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Bgm! is pants or is just me?


kevvo66
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Like any hobbyist magazine after a year or so all the editorial feels a bit circular - there's only so much you can say.

I do still the like the tutorials in the back, but find the reviews are pretty insipid. Woe betide offending any potential advertiser, and you can't blame them, the whole magazine industry is running on fumes.

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[quote name='Drax' timestamp='1423740950' post='2688422']
Like any hobbyist magazine after a year or so all the editorial feels a bit circular - there's only so much you can say.
[/quote]Very true. However, there is no excuse for interviewing the same old players again and again (they still haven't interviewed Pino or got hold of Bruce Thomas despite numerous suggestions) and do we really need another article on Jaco or Jamerson (no diss intended here, but we've read all before numerous times). There are some things in BGM's back catalogue that are worth repeating though; the five way shoot outs and fretless feature were very good but have disappeared from their pages. It was a really good mag and I subscribed for years but no longer.

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[quote name='Grassie' timestamp='1423680432' post='2687910']
This month's issue has just arrived and it's possibly the worst one yet. The annual LBGS "preview" issue, with 7 pages of stuff we ALREADY KNOW, like "profiles" of players appearing this year, and (snorrrre.....) pages of manufacturers profiles too. This is stuff BGM have been banging on about since they announced the first guest months ago, a complete waste of paper. They have included more interviews but these are just expanded versions of the dismal "Bassically Speaking" section (which in itself now runs to 5 pages) and it's all THE SAME; "I don't/do slap because...", "I don't/do play 5/6/7/8/10/12 strings because..." GAAAGGGGHHHHH!!! Oh, and here's a handy hint for BGM's gear review photographers - when you take a picture of a guitar can we have an image where we can actually see what it looks like (preferably from the top) instead of pointing your camera down the bass from the bridge end (see this month's Jackson Dave Ellefson Kelly Bird review...)
Time for a new format guys, seriously. It's really dreadful this month. :(
[/quote]

Agree. Picked it up in Smiths yesterday - a quick flick through and I put it back. The Alex Webster column is the only interesting thing in it. Another thing, my wife bought the Bass Guitar Bookazine (or what ever its called) for me as she thought I'd like it. It was very poor. Nothing of substance, and just a rehash of old BGM Mags - very lazy and expensive.

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I've never understood how we still have magazines and newspapers when we have the internet and 3G/4G now where we can all google and find out whatever we like instantly.


I'd be interested to see a graph showing magazine/newspaper sales before the internet arrived and what its like now. I cant imagine they are making hardly any money at all! They must all be running off what dentists and hairdressers buy for the waiting rooms!

When you are already paying for your internet and mobile it seems insane to spend more money to buy a magazine when you have all the information in the world at your finger tips you are already paying for.

Edited by Weststarx
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Their facebook site has good use of the bass community with the fan questions posed to all, then it's flooded with adverts for shops + expensive power cables.
I think they should focus more on content than keeping advertisers happy, seems to dilute the content and makes it more likely I'm going to block them the next time I see a sweetwater bass picture...

Edited by Old_Ben
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I think it's just the magazine industry in general. As has-been mentioned, with the Internet at our fingertips 24/7 magazines, and newspapers too to a lesser extent, are finding it increasingly hard to make money. The only real revenue they have is from advertising, so is it any wonder that they seem to pander to those advertisers and stuff as many ads into the pages as possible? The problem is of course, that all they're really doing is delaying the inevitable. I doubt the print media industry will last another decade.

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[quote name='Joel McIver' timestamp='1402668618' post='2475816']



Hey all, I'm definitely interested in hearing your opinions, positive and negative, about our magazine, so feel free to express them here or to me at [email protected] if you prefer confidentiality.

Cheers all

Joel McIver
[/quote]

Hi mate, as I said I like it. My only gripe is, when my subscription runs out, the magazines stop coming and I only realise months later when I think, I haven't got one for a while. Is there no way you can get in touch with subscribers to say, you are due to renew?

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[quote name='ubit' timestamp='1424195709' post='2693718']
Hi mate, as I said I like it. My only gripe is, when my subscription runs out, the magazines stop coming and I only realise months later when I think, I haven't got one for a while. Is there no way you can get in touch with subscribers to say, you are due to renew?
[/quote]

They say this every year mate, when these threads pop up. 'pleeeeease help us understand what you want!'. So we do, and nothing happens.

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I had a flick through in WH Smiths a few days ago, I'd agree, it was pretty bad. Certainly not enough content or interest for me to get my wallet out. Its a shame, especially as there are at least two very good guitar magazines and decent magazines on pretty much everything and anything else.

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[quote name='M@23' timestamp='1424255918' post='2694343']
Its a shame, especially as there are at least two very good guitar magazines and decent magazines on pretty much everything and anything else.
[/quote]

I wonder why that is. Bass magazines just don't seem to go into enough detail, such as we see on this forum. So when you read one it just seems very superficial - there's not enough technical information on the one hand and not enough of an insight into the non-theory side of music on the other to hold my interest for very long. I do have a couple of copies in the bog, mainly so I can look at the pictures while I'm pushing out a log. You don't want [i]reality [/i]rushing in when you're taking the kids to the pool, do you?

Edited by discreet
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This is really weird because I bought the last but one copy at the airport on Sunday and read it cover to cover on a long flight. I wasn't impressed and when I got home I read a copy from mid last year and it was much better. I've noticed it's become less in depth and, well, just, 'less'...

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I've never read BGM, but I'm tempted to now if only to determine whether it's the train wreck that many here say it is.

I subscribe to Bass Player (US) and that's got worse and worse; each edition features more white paper than editorial and there is too high of a reliance on too few manufacturers (perhaps money is changing hands, who knows?). I suppose being a monthly publication it's always going to be a few steps behind the pace as well.

Let's face it; we are approaching the slow death of printed matter. Everything will go digital eventually, which is a shame as I'm really not a fan of using my tablet when I'm on the bog.

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Yes a bit frustrating isn't it. I seem to recall that one of the themes that emerged from the longish thread on here, last year was it, that reviews of basses that didn't cost £2,500+ would be appreciated, but I don't immediately remember any massive change in that respect.

We still have articles with missing pages, thinish content and interviews. My own particular frustration is that some particular visual feature of a bass is referred to in a review and there is no pic of it.

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