, despite your obvious disdain for grammar, paragraphs and the English language as a whole ( ) you do make a very good point.

Back when I started to visit HC (mid 90's) it was pretty much the only source for that type of information. Well maybe not the only one, but the other sites were extremely amateur, hard to navigate etc... HC was a one-stop shop for a lot of the information musicians needed.

Today, that definitely changed and there are a lot more options out there for discussions and tutorials.
And when it comes to user reviews, YouTube practically dominates that niche now. I can say for myself that today, whenever I want to find a review of an amp, guitar or pedal, I go to Youtube first before checking any guitar mags or sites. And normally there is a review there already so there is no need to go anywhere else.

So maybe HC as we know it was doomed regardless of what happened with GC/Bain etc... the fact of the matter is that there is no way to know for sure what would have happened to HC without GC, we can only speculate about the "what if's" but yes, there were several changes in social media and the internet in general that COULD have meant the death of HC as we know it, regardless of GC being involved.

Forums are still going strong everywhere though, so I guess we can blame the software changes for killing that part of the site, but the other parts, it's hard to know for sure.