Guitar, bass, amp, and pedal reviews - relatively new
April 17, 2021 8:18 AM Subscribe
I really enjoy and find useful the reviews on ultimate-guitar.com. The only problem is that it seems to have not been updated in 7 or 8 years and doesn’t have much of the equipment I’m wanting to read reviews of. Is there anywhere like ultimate guitar where there’s a community of reviewers of guitars and guitar amps, basses, and effects pedals, just posting reviews bc they might help others? If it’s still active that’s even better.
For bass stuff, talkbass.com is probably the busiest forum. There are some straight-up reviews, but also a lot of posts about anything bass related.
The JHS pedals channel on YouTube has tons of videos about pedals, usually grouped by type. JHS is a pedal manufacturer, but he covers all brands, and he plays through each pedal so you can hear what they sound like in a musical setting.
posted by jonathanhughes at 8:50 AM on April 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
The JHS pedals channel on YouTube has tons of videos about pedals, usually grouped by type. JHS is a pedal manufacturer, but he covers all brands, and he plays through each pedal so you can hear what they sound like in a musical setting.
posted by jonathanhughes at 8:50 AM on April 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
You can sometimes find useful youtube reviews of various gear.
posted by 2N2222 at 8:51 AM on April 17, 2021
posted by 2N2222 at 8:51 AM on April 17, 2021
it seems to have not been updated in 7 or 8 years
AFAICT, it's still a live site - here's the main reviews page (admittedly, not really easy to find, it was under "Articles" on the main page and then "Reviews" in the sidebar), and stuff was posted yesterday.
Although it doesn't look super-active, so I get it if it's not hitting the gear you're interested in.
If you're looking for "peer-reviewed" stuff, as in regular musician folks give their impressions of things they've just bought, seconding browsing the forums of The Gear Page, or TalkBass, or other still-active forums like TDPRI.com, offsetguitars.com, Strat-talk.com, Squier-talk.com, and mylespaul.com.
If you're looking for more "professional" journalist reviews, Premier Guitar, Guitar Player, and Guitar World are the web presences of dead-tree magazines, and they all do a fairly hefty number of reviews.
YouTube does seem to be where a lot of reviewers are living these days, and personally I find the results hit-or-miss, plus bluntly I read a LOT faster than I can watch a video, so video reviews seem like a huge time sink. Having said that, I've generally found Just Nick to be better than average about actually demonstrating the capabilities and controls and qualities of the gear, without too much unfocused blathering.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:39 AM on April 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
AFAICT, it's still a live site - here's the main reviews page (admittedly, not really easy to find, it was under "Articles" on the main page and then "Reviews" in the sidebar), and stuff was posted yesterday.
Although it doesn't look super-active, so I get it if it's not hitting the gear you're interested in.
If you're looking for "peer-reviewed" stuff, as in regular musician folks give their impressions of things they've just bought, seconding browsing the forums of The Gear Page, or TalkBass, or other still-active forums like TDPRI.com, offsetguitars.com, Strat-talk.com, Squier-talk.com, and mylespaul.com.
If you're looking for more "professional" journalist reviews, Premier Guitar, Guitar Player, and Guitar World are the web presences of dead-tree magazines, and they all do a fairly hefty number of reviews.
YouTube does seem to be where a lot of reviewers are living these days, and personally I find the results hit-or-miss, plus bluntly I read a LOT faster than I can watch a video, so video reviews seem like a huge time sink. Having said that, I've generally found Just Nick to be better than average about actually demonstrating the capabilities and controls and qualities of the gear, without too much unfocused blathering.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:39 AM on April 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
Also worth noting that with those forums, despite the names they are not at all limited to the guitars/instruments of the names - like, mylespaul.com doesn't delete any and all posts about Strats or whatever - but you might need to poke around in "Other guitars" or "other instruments" sub-forums. And google-searching with results limited to a specific forum is often helpful.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:46 AM on April 17, 2021
posted by soundguy99 at 9:46 AM on April 17, 2021
Reddit guitar pedals sub is very active and will probably have some mention of anything you've heard of. You can also post to ask about a certain product and usually get plenty of feedback. (Also tons of pics of people's pedalboards, which is just part of any hobby subreddit now)
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:30 AM on April 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:30 AM on April 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
KVRAudio.com has a guitar forum. I'm not a guitar guy, but I've found the KVR forums for stuff I am interested in (like my DAW of choice, Tracktion/Waveform) extremely helpful.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:30 PM on April 17, 2021
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:30 PM on April 17, 2021
jhs +1 - dude *loves* pedals and will talk up even competitors' product if he likes it.
posted by j_curiouser at 5:09 PM on April 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by j_curiouser at 5:09 PM on April 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
If YouTube will do, here's a channel I enjoy for pedals. They don't do Tube Screamers or other standard fare, but they dig up more creative modulation-type pedals (e.g., delay, reverb) and I think I remember a couple of unconventional distortion-type pedals in there too.
posted by troywestfield at 10:29 AM on April 22, 2021
posted by troywestfield at 10:29 AM on April 22, 2021
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Consult The Oracle at 8:26 AM on April 17, 2021