That's an interesting thread for someone like me who is on both sides
Wrote the music for some short movies and commercials back in the 90's had a major break then and came back to music during Covid. The first lockdown in 2020 gave me enough time to learn about actual gear and i started to document that journey on Youtube. Whenever a library surprised or inspired me I made a short video about it (calling it review). Of course these videos have been positive as I made them out of my free will about products I bought and I really liked. Funny enough some companies spotted those videos and I received the first requests of reviewing some of their libraries in exchange of NFR copies. Of course I saw no reason to change my style, I continued that positive vibe. And things get complicated: do viewers find positive what I like or not? If I spot negative facts, would those facts bother other people too? My machine handles that library easily, so is it heavy on CPU on someone elses machine maybe? ... you get the point. So I changed the concept a little bit from review to "First impression" just writing some short cues to hear how that library can sound out of the box in a musical context. That's it. For all the tech specs there are manuals and descriptions on the product websites.
Can you tell from my videos which libraries I received NFR's for and which ones I bought? I don't think so as the approach is always the same. If someone doesn't like it or has questions or wants to see different sides, there are the comments which rarely are used.
A good way to showcase a library are live streams noodling around with them and doing some live composing as people in the chat will tell you what they would like to know or to hear.
I do watch a lot of reviews from others too, to see the way they do it and to learn about new products. Thumbnails are a funny topic, some make the most stupid faces (guilty myself, but it helps), personally I hate those clickbait titles (THE BEST...., THE LAST ONE YOU'LL EVER NEED, IS THIS FOR REAL....) BUT comparing videos done at the same time, same number of subs, same length of the video....those videos with clickbait thumbs perform a lot better, so you can't blame Youtubers making those thumbs as it works for them. I made one clickbait thumb myself recently, the first one ever, and what to say, it really works
One thing to keep in mind are affilate links. As soon as there is an affilate link the video has one purpose: to sell the product through the affilate link (nothing bad here, we all need to make money, I do have affilate links myself). So personally i listen to those reviews very carefully.
Reviewers I like:
Daniel James
Guy Michelmore
Cory Pelizzari
Mike Fox (has some really cool videos)
ThomC (for his voice and the alternative products)
