At the very least having the audio clips people post be linkable to cab pack description page would be useful. Part of the issue I face is that people ask me for clips when I have already posted as many as some other cab packs have, but people seem to have difficulty finding them.
Problem with anything linked is that once the hosted content changes/is removed, then you have links going to nothing. I think a better solution would to have the content hosted on the Fractal site, though then an issue arises of if just any end user could upload sound files ? Don't want the user "review" to turn into people just trying to feature their music etc.
I think what could work very well, and prove very useful, would be having one set of "reference" audio clips that are used on some representative samples from each cab pack.
Have one clip with something like a clean Fender type tone with a strat playing a given riff, and you can hear how the different cab packs sounds differ. Have one clip with a dirty amp and a LP, etc etc.
If one reference set of audio tracks is used it would make it fairly easy to take a listen to any new packs that come out and get an idea of how they sound and directly compare them to previous cab packs. It would remove as many variables as possible from the equation, since we'd have same riffs, same player, same guitars, same amps, only thing that would change is the IR loaded for each clip.
"Problem" currently with user clips is that someone posts some clips for a given style of music that sound good but we can't compare that to a different cab pack, because the clips from a different user, who's got a different guitar, amp, pickups etc also sound good, but obviously different. Too many variables. Leaves the question of if the one cab pack sounds "better" than the other because of the guitar, amp choice, playing ability and such, or if it comes down to just the IR. Makes sense right ?
I don't want to hear just the differences in the mic choices in Cab Pack 7, I'd want the ability to say "okay, those tones sound good, but let's hear those riffs played using Cab Pack 8 and Cab Pack 16 as well"
In some instances I'm sure the results could sound "bad". Maybe a given Cab Pack doesn't work too well for a certain style of music, but, that actually would be a GOOD THING, because its still a result, and can help with making a choice.
I know that when I make a decision I don't always try to find just the options I like, instead, I often try to find the ones I don't like and cross them off the list. Working backwards to finding what I should buy to suit my needs essentially. This is exactly how I audition IR's I purchase. I set up the looper and play a given style of music and go through a folder, taking out the ones I really don't like right off the bat, then narrow down the choices I do like to a few favorites for a given style. Then I am left with a smaller folder of "go to" IR choices for a given style of music, say an edge of break-up lead tone. I don't want to have 2000 IR's to have to select from every time I make a new patch. I want a folder of say, 10 different ones.
By using the same set of reference clips, it would simply present the tones as they are. It wouldn't be an issue of trying to select a certain style of music, amp, guitarist etc to "market" that cab pack, it would simply be impartially presented the product on equal footing with all the other products.
