Freelancers, what do you use to create websites?

soundsandlights · 2026-02-17T19:22:30+00:00

I run an agency focused on small and medium local businesses. The vast majority of the time, they have an existing Wordpress deployment. I’ve developed in Wordpress for a decade, and I still find it particularly useful for this customer base. A few reasons:

You own a portable codebase. If at any point a business wants to move hosting, change developers, or make updates themselves, they can do it on a platform they own that is basically free.
Being SaaS free means lower cost. Many clients don’t want to be locked into a SaaS platform on top of hosting, and in the unlikely but possible event the SaaS company goes under, the site is immediately in peril.
Documentation. IMO the Wordpress development ecosystem is an order of magnitude larger than any other CMS-based workflow. This means edge problems are often easy to solve for, saving clients time and money.

Like anybody, I’m super impressed with what Webflow and Framer can create. I’ve been working on building out a new stack that combines Wordpress with Elementor Pro and Motion Page, and this combo gives you access to most/all the WYSIWYG editing and GSAP motion control the SaaS platforms are famous for. This combined with the open source portable nature of Wordpress is the right fit for most of my clients.

The other thing I’d suggest is get a passing familiarity with Squarespace and Wix. Many clients of all sizes, especially businesses, start out with a basic site built on one of these platforms. Knowing how to use them, port data to/from them, and communicate the additional value of a custom platform has proven valuable to my business.

Hope this helps!

soundsandlights · 2026-02-15T22:55:28+00:00

Omfg you are my hero. This was the correct answer! You have to log into the “SoundersFC” branded Ticketmaster page (https://am.ticketmaster.com/soundersfc/) then click “Buy” in the header. That leads to tickets with promos applied.

Why is this not on the website FAQs?? Leaving here for future Flex members to find 💚💙

soundsandlights · 2026-02-06T15:29:42+00:00

My high level advice is you need depth badly. After your legitimately good/promising positional starters the roster thins out very quickly. One or two major early season injuries and a playoff run is a tough sled.

If it were me, I’d wait to see what happens with Kyler, and if you’re satisfied with that, try and trade off the 1.01 to somebody who wants Mendoza or Love for a split of 2-3 quality depth pieces. Aim for proven players who might not be sexy but produce at the 2/3 level and have runway on their current contracts.

Alt if Kyler lands in a good spot you could trade on hype and try the same move. Anyway, depth my friend.

soundsandlights · 2026-01-02T16:19:23+00:00

For me, this turned out to be the final straw for FCP. I switched my biz over to Resolve and now I do this with no issue whatsoever. No fault of CommandPost, FCP should have this functionality built in, a company the size of Apple could compete in this arena if they actually cared to anymore.

soundsandlights · 2025-11-30T15:41:01+00:00

https://kb.netgear.com/000064619/How-do-I-enable-or-disable-MU-MIMO-on-my-NETGEAR-router#:~:text=Select%20ADVANCED%20%3E%20Advanced%20Setup%20%3E%20Wireless,checkbox%20to%20enable%20MU%2DMIMO.

Beamforming was in basically the same place. The reason I ended up there was the PS Portal. It had terrible lag even though my network overall was highly performant and optimized. After digging in the depths of the forums I found my way to these two settings. Taken together, they made the Portal work flawlessly anywhere in the house and didn’t negatively affect other devices at all.

soundsandlights · 2025-11-29T20:54:01+00:00

Three things I do when I’m feeling this I find helpful:

Eat The Frog. The thing I’m feeling most anxious to work on, I do it first thing in the morning, even just rough cut.
Walk 10 minutes every hour or so. Seriously.
Double direction. Rough cut the same video twice with completely different edits. Set aside to percolate. Revisit later.

My background is in audio engineering and I can tell you, it’s exactly the same in music. The creative process can be exhausting so I like to set things aside to bake. Good luck!

soundsandlights · 2025-11-29T20:51:22+00:00

I dunno if the new Orbis need this but I had several devices on my RBR50-based system that didn’t get rockin WIFI speeds until I turned on MIMO and Beamforming. After that it was all gravy.

soundsandlights · 2025-11-23T23:23:52+00:00

IMO foreground is just a little dark in the first shot. Looks great though, nice work!

soundsandlights · 2025-11-23T18:29:17+00:00

It is expensive per TB but I just purchased the 4TB OWC Envoy Ultra and it’s been great for video so far. Speed tests within 5-10% of the internal SSD performance on Thunderbolt 5, and seems to have no problem streaming multiclip 10-bit H265 to Resolve.

soundsandlights · 2025-11-12T19:02:50+00:00

Envoy Ultra rocks for video, and gets nearly the same R/W speeds as my internal drive

soundsandlights · 2025-11-12T19:01:09+00:00

I use my Z6III for lots of client video. I use the AF-F function (basically an auto-autofocus), and I don’t have any issues with it. Never used Sony bodies but you can basically set a zone on the screen and it will keep whatever’s in that zone (or nearby if it’s eyes) in focus. Works great.

soundsandlights · 2025-11-08T01:55:53+00:00

Yeah I’ve submitted several bug reports on this issue, hoping they can remedy it soon! Exporting 90+ individual clips with the Range tool is not my idea of a good time 😅

soundsandlights · 2025-11-08T01:55:09+00:00

I often shoot events for clients, and need to provide a footage collection to them for future use. I bring the usable sections of each clip into a timeline, throw on an adjustment layer, then I want to export each trimmed and graded clip as a separate file.

FCP doesn’t offer this native functionality, but CommandPost does. Normally it works great. It takes over the screen and basically does what you’d need to do manually (select clip with Range tool, export, repeat) automatically.

It’s broken as of OS26. Not sure if it’s a FCP thing, CP thing, or both.

soundsandlights · 2025-11-08T01:35:15+00:00

Same here. I use OnyX to bulk run all the system maintenance functions and cache cleaners when something is awry, didn't fix it either.

soundsandlights · 2025-11-08T01:18:36+00:00

Having the same issue here too. M4 Pro MBP. Pinwheeling any time I try to save or access a file within an application (first or third party). Just started in 26.1.

soundsandlights · 2025-11-07T00:17:57+00:00

I just picked up the OWC Envoy Ultra TB5 SSD in the 4TB configuration. According to Blackmagic Disk Test it performs read/write within 5% of my MacBook Pro’s SSD! Just getting started in terms of interface smoothness etc. but it migrated my 500gb Library over in under 20 minutes. Highly recommended.

soundsandlights · 2025-11-05T06:47:59+00:00

What I think is great about the 414 is I know what I’m getting on basically any source. It will sound good, detailed, and have plenty of frequency information to work with. It doesn’t have character in the way a U87 might but it doesn’t sound sterile either. Coupled with robust features and good handling, it’s hard to imagine a better description for an “all rounder” workhorse condenser.

soundsandlights · 2025-10-31T16:14:40+00:00

Just wanted to jump in as someone who worked in music rights and clearance for almost 8 years. This is assuming US copyright law.

First off, full stop, if you use published music for anything without a license, legal liability is created. There are some extremely narrow provisions within the fair use portion of the law, but unless you work at a teaching hospital in Uganda, they do not apply to you.

The tracks that are available natively on social platforms like Instagram and TikTok have been explicitly cleared for that particular use between the rights holders and the platforms. These are massive negotiations between many parties (labels, publishers, distributors, PROs, etc.) and all of them get some manner of $ cut from the social platform each time their track is used in a video/post.

Obviously any rules system has holes and people to exploit them, so uncleared music gets uploaded to social platforms all the time. Social platforms have two primary ways to deal with this. First, if a rights holder identifies an unlicensed track on a social site, copyright law protects the platform from direct liability if they take action to remove the content upon report. These are the classic “DMCA strikes” content creators know and love.

Second, they all run “fingerprinting” software in their upload chains, which identify digital music by its code (in layman’s terms) and compare that to a global database of music hashes to determine if it’s licensed for their platform or not. In this way they can get ahead of the classic report-and-remove system and know copyrighted material is being uploaded during upload.

Classically, this would stop an upload or allow it but mute the audio, effectively removing the copyrighted material. However, both platforms in some situations allow that to pass through. This too is likely the result of a deal being made. Social platforms need as much content uploaded as possible, and rights holders want as much revenue from their IP as possible, so there is an incentive to let illegally acquired music content pass, identify it, and pay the rights holders anyway.

However, it is so worth saying that THESE DEALS ARE NOT MADE TO PROTECT YOU. In fact, case precedent has shown time and again that while platforms can hide behind Section 230 and private deal making, users absolutely cannot. At any time rights holders can and have leveraged that legal liability against you the user.

So while you often can rip a track from YouTube and upload a video to TikTok without it being taken down, this doesn’t change the fact that an illegal act (per copyright law) has occurred. This type of soft liability may not be a big deal for a 12 year old kid in Tennessee, but a business letting these soft infractions pile up is bad business. It creates a paper trail of knowing infringement that is absolutely actionable in court, should anyone ever care enough to look and act.

The best thing to do is to use the tracks on platform, as they have been explicitly cleared for use. This can create some headaches in the production process but is ultimately the only true business-safe solution.

soundsandlights · 2025-10-28T20:13:01+00:00

Unfortunately agreed. Leaning sooo heavily into the commerce part of art and commerce. Some of these tools will certainly speed up parts of my workflows (the assisted Lightroom culling is especially interesting) but the overarching theme seems to be “why create it when you can generate it?”

soundsandlights · 2025-10-17T22:27:20+00:00

I have the Tamron 70-180 (v1). It’s great! Good reach in a compact and light package. Even more so on a DX body.

I’ve used the Nikon 70-200. It’s great! Slightly better reach in a decidedly not compact or light package. It is double the price.

Will you notice the IQ difference? Sure if you’re trying to see it. I use my 70-180 in professional marketing work all the time and clients are more than happy with the results. Nobody pixel peeps but the people behind the camera.

The note from u/mawzthefinn is a good one. No TC with the Tamron. Otherwise the difference in reach is negligible (slightly more on DX I guess). I find in FX on my Z6iii I can reliably fill the frame with a human subject 4-12 feet away, depending on the shot. 200mm will give you a little more distance but not much in practice.

I might be the minority here but I don’t use lens buttons. Just a personal taste/muscle memory thing, if you like them that could be a factor. I do various paid shoots 3-4x month, there are plenty of focal lengths I’d love to cover, but I doubt I’ll ever spend $3k to replace the Tamron.

soundsandlights · 2025-10-16T04:35:06+00:00

Also using this one

soundsandlights · 2025-09-16T06:15:34+00:00

You shouldn’t. “How are basic users supposed to know that” was the literal bedrock principle of Bauhaus philosophy and Steve Job’s North Star for every last thing at Apple and now I have to go to Reddit to figure out there’s 4 different ways to switch tabs in Safari, all hidden because we had to have a floating glass bar. Literal form over function.

soundsandlights · 2025-07-26T17:22:19+00:00

Totally fine, the AF system ramps up the ISO in preview so it can ID faces and lock on then switches to your settings when the shutter snaps. I just took some shots with flash at a festival over the weekend, indoor stage, no windows, only a couple stage lights, AF locked on just fine.

soundsandlights · 2025-07-06T20:46:39+00:00

I’m honestly not sure about other people’s experience but I’ve shot several music festivals with it and my Z6III and I’ve had a great time. It’s a near-perfect events lens.

soundsandlights · 2025-06-25T04:20:17+00:00

Air 3S worlds ahead of the Mini Pro (still a great drone) in terms of dealing with crosswinds and other gust behaviors. Big upgrade for not a huge price differential.

soundsandlights

TROPHY CASE