Hello everyone!
Today we are publishing an article by our friend Edoardo Del Principe about his opinion of Youtube gear reviews. Enjoy!
Today Youtube is the largest archive of gear reviews, tons of monthly editions of Premier Guitar can't beat the enormous amount of reviews Youtube has. But We can trust about that kind of review? How muchcan we? Here are 5 reasons why most of the gear reviews we watch (and make) can be misleading (but non on purpose):
1) Feel the guitar: Guitar reviews for me are not very reliable because the hand that plays the guitar is not mine. I can’t feel whether the neck is right for me, if the weight is too much for my back and how comfortable I am playing when standing of sitting.
2) Guitar sound?: Electric guitars, unlike the acoustic ones, doesn’t have any real sound. The core tone of electric guitars comes mostly from the Pickup, and although the overall sound depends from a lot of factors, the pickup is the main source. Since We talk about electric stuff it is essential to know the signal chain, because it’s what affects the sound in first place. What amp you are playing, what cables or pedals are involved? I never trust guitar reviews because changing the amp head or cab you change drastically the whole sound. So what are you hearing? A guitar or an amplifier? To understand how a guitar “sounds” you would have to put the guitar into YOUR signal chain. Only that way you can understand first of all if it’s comfortable, and second if it fits the sound your looking for.
3) Pedals don’t have any sound: As mentioned before the signal chain is essential to understand how electric stuff sounds like, from the mic in front of the cab to the strings, everything influence how guitars and pedals sounds. Pedals in particular are very sensitive. Power supplies, cables, amp, pickups and even strings gauge have an effect in how a pedal respond, so, if it’s not your chain what you ear can be very different.
4) “Not working as intended”: Only you know how you want to use a guitar, an amp or a pedal. If you play blues rock you are in a safe territory because most of the reviewers talk to that audience. If you are a metal guitarist this is going to be a little trickier, because every subgenre has its own “dogmas” about sounds and references, so unless you find the guy who is into the exact type of tone you're into, you’ll never be satisfied by a review. Volume is another issue very common in most reviews, because often amps are played in a low-medium range that doesn’t represent the real use of the gear because most of the time we want to play it live, or in a rehersal room. Amps, pickups and even pedals used in a live scenario can sound very different than in a studio performance.
5) An utopistic world: Gear reviews made by professionists are often played with instruments that most of the people can’t afford. If you play a pedal into a 2k Amp and 2k guitar I’m honestly sure that even if is a 20$ pedal, it will sounds amazing. Playing a 300 dollars guitar into a 3k amp is telling nothing to me and vice versa. If someone wants to demonstrate me how a 500 dollars amp sounds, he should take in consideration that the guy who spends 500 euros on an amp maybe will not use it with a 3000$ guitar.
Reviews are demonstrations of how something can sound, but of course they cannot be taken as a final word about an instrument. You are the final judge.
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