KVR Audio

projectdan · Post by **projectdan** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 3:32 pm

Ben, you mention your thinking of uping the review word count to 10,000, is there much chance of it happening soon? Ive just done a review and its over the count, I can only fit in about 60%. If your intending to up the count soon ill just put the review on hold untill its done.

Otherwise Ill have to put my editing cap on

pummel · Post by **pummel** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 11:54 pm

How about unrated text-only with pro/con reviews (as suggested); but with the following twist...

A committee of one or more respected individuals read each review and assign a rating number to the text. That way, the ratings would be reliable and self consistant. They would take into account not only the written words, pros / cons, but also the individual writing them.

Galleoneer · Post by **Galleoneer** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 4:14 pm

What about a dedicated review committee? Objective and somehow competent reviewers could make the difference. User reviews are mostly not taken serious.

learjeff · Post by **learjeff** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 8:03 pm

Just my $0.02. Sorry, I just found this thread so I didn't read all 7 pages.

Keep ratings, but allow "Not Applicable" and/or "Don't Know" colums. These would not affect averages. I don't like giving a rating when I couldn't possibly know, or when it doesn't apply. (Currently, I just use the average of my other ratings.)

Don't raise the minimum. Good writers can say a lot using few words. This isn't high school grammar class!

learjeff · Post by **learjeff** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 8:13 pm

Ah, just saw emdot_ambient's post. I agree with what he says about ratings, and also about some indication about how competent/experienced a user you are.

But rather than listing how long you've used it, let's give an indication of what kind of user we are for this software, something like:

- inexperienced user
- occasional user
- experienced user
- expert user
- reverse engineered it and built a clone

(OK, the last one is just a feeble attempt at humor.)

Part of my idea here is not just how familiar the reviewer is with the particular item, but of the class of similar items. For example, when reviewing a Hammond clone, the highest box should be reserved for folks who not only carefully demoed the clone, but who also is an experienced Hammond player.

dmholtof · Post by **dmholtof** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 12:00 pm

I think ratings as such are largely overrated.
Let's be honest, how many members do we have around here ? And what criteria can one use to consider any of those 'credible' enough to do any rating. Even a good synth designer/programmer is NOT necessarily a good musician or even sound designer and tastes will always vary. We can go as far back as the moog versus arp discussions of old. Not that I mind having a rating section, but it will always be extremely biased and only in some rare occasions fun to read. Even magazines get kicked a lot around here. Who actually are those people reviewing and what references do they have to be considered 'expert' enough to even have an opinion to take into account. A practical example .. the good old casio's wouldn't ever have rated high by anybody's standards, but Quincy Jones used them quite a lot in the past. In the end all these reviews fade to grey.

ghost666 · Post by **ghost666** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 1:11 pm

I'd like to see more tits & ass...

crimsontider · Post by **crimsontider** » Mon May 02, 2005 9:23 pm

Didn't have time to read all but I would like a way to check for reviews by date or just the newest reviews.

markheath · Post by **markheath** » Wed May 04, 2005 7:30 am

Why not give everyone the ability to vote for their favourite 3 plugins in each of a few categories: Free effects, commercial effects, Free instruments, commercial instruments. At any time you could modify which plugins your votes are for.

This would retain the ability to sort plugins by popularity, and avoid some of the drawbacks of the rating system.

learjeff · Post by **learjeff** » Wed May 04, 2005 4:11 pm

Hey, that's a good idea. It should allow more than 3, though -- maybe 5. (Some of us have a nice stable of free plugins!)

cptgone · Post by **cptgone** » Wed May 04, 2005 4:13 pm

markheath wrote:Why not give everyone the ability to vote for their favourite 3 plugins in each of a few categories: Free effects, commercial effects, Free instruments, commercial instruments. At any time you could modify which plugins your votes are for.

This would retain the ability to sort plugins by popularity, and avoid some of the drawbacks of the rating system.

great idea!

groovepriest · Post by **groovepriest** » Wed May 11, 2005 6:50 pm

Just a thought... I think the ratings are helpful to us newbies who may not even completely understand all that the reviewer has to say, but is looking for some direction in getting started.

Musikman4christ · Post by **Musikman4christ** » Fri May 13, 2005 5:15 pm

DevonB wrote:Seriously, one more category that would be nice is

Most Underrated VST/DX?

Lot of us have favorites that NO ONE talkes about, and it might get some more chatter around some of the more obsure plugins.

Devon

I like this idea.

William Sharkey · Post by **William Sharkey** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 8:51 pm

WhiteNoise wrote:The synths we jizzed over a couple years ago

Another reason to go software.

emdot_ambient · Post by **emdot_ambient** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 10:00 pm

William Sharkey wrote:
WhiteNoise wrote:The synths we jizzed over a couple years ago
Another reason to go software.

True, it's difficult to jizz if it's soft.

KVR Audio

RFC - Review Shakeup