Improving the magazines...

Phil_aka_Pip

good question sir.

to a point its a matter of perception. A mag is a luxury product as much as it is a trade rag. It is also entertainment, most of the time I treat it as a relaxant.

print is much easier on the eyes than a crt or lcd screen, so reading longer stuff in print is preferable - for whatever reason I'm reading it.

I think I would read an online article written by a fellow forumite if I thought the person was writing with authority or at least honestly, about a topic that I was interested in. Perhaps also if there was the option to offer a comment. But for me, reading online means sitting up to a computer screen on a purpose-made computer desk, its not the sort of thing you do to relax with the cat sitting on you. So I might be restricting the content to which I was exposed on line, whereas in print I will often read the whole magazine (main interests first) but also taking in things about music or products that are of peripheral interest.

RocknRollDave

I get all this about "reviews prejudiced by advertising revenue" , of course I do, but there really is more to a review than "this is a good guitar/ this is a bad guitar".

I find it very useful to read things like "this is a great guitar for comping jazz chords, the neck pickup is warm and fruity... but it's not really designed for Bavarian Death Polka riffage"

OK so that's a deliberately exaggerated example, but you get the point - a review can be very positive and affirmative about a product whilst still warning those for whom the product is not suitable to give it a wide berth.

EricTheWeary

RocknRollDave said:

For me, it comes down to one thing: More words.

Simple as that, they need to make the interviews more in-depth. I'll sit at my PC all day watching youtube videos of product demos, or checking out the spec of a new piece of kit, but I won't sit and read page after page of an article. With a magazine, i'll put it down halfway through a piece and come back to it later. Of course, I can do that with a web-based article too...point being that I won't with an online piece, even though I can. I'll just distracted by something else on the net and forget to come back to the article I started.

We have had plenty of positive suggestions in the past, some even raised a thumbs up from Christ Vinnicombe. I'm not aware of any of them having made it into the mags. Generally I'm in agreement with Dave here - if all a magazine offers is internet style stuff put onto paper then what's the point. I want to see some actual journalism. I suspect that's just too expensive and risky a strategy now.

asimmd

I get really fed up when at the end of a review they say something like "Not as good as the competition" or "It's not bad but there are better out there,but they never say what the Better ones are,or who the competition is.

Shark_Eyes

Would this be a good time to mention that I'm a former journalist?

A list of guidelines, tone of voice and a dedicated sub or two to provide consistency would help significantly.

Phil_aka_Pip

Shark_Eyes said:

Would this be a good time to mention that I'm a former journalist?

A list of guidelines, tone of voice and a dedicated sub or two to provide consistency would help significantly.

I don't think you need to bring that sort of thing into a clean & healthy thread

Rocker

Do you believe reviews?  Quite frankly I don't.  But I would consider checking out a reviewed piece of kit if it was independently reviewed by (say) three people.  Even if the reviews clashed, at least it shows that each reviewer is honest and saying what he/she thinks of the kit.

dampoldman

Shark_Eyes;265160" said:

Would this be a good time to mention that I'm a former journalist?

Me too buddy - local newspaper for my sins....

xSkarloey

asimmd said:

I get really fed up when at the end of a review they say something like "Not as good as the competition" or "It's not bad but there are better out there,but they never say what the Better ones are,or who the competition is.

I've quoted this before on the FB, but the absolute nadir of this kind of reviewing was a review for a standard-spec Tele which, under the cons section of the roundup, said (and I kid you not) "look elsewhere if you want a guitar with a wang bar". 

I mean it's a Tele. Is that the very best this jackass could come up with???????

TTony

dampoldman said:

Steadhock said:

 If the powers that be behind the Fretboard decide to take things to the next level, then it'd probably be a good idea to sound people out and see who would be on board to contribute and how reliably they would be able to do so. I'd certainly be interested in finding out more to help out and have a fair bit of experience behind me!

Me too. I don't know who the 'powers that be' are on this forum but I would be keen to be involved with something like this. 

@dampoldman @steadhock

As 1/3rd of the "powers that be", it's something that we've discussed informally, and (tbh) with no great urgency, amongst ourselves.

I'd be interested in your thoughts, either in this thread or via PM.

We do want to do a "real life" review section.  By "real life", I mean people reviewing stuff that they've had and have used for a decent length of time (6mths+).  We'd need some editorial oversight to ensure a reasonably consistent structure, language, scope (etc), and probably some decent pics too.  Ideally we'd link it into our YT and SoundCloud channels, so that the reviews could be multimedia, but that makes the editing a little more difficult.

That could cover Guitars, FX & Amps.

I think a series of "how to" articles, for modding, set-ups, builds, repairs (etc), again with some sort of editorial consistency oversight.

I'd also like to see "visit reports" on the more out-of-the-way shops.  Trouble there is keeping local bias out of the report, as I'd have thought that the visitor is likely to be local than not.

I'm very open to more ideas of what we could do - and even more interested in suggestions of "how" we could make it work.

sunshinewelly

Surely these are all going the way of the dodo.

I occasionally glance at a copy at the supermarket but it's the same crap every time. A good forum like this one is much better5.

Also all tge reviews appear on music radar anyway

xSkarloey

@TTtony Good to hear you're thinking along these lines. 

I'd be up for contributing to things in that vein. I think there's scope for 'features' type stuff as well if people were inclined. E.G. the thread going on at the moment on the beginners' guide to getting LP's by a certain artist, some of those posts could easily be worked up as a labour of love into a nice little article. 

DrJazzTap

I'd rather continue to use this forum tbh. You get unbiased, educated and informed opinions about gear by people who actually use it. Interviews are tricky though, but simply not enough variety is given. It's just rinse and repeat. Premier guitar Rigrundowns are great.
I think the best avenue to explore (imho) would be an online channel that provides nothing but quality interviews with players and notable manufacturers. Demos can be dealt with by the myriad of other youtube channels.

Iamnobody

FelineGuitars;265048" said:

Sadly I've never felt able to offer a guitar for review in Guitarist as they are deemed too derivative of classic designs and Dave Burrluck has a no copies rule. Sad as I suspect they'd be really well recieved and years ago Sid Poole did create a stir with his versions of classic guitars.

Really?

I'm sure I've seen Peavey Tele style guitars and ESP LP alikes in there.

TTony

FelineGuitars said:

Sadly I've never felt able to offer a guitar for review in Guitarist as they are deemed too derivative of classic designs and Dave Burrluck has a no copies rule. Sad as I suspect they'd be really well recieved and years ago Sid Poole did create a stir with his versions of classic guitars.

One of my personal hopes for this forum is that we can do more to raise the profile of our UK builders & businesses.

Perhaps ...

We get a few of our more esteemed members together in a room, with a review guitar from one of those business builders.  And an amp or two (probably brought by the members).  Perhaps the builder hosts the event, to save the risk of expensive guitars parcelfarcing their way around the country.  

Then video them playing and discussing the guitar for an hour or two, then edit that down to a more web-friendly 10-15 mins.  Through time, we could build up quite a range of these discussion-demo-reviews, done by "real" people.

Would that be a goer?

dindude

^ the problem with the above is that it could just as easily become compromised. Who would seriously want to write negatively about one of the small builders on here? It could just become a back-slapping contest.

I think the Car magazines have the best balance, quite often you'll see a 2-star review of a Car saying how ugly and pointless it is, yet the manufacturer still will be taking up several full pages of adverts.

TTony

True, it could be compromised, but then that risk applies to any review in one way or another.

Having a few people in the room would at least encourage discussion, and maybe dissension, rather than just pure lust/love.  But it would depend on who got involved.  I'd hope that we'd maybe get a "pool" of perhaps 20 or so of our more respected members, and each review involves 4-6 of them, depending on who's available (etc).

Roland

The advantage of this forum is that we can get reviews of stuff that one of us is thinking of buying, rather what the supplier wants to sell that month. The "on demand" element is very important, and keeps it fresh, relevant, and timely

Jetfire

Id be up for helping out. Doing regular reviews on videos. Why not have one metaler, one bluser, one jazzer review each bit of kit..

Jetfire

Well... Maybe not arch jazz guitars riffing out sabbath tunes