Why are Gear Demo's so terrible ?

sweepy

I post for your delectation, seemingly a sweet pedal marred by a hamfisted and frankly useless demo

BintyTwanger77

I don't mind them, but that Tone King bloke really grinds my fucking gears.

octatonic

Because people who are into gear are usually lazy and focus on the minutiae between pedals/amps and guitars that mostly sound the same rather than developing their ears, hands and head to be better musicians.

sweepy

My argument is where a very interesting device is let down by an unimaginative and poorly played Demo with no real background as to what a bit of kit is capable of . As a Fractal owner yourself, you know that its only when you get to grips with a bit of kit that the possibilities start to open up. I think Line 6 got this right with the early Helix Demo's in much the same way as the Fractal Community have made it a bit of a mission to squeeze every last possibility out of the Axe-Fx etc .Basically, tune the bloody guitars and explore the nuance of a bit of kit if its going on an Official website, its poor Marketing and sheer laziness

samzadgan

Theres are some very simple answers...

1. Its on youtube which is the home of User Generated content, and has no quality filter.
2. Demoing on youtube has promises of grandeur and money, which people would love to acheive to leave their day jobs...who wouldn't want to demo gear for a living!
3. Working artists, who are better at playing and demoing gear usually dont have time to do this, as they are working musicians, and they would rather spend their down time doing something else
4. We live in an age where everyone wants to be famous, and having your video viewed thousands of times somehow equates to that for some people
5. Due to technology, access to recording and posting video's is available to a vast majority, including shitty players.

Also, i will say this...everyone looks for different things in demo video's so one man's garbage could be another man's gold...ToneKing for example, yeah he's playing isnt great, but he does good explanations of gear that beginners will find useful...JustNik another example, i love his playing, I happily watch his 20min video on a 3 knob overdrive pedal, but that could be a bit much for someone else...PGS Andy final example, i come to dislike his video's both from a playing perspective and from a "what to expect when i get the pedal" perspective.

basically what I'm saying is...its a sign of the times...and it will only get worse...but the "back" button is your friend i guess.

anyway...just sayin'...

Telejester

What kills a demo stone dead is endless talking, ive seen 10 min clips were about 8 mins of it is yacking, henning pauly goes on and on and on....yaaaaaaawn

Teetonetal

Well, the obvious reason is that making a good demo is harder than people think it is probably mixed with ability and lack of resource.

Sassafras

I avoid gear demos.
Nothing sounds the same once you get it home and play it through your own set-up.
They're just a vague guide as to what to expect.

EricTheWeary

Well, the one in the OP wasn't posted as a serious demo but as a trailer for a competition so it's an odd example. 

Anyway, people like different things in demos and there's a lot of choice out there. Interestingly if I'm looking for something and I turn up a PGS or GearManDude demo from 7 years ago they are terrible, amazing how much things have changed since then. The (recent) Mike Hermans ones are little works of art, amazing stuff. I'm not sure he's ever read a manual properly though and that seems to go for a lot of them. It's okay if it's a simple pedal but trying to find how something actually works off YouTube demos is rather frustrating. 

Telejester

Worst online demos are gearwire and the tone king, a demo of an engl powerball using a 12 string rickenbacker is the kinda crap gearwire put out and tone king just hasnt a clue.

sgosden

This remains my favourite pedal demo ever. Clearly a very new guitarist trying to emulate what he's seen on youtube. probably shouldn't laugh. But its great.

octatonic

sgosden said:

This remains my favourite pedal demo ever. Clearly a very new guitarist trying to emulate what he's seen on youtube. probably shouldn't laugh. But its great.

Awwww bless...

Dopesick

Telejester said:

Worst online demos are gearwire and the tone king, a demo of an engl powerball using a 12 string rickenbacker is the kinda crap gearwire put out and tone king just hasnt a clue.

Add the American chap from Guitar World who looks like Marty McFly. He's a good player (if too overly reliant on shredding), but he manages to make every single amp sound like shit.

I really enjoy Mike Hermans and Bergs' reviews, and of course Knobs because they're so damn fun to watch. PGS Andy just so how the pedal can be used effectively in a song.

Dungus

I only watch Mickey's Musical Reviews. Everyone else is a faker wannabe.

Jalapeno

Conversly there's the guy who does the Prymaxe vids - who make every pos gear sound immense !

Dungus

Who is that insufferable (German?) guy who clearly drinks way too much coffee, rambles on and on and constantly patronises/insults his girlfriend in front of everyone watching? Demo videos are the worst. How many people listen to non-stop guitar solo music anyway? Like, the song starts, the blues solo begins and only ends when the song ends? Is there actually music like that? Demoers think that's all people want to hear, so it must be pretty popular somewhere.

Sassafras

Brett Kingman is pretty good.
Just the right blend of talk and play with minimal bullshit.
PGS Andy is very entertaining but I would never buy a pedal based on his demos. I think there's been a fair bit of processing to get everything to sound great.

mellowsun

Gregor Hilden remains the best in my view. No talking, just playing.



Love the use of the teddy bear as a mic stand!

Richard Barrett from Guitarist magazine is fantastic also

colourofsound

Just Nick is pretty good because, well, he's a totally average guitarist. He's not terrible at all; but he doesn't blast out note perfect blues solos in studio quality environments. I feel like his demos are representative of what a pedal will sound like in the hands of your average Joe, yanno? He does more playing than speaking and you can flip through a video for a good idea of what a pedal will sound like.

Whereas watching Andy PGS or Mike Hermans totally rip it is unrealistic. And, with Mike Hermans especially, every pedal sounds the same...

Teetonetal

colourofsound said:

Just Nick is pretty good because, well, he's a totally average guitarist. He's not terrible at all; but he doesn't blast out note perfect blues solos in studio quality environments. I feel like his demos are representative of what a pedal will sound like in the hands of your average Joe, yanno? He does more playing than speaking and you can flip through a video for a good idea of what a pedal will sound like.

Whereas watching Andy PGS or Mike Hermans totally rip it is unrealistic. And, with Mike Hermans especially, every pedal sounds the same...

Perhaps lots of pedals do actually sound the same..?

colourofsound

Teetonetal said:

colourofsound said:

Just Nick is pretty good because, well, he's a totally average guitarist. He's not terrible at all; but he doesn't blast out note perfect blues solos in studio quality environments. I feel like his demos are representative of what a pedal will sound like in the hands of your average Joe, yanno? He does more playing than speaking and you can flip through a video for a good idea of what a pedal will sound like.

Whereas watching Andy PGS or Mike Hermans totally rip it is unrealistic. And, with Mike Hermans especially, every pedal sounds the same...

Perhaps lots of pedals do actually sound the same..?

Perhaps, but not in my experience. All *demos* sound the same Especially once Youtube grasps it's compressy little mits on them...