Does Waves fabricate their customer reviews?

I've always been on the skeptical side when it comes to any on-site reviews hosted by the same company who makes the product. I mean they have 100% control over the reviews which appear, and can even spin them from whole cloth without ever having to answer for it. 
 
The Waves site is a classic example. I look through the product reviews and it's all glowing 5-star reports across the board. And a lot of them don't even sound believable - for instance, who leaves a review like "Love you guys, can't live without my Waves plugins, everything you make adds life and sparkle to my tracks"? Even though you can't quite put your finger on why that sounds fake, there's no denying that it does. 
 
Just wondering if anyone actually buys these write-ups. 

I usually make my own mind up. The reviews, the videos are pure promotion however you can learn a few things from some of them as well. There is a couple of reviews I left which passes the quality test.

i think waves is like plugin alliance and boz digital etc :the 1-5 star reviews are from people who have bought the plugin. probably most waves reviewers had even demoed the plugs before purchase and presumably thought was value for money
 
the magazine reviews are the worst: they have the 1-4 or 1-5 star system and no one ever gets lower than 3

I ignore those reviews.

Be that as it may, you should evaluate the product and make your own mind up. A product is only as good as the person uses it for. I trialled the Brauer Motion and whilst it was interesting as an effect...it's not something I would reach for over anything else.
 
There are plenty other companies out there with decent products. Waves realised this and created a sale which seems to have worked. I think though the best effects I personally have used are by Universal Audio and TC Electronic which essentially require hardware to use however fair enough.
 
Also with products like Harrison 32C console mixer (Mixbus) available now, could this be another outlet for musicians to finely craft their sound?
 

Hi Kenny,
 
I was actually just making a general comment on the OP and not yours (I think we posted ours at the same time). I do respect a lot of the folks that come in here and their opinions, and (before buying a plugin) I do exactly what you said: "think for myself"..............................unless it's a no brainer.  

Mesh
Hi Kenny,
 
I was actually just making a general comment on the OP and not yours (I think we posted ours at the same time). I do respect a lot of the folks that come in here and their opinions, and (before buying a plugin) I do exactly what you said: "think for myself"..............................unless it's a no brainer.  

Hi Mesh , 
 
Yeah , I didn't really know , it's all good ..we did post at the same time it seems ...it doesn't really matter anyway ..
We are all cool in the Cakewalk Hood 
 
I'm not a hater of the brand ..I do like Waves plugs I just don't use them any more ... still reserve the right to change my opinion someday .  
 
other than that , 
 
I don't give two $hits about the brands of plugs that other people use unless I'm looking to buy them . Then I care all of a sudden  
 
Kenny
 

I don't know if Waves fabricate their reviews - I wouldn't be surprised.  I believe they were the ones having stooges go to local studios about booking, asked if they had Waves products, and then Waves would check to see if the copies were legal.  If not the lawyers wrote,  demanding money.
 
As far as mag reviews, a long time ago many of those European computer mags got caught - one guy writing essentially the same review on the same software for different mags (or so I heard).  But to paraphrase Bit, most reviews are done by reviewers who want to review the software (or hardware) for their own use.  And many of the reviews are done by magazine staff (look at the various editors at SOS and the bylines).  And lastly, reviewing isn't much money.  In fact, one is likely to make a whole less than minimum wage on waging if you do a decent job.  I remember getting my first paystub teaching college English.  I was making over $30 an hour, which seemed impressive in the 80s.  But it worked out to only $200 a week for 6 hours of teaching, not including prep, grading papers and meeting w/ students.  Not to mention travel - 99th & riverside way up in manhattan to the ass-end of Brooklyn.  I had to leave 2 hours early in case I had to wait for changing trains, tho it usually only took an hour.  It was a minimum wage deal when all was said and done.  That isn't to say some reviewers are schlock.  And some musicians are simply really bad players, but doesn't mean the rest of y'all are.
 
Besides, it is a bit much to expect bottom dwelling music magazines to have more integrity than the major news outlets whose  headlines might as well scream, "Some guy said this was true!"  As always, buyer beware, if you know your latin. 

Mesh
Where does the "no brainer" fall in with that list?

I guess when it comes to a " no brainer " deal we all may have different and unique points of view .
Also additional personal resources and financial outlets may come into play ...
Someone may have income being generated VIA their musical productions and skills on a continual regular basis.. They may view their purchases as an investment . When they get a no brainer deal it only serves to sweeten the deal.
Someone else may have offloaded an instrument they were looking to sell for a while just to be able to free up and have some extra money to have available to play around with ...
Another guy or a gal may think it's perfectly OK to max out their CC. 's for what they consider a good deal ...
I myself do not have the extra coin to bite on as many deals as I would like so I just do the best I can with what I have ...
For me a no brainer deal has to be worth the extra aggravation of me having to drive my 20 year old POS car w only a quarter tank of gas in it while my socks and underwear may or may not still  have holes in them 
I'm not kidding ....I lost some great deals recently because I went back to the gym and I had to buy new duds just to be able to work out again in public 
 
Anyway, I thought BassDaddy's list covered the no brainer description in spades  if you leave out the first sentience about journalists  
 
all the best,
 
Kenny
 
 

sharke
So it sounds much like the situation on Amazon when half the reviews you read include the disclaimer "I posted this impartial (ha!) review in exchange for a discount." In other words, a complete load of bollocks. 

I believe there's a way to benefit from amazon reviews that is learned after a while.  I think I have a pretty good sense of finding the reviews that contain useful, helpful content on amazon.  But I've been using amazon reviews for many years now.  It's pretty easy to spot the genuine goods from the fluff.  Of course, it probably depends upon what type of item is being reviewed.  I look at a lot of book reviews and find much guidance in those.  With music (CDs) it's harder because someone may be perfectly excellent at communicating their opinions but happen to like a type of music that you cannot stand.
 
The reviews I have a problem with are the reviews that state things like: "broke after two weeks of light use".  We know by now that a common deceptive practice are troll reviews written by competitors.  I don't think one can learn to accurately spot that kind of abuse.

I'm a big fan of Carl Hiaasen's novels but one of them turned out to be a real stinker. I mean so truly awful compared to his other books. Halfway through I was curious enough to look up reviews of it online. Almost all of the newspaper reviews rated it highly, calling it a "classic Hiaasen romp" with "all the usual winning ingredients" etc. The plot outlines in the reviews seemed to have been taken from the synopsis on the book itself. It got me to thinking that a lot of book reviews are made up. Why wouldn't they be? It's a lot of effort to read a novel, make notes and formulate a thoughtful review based off of them - all for a little piece in the paper which hardly anyone will read.

BassDaddy

Mesh
Where does the "no brainer" fall in with that list?

For me Mesh, it's a "Lifestyle" issue. Seriously, it's like Kenny said. You still have to sift through things a bit but you know who you can trust at these forums. You know who the "straight shooters" are. Or you can just hang around until someone tells you to buy it. (usually Fleer) 

Badassador of Bassdaddor, if you please.