Bass Player Magazine Contest

[erochelle77]

So I just got the latest BP mag, and am flipping through. There is a contest "The Carvin Custom Shop Bass Giveaway". Enter online, all that good stuff. Anyway, I'm reading the fine print, and I notice this.

...you may enter online at www.bassplayer.com beginning approximately October 15, 2007. Entries must be received by November 30, 2007.

Cool, but I kept reading...

...The winner will be drawn at random on or about October 15, 2007.

[RSmith]

Carvin has always had quality control issues !

[StanFan]

I can't see it on the site.

[erochelle77]

It's not on there yet

[mutedeity]

I stopped reading Bassplayer more than ten years ago when I realised I was paying for someone to try and sell me stuff more than I was paying for any information that might benefit me.

[RSmith]

Bass Player is a business so yes they will try to sell you, but it is a TREMENDOUS resource full of insights and experience from players who pay their bills playing bass.

[DeanT]

All magazines are in the business of trying to sell you stuff. That's how they make money. The information they give you is just filler between the ads. Sad, but true.

But to your point, BP does spend a lot of time touting Ampeg amps and some of their other "best customers' " products at the expense of good information and player profiles.

[mutedeity]

Originally Posted by RSmith

Bass Player is a business so yes they will try to sell you, but it is a TREMENDOUS resource full of insights and experience from players who pay their bills playing bass.

That's your opinion. Mine is that I haven't picked up a single copy of Bassplayer since about 1995 that I thought was worth my money. As far as I am concerned touring stories and factiods about certain player's discographies and setups accompanied by page after page of product endorsment that I could easily use the internet to form a less biased opinion about is hardly worth the ever increasing cost of that magazine to me. By the way the insights of experienced bassplayers who pay their bills playing bass is hardly a selling point for me since I am one of those myself.

Incidentally what do you think the advertisment to article ratio of bassplayer magazine is these days? I don't have a recent copy to varify, but I would be supprised if it is less than 5:1.

[RSmith]

Fair enough!

[Bill Leigh]

Hi folks,

First off, yes, there is a mistake in the fine print, but I want to point out that the mistake is ours, not Carvin's. The winner will be chosen on or around December 14. The giveaway should be online today or tomorrow.

Second, I truly appreciate your comments about the magazine. We're always open to hearing feedback about how we're doing and what we could do better.

With regard to the ad-edit ratio, which is a statistic we make internal note of each month, the last three issues (August, September, October, November) have all had 58-60 editorial pages out of 116 total pages (November was 108; we count the covers in the magazine, so that's the last page number + 4). That's an ad-edit ratio of around 50%, which is excellent for a magazine our size. I doubt you'll find many consumer magazines with a significantly better ratio. Every business has it's base numbers, and those are the ones in consumer magazine publishing.

Now I've said it before (search my posts) and I'll say it again: There's no link between advertising and editorial in Bass Player. In other words, we editors aren't trying to sell you anything (though we are offering some things that I think you'll really dig, like BP mag, bassplayer.tv, and Bass Player LIVE!). I agree that any consumer magazine is by definition an editorial product that defines a specific audience that certain advertisers want to reach, but that doesn't mean the editorial aspect is baloney, or "filler." Why would you read any mag if that's all it had?

At BP, we work hard to pack every issue with useful, informative, and interesting interviews, lessons, and reviews, precisely because the audience we have and the audience we want takes bass playing seriously, as do we. And when it comes product reviews, details about artists, and lessons, we're obsessed with getting it right. (You wouldn't believe how much time I spent making sure November's transcription of Chuck Rainey's line on Steely Dan's "Peg" was spot on.) We editors are all bassists. We have the resources, the connections, and the skills to do cool things for all bassists, so we do them. We just want to make a kick-ass book every month.

We take our work seriously, so it's fairly annoying when those who aren't reading Bass Player criticize it. (The Ampeg comment is downright weird; I think we've only reviewed one Ampeg product--the exceptionally newsworthy SVT-VR--in the last two years.) I will happily send any of you the last four issues to look through, then feel free to critique away. Of course I'd also expect you to point out things you thought were helpful, interesting, or enriching. I'm serious. PM me your address and I'll have them in the mail today.

Bill

[BigLoopDuke]

Ouch. Y'all just got served by the editor.

I love BP and just sent in my subscription this morning for a year's worth of the fine publication. I'm just wishing that instead of handing out copies of the special bass instructional mag, they'd put together a special bass player buyers guide. I hate having to flip through half the buyer's guides to find the bass section. Guitar World is the worst at this...they always designate the "shy" girl to be the bass model.

Djamn.

[BellBottomBlues]

I like reading bass player. I don't look much at the transcriptions in the back often but I do truly love the wood shop section, in fact, I wish it were bigger. As for the ads, I don't find that bass player has more than any other newspaper or magazine these days, and at times, its often less.

I like reading some of the player interviews but I have one major gripe about them. I don't care about most of them, so I often skip past it. I always wish they'd have a blast from the past section, or something similar, to look into little known or under appreciated bass players.

Earlier this year I noticed that I stopped getting bass player in the middle of my subscription. Whats sad is that I didn't notice for months So I shot them an email, and within the same day they replied and notified me that the missing issues were on their way. Next day, lo and behold, I have the four missing issues, and I got the next two issues in those those nice first class envelopes. Great mag, great people, great service. I'll definitely be renewing my subscription.

[mutedeity]

Originally Posted by Bill Leigh

Hi folks,

First off, yes, there is a mistake in the fine print, but I want to point out that the mistake is ours, not Carvin's. The winner will be chosen on or around December 14. The giveaway should be online today or tomorrow.

Second, I truly appreciate your comments about the magazine. We're always open to hearing feedback about how we're doing and what we could do better.

With regard to the ad-edit ratio, which is a statistic we make internal note of each month, the last three issues (August, September, October, November) have all had 58-60 editorial pages out of 116 total pages (November was 108; we count the covers in the magazine, so that's the last page number + 4). That's an ad-edit ratio of around 50%, which is excellent for a magazine our size. I doubt you'll find many consumer magazines with a significantly better ratio. Every business has it's base numbers, and those are the ones in consumer magazine publishing.

Now I've said it before (search my posts) and I'll say it again: There's no link between advertising and editorial in Bass Player. In other words, we editors aren't trying to sell you anything (though we are offering some things that I think you'll really dig, like BP mag, bassplayer.tv, and Bass Player LIVE!). I agree that any consumer magazine is by definition an editorial product that defines a specific audience that certain advertisers want to reach, but that doesn't mean the editorial aspect is baloney, or "filler." Why would you read any mag if that's all it had?

At BP, we work hard to pack every issue with useful, informative, and interesting interviews, lessons, and reviews, precisely because the audience we have and the audience we want takes bass playing seriously, as do we. And when it comes product reviews, details about artists, and lessons, we're obsessed with getting it right. (You wouldn't believe how much time I spent making sure November's transcription of Chuck Rainey's line on Steely Dan's "Peg" was spot on.) We editors are all bassists. We have the resources, the connections, and the skills to do cool things for all bassists, so we do them. We just want to make a kick-ass book every month.

We take our work seriously, so it's fairly annoying when those who aren't reading Bass Player criticize it. (The Ampeg comment is downright weird; I think we've only reviewed one Ampeg product--the exceptionally newsworthy SVT-VR--in the last two years.) I will happily send any of you the last four issues to look through, then feel free to critique away. Of course I'd also expect you to point out things you thought were helpful, interesting, or enriching. I'm serious. PM me your address and I'll have them in the mail today.

Bill

Ok Bill,

If you are serious I will take you up on that as long as there is no obligation for me to endorse you or purchase any further material from you or to retract any of my former statements in any public way. If I do so I will do so at my own discretion. On my part I will only agree to read through and respond to the content as you have stated above.

I'm sure there there is useful and practical information in the magazine. My point is that I no longer consider there to be enough or of the type to justify me personally spending the money. I understand that product placement and paid advertisments are necessary in a business sense but I personally don't think it is worth my money to pay for someone else to sell me something, as I see it. I might add that my critique is based on two factors, firstly that I bought Bassplayer regularly from 1993 until 1996. Secondly that I have assessed the content periodically since, but never found it adequate to justify purchasing a copy.

[Bill Leigh]

Terrific. Send your address. What you choose to do is up to you. Any other takers?

Bill

P.S.: For the record, there are no "product placements" in Bass Player.

[mutedeity]

Originally Posted by Bill Leigh

Terrific. Send your address. What you choose to do is up to you. Any other takers?

Bill

P.S.: For the record, there are no "product placements" in Bass Player.

Pardon me, I should have used the term "product endorsement". My appologies

[Eric Moesle]

On the question of whether its worth it or not, I judge most things by what I call the "Taco Bell Rule":

I only truly think I didn't get my money's worth if I don't get the same number of mniutes of satisfaction out of it as the minutes it takes me to eat the same dollar amount of Taco Bell food.

Sure sometimes Bass Player Magazine has what my personal tastes would qualify as a "marginal at best" issue, but I've yet to get less than 15 minutes of pleasure even out of the most marginal of monthly issues.

And 15 minutes is about the amount of pleasure time I get from eating the equivalent of the cover price at Taco Bell.

. . . so, its money well spent even on a "bad" month.

Now, if I could just find a way to measure the satisfaction of reading Bass Player Mag WHILE EATING Taco Bell, then perhaps I'd be sharing a Nobel Prize with Al Gore.

[phippsyg]

Taco Bell Rule-awesome, will be using this.

[njjazzman2002]

For what it's worth, I have enjoyed BP magazine over the years both for the breadth of articles as well as the diverse set of artist they present. I've been most impressed recently, however, with BP's productions outside the magazine: BassPlayer Live and bassplayer.tv. Where else but BassPlayer Live are you going to see and hear Stanley, Marcus and Victor together on the same stage with an audience of a few hundred other bassists!!? What website offering other than bassplayer.tv has banks of video streams including bassist like Flea, Paul Jackson, and Geddy Lee...all making comments and giving tips directly aimed at us?

[ROON]

Bass Player magazine needs to be available in Australia. The only bass mag that was down here was BassGuitar, and it's no longer in production.

[funkydanbass]

Bass Player Magazine **IS** readily available in Australia... I can get it at Borders and a few Newsagents too....