Dont be put off by the "pros"

  • Tyler i agree with this 100% i too shared those concerns before rig exchange was up. the stars rating as it is now is meaningless for the reasons you outlined. If i love a profile i will give it 5 stars if i don't like a profile i wont use the rating system at all. i cannot understand people giving poor star ratings just because a profile does not fit their taste. It will put people off sharing in the future then we all loose out. Also i really like your new suggestions I hope Christoph reads this thread and implements these changes

    I think CK is on vacation now but i will try to discuss it with the team asap. However it would be cool if other users shared their opinion regarding this matter. I think it is really vital to improve the rig exchange database to become more useful and stay interesting for all those great profiles that are yet to come. Imagine facebook would have had a "dislike" button... it would never have grown that big ;)

  • I think CK is on vacation now but i will try to discuss it with the team asap. However it would be cool if other users shared their opinion regarding this matter. I think it is really vital to improve the rig exchange database to become more useful and stay interesting for all those great profiles that are yet to come. Imagine facebook would have had a "dislike" button... it would never have grown that big ;)


    Something's got to be done, wether its a rating system or whatever. There are some profiles up there that are total poo.
    As it grows no one wants to go through them all and pick out the golden nuggets out of so many profiles. My .02

  • I too am not a fan of the rating system for reasons already stated. For me the ideal situation would be:

    • For every rig uploaded to the exchange an immediate thread would be created in the Rig Exchange part of this Forum.
    • In the Rig Exchange you can click a "Reviews and Discussion" link directly to that thread in the forum.
    • The initial automatically created post would be titled the name of the rig and all tag info would be the text portion of the first post.
    • Do not allow for manually creating of new threads in this area or else do something to differentiate the auto-created ones - maybe right vs left justified thread titles. Thus making it easy to spot something being discussed that is not in the exchange.


    Hopefully authors who wish to comment/provide info as they do now can simply upload their rig, click the link to the new thread over on the forum and post their own info on the second post to the thread. I think someone who tries the rig and then comments on how they tried a different cabinet, increased the presence, decreased the drive playing through their Les Paul sounded great, however just using the stock settings and just changing the cab made their strat sing with a great edgy lead tone is far more telling than slapping a rig with 2 stars, making their tweaks, re-saving and jamming away to it regularly while the person who created the profile with a P-90 Gretch slung around them can't understand why his favorite rig has 1 review for 2 stars.

    "Tone is in the fingers" is not a necessary response to anything that I might type on any internet forum threads. Thank you.

  • I too am not a fan of the rating system for reasons already stated. For me the ideal situation would be:

    • For every rig uploaded to the exchange an immediate thread would be created in the Rig Exchange part of this Forum.
    • In the Rig Exchange you can click a "Reviews and Discussion" link directly to that thread in the forum.
    • The initial automatically created post would be titled the name of the rig and all tag info would be the text portion of the first post.
    • Do not allow for manually creating of new threads in this area or else do something to differentiate the auto-created ones - maybe right vs left justified thread titles. Thus making it easy to spot something being discussed that is not in the exchange.


    Hopefully authors who wish to comment/provide info as they do now can simply upload their rig, click the link to the new thread over on the forum and post their own info on the second post to the thread. I think someone who tries the rig and then comments on how they tried a different cabinet, increased the presence, decreased the drive playing through their Les Paul sounded great, however just using the stock settings and just changing the cab made their strat sing with a great edgy lead tone is far more telling than slapping a rig with 2 stars, making their tweaks, re-saving and jamming away to it regularly while the person who created the profile with a P-90 Gretch slung around them can't understand why his favorite rig has 1 review for 2 stars.

    These are excellent ideas in here. :thumbup:

  • i certainly agree with Tills, the system as it stands is not working, and due to the sheer volume of new members and profiles is beginning to be very unwieldy, in the early days i used to load and try everything, I now have profile fatigue and am much more selective, because to audition everything was meaning that i never got anything achieved. I think there must be more description added to help people, could we not evolve a lexicon of tags, which would be used to help search and scroll. These could be musical genre, but there could also be some to do with particular guitarists and maybe iconic tracks, as well as types of guitar, so one profile could have a range of references that could be used to help us understand a bit more about it, for example:


    'Jimmy Page, whole lotta love, humbuckers, les paul, classic rock'


    would this work, i certainly don't want to miss out on great profiles, but also i simply don't have the time to keep on top of it either, which means there is a danger of profile and forum fatigue, which would degrade the quality thats here

  • A well captured profile is going to be in the ear of the beholder. The rig exchange is my first place to look for something I might find as a useful download. "Pro" is a misnomer, to a great degree.


    I don't think the exchange is in any real danger, as it were. The mistake, if one could call it that, is a lack of something very key to making it more useful. To be specific, there's not many folk who will post an audio example in this section in reference to the upload shared. If folks that have a DAW or another capture method to use, it would make it far easier to decide to download or not.


    The rating system might well be of use to some. For me it is of no assistance. We all have different tastes. A great drop C profile for death metal use isn't my sort of zone... Since I don't know who gave something a "Star", it's not going to make me download or not. It may well discourage folks from uploading things, and that would be a shame. Yes, some folks can be that sensitive.


    Like I said, those who can record a sample of their upload which is stored on Soundcloud or any number of locations would truly be useful and keep the ball rolling. It's sounds we are chasing and what better than a quick audio file to assist fellow tone chasers in expanding their personal tone library?


    It might be of some use to distinguish an upload as a "profile" or a "rig". Both are dandy. I'm more inclined to prefer doing my own FX, but advising what's a basic profile from a tweaked personal treatment would be nice.


    Anyway... just trying to put in a couple of my own "cents".

  • Recording samples of profiles on soundcloud, with some basic details, would be a really good idea and far more useful than stars. Andy's doing this on his site and it's got me taking the plunge and buying two more of his profiles.

    Vintage amp obsessive

  • Perhaps removing the stars rating and adding a link to a sample would work. I would be willing to do a quick sample for each profile I did. I think most everyone could do this and it would be nice to go through the profiles, click on a sample, and decide if it fits your tastes. I came from the eleven rack world and we did not have this many presets/profiles to deal with on a daily basis.

  • The rating system is a relatively new function --- and there really aren't that many profiles that have received "votes" or ratings....I think the most I saw was like 10, or something. 10, that's it!!! That's not a lot to rate a single profile, so I would recommend people should start rating!


    Over time - the quality profiles will rise to the top based on the rating. It's the law of large numbers and I really think that the best profiles are getting their due. The Mitch Malloy profiles are better than most I have found and they are getting positive reviews. The problem is that you can't sort based on the rating! So you manually have to look at each page and see who has good ratings. This is a bit cumbersome for sure.


    When people start actually rating, I think everyone will benefit. People are reading WAY too into this IHMO.


    If you don't like the rating system today, don't use it. Simply do what works for you.


    But some of the methods and recommendations I have read on here are entirely way too time intensive to gauge whether or not your like a profile. Soon we are going to be around 10,000 profiles. Keeping things SIMPLE is crucial.

  • Yes, raitings is good. Which song is good, which movie, ... Which profile. Raiting is all around us. It's the info you use or not. Raiting is subjective, NOT objective. --pia

    Edited once, last by pia ().

  • I'm glad you like my profiles. :>) I will be making more. I'm doing a Profiling party soon. Be doing some Vintage Marshalls and whatever else comes through the door. I'm asking my buddies in Nashville to bring all their best heads.