Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
That was heartfelt! ?
Indeed it was =] The thing is that I have no interest in them necessarily being a pro muso mag, that would be economically risky, but quite often I wish that their articles covered more in depth things. They are the best out of all the tabloid guitar mags though - by tabloid I mean the ones that focus on gear and what's happening in some famous person's life rather than music.
Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
I like Guitarist . I find their reviews are generally on the money and their music tech articles are accurate. They cater less for playing technique anyway - I suspect the British market is more about songs and tone than advanced musicianship. Their lack of a competent shredder is no skin off my nose (I couldn't be a shredder if I tried or actually even practiced).
Agreed! the thing that gets to me though is that they never do anything too in depth, if they could maybe do a 15 minute review on the Axe-FX Ultra and go through all of it's various features etc with demo footage and patches that aren't stock that'd be nice, they did a 15 minute thing for the G-dec so yet again catering for noobs ? Not that there's anything wrong with the G-Dec, they're a great concept and a great practice amp but things tend to lean more towards the entry level stuff.
As for the shredder thing I get where you're coming from, but their sister publication had Guthrie Govan FFS! and there are about a million bedroom shredders who could do a better job - I mean really we are practically a dime a dozen these days ?
Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
Agreed Bradley shouldn't be demoing gear - he reminds me of certain salespeople with lots of knowledge but no real skill. He's a decent reviewer though... To be honest, when looking at gear, I'd rather have that than the other way around: a skilled player with no product knowledge.
I totally agree with you here, but come on surely they can get a reviewer who's just as thorough but can actually bring out the guitars character properly, like Mick Taylor ?
Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
I usually avoid the GW reviewers as they are too one dimensional, interested in only one aspect/sound of everything they review: distortion (they remind me of the Harmony Central amp forum "Br00tal d00d" stereotype). But once again, I suppose that caters for their main market.
Yeah Guitar World is awful, they did a review of the Axe-FX Ultra that made it sound like a Zoom 505. All just preset patches from the unit with terrible sound quality recording, just a terrible example of it's abilities. Distortion is the most metalz thing about guitar and metalz is BROOTAL yah! seriously though it is pretty naf, almost as naf as the fact that most of these guys play in the kind of bands that use words like Brootal to describe their sound but don't understand the concept of dynamics and therefore lose all of their brootality ? Harmony Central isn't so bad all the time but if you do search for reviews of something like the RG2228 then yes you get a ton of "BROOTAL" dudes all the time. Sadly I think it'll be a while before people who aren't necessarily metal musicians see the advantages of 8-strings.
chris77 wrote:
Ja, I also like Guitarist. Mainly for the pretty pictures ? I get the point about having a reviewer who can get the most out of the gear he's reviewing though. Top Gear would be boring as hell if they only talked about the cars and drove them in around town a bit. You need somebody like Clarkson and the Stig to get the point across. Same with gear. Should be horses for courses imo.
How cool would it be if there were a show called Top Fret with quirky brits doing completely useless tests on guitars, "Today we will discover if the RG2228 is worth the money by seeing if it can be used as a surf board/ironing board". That could be uber cool.
One of my biggest peeves about these magazines is that these days if they do a guitar or amp review they use non-standard equipment. It's really nice that there are a whole bunch of cool new amp brands but for reviews of guitars they should stick to sounds that the public is familiar with, hearing a strat through a matchless means nothing to me cause I've never played a Matchless and I don't know how they differ from the more recognised brands like Fender, Mesa, Marshall, Vox etc likewise if they have something like a Matchless to review then they should use a Gibson, Fender, PRS, Ibanez etc and not something exotic like a Manne, Vigier, Godin etc. I'm not saying that the other stuff isn't good or whatever but readers need a more familiar point of reference.
