What makes a good guitar review ?

Andy Eagle

Andy Eagle

Fractal Fanatic
IMO
And that's the only time I will be stating an opinion .
A good review should provide you with facts, specks and sound clips done on familiar sounding equipment together with some sample control tones.
It should show the good AND the bad .
The reviewer should know exactly what they are looking at and describe it.
If it did this we could make up our own minds as to whether it is right for us.
There is no such thing as a paid review ,that is a commercial .

What do you guys like to see ?

Do you trust what you do see ?

Who's reviews do you trust and why?

Also sorry if people don't like my style but I am trying to pass on the information that took a lifetime to accumulate to help people here make informed decisions. We will all like different stuff for different reasons but information NOT OPINION is the enemy of no-one .
All the best to my Fractal Friends
Andy.
 
Budda said:
I may be in the minority but I dont watch guitar reviews.
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I don't either.

I found that they flat-out don't matter. The only thing I've found that determines whether or not I'll like a guitar is playing it.

I have found guitars interesting because of seeing/hearing people using them, but most of the time, they don't live up to my impressions.
 
When people ask me stuff and they do often I try to stick to facts. My opinion will be based on these but it is this way round and just my own conclusion from what is in front of me. Absolutely no angle ever.
 
Do we need to be more skeptical than ever? We used to only ever see "reviews" in guitar magazines.
They almost always had a conflict of interest, too, because the paid advertisers in their magazines that
bought ad space were also the ones sending the magazines the gear to "review." Doh!

That has kind of multiplied by a thousand now---with every Tom, Dick, Harry, and Sally wanting a Youtube
Channel so they can be an "influencer."

I simply can't imagine someone in the position of being an influencer, with a lot of views, receiving
gear (often for free, and often for free plus a payment from the manufacturer or retailer), and then being
very critical of it. That's simply a way to cut off the supply and end the gravy train of gear coming in.
Being too critical---even if it is being honest---would be like committing Youtube influencer suicide!

I kind of trust customer reviews more, because they have already parted with their money and tend to
have no vested interest, or axe to grind. Even those don't tell the whole story, though.
 
Phil McKnight isn't bad. Not really to my taste, but I don't think I have complaints about him like I do about a lot of the guitar YT channels.

I like that pedal show a lot, too. Lots of inspiring ideas, though not really about individual pieces of gear. And their preferences don't really match mine. Also...is his name Robert Baker? Also does the Tone Quest channel. Hit or miss but generally enjoyable. I still don't watch the guitar reviews on any of them.
 
Always depends on the reviewer. Hard for me to understand how a guitar player cannot watch "any" guitar reviews. But hey, to each his own!
 
la szum said:
I kind of trust customer reviews more, because they have already parted with their money and tend to
have no vested interest, or axe to grind. Even those don't tell the whole story, though.
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Exactly. Because a greater % of people will be inclined to give a negative review if they don't like something about it. Most happy customers don't bother.
 
This is actually pretty interesting for me to see since I actually have a channel where I do reviews, so its good to see people’s thoughts and tastes, especially since I like sharing the videos I make on here whenever I use the Fractal stuff.

I’m still starting out, I don’t make any money from the videos, and DEFINITELY don’t get sponsored, so I try to buy things I’m interested and be as thorough as possible with the quality control and give various tone examples. Basically, just writing and videotaping a customer review to (hopefully) help people make informed purchase decisions.

Generally, when I’m watching, I’m looking for a lot of the same things @Andy Eagle mentioned. Highlight strengths and weaknesses, be knowledgeable, and show some tones. Oftentimes I’ll end up playing into the algorithms hands and watching/reading multiple reviews to try and get a good read on a piece of gear before buying, since I don’t live near a place that actually carries a lot of the guitars I want to buy for me to try in person.

Another thing: I don’t like it when the videos feel like they’re trying to sell you something. I know you can look at a lot of videos critically, especially sponsored ones, and assume its all for the sake of selling a product, but I guess I just prefer it when the reviewer actually seems to enjoy the product if they’re endorsing it, rather than just reciting the same checklist of buzzwords you see in the other videos. But, that’s also why I watch multiple reviews to try and distinguish the reviewer’s words from the manufacturer’s.
 
The Raven said:
quality control
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That's actually one of the things that really bugs me about a lot of reviews and a phrase that will make me pretty much immediately turn something off.

It isn't possible to review quality control with one sample.

Even if a company's products are 99.999% perfect, if they make a million of them, you could be one of the unlucky 10. If they make 50% junk, it's still a coin flip that yours might be good.

If you want to say something like "mine was good, had no flaws, etc." or the opposite, more power to you. But you can't comment on quality control in either direction without a lot of samples. I'm also not sure it really matters that much. There are finish flaws on my Les Paul. Some of the reviewers would have said that it should have been a QC reject. But...it's also my favorite LP that I've played, including a couple vintage ones (to be fair, no real bursts...they were a '52 and some from the late 60s.).

That doesn't just go for guitars, it goes for almost anything. I might like to get opinions from people who's opinions have gelled with mine in the past or see if it seems like something is going to inspire me, and sometimes I just like the personalities of the people doing things that can be called reviews (though they're really more like vlogging through taste tests). But, if I actually want a review because I'm comparing similar things...personally, I want data (which doesn't really apply to guitars) or real-world experience, which can easily come from YouTube but doesn't come from review channels.

No offense intended...I'm just kind of set off by that phrase. I really, really hate it when reviewers try to use it. But...I also have said that I don't watch guitar reviews, so I'm not really your target audience.
 
marsonic said:
I don't either.

I found that they flat-out don't matter. The only thing I've found that determines whether or not I'll like a guitar is playing it.
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Being a lefty player makes trying out a guitar before purchase difficult. Usually, I have to order it to try it. But even then, can I really assess a guitar completely by playing it in a store? I can't. As mentioned in another thread, would be great if there was a yt channel for completely unbiased guitar tear down + asessment by a pro luthier / tech, - none that I know of.
 
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