How do you take a good thing and make it better?  You add cupholders to it of course!  Yes, it's obnoxious, but it is without a doubt a Dude Thing!  Feast your eyes:



The holders are big enough to accommodate just about any beverage container plus a koozie.  For 12 ounce cans, there's a slot in the middle to keep them centered.  This is now an option that you can add to your shopping cart.  $10 buys you 4 cupholders.

David McClam just posted a review of our stand on the RockBand.com forums.  If you've come here as a jump from that article, welcome!  I want to be clear up front that the price he was quoting in the review was $60 for the guitar stand, but it's actually $55.

If you'd like to read the review, you're out of luck because he only does video reviews.  If you want to watch the video reviews and join the conversation, here's the link.  EDIT:  Rockband.com has since removed the capacity for HTML posts in the forums, so the video review has been moved to http://www.rockgamer.com/cena/.  Enjoy!

So we agreed to send a stand to David McClam, a guy who writes product reviews on the forums at RockBand.com, and he mentioned that he would be reviewing it.  Just the mention spiked traffic at this site, so we're very excited about what will happen when the actual product review is posted.

We're taking the time now to build up our inventory so we can meet what we think will be a huge spike in demand.  We're also working on a new option for the Guitar Stand, but more on that in the next couple of days.

The Drum Stand has been a challenge.  We've learned it's much more difficult to build a 3 dimensional piece than it is to build a piece out from a center point, like with the Guitar Stand.  There have been two huge lessons we've learned:  

1) If we want consistent, repeatable quality, we can't cut the Drum Stand pieces by hand - we're going to have to buy a machine to cut it.  We've already identified the machine we want, and are spending several thousand dollars on it.  Then we'll learn all the ins and outs of how the machine works - so it may be closer to the end of June before we can comfortably say we're ready to ship anything.

2) Plywood may not be the right material for the drum stand - we're experimenting with high density MDF.  Don't worry, this is WAY better than Ikea particle board - it's the same material that premium speakers are made from.  We've got to do a number of tests on it to strike the right balance between strength, thickness and weight - which contributes to shipping cost.

The moral of the story is - this is why we haven't taken any deposits on the Drum Stand - we don't want to take money if we don't have a very clear path to completion.

One of the critiques that we had in the Gizmodo article about the Guitar Stand was that the center post on the Guitar Stand was round, and that made it difficult to screw the screws in straight.  So we went back to the drawing board to see what we could come up with.

Before, we were using a 1 1/4 inch wooden dowel to serve as the center post.  We experimented with a number of alternatives, but finally settled on taking a wooden stud (the same kind that houses are made from) and cutting it down to the correct size.  We then round off the corners so it's pleasing to the touch, and paint it.  So now each post has 4 flat sides into which the screws are screwed, removing the problem all together.

As an added bonus, the wood we're using is far more sturdy than the dowel we were using before, and while it takes a little longer for us to cut and prep it, we're way more satisfied with the result.

We got to talking with one of our coworkers recently about some wooden products that he makes and sells.  After having lunch and kicking around some ideas, we're proud to be the exclusive online retailer for his products.  We're standing up a new section of the side, "Little Dudes" for products aimed at dudes under the age of 12. 

Charles is a gifted woodworker who has been crafting some pretty impressive pieces for the past couple of decades.  Over the next few weeks, you'll see more and more of his products in the Little Dudes section.  We hope you're as impressed as we are with his work!

We built another drum stand prototype this weekend out of better wood and with a new set of drawings.  We learned a few things, both positive and negative:

Positive:  The stand looks really great!

Negative:  Putting this thing together with screws and L-brackets isn't going to be a good long-term solution, since we're not in the business of pissing off our customers.  For that reason, we've ordered some dowels and cams to use in construction of the next prototype.  Assuming all goes well with that, we'll be rolling out production models by June.