When evaluating a profile, some of us would also like to hear what "non-professional" or "amateur" users can create. If they can create something with potential, using their limited resources, then I can extrapolate that to fit my skills and expectations. Not all of us base our buying decisions on one single perfectly mixed demo.
Blackbird beat me to it!
I was gonna say that on Soundside.de, the purpose of the "user samples" is precisely this one I believe, to showcase what his profiles can do in the hands of an amateur sound engineer.
And yes I do have limited resources! Aside from my obvious lack of knowledge and experience (i've been mixing in a self taught way since the end of 2012) The Kemper was given to me as a gift, but there's still a lot of gear that I need to improve eheh!
My Guitar: Schecter SGR C-7 (200€)
My Monitors: Don't exist, I do have some cheapass speakers which do not sound bad (I do not use them for mixing, I just use them for listening how the mixes sound afterwards)
My Headphones: ATH-M50 These are pretty decent, and are the ones I use for mixing (150€)
My DAW: Reaper, and I use all of its bundled effects eqs and reverbs (cost me 40€)
My Interface: Tascam US-200 (200€ or so, works fine :))
So even though the biggest reason for bad mixing is my knowledge of it, I've noticed the guitar recording also accounts for a lot of the mix's quality, and well, my guitar is not the greatest! (one day........)
I guess it's alright if you want to bash Armin's way of doing his business, I guess it's your right to do so, he could pay a professional mixer to do stuff for him, but it's his choice not to do so and we all have to respect it. But I have gotten some of Soundside's profiles because of user profiles, and like me I'm sure there are more people.
All in all artembankin you've been mixing for 15 years and I've been mixing for 1 and a half, maybe you could cut me some slack?
Regards
-nox