Reviews Are Just Ads (And Always Have Been) 

I used to work in magazines. When it comes to ad:editorial ratio, a free magazine generally will have a 50 : 50 split. Paid-for magazines with universal appeal (People, Time, etc) will usually be like 40 : 60, more specialized ones like these will be closer to the 50 : 50. The difference between magazines and digital is that with every page you publish, your costs go way up. You not only need to pay someone to create that content, but you have to actually pay for the paper it is on. The harsh fact is positivity just sells better. People want to know what they should buy more than what they shouldn't. The more ethical mags will just not cover something, rather than give a dishonest positive review. Not publishing a review at all pisses off an advertiser a lot less than publishing a hit piece. All of this adds up to there being very little incentive to publish something critical. But no, reviews aren't just ads, it's just that the reviews that get published need to fit into a certain box.

That's why I stopped reading those mags 10 years ago. Not everything can be 8, 9 or 10's.

I said it a few videos ago youtube is a grift. The world is upside-down because of advertising agencies and pr firms. Do this or else or you pay to play

What is the controversy here? Why is everything a controversy? 😅 In the 90s and 2000s that’s how you got your new gear fix. And magazines like Future Music did have CDs. I still have the Novation Nova CD with demo tracks. Yes, Computer Music had a lot of hack hyperbolic reviews, but there were quite a few critical ones too. Big releases like Reason and Live were genuinely groundbreaking for their time, so it’s not a shock they reviewed well. As far as ads, that’s how they paid the bills. Ads were fun. The guy whose video you’re watching must be a lot of fun at parties. Does he think he’s Deep Throat? Let’s give him a cookie. I enjoyed your commentary.

I've seen that video. I remember loving those magazines. It never occurred to me it was all ads. But I didn't have money so I didn't buy any of it.

Yep - look at all the YT videos that are titled 'OMG THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING EVER'. Just paid bullshitting from professional shills. It's so obvious it's easy to ignore the losers, though. I do like the ads that show supposed 'producers' saying 'hip' things about a product that look like rejects from a 90s music video, though. Definitely a FAIL.

Plugin police was how I found you Weaver.

I aint gonna lie - i really never liked that nontalent ! OOops - Was i too honest !? .... or just saying out loud what you all THINK , but feel too embarressed to blurt out live,- Gate-Keeper !? Careful with that Axe , Eugene ,- .... I DO believe those words must have aquired . . . distaste ,-

You're just a bit too young Weaver, you would have been all over those mags. Future Music was my jam. And yeah I'm old enough to have used *crackzzz* Ableton 1, fair comment about the lack of change!

I use to read all of those! That was all we had! Wasn’t no damn RU-vid. I didn’t not think it was honest or cared I just wanted to see what it did and to make my own decision. I didn’t have shit so it was all fascinating lol

Oh man wait until you realize a lot of these RU-vid "musicians" basically just exist as sponsored shills and the majority of their income will never and has never come from music. It's almost like they're not a musicians, but RU-vidrs who happen to do some music on the side while RU-vid and their gear sponsors pay the bills.

Music Radar are terrible anything Cherry Audio sh*ts out, they are going crazy about. Wonder what the financials are?

I used to prefer the catalogs from MF, AMF, and sweetwater to the magazines, if I'm going to read a bunch of ads it might as well be ALL the gear in a catalog

RU-vid has sadly turned into a Ad Platform and i constantly click Don't Recommend this channel and new channels with the same shit pops up. It is almost impossible to get any interesting in my Feed because of this.

I mean... duh?

Are you serious you dont read music magazines? Bro i read manuals of gear i dont even own 😂😅

Dude, you're barely even watching the video, lol.

always remember , as a content producer you have to make content that makes you content

These types deceptive advertising has turned me off of a lot of creators.

Reason is great, give it the love it deserves. 😀

i have 3 huge columns of these mags, just read them for the tuts and interviews. Computer music, Musictech & future music.

how many meats does weaver beats beat

Maybe they reviewed only the good shit?

Your skin is lookin' good weaver !

It's crazy how the internet used to be the alternative to traditional media like mags, tv, radio, etc... now it's pretty much the same.

Not having negative reviews doesn’t necessarily mean a bias. They could just chose to not review the bad gear. Partially to not sour relationships, but readers probably don’t want to see the bad reviews either. If you already know a piece of gear sucks by glancing at the score, why would you invest the time to read the entire article? And magazines want people to read the articles

Was that a vaush sleight? I'm with it

Tape-op Magazine policy: Life is too short to review bad gear. Only spend paragraphs on things that are good for the audio professionals.

Well, it looks like my remix is staying on Kanye's playlist. Would love to know what you think about it 😊

Weaver, it’s me.

The thing is too, is that companies also try to promote content that is decent hopefully, and they weren't all part of the same company so they would get items and products that were worth good rating for the most part

Did not expect the gifted hater reference, he has me thinking about how to make content as well

Weaver, if you are reading this, I’m an incoming plugin developer and I will definitely send you my plugins. At the start they are probably going to be free, but maybe later. I support honesty and free speech. So not all plug-in developers just want to get sales by marketing which isn’t really complete.

Ima spreadsheet nerd - that's why I love Live

I like the memes in the magazines tbh! Better then I expected xd

😂

Don’t do plugin police. Plugins are so boring and annoying these days, I don’t give a crap about any of them. None.

Good shout for showing this video. Yes all reviews are ads. Always have been always will. For a long time a brand can write their own reviews for any website or outlet providing they pay. You notice when you are reading a review and there are ads to purchase the item right next to or in the review it self... They call them sponsored ads now. 😂

The Beaver once again is ticking all the boxes!🥱