Anemic Gear Reviews

jsbarber · #1 12-20-2006, 08:41 AM

I've been a TB member for about 1.5 yrs, and in that time I have seen many repeat requests for info, particularly about pickups, strings and amplifiers/cabinets. Often when this occurs someone will reply, "Do a search..." Sometimes the person starting the thread pre-empts that reply with an "I've already done a search and couldn't find what I'm looking for..." But basically someone looking for info ends up searching through old posts, and then creating a new thread if they need additional info. Also, when you read comments by someone from 5 years ago you're never quite sure if they have the same opinion now. Views tend to change over time.

As an observation: at present there are 29 reviews of 7 products in the Double Bass part of the Gear Reviews section of the forum. Contrast this with 157,000 posts on 13,000 threads in the TBDB forum. The gear review feature is not being used by TBDBers.

I think it could be very useful if people used this aspect of TB more extensively. I have a couple of thoughts on how it could be improved, and some of you may have similar/other/better ideas.

move the DB Gear Review section into the TBDB forum - i.e. collocate it with the rest of TBDB. The current location is somewhat "off the beaten trail"
contributors should consider making a concerted effort to review products that they use, and compare/contrast them to others they have used in order to create a more useable repository of info on these products via the gear review feature. These reviews can be updated, as viewers opinions and gear usage changes over time.
perhaps it is, or could be, possible to create links from people's profiles to their gear reviews. This way a member can investigate gear by player/member.

Your thoughts??

Jim

Jake deVilliers · #2 12-20-2006, 09:44 AM

I think you've got a valid point Jim. I've been here 6 months and have no idea that there are Gear Reviews!

Maybe its just me; my wife would say I can't find anything in the fridge either.

Of course, The "Strings" area is a de facto running review as is the "Pickups & Amps" section, so it might just be a duplication issue.

**Francois Blais** · #3 12-20-2006, 11:08 AM

Nice suggestions.
I'm passing the message to the moditorium.

Sam Sherry · #4 12-20-2006, 12:35 PM

Nothing against you personally or your suggestions, but the lack of gear review may simply reflect that

a) A lot of it is ********. The quality of the reviewer is worth much more to me than the quantity OR the facial quality of the review. If Tom Bow-less, for example, says, "It's OK but not great," that's it and I'm done. In contrast, the fact that some high-school newbie thinks that the Crate BQZ-23 totally blows the Peavey 32-ZQB away is probably no help to me or most others.

b) A lot of it is idiosyncratic and often contradictory -- how things sound with THIS bass, THAT amp, THIS pickup, THOSE strings, THAT room and most important THAT player's particular approach.

I'd hate to see the mods have to spend more time on more gear-slut activity than there already is here. (On a side-note, scope some of the sax-talk sites. Good god, gobs of gear! Poster 1: "Johnny Johnson died today." Poster 2: "What kind of strap did he use?" Poster 3: "Was the casket lacquer or black nickel? I think black nickel's so cewell!")

So I guess that although there is a certain level of clamor for this kind of stuff, I would encourage people not to put too much stock in any review because so much of it comes down to who, when and how.

**Francois Blais** · #5 12-20-2006, 01:15 PM

Good comments, Sam.
I agree that any review should clearly state the very conditions the test was done.

All the gear involved.
Where it was done. (what kind of room, etc.)
Who did it, and what did he do.

jsbarber · #6 12-20-2006, 01:19 PM

It's not that there isn't lot's of gear discussion, it's just not located in the gear review area, is not organized at all and hard to make use of. I agree that it is very important, at least to me, who is making the gear assessment, and that's why I suggested being able to link to the gear reviews from members' profiles. Also, if you were looking in a gear review section, you could to straight to the review from whoever you trusted to provide some meaningful info and skip the peavey lovers.

I agree with it being related to "who, when and how" but if people's experiences with gear weren't of interest to others there wouldn't be so many questions about gear...

Cheers,

Jim

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sam Sherry

Nothing against you personally or your suggestions, but the lack of gear review may simply reflect that

a) A lot of it is ********. The quality of the reviewer is worth much more to me than the quantity OR the facial quality of the review. If Tom Bow-less, for example, says, "It's OK but not great," that's it and I'm done. In contrast, the fact that some high-school newbie thinks that the Crate BQZ-23 totally blows the Peavey 32-ZQB away is probably no help to me or most others.

b) A lot of it is idiosyncratic and often contradictory -- how things sound with THIS bass, THAT amp, THIS pickup, THOSE strings, THAT room and most important THAT player's particular approach.

I'd hate to see the mods have to spend more time on more gear-slut activity than there already is here. (On a side-note, scope some of the sax-talk sites. Good god, gobs of gear! Poster 1: "Johnny Johnson died today." Poster 2: "What kind of strap did he use?" Poster 3: "Was the casket lacquer or black nickel? I think black nickel's so cewell!")

So I guess that although there is a certain level of clamor for this kind of stuff, I would encourage people not to put too much stock in any review because so much of it comes down to who, when and how.

hdiddy · #7 12-20-2006, 02:56 PM

I dunno. I think the gear reviews are good for pork chop related stuff. Due to the intricacies and nuances of the DB, I don't think it works.

Alot of what we write about gear here is so very exploratory and experimental for every single one of us. A set of Animas on one bass does not typically equate to the same sound on another bass. I can't buy 2 Revolution Solo pickups, mount them on two NS Cleveland basses and then get them to sound exactly the same. For us, every piece of equipment is relatively expensive. It's rare that any of us own more than 2 basses at one time, and most of us own just one and stick to just one bass. Furthermore, the "nectar" of what we get from TBDB gear reviews is actually from collaboration and constant feedback from other players which then leads to more experimentation, because the feedback fuels new ideas.

And even then, it may takes months to be able to write a concrete and objective review of a piece of equipment, just for one particular bass and that bass' setup. Take for instance, if I were to buy a set of strings, like say some Spirocores and string them up on my Christopher bass. It would take me probably about 1 month before the string fully breaks in. What then about a new bridge? a new endpin? and new tailpiece? All of those elements need time to settle, something not conducive to being able to write immediate reports as soon as they're on the bass. Neither can I write an objective report if I were to much many changes all at one. If I try to take a set of strings off to compare with another set as an A/B test, it takes even more time for the switch to settle in. And if I keep doing that to the strings, there's a good chance they lose life and tone.

Again, a prime example was TBDB's collective experience with the RS pickups when they came out. It took a long while before we started getting consistent results and even then, it doesn't work for everyone despite their skill level. TROYK is an example of a skilled player who disliked the pickup because it didn't work for his bass, not because the pickup was bad or he had bad ears. Just look at recent history, the same thing has happened with TI Belcantos, Schertler Dyn-B pickup, Fishman Full Circle, Chinese BSO's (there's that small number of exceptions where the BSO was actually playable), various amps/cabs, ad naseum.

Prospective users need to be informed of the possible results they could get and it also makes all the different experiments important as well, successful or not. Given that much of it is expensive to purchase and sell, I'd prefer that the information was detailed and comprehensive as it may be a big investment in every piece of gear we buy.

It's a nice idea in a perfect world, but IMO, it just doesn't work pragmatically. I think things are fine the way it is. Gear reviews are an organic process for TBDB and I see nothing wrong with that. As the saying goes, "If you can't stnad the heat, stay out of the knitche."

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't mean to rehash one of Sam's points but I'm too lazy to edit it.