Overrated Or Consistently Diappointing Gear Reviewers / Demos

RaymondLin

Does anyone actually watches Chappers and the captain for gear demo...I see them as a bunch of guys mucking around with lots of gear to play with.  For one thing, they are bias as they want to sell the product they are using so from the get go the actualy value of the review goes out the window.  Secondly, Chapper's playing style is just ridicuous in terms of showing what the amp or guitar can do, it's like everything gets jumbo together and a mess.  And I don't think their recording gear is that great either.

 

Chicago Music exchange has better gear reviews and demos, but again, it's a but bias.  I generally prefer demos from independant people who do comparisons in their own bedroom.

 

Nothing beats your own demo at a store though.

 

side note, on the acoustic side, for consistency, The Acoustic Letter guy plays the same tune on every gutiar reviews he does.  So if you just listen, you can get a better idea of the sound of the guitar with his reviews, again, he doesn't seem to say anything negative on any of his gear either, there is a lot of "killer this and "killer that" going on.

BilliBob

Acoustic letter is best I have found

BilliBob

Chappers et al are like children......

BilliBob

Big opportunity for someone in a band, to test stuff in situ. At practices and live.I would watch that.

JohnPerry

Can it be? Another Chappers thread? We're like hamsters on a wheel.

I am bored with just about all the YouTube demoers tbh. Even old Brett Kingman, who seems a top bloke but if I hear him play Tie Your Mother Down one more goddamn time I might end it all. I swear to God he'd play that if he was demoing a Rickenbacker through a Janglebox. Gearmandude got boring three years ago for me. Fucking white coily cable.

PGS Andy is consistently interesting still, oddly. I like Sam Vilo's stuff too. 

jonnyburgo

Without a doubt the bestest is the guy who does the Airline/Eastwood demos RJ Ronquillo.

RaymondLin

The white elephant in the room is that no matter how good these demos are, ultimately you are playing it through your PC speakers (for the majority of people) so what it sounds live is not 100% true to what you hear.

 

 

meltedbuzzbox

breakstuff said:

impmann said:

Twatters and the Craptin

To be fair to Lee,he seems quite a decent guy when he's doing videos solo,and after all he does run an extremely successful businesses.He just turns into a bit of a bellend when he get with Chappers.

I find this to be the other way around.

Lee is dull as mustard and not the best player 

Chappers adds some energy to the review/demo. I know he is marmite.

The problem is Andertons/PGS/Gearwire etc are all selling shit utimately. You will never be told if something is ass awful etc

57Deluxe

Heartfeltdawn said:

The stoned guy at Gearwire. Dreadful but addictive. 

I used to watch in total disbelief when early Gearwire reviews ALSO included detailed box and packaging rundown!

ToneShackTrev

Pete Thorn consistently disappoints my bank account!

Arktik83

impmann said:

Twatters and the Craptin

I thought I was the only one!  Rob Chapman's playing style is completely generic and un-inventive.  He just cycles through the same riffs over and over again.

ThePrettyDamned

JohnPerry;271525" said:

Can it be? Another Chappers thread? We're like hamsters on a wheel.

I am bored with just about all the YouTube demoers tbh. Even old Brett Kingman, who seems a top bloke but if I hear him play Tie Your Mother Down one more goddamn time I might end it all. I swear to God he'd play that if he was demoing a Rickenbacker through a Janglebox. Gearmandude got boring three years ago for me. Fucking white coily cable.

PGS Andy is consistently interesting still, oddly. I like Sam Vilo's stuff too. 

PGS Andy is good, but his high gain demos are rubbish because it's always fingers. He did some cool high gain distortion pedals, like the Digitech hardwire metal, but made a great pedal sound a bit rubbish.

Pete Thorn - just irritatingly tasteful all the time. Great tones, mostly, but he's very much a boutique only kinda guy, though he has recently shown some interest in a couple of boss pedals so I might need to rethink that.

I'd like to see him just let rip, chug some riffs and blast a solo sometime.

Octahedron

"Hey what's up it's the Tone King, comin' atcha live from the tone lounge..." 

Nooooooooooooo!!!! *tears out ear drums* 

Every time I spot one of his videos i'm tempted to watch because it's got a nice guitar or amp in it and then I listen and I'm instantly pissed off because either he says something like that above or his tone is actually shit (or both, in 99.99% of cases). 

 

guitarfishbay

PolarityMan said:

The only gear demo's I've ever found remotely useful have been Ola's

I like the whole song playthrough approach though and the fact that it's an ok'ish genre match for me is helpful. The guys demo'ing high gain with ACDC'ish riffs involving chords on the high strings and stuff like that is just a waste of time. That shit's for the crunch channel.

Actually Ola is part of the reason I ended up playing Rectifiers.  Like a lot of people who like metal checking out Ola gear demos has always been a first port of call.  It is like he was the first person on youtube to realise a decently produced demo is more use than 10 minutes of waffling.  

Over time I found that so many of the amps he demos end up sounding very similar though, especially the tighter ones.  He just sounds so much more interesting on a Rectifier IMO, despite it being such a common sound historically for modern metal it just sounds better to me.

Arktik83

Octahedron said:

"Hey what's up it's the Tone King, comin' atcha live from the tone lounge..." 

Nooooooooooooo!!!! *tears out ear drums* 

Every time I spot one of his videos i'm tempted to watch because it's got a nice guitar or amp in it and then I listen and I'm instantly pissed off because either he says something like that above or his tone is actually shit (or both, in 99.99% of cases). 

 

I swear he's being Ironic.  He must be!  "Tone King" more like the "Ass Tone King"

not_the_dj

I love the PGS Andy demos, but the problem is he makes everything sound so good. Of course that's the idea as what's he's doing is an advert for the gear not a review, so it's totally uncritical and just shows the best of whatever gear he's using. Still fun to watch though and I've bought loads on the basis of his clips so he's got me hook/line/sinker.

I still enjoy the Chappers/Captain vids, I just stick them on my iphone when I'm washing up, not as serious reviews just a bit of light hearted guitar based entertainment....although I do tend to use Andertons first when it comes to online gear purchases.

I used to love the gearmandude clips but it's just got a bit boring now.

JDE

They've come a long way. I remember when they nearly all consisted of some dude from Texas spending five minutes opening the box - "and here's your manual and warranty card. Oh, and here's a little cool sticker to go on your guitar case, if you have one. Or you could put it on your guitar's body. The cool thing about the manual is there's a space at the back for you to write your settings down, and...."

It reminds me of Father Ted - "Play the f****** note!"

Bogwhoppit

I'm going to put on hold my new 'youtube' gear test channel - 'Bogs Butchers inside the Box at the Bog lounge'

 

 

Heartfeltdawn

http://www.tonymckenzie.com/Site/images/pimages/tony2.jpg

imalone

JDE said:

They've come a long way. I remember when they nearly all consisted of some dude from Texas spending five minutes opening the box - "and here's your manual and warranty card. Oh, and here's a little cool sticker to go on your guitar case, if you have one. Or you could put it on your guitar's body. The cool thing about the manual is there's a space at the back for you to write your settings down, and...."

It reminds me of Father Ted - "Play the f****** note!"

If anyone needs reminding:

Though I'm not sure always playing the same things is necessarily a bad idea, you want some kind of consistency to be able to compare across reviews. Yes, do something that shows off what the gear is meant to do, but since it'll depend how you're playing it's good also to have something that lets people hear how it's different to other kit. Not that anything ever sounds the same in the shop as on youtube anyway...