Online fx reviewers you trust implicitly and those you think are useless ?

Telejester

There are 3 online fx sources which I trust fully:

Dan and Mick
Pete Thorn
Andy at PGS

These guys really know what they are doing and their comments are dependable.

The following I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw them with a broken arm.

The Tone King
Gearwire
Rob Chapman

Who are your go to guys and guys you avoid like the plague ?

EricTheWeary

They are all just adverts really, I don't expect any of them tell you lies but it's rare for any of them to to point out problems or be particularly critical (Andertons and TPS both later pulled less positive videos for example). They aren't in any meaningful sense balanced reviews,even owner reviews are gushing over their new purchase or angry over their new purchase not giving them the amazing tone they thought another $200 on an overdrive would provide.

The commonest complaint amongst these is that 'they can make any pedal sound great' from which I think you can take the message that if you understand your own gear better you wouldn't need to purchase so much new stuff. 

My my favourite reviewer, BTW, is probably Brett Kingman as he has a nice straightforward style. I understand it is still his job to try and make me want to buy stuff though. 

Roland

There's only one person's view that I trust. That's my own, and only after 6 months of working with it. Everyone's playing is different. We're all looking (listening) for different things. 

Call me a cynic, but I distrust most forms of advertising. The bigger the organisation, the bigger the advertising budget, the more likely they are to employ people who don't adhere to the owners' ethics, and the bigger the lies. (I've worked with people who write these things)

The best that I can hope is that the reviewer will pick out some good points, and might do a comparison with other items from the same supplier.

Having said that I do look at user reviews. I take the 5 scores with a pinch of salt because a lot of them are new user euphoria, and some are paid reviews. I also ignore 0 and 1 scores because they are mostly a mix of buyer remorse, competitor slagging, and people who don't know what they are doing. It's 2, 3 and 4 scores where the useful comments lie, often with things to be aware of.

[/End rant]

TTBZ

I pretty much agree @Telejester bit don't like that pedal show at all - too much talking. Brett Kingman always does great demos imo. Pete Thorn makes everything sound good, great player.

Reverb videos are always terrible. It's like they don't listen to them before they put it on youtube. The Marshall Mini Jubilee one they did was particularly awful iirc.

MattBanshee

I've recently discovered The Super Fun Happy Time Pedal Show(?) which is basically an Australian version of That Pedal Show, but with less corksniffery and more irreverence. I do love watching TPS, but almost everything reviewed or featured by them is in the boutique category, whereas the Aussies will review cheap/common pedals as well.

Gassage

My 'most reliable' is Schnobel , but then we have similar tastes (save for the fact I'm not the son of a Russian oil billionairre)

kjdowd

I enjoy schnobel, dan and nick, Brett kingman, Pete thorn. I suppose I 'trust' them, but at the end of the day as @Roland said you can only really trust your own judgement with your own gear. If nothing else, there are too many variables in terms of rig, guitars and personal taste, technique and so on. 

i particularly like Pete Thorn's approach of putting a song together and then breaking the parts down to demo the gear. 

digitalkettle

I really like Mike Hermans' demos.

tone1

Lance Keltner....he can make a shoe box with elastic bands sound like a heavenly choir 

ThePrettyDamned

None. 

I used to watch loads but the number of times I'd try a pedal and have a vastly different experience led me to being quite disappointed. I trust folk on here more. 

57Deluxe

Bret Kingman... Primaxe (Mike Hermans) and Andy PGS - easiest on the ear by far

Lebarque

Not quite what you're asking, but I find it interesting that no matter what guitar or amp Gregsguitars uses, it always sounds the same! Tone is in the fingers? Gearmandude can be similar, but you've got to love him.

Living Room Gear demos often makes things sound bad to me (sorry), which is the opposite of Mike Herman's Prymaxe videos, which usually sound awesome. Partly down to how they are recorded maybe.

clarkefan

tone1 said:

Lance Keltner....he can make a shoe box with elastic bands sound like a heavenly choir 

Amen. That bloke is the epitome of making everything he plays sound great (except his fuzz vids, but that's cos fuzz is shit, not him).

And as a result I trust nothing he advertises.  Not his fault, he can't help being brilliant, that's why they hire him.

Fan demo, TPS. Not to learn about new pedals, I just enjoy Dan's experience and playing, and his explanations about stuff.  Oh, and his jet - lagged wastedness last week was hilarious

If I'm interested in new stuff I don't have a favourite,  I listen to as many as I think I need to, the paid guys and the NAMM ones and the bedroom guys,  that way I (try to) get a rounded opinion.

And listening to other things in those vids.  Like recently Chappers was advertising a guitar I think, but the amp he was using sounded unbelievable.  Or Burgs advertising a wah and showing me how to play Shaft properly.

So interesting stuff everywhere, good times

Telejester

Guys check out Doug and pat show  on yt if it's guitar reviews you are interested in. These guys are totally old school and I've had great email comms with Doug.

juansolo

Best reviewer by miles is JustNick. Demonstrates stuff well on it's own and in a musical context. Also articulates well what doesn't come over well on YouTube. If you want to know how stuff sounds, he's the man.

PGS Andy is awesome. But he could also make a walnut plugged in like to your amp sound awesome. Which is a bit of an issue. It means he's VERY good at his job, as he's there to sell the things. But I always watch his reviews fully aware of that.

GMD sounds like GMD whatever he plays. He could plug in a Miku, and he'd still sound like GMD. Again, which is awesome, but not always very helpful.

Burgs I always used to put up there with JustNick as a stonking all round reviewer. Until he went pro. When people are paying him to review kit it becomes more like PGS Andy, in that you tune in to see what nice sounds he can make with something rather than for his opinion of it.

Dave_Mc

^ Yeah just nick is the best of the ones I'm aware of.

digitalscream

I tend to trust the Andertons videos for a good overview of features and how things react to mid-to-high gain levels. Those are two things that I've found Mick and Dan fall down on regularly; lots of exposition about the technical details, but they often can't get their heads around large feature sets (particularly with delays), and the tones they use as examples are more or less useless to me.

Pete Thorn's stuff is an excellent middle-ground - enough about the relevant details to fill you in, and a good show as to how it'll react with a range of tones.

To be honest, though, I tend to only want to know about features; for everything else, I'll tend to trust people on here more than canned reviews.

BintyTwanger77

I like JustNick if I want to gauge how good a pedal is, and I enjoy TPS, but my favourite demos are by Knobs and Dennis Kayzer.

Moe_Zambeek

None of them are reviews really, they're demos from professional guitarists made to push product. What you can rate is their musical ability. 

I have to say though that with Burgs you can kinda tell when he's not *really* loving it. Less so now he's working with PGS I guess.

nick_s

I like listening to the reviews from Pro Guitar Shop and N'Stuff in order to get a feel of products to then go and try in person.  Hasn't let me down so far  Danish Pete who appears in some Andertons videos is another I enjoy watching.

Norwegian_Blue

One I rarely see mentioned is Shawn Tubbs... really tasteful and lets the playing do the talking. As a plus he used the same guitars and amps as I do, so I get a good idea of what I'm getting myself in to! Mike Hermans is great to listen to, but absolutely every overdrive pedal sounds exactly the same! Good for him, but not so good for the demo...