All good points.

i would say as long as it is absolutely transparent that a writer has not tested the plugin himself it is good to inform people about the release in general.
what i find critical in that context is when writers spread information and valuation that was originally formed by somebody else without checking it and making it clear that it was somebody elses thoughts.
i personally think that it is not worth for most of the plugins here to write more elaborate reviews, for me the size of most articles here is just the right amount, and i would prefer not to skip certain releases in order to put more effort in some selected ones.

Thanks Alex, that really means a lot. I agree on all points regarding testing the plugins more thoroughly. We do have the https://bedroomproducersblog.com/free-vst-plugins/ section with all the best plugins in one spot. And we do test the vast majority of freeware that gets featured, but sometimes there are 4-5 new articles per day and we get bombarded with news so it’s hard to be on time plus extensively review everything.

Also, I try to keep BPB’s team of authors on point and I think that our current lineup (James, Stephen, and Soroosh, with some help from me) is doing a great job. We do have many improvements coming soon (the website refresh is just around the block, the new comments section with forum features is coming next, along with new article formats).

I know the times have changed and the plugin market is saturated with free and affordable software. It’s just that sometimes it’s really obvious that the author (not all of them) hasn’t tested a plugin and they still recommend it or even talk about their favorite features and such …. But it’s no biggie. It’s hard to find the right balance I agree – quality over quantity approach has always been my choice, but a know a lot of people wouldn’t agree on that and you need some traffic to keep the website alive. Also, to find out which are the best, you would still have to test all of the new plugins and it takes a lot of time. Maybe some articles should be like: “We tested the plugin but it’s not all that good. Also, it has a really ugly GUI, but you can still check it out. Maybe you’ll like it … ” :)

However, whatever you decide BPB remains my favorite free plugins place after all this years :)

Hi Alex, the main point of the news section is to share the news about the latest freeware. We do test a vast majority of the software that gets featured on the site (in terms of verifying that it works and getting a general first impression).

However, I know (and I agree 100%) that it would be amazing if we could thoroughly review everything. I am seriously considering a new concept for BPB where we would publish fewer articles in total (2-3 per week) and focus on thoroughly reviewing each piece of freeware that makes it on the site.

There are pluses and minuses to this approach, though. A deep test of a plugin takes at least a few hours and is longer to write. I’m sure in that case many readers would miss having more news on BPB.

So, we have to find the right balance. I’m working on it.

Tomislav at least tests plugins…

Those days are long gone. Since there are multiple authors at BPB, plugins don’t get tested anymore or get tested very rarely. But there’s at least still some useful info about new releases, again, provided by readers for a good part. Oh well.

How about you, Charlton? Have you tried out Formula’s effects? Did you give it a trial run before writing this post? I see no mention of it so I’m guessing not. Side note: I really wish every author here at BPB tries out whatever you’re writing about before you post. 😬

Thanks to Soundspear for offering the user effects database access to everyone instead of just shutting it all down, that’s very generous.