Any recommendation for good Musician/Band web hosting companies?

[Rev2010]

Been using GoDaddy since 2009, had Earthlink prior but the monthly cost was silly so I'd switched. These days not really happy with them. They removed their webstats and the speed is quite slow. I can't seem to get over 500 kilobytes per second download testing in two different states over gigabit connections that pull down over 450mbps (ie. 5.6 megabytes per second). Apparently it's cause I'm on one of their older classic hosting services.

Anyhow, I've looked at many web hosts that are half of what I'm paying per month (currently $8.99 a month) but have been interested in sites geared towards musicians and bands - ie. mostly dynamic content that is easy to just simply upload or update and have it on one's page, such as adding new photo's or news. Up till now I've been modifying each page's html which can be a real pita at times.

I've seen Hostbaby which looks awesome for such a thing and also automatically is supposed to convert for mobile friendly viewing. I also have an album through CDBaby and CD's being pressed through Oasis so there's a short term free usage thing, but their monthly charge is a freaking whopping $20!!! Sorry, but that price is just nuts when I can do it myself for around $4 a month. They do offer a year upfront payment for a lesser price, but it's still like $16.50 a month.

Can anyone recommend a good musician friendly host at a reasonable price ($10 or under a month) that offers some pretty cool features for us musicians? Mostly concerned with fast load/quick download speeds and ability to easily upload content and have it added to the site without having to edit a bunch of HMTL. Thanks in advance!


Rev.

 

[Rev2010]

Huh, none of you guys have websites?


Rev.

 

[rahul_mukerji]

Hey Rev2010:

You have a few options, they provide a lot of the features you're looking for at a sub $10/month fee:

• BandZoogle
• SiteBuilder

I use Lunarpages for my hosting. They provide a lot of features [Joomla / Drupal / Wordpress ] for CMS and you can configure and install yourself. Their Tech Support has been helpful as well and I've had no issues with downtime or any such thing. Then again its not like I get much traffic.

My friend uses 1&1 Web Hosting and he's really happy. They are super cheap and provide bare bones hosting if you don't require many features.

If you go down the CMS route [ModX / Joomla / Drupal] then your updates and such are pretty seamlessly integrated and updated as Latest news on the pages. This takes away rewriting HTML and CSS from your end and makes things easier. You can also Schedule Updates as required and upload new pics, songs etc etc.

Alternatively, if your website is simple: you can use one of those and put up a responsive Free HTML5 page which will work on all devices [phones / tablets / desktops]. Then use a widget from CDBaby, Soundcloud or Reverbnation to provide the download / music.

Hope that helps !!

 

[Rev2010]

Hey one question Rahul... would using Wordpress make dynamic additions and changes to a site easier? I'm waaay outdated when it comes to web stuff, have been a Dreamweaver user but I see Wordpress all over the place now so I've been wondering. Thanks again!


Rev.

 

[rahul_mukerji]

Hi Rev2010:

It would certainly make it easier. Although what is easier for one person might be a pain for another person, some people prefer absolute control vs plug-n-play.

I would recommend that you watch the following videos to get a better understanding on how Wordpress might work for you. Since you've worked with DW, you shouldn't have much of an issue following the tutorial. There are a lot more tutorials that can help you step by step, but I chose this one since the tut actually builds a website from start to finish.

If you're going with Wordpress there are TONs of Themes for musicians you can use. Here are some examples:

• Wordpress Themes 1
• Wordpress Themes 2
• Wordpress Themes 3

There is also this video that shows the difference between CMS's.

 

[Rev2010]

Dude, you're awesome thank you soooooo much!!!


Rev.

 

[Alexander_Wiebe]

Check out Weebly.com its a good one.

 

[Rev2010]

Wow, maybe I'm an idiot but I'm reeeeally hating this WordPress crap. I actually find using old WYSIWYG editors and manually editing HTML code to be easier. It's like there are far too many components that need to be installed in WordPress for even simple functionality. I have to install a PageBuilder widget just to edit the home page? Haven't even figured out how to change colors, like the background for instance, yet, the option isn't anywhere I can find. One theme I tried had the theme settings missing so I had to switch to another. Man what a headache.


Rev.

 

[Alimination]

square space!

 

[AugmentedFourth]

As far as just hosting goes, Nearly Free Speech is pretty solid and very inexpensive, even with dynamic content. I found it relatively easy to manage the files uploaded.

 

[Rev2010]

As far as just hosting goes, Nearly Free Speech is pretty solid and very inexpensive, even with dynamic content. I found it relatively easy to manage the files uploaded.

I already did a hosting plan, just paid $7 for one month with Arvixe to get started building version 2 of my website. Version one is still live on GoDaddy and I don't want to interrupt it at all while doing the rebuild.

Man, I reeeeally despise Wordpress. Anyhow, what I'm basically looking for is something to make the site design and updating very easy. I want my own music player apps on the music page, a gallery app that opens a viewer window when clicked and has the back/forward arrow buttons (my current site loads a whole new page for each photo=lame), a vertical calendar/list that just lists any events we add in a straight row, a store page (currently have one and use PayPal buttons, happy with it), maybe a video page where I can embed Youtube videos (still not decided on the video page), then the about and contact pages. That's it really, not very complicated.


Rev.

 

[DareDevil]

Been using GoDaddy since 2009, had Earthlink prior but the monthly cost was silly so I'd switched. These days not really happy with them. They removed their webstats and the speed is quite slow. I can't seem to get over 500 kilobytes per second download testing in two different states over gigabit connections that pull down over 450mbps (ie. 5.6 megabytes per second). Apparently it's cause I'm on one of their older classic hosting services.

Anyhow, I've looked at many web hosts that are half of what I'm paying per month (currently $8.99 a month) but have been interested in sites geared towards musicians and bands - ie. mostly dynamic content that is easy to just simply upload or update and have it on one's page, such as adding new photo's or news. Up till now I've been modifying each page's html which can be a real pita at times.

I've seen Hostbaby which looks awesome for such a thing and also automatically is supposed to convert for mobile friendly viewing. I also have an album through CDBaby and CD's being pressed through Oasis so there's a short term free usage thing, but their monthly charge is a freaking whopping $20!!! Sorry, but that price is just nuts when I can do it myself for around $4 a month. They do offer a year upfront payment for a lesser price, but it's still like $16.50 a month.

Can anyone recommend a good musician friendly host at a reasonable price ($10 or under a month) that offers some pretty cool features for us musicians? Mostly concerned with fast load/quick download speeds and ability to easily upload content and have it added to the site without having to edit a bunch of HMTL. Thanks in advance!


Rev.

I personally have good experience with asphostportal.com for US hosting provider. And I also use hostforlife.eu for European market. You can host wordpress site with them. Wordpress is easy to customize and I believe it will suit for your band site.

Or you can try cloud service at orcsweb.

 

[coreysMonster]

Wow, maybe I'm an idiot but I'm reeeeally hating this WordPress crap. I actually find using old WYSIWYG editors and manually editing HTML code to be easier. It's like there are far too many components that need to be installed in WordPress for even simple functionality. I have to install a PageBuilder widget just to edit the home page? Haven't even figured out how to change colors, like the background for instance, yet, the option isn't anywhere I can find. One theme I tried had the theme settings missing so I had to switch to another. Man what a headache.


Rev.

The problem is that Wordpress only works with themes, which are a collection of php and css files in a folder in the Wordpress directory. If the author of a theme doesn't want to give you the option of controlling the colors, the only way you can do that is by manually changing the style.css in the theme's folder, which depending on the theme and what you want to change can take anywhere from 5 seconds to 5 hours.

I used to build Wordpress websites professionally and it's an incredibly powerful content management system once you get your theme set up and running the way you want it to, but getting to that point, if you can't find a theme that gives you what you want, requires a bit of programming knowledge.