Talk:ValhallaDSP

I am contesting the speedy deletion; the product itself has been discussed in multiple reliable third party publications. I will attempt to make the tone more encyclopedic, but the fact the article appears to be "promotional" is not grounds for deletion; the subject needs to not be notable, but this is notable. Samboy (talk) 20:17, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Contested deletion

This page is not unambiguously promotional, because the product has been described and reviewed in multiple third party reliable sources independent of the subject. --Samboy (talk) 20:18, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

• Understood. If you can make substantial improvements to the tone of the article, I'll remove the deletion request. •≈20+π^{(talk to me!)} 20:19, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

  • I’ve updated the tone to be more encyclopedic. The article is still a stub, but that is not grounds for deletion; it’s a well referenced stub. I have no relation to Valhalla except that I have been using their plugins for about four years in my own music production. Samboy (talk) 20:25, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I have expanded the article to be over 500 words, so that it is no longer a stub. Samboy (talk) 22:02, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Let’s make this article more neutral

I have received multiple complaints that this article is not neutral and may have, to put it bluntly, too much “marketing puffery” in it. I should explain how I made this article and how it ended up coming off as marketing puffery.

My philosophy when making this article was to find references and then write the article from what the references say. That in mind, I reflected what some of the reliable third party references have to say when they discuss Valhalla DSP:

• “The legendary reverb brand ValhallaDSP is branching out with a mixture of modern and classic delay sound. [...] You can't go far in the world of music production without coming across ValhallaDSP. To say that reverb plugins like ValhallaRoom and ValhallaVintageVerb are highly regarded would be putting it too lightly, so when Sean Costello gave the world a sneak preview of ValhallaDelay late last year, expectations immediately started to rise.” Source: Source article from Electronic Musician
• “Sean Costello has quietly built up an enviable reputation for his Valhalla DSP range of plug-ins. In products such as Valhalla Plate, Room and VintageVerb, he's managed to capture what people love about the sound of different vintage reverbs” Source: article from Sound on Sound
• “The ‘V’ on many of my tracks is the Valhalla Vintage Verb, which we love.” from a Sound on Sound article where they interview the producers who made Lana Del Rey’s album Lust for Life
• “I first heard of them via two of my engineers, Chris Woodhouse and Scott McDowell. They were both raving about how good Valhalla plug-ins sounded [...] We've been using these plug-ins at The Dock and Panoramic House for the last few months, and everyone is really stoked on them.” Source: [Article https://tapeop.com/reviews/gear/111/ubermod-freq-echo-shimmer-room-vintageverb-and-plate-reverb-plug-ins/] in Tape Op magazine.

Point being, one reason this article has some puffery is because the sources I was working from (especially the most reliable sources) had a good deal of excitement and enthusiasm for Valhalla’s products. I can see why this article did not come off as neutral since I initially reflected that appreciation of Sean Costello’s products as seen in the sources, but I am working to make the article more neutral (such as emphasizing the criticism of VVV—that’s what people in the industry usually call “Valhalla Vintage Verb”—from the almost-as-reliable source Music Radar, in their mostly positive review of this reverb), and welcome input from other editors. Samboy (talk) 02:47, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

As an example of how it’s hard to find negative things about ValhallaDSP in reliable sources, I had to read three different reviews of Valhalla Plate before I found one with something less-than-postive to say about it. Here, I had to use a site which may not be reliable; while its about page says that “AudioNewsRoom (or simply ANR), is, since 2007, an online music technology magazine featuring news, software reviews, hardware reviews and exclusive interviews with makers, developers and artists.”, it may or may not be considered a self published source by the Wikipedia, since it’s a web-only page. Samboy (talk) 03:37, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

ValhallaDSP’s history and personnel

Since there has been concerns that this article should not just be a list of products, I have researched about the company itself and added information I have found to the article.

Since not much beyond the company’s products have been published by third party sources, I am using the company’s own webpage and blog to publish the majority of information about the company itself. I would rather use third party sources, but the initial version of this article, writting using mainly third party sources reads too much like promotional puffery to other editors, so I have to incorporate sources published by ValhallaDSP personnel about the company. This is allowed (if not necessarily encouraged), as per WP:ABOUTSELF. I am being careful to reference every sentence in this section, and since Sean Costello (ValhallaDSP’s founder) has written academic papers about reverberation, that information was able to come from sources published (if not completely written) by third parties. Samboy (talk) 06:13, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

A version of this article using *only* reliable sources independent of the subject

While Wikipedia policy does allow an article to use primary sources for certain information, as a thought experiment, I have made a version of this article which derives all of its information from ValhallaDSP’s significant coverage in multiple independent reliable secondary sources, to demonstrate the subject’s notability, and to demonstrate that the article benefits from using primary sources about the company. Samboy (talk) 21:25, 1 December 2019 (UTC)