The meaning of life is more cowbell

Plughugger is a music technology blog, created and maintained by Carl Löfgren a Swedish journalist living and working in Budapest.

As writing about myself in third person is not just slightly schizophrenic, it's also quite silly. Plughugger is more or less a one man show, with the occasional guest appearance. Therefore I hope you don't mind me switching from the royal We to the more informal I.

The idea of Plughugger came about during the gloomiest days of the 2009 recession, when the available space for reviews were shrinking to a minimum - both in terms of the available space for the text, and what kind of material that could get into the magazine.

The whole point behind Plughugger is to write about music software, hardware and sample libraries, and do so in a way that could not be done due to the limitations of a magazine.

Friendly as a Facehugger
In opposite of a Treehugger, Plughugger can be as friendly as a Facehugger. I have been writing about music software long enough to have been stamped with the label 'Moron' as well as 'Prophet' by (at times by the very same) manufacturers and distributors. If I write that something is good - I mean that it's good, not that I want to please the creators of a product.

The whole idea of people reviewing things is a subject always regarded with suspicion, and rightfully so. If you are interested, you can read my personal thoughts on this subject by clicking here.

Why are there no ratings?
There are no ratings because I consider them to be a bad thing. In best cases, a rating can give you a sense of quality, but usually a rating is just misleading. A rating is a quick fix for the lazy who don't bother to read. The absence of ratings is - in my opinion - one of the reasons why Sound on Sound have higher quality in their articles, than the competition. The score of 8 for Cubase means something totally different from a 8 for Sonar.
For the absolutely most interesting products I hand out a star award. But in contast to the awards in Future Music and Computer Music (fine magazines - I read them both every month - but aren't they basically giving some damned award to everything?), this one is not as easy to earn.

No bloat - no spam
Another idea is to keep Plughugger as clean and streamlined as possible. There are no bloated flashware or too much going on on the pages. Technically, the site is optimized for quick operation and that's how I will keep it. There are no mailing lists and if you buy any of the sounds from the shop, you won't fear getting bombarded with spam or Very Generous Offers (tm).

Watch your tone, young man!
There are no forums here at Plughugger and there will never be. We already have Kvr Audio and Gearslutz and there is definately no need for another one. This place is created on the form of a blog, and everybody is more than welcome to share their thoughts. If you like what you read - great! If you don't like what you read - great! If you got more opinions - great * 2. Write about it!

But keep your tone and your manners. I'm not going to let Plughugger turn into a troll paradise.
You can write anything you want, but rudeness, personal attacks et cetera are not tolerated.
I won't be thinking twice to zap if I see anything I don't like.

With that said, I warmly welcome you.

/Subcommendante Carlos.