Guitar mags don't give up the goods.

Re: Guitar mags don't give up the goods.

I'd say Guitar Player is probably the best guitar mag, but even it has been guilty quite a few times of a lot of these accusations. At least the noize from the editor is worth reading, as are most artist interviews, Dan Erlewine's mod squad and some of the reviews.
 
Re: Guitar mags don't give up the goods.

It's a fact that the print media can be held accountable. The internet is almost worthless when it comes to that. Anyone with a computer can put up an opinion regardless of whether or not they have any real experience or expertise. You can't get away with that as easily at a magazine.

I think the mags (especially Guitar Player) have a pretty high caliber of expertise. You can't expect them to be tearing a decent brand apart, they'll hint at the shortcomings... if you're too dumb to pick up on that and want to believe the opinion of some basement hack on the internet, fine- go ahead.

Here, I'll prove my point:

I just bought a new Dean XXX model and the neck fell right off... total crap!
when I compared it against my ESP XXX, the ESP totally BURIED it. More sustain and the mids were much more punchy, especiall when I played it on a gig.

Totally made up...
 
Re: Guitar mags don't give up the goods.

I bought "Guitar Review 2007", end of year edition. It's a US magazine (I'm in the UK) and I assumed it would be a mag packed full of reviews of the best hardware from this year.
What it actually is, is a list of guitars made this year, with a pic and some very very basic info, like how many frets it has, and how the Penthouse pet in the photo liked holding it.
THe mag was in a sealed plastic envelope so I didn't know what a ****ing rip off it was until I got it home and settled down for a good read.
It went in the bin as soon as I finished reading it cover to cover, three minutes later.

An absoloute disgrace, it was just a load of adverts, for which I paid $10 (£5).
 
Re: Guitar mags don't give up the goods.

I bought 2 or 3 times a magazine called "What Guitar?" that has only gear inside. No bands, no CDs, no notes etc...They only do comparison tests between guitars/basses/amps of the same category or mega tests (the classic review I guess). But I don't remember well enough to say how accurate they were...
 
Re: Guitar mags don't give up the goods.

I agree about the internet but not as a whole. Forums like this or some others are very nice resource and if you're clever enough with a small experience on the subject you can track down information from other places too which is accurate. It's all about research.
 
Re: Guitar mags don't give up the goods.

Indeed, it is all about research, and reviews are supposed to be a primary resource of research. But the objectivity of reviews aside, we in the new millennium with our compters and high speed internet have WAY more resources and broader bases of research than ever. I think that's something that many new guitarist, or just younger people in general take advantage of.
 
Re: Guitar mags don't give up the goods.

That's how I discovered guitar forums in the first place, I would be searching for gear info on a search engine, and forum threads would pop up.: popworm:
 
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