guitar/pedal/amp reviews. redundant? who/what is credible?

[blues2death]

i chose to start this thread, not because i am sick and tired of reviews in fact reviews done here and in other forums are:

--entertaining
--nakaka-intriga
--great to pass the time

and last but certainly not the least:

--informative..very informative.

what should a review be?

first of all as a guitarist and consumer of gear that i think would be important to me as an artist/musician, i wanna know if what i'm getting is worth the top dollar that i am spending for.

we check reviews from the gear page, musiciansfriend, harmony central and philmusic among other sites. they have soundclips to let us here what the gear sounds like in action.

soundclips are a very good alternative to actually being 'there' when the soundclip is being made.

we also check if the guy/gal doing the testing is a credible tester.

what makes a good guitar gear tester?

how long he has been playing guitar. does he/she professionally? does he own the gear that's being tested? has he had experience with other versions of the gear that is being tested?

let's go back to...how good at playing the guitar the tester is. any gear, if it's decent enough is gonna sound good if not better at the hands of the seasoned pro.

that's a fact. does that help the review? well, it shows the maximum potential of the piece of gear being tested. when you buy the gear and don't like it....don't blame the company dude....you're not just good enough to use the piece of s%^%t gear..

actually forumite, don't mind the last sentence because that is not what i meant.kung hindi bagay sayo ang gitarang yun, bakit mo pipilitin?


example...i have been playing strats for 18 yrs. strat-types,strat copies and the original thing. i recently acquired a PRS mccarty from stratman. i liked it---i thought i wanted it coz i have been wanting a PRS for the longest time.

i traded it sa GC for a US strat.

might seemed like a bad deal coz, PRS na yun dammit! but sa tenga ko, nasanay ako sobra sa strat.

note: stratman owns numerous a lot of guitars not just strats....so hindi sya tutoong stratman rondalla rockstar is.

but having said that before i totally get OT:

the reviewer has to be non biased....wether he likes the gear being tested or not.

it doesn't matter if he has enough money to buy it...or if he actually owns it. the price of the gear is not important here...only later..

what is important is the sound the gear makes...will it take you to the next level of musicianship? madagdagan ba ang juitsu mo(naruto)

will it make you sound better??!!??

[blues2death]

i like reviews done in the cd rom that's included in Guitar World magazine.

whatever his name is, the guy doing the testing is very good and even if he probably doesn't own every single piece of gear known to man he is still very informative of the gear's company history, different tonal possibilities of the gear,etc.

plus, he shows good command of the instrument....this is not a disadvantage for the gear as it shows the stompbox,guitar, amp's true potential.

note:

if you play like sh&^%&^ on decent gear and you upgrade from a combo to a halfstack.....that will only make your sh^%$t louder.....same with a zendrive, tubedriver, bad monkey,rj, diezel, dumble.....

if you play like sh&^%&^t through a dumble, it will only make your ^%$ prettier...but it's still sh*&^*&t!

  is that why we don't hear soundclips from......?

you be the judge

[tackielarla]

Si Paul? Yung look-alike ni Michael J. Fox?

[blues2death]

Si Paul? Yung look-alike ni Michael J. Fox?

anong ibig mong sabihin mo bro? dko gets

[tackielarla]

The Guitar World mag reviewer.

[blues2death]

oh yeah...MJF look alike nga sya no?

seriously, i think he is a credible reviewer. even if scripted ang ginagawa nya....he explores the potential of the gear he is reviewing...wether it is boutique or not.

[skunkyfunk]

Panggulo:  What if that 'seasoned pro' is tone deaf, or is a corporate tool who wants to make 'reviews'?  Ever wondered why Washburn's guitar sales increased while Dimebag was endorsing? 

[tapslore]

disclaimer: opinion lang 

i've done my share of looking for reviews on the net regarding stuff i plan to buy, and imho nothing beats looking at personal review sites like harmony central.  you know, the ones that let anyone who's touched the gear for two minutes post their opinions on the site, whether it's a tone snob who only swears by diezel gear or a noob who wants to sound like metallica using a strat copy and a peavey blazer.

most of the reviews are infuriating, but the cool thing is there's a WHOLE lot of them, with all sorts of viewpoints.  i can ignore the snobs and the noobs and look for the guys in my situation (guitar hobbyist w/ middle of the road budget, does home recording, with rare gigs every now and then... sana).

i guess what i'm trying to say is there's a million reviews that can be generated from one piece of gear, and a pro or con review will depend on the person's temperament, style, genre, experience, cash flow and so on.  everyone has a personal bias; a review will always feel right for the reviewer, but it might not be right for you.  so the important thing is to find a reviewer with the same general needs and expectations as you, so that you can trust their conclusions.

in short, it's not about credibility, it's about similarity in outlook and situation.

[greatwolf]

I don't think they're redundant...At the end of the day, they just serve as a guide. If you don't like the review, will that stop you from buying the piece of gear that you've always wanted and can afford? I don't think so. I believe the reason why we're looking for reviews is to find out more about the product without the marketing fluff and to help us decide wether we should buy it or not.

And yeah, I see where this thread is headed.