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Bass Player Magazine Lightweight Class D Review

#41
As much as I love Ed I must say that I agree with the "sales speak"characterization of this so called "article". When I worked at BP mag briefly about 15 yrs ago they seemed far less biased towards the advertisers. And reviewers were more ready to actually state the things they didn't like about a product. Now, sadly, almost every review seems like it was written by the manufacturers themselves rather than someone who is unbiased.
 
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#42
tbz said:
Like almost everything else in BP these days it seemed more like a re-read of the marketing materials for those amps, than an actual shootout or review
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Yeah, exactly. You just have to read one paragraph to see that this is not real journalism. I like Bass Player, generally (I had an article published by them once upon a time) but I find this kind of "review" piece to be borderline unethical. Considering that they only include brands that advertise with them, and do not make a single negative observation in the entire article, and offer no insights beyond what you might find in the companies' marketing literature—a piece like this should be clearly labelled as an advertorial.

And yeah, "advertorial" is one of the more asinine words added to the language in recent decades, but it's a fitting word for an insulting substitute for journalism.
 
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#44
image.jpg
alaskaleftybass said:
Do tell! Pics? Where does one buy quilters?
Congrats by the way!
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Here's a pic for you...
 
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#45
Well, we know the real place to find the shootouts is actually Talkbass anyway! :D
I've learned more in the past 10 years than 25 years of Bass Player magazine.
One year I wrote in and asked them to do a bedroom bass combo shootout and the editor actually told me no one was interested in those small amps!
But hey, we're lucky to have the few bass magazines we have at all. How many great magazines have bit the dust lately.
It's not an easy world to live in magazine publishing.
Please return to your regular programming..... :bassist:
 
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#47
REV said:
The thing about all these amps is ... Unless you play them side by side is there really that much difference? I'm still using my Markbass Little Mark II and it still sounds as great as the day I bought it. With any amp we are going to adjust the tone controls until we get a sound we like and in a different club or whatever we may have to make some additional adjustments but we're going to try to get a sound we can live with. When the Aguliar Tone Hammer came out and everyone was going crazy about them I thought I needed to go and check one out. As I played it I kept adjusting the tone controls until it pretty much sounded just like my Markbass amp. On the other hand new equipment is cool.:):D:bassist::hyper:
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I've yet to hear a Tonehammer sound like my Little Mark II flat but hey, that's just me. A basic issue for me is that I don't want to have to dial in my basic tone. And I've tried most of these amps and no, they don't all sound similar. Far from it.

I don't get the omissions in the article, particularly the amp I've been gigging with for more than a year, the Bugera Veyron Mosfet. I have A/B'd it with the more well known amps and the difference was pretty glaring. Like it's omission.
:cool:
 
#48
Gravedigger Dav said:
The MarkBass and Fender Rumble are not there because they don't advertise in Bass Player.
Their reviews are just hyped to stroke the advertisers so they will buy more ads. They are in no way objective analysis of gear.
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I hope that's not the reason but I certainly can't argue that you're wrong. If you're not going to include what's available, what's the point? That's bias and who needs that when researching gear?
 
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#49
alaskaleftybass said:
Well, we know the real place to find the shootouts is actually Talkbass anyway! :D
I've learned more in the past 10 years than 25 years of Bass Player magazine.
One year I wrote in and asked them to do a bedroom bass combo shootout and the editor actually told me no one was interested in those small amps!
But hey, we're lucky to have the few bass magazines we have at all. How many great magazines have bit the dust lately.
It's not an easy world to live in magazine publishing.
Please return to your regular programming..... :bassist:
Click to expand...

There's heavy bias here too.
 
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#52
alaskaleftybass said:
Agreed. But the sheer amount of so much more equipment and basses reviewed here makes this still the place for me to come for information.
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I hear you but quantity is still no substitute for quality. And it gets harder and harder to weed through people repeating others' opinions versus actual experience. I don't think I've made a recommendation based on what someone else told me :D. When you dig down and find the person who's making a resounding recommendation for an amp hasn't tried the majority of what's available, how truly useful is that?

My recommendation is the usual one... try things for yourself. That's what I do and no, everything is not available for me locally either. Depends on how interested you are in the search. A person reading that article would get no idea about the products not mentioned like Markbass (I certainly can't blame Marco for his responses :D ), Ampeg, Fender, Bugera, etc. There was a time when things like that were far more inclusive and seemed to actually want to inform people about their options.

It's gotten to the point where sometimes I don't even bother when I see it.
 

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