How to review a piece of gear (Scoring system needed)

[admin]

I would love to see gear reviews overhauled to a system similar to wine. This system could be adopted by every publication, forum and gear head. It would allow simple and quick comparisons based on agreed upon critical criteria.
For example you would break your review up into 10 parts, each worth 10 points.
1. Ease of use
2. Tone
3. Rig compatibility
4. Price
5. Availability
6. Upgradeability
7. Packaging
8. Customer Service
9. Resale value
10. X factor (does it make you play more)

This alleviates the use of descriptive and subjective words and allows users to search for specific items. For example, you could search for items that have high compatibility scores, or for ones with excellent customer service ratings. A pedal that scores a 90, but has a 0 or 1 for customer service might not be the best choice even though it sounds great.

The above scoring would also force you to do a little thinking before plastering the best OD pedal review all over the place.

If the magazines adopted a system we would actually read half the stuff they print.

Thoughts??????

[gururyan]

Looks good to me. Send me a tourbox and let me put your guide to work!

[Skreddy]

Would "rig compatibility" entail a list of guitars, amps, and possible effects-stacking information with regard to compatibility?

This is a huge issue that should really be addressed by reviewers. Plenty of "great" pedals are great with particular kinds of guitars and amps for a particular kind of application. Use another type of guitar or amp, and the sound is different enough to disappoint a buyer who expected it to perform exactly as it did for the reviewer.

As an example: my Top Fuel pedal gets along great with vintage-style Fender amps and single-coil pickups. Use a Marshall amp, and it's still fine, but it doesn't have the same transparent "amp-like" quality as when it's married to a Fender. Use a humbucker and you'll get more of an 80's metal quality rather than the clear, singing tones when using a single coil.

Stacking with other effects is another issue, too. Some effects do get along with others, and some weren't designed with this in mind at all. Plenty of complaints out there are from users who get unexpected problems from stacking and/or effects ordering. It would be a valuable bit of information to talk about how a certain effect does something like interact with a wah pedal or retains its essential signature tone even when it follows some other pedal or if it stays quiet or gets insanely noisy when stacked, etc.

But certainly you couldn't give anything a single numbered score in a "compatibility" category.

[JofZ]

Would "rig compatibility" entail a list of guitars, amps, and possible effects-stacking information with regard to compatibility?

This is a huge issue that should really be addressed by reviewers. Plenty of "great" pedals are great with particular kinds of guitars and amps for a particular kind of application. Use another type of guitar or amp, and the sound is different enough to disappoint a buyer who expected it to perform exactly as it did for the reviewer.

As an example: my Top Fuel pedal gets along great with vintage-style Fender amps and single-coil pickups. Use a Marshall amp, and it's still fine, but it doesn't have the same transparent "amp-like" quality as when it's married to a Fender. Use a humbucker and you'll get more of an 80's metal quality rather than the clear, singing tones when using a single coil.

Stacking with other effects is another issue, too. Some effects do get along with others, and some weren't designed with this in mind at all. Plenty of complaints out there are from users who get unexpected problems from stacking and/or effects ordering. It would be a valuable bit of information to talk about how a certain effect does something like interact with a wah pedal or retains its essential signature tone even when it follows some other pedal or if it stays quiet or gets insanely noisy when stacked, etc.

But certainly you couldn't give anything a single numbered score in a "compatibility" category.

Skreddy your post is exactly one of the main issues I have with reviews. The overall score could be a number with a back up for each category. Just like they do with wine, cigars, high end audio equipment. So while a number wont tell you the entire story it will get you much closer then no score at all. If a Klon had a compatibility score of 1 you would just assume it didn't get along very well with others :), you could then go on to read the compatibility category about that pedal and find out why the reviewer gave it such a low score.

The review system just gets people to think in terms of details.

We can change, add or delete categories as well!