Riverside on That Pedal Show

Wazmeister

I've enjoyed this show a lot, and learnt a lot.... but it is beginning to grate slightly. 

The way Mick looks to Dan for approval of his sounds and playing is annoyingly puppy-like.... and either my ears or Dans are slightly out...

...most of his OD sounds are dull and muffled to me... 

And that bloody 'housekeeping' intro does my fruit in !!!

Moan over.

And I fancy the Strymon sounds better in the flesh, but pretty cack in this show

meltedbuzzbox

I am also losing interest in the show and had it withthe cheap plugs at the start. I'm sure they don't need to beg for money to make that show. Especially as its all free advertising for the gigrig stuff.

I also find they don't really cover a fraction of the pedal manufacturers out there (am I right in thinking they only cover gigrig/Andertons, barring the odd exception?).

And they really need to ease off the drive pedals

Rant over

William Williamson

I think if they keep talking about actual topics it would be very very nice - for example the difference in overdrives, fuzzes, etc. - but now it just seems a bit unfocused.

peteri

hotpickups said:

meltedbuzzbox said:

Everything is subjective and down to the player and what they use.

As an observation Mick is obviously a good player but he keeps using the same old licks every week. When he does most of the playing I find the show is less interesting

Nothing to do with Mick's playing but I must admit the show is losing its way for me a little. I'm finding it getting boring now and skip through it. I found it very informative when it all started over a year ago though. I guess there is only so much you can talk about this stuff

Completely agree with the above. Past two or three have lost the spark for me a little. 

Hope they find their mojo again

BintyTwanger77

meltedbuzzbox said:

BintyTwanger77 said:

Why are people writing it off before trying one? How it sounds on a demo video is not a true reflection of how it sounds when you're in the room with it.

Lol

Injured fanboy :-p

Personally, I don't find any drive pedal demo videos helpful. I can't make a judgement on a dirt pedal on the basis of a YouTube clip, it's just the sound of angry bees on an iPhone, no "air moving".

I do like watching TPS anyway, though, Mick & Dan are excellent.

Rowby1

I really quite like TPS and find it enjoyable and informative. I don't think I would buy anything on the basis of any YouTube demos although it might encourage me to investigate some stuff more if it sounded great.

meltedbuzzbox

BintyTwanger77 said:

meltedbuzzbox said:

BintyTwanger77 said:

Why are people writing it off before trying one? How it sounds on a demo video is not a true reflection of how it sounds when you're in the room with it.

Lol

Injured fanboy :-p

Personally, I don't find any drive pedal demo videos helpful. I can't make a judgement on a dirt pedal on the basis of a YouTube clip, it's just the sound of angry bees on an iPhone, no "air moving".

I do like watching TPS anyway, though, Mick & Dan are excellent.

I really do believe its all about the player. Andy at PGS is lethal viewing and can resort in purchase. To a similar extent Mike Hermans

Then we have Andertons a the other end of the spectrum. I have never purchased a pedal after seeing their demos

BintyTwanger77

meltedbuzzbox said:

BintyTwanger77 said:

meltedbuzzbox said:

BintyTwanger77 said:

Why are people writing it off before trying one? How it sounds on a demo video is not a true reflection of how it sounds when you're in the room with it.

Lol

Injured fanboy :-p

Personally, I don't find any drive pedal demo videos helpful. I can't make a judgement on a dirt pedal on the basis of a YouTube clip, it's just the sound of angry bees on an iPhone, no "air moving".

I do like watching TPS anyway, though, Mick & Dan are excellent.

I really do believe its all about the player. Andy at PGS is lethal viewing and can resort in purchase. To a similar extent Mike Hermans

Then we have Andertons a the other end of the spectrum. I have never purchased a pedal after seeing their demos

Neither me, or anything else. I tried out a Boss Katana that they were raving about in their demo video, and it did nothing for me.

EricTheWeary

Watched a bit of this. Very dull video ( and I like them and often put in, positive, comments on YouTube) and sounds like an overdrive pedal. Big whup. The Riverside needs something extra to make it interesting to anybody other than Strymon fanboys;  I understand that what's under the hood is different than other overdrives but if the end result or access to those sounds is nothing different I'm struggling a bit with the point of it. 

BintyTwanger77

EricTheWeary said:

Watched a bit of this. Very dull video ( and I like them and often put in, positive, comments on YouTube) and sounds like an overdrive pedal. Big whup. The Riverside needs something extra to make it interesting to anybody other than Strymon fanboys;  I understand that what's under the hood is different than other overdrives but if the end result or access to those sounds is nothing different I'm struggling a bit with the point of it. 

I was initially really sceptical having watched demos and I like Strymon, though I'm not a drooling acolyte (I just have the Timeline), but trying one out I was seriously impressed by its versatility. Adding a boost switch, and with the favourite switch, you could easily do a gig with only the Riverside for dirt, and you would cover so many bases.

Having said that, I'm selling my Tumnus and Kilt and getting a Riverside with Xmas money, but I tried my Tumnus again last night and it sounds sublime. Might have to hold onto it.  

handsomerik

I've really loved that pedal show over the last year and I've watched every single one. Tons of very helpful insightful advice.

It's now beginning to grate as I've noticed that Mick has that one guitar lick that he either always plays to start with or at least he works it into absolutely any other phrase he plays.
I guess we're all guilty of it but it's beginning to spoil the show for me like when you first notice someone has an annoying habit and then you can't not notice it any more.

It's actually a challenge to myself because I know I'm guilty of the same old riffs over and over. New Years resolution-Keep learning new stuff and keep it fresh!

The riverside does nothing for me and certainly not at the price point and I'm a huge strymon fan owning a timeline bigsky and flint.

I'm keeping my eye out for the new bias distortion. MIDI controllable, drive/distortion/fuzz profiling, presets etc. Seems like a much more useful device. 

EricTheWeary

I'm not saying it's a bad pedal, it's all a matter of taste and ODs fit in with different set ups differently , but on the face of it that's a £290 dual overdrive and there's a huge range of options within that cost. If I've understood the clip correctly if you want to operate the boost function then you need an external pedal for that. If they'd upped the onboard programmability or gone 'here's some extreme tones you can't get elsewhere' then it might be more exciting but on the face of it the Riverside looks like a very expensive yet fairly ordinary dual overdrive.
 I'm fairly sure I'm not in the target audience for these things so they aren't exactly losing a sale here but I can't see that we are looking at the future of overdrive.

hubobulous

What I find frustrating is that they look to compare a style of pedal, only to not be familiar with half of what's on the board. TonePrint and H9 apps are hardly new any more yet they still don't really have a handle on them. However, they still demo the pedals and laugh when they can't really control them. What's the point in that?

The latest delay one was a case in point. Either you're going to compare them, in which case get familiar with how they work, or choose to just introduce a concept and then you only need a couple of standards to illustrate the point.

I find their better shows are when they are either doing the A/B comparison or talking about a concept. Those where 4 or 5 pedals are compared rarely work for me unless they are simple dirt pedals.

hotpickups

I agree with the above. Silly money and for what gain (if you pardon the pun)? One could almost buy 2 Thorpyfx for that price definitely if they were second hand. Still as also mentioned above one just has to try it person to fully judge it.

dindude

I still really like the show but I do feel they are a bit meandering these days. Lots of watching of knob-twisting, not sure we need to see 5 minutes of them sound matching, juts the result would be fine. Dan and Mick clearly weren't inspired by the Riverside and that came across in the vid.

Interestingly, I thought that the recent delay ones was also quite poor, they didn't dial in a useable delay throughout the whole show, then I read in the comments on the latest episode that they pulled this episode as they thought they hadn't done a good enough job with the DD500 or the Nemisis.

ennspek

It's definitely one of the better "shows" in my opinion and it's still relatively young.
I'm not bothered about the lick thing, everybody does it. You could argue it's to give a comparison.
Again I think people underestimate how difficult is it do this stuff. There are plenty of crap TV shows on with massive budgets and years of experience.

ThePrettyDamned

meltedbuzzbox said:

BintyTwanger77 said:

meltedbuzzbox said:

BintyTwanger77 said:

Why are people writing it off before trying one? How it sounds on a demo video is not a true reflection of how it sounds when you're in the room with it.

Lol

Injured fanboy :-p

Personally, I don't find any drive pedal demo videos helpful. I can't make a judgement on a dirt pedal on the basis of a YouTube clip, it's just the sound of angry bees on an iPhone, no "air moving".

I do like watching TPS anyway, though, Mick & Dan are excellent.

I really do believe its all about the player. Andy at PGS is lethal viewing and can resort in purchase. To a similar extent Mike Hermans

Then we have Andertons a the other end of the spectrum. I have never purchased a pedal after seeing their demos

Andy from pgs plays pedals to strengths - he'll dial in very specific sounds with specific equipment and play it bloody well. And it is very dangerous - I'm surprised he's not made the miku sound fantastic, but he managed it with the rainbow machine and the geiger counter! 

I vaguely remember that pedal show doing a bit of metal - eurgh. Absolutely hideous. They spend so much time on boring overdrive pedals because it's their thing. Overdrive pedals are much of a muchness anyway - I find I prefer distortion pedals with the gain low because they sound very different. 

Did not mean to post yet! 

So if a pedal, any pedal, sounds bad in a demo it probably isn't the pedal. I've not heard many pedals at all that are complete shit when used appropriately. 

meltedbuzzbox

EricTheWeary said:

I'm not saying it's a bad pedal, it's all a matter of taste and ODs fit in with different set ups differently , but on the face of it that's a £290 dual overdrive and there's a huge range of options within that cost. If I've understood the clip correctly if you want to operate the boost function then you need an external pedal for that. If they'd upped the onboard programmability or gone 'here's some extreme tones you can't get elsewhere' then it might be more exciting but on the face of it the Riverside looks like a very expensive yet fairly ordinary dual overdrive.
 I'm fairly sure I'm not in the target audience for these things so they aren't exactly losing a sale here but I can't see that we are looking at the future of overdrive.

Hold the phone. £290 for a drive pedal?!?!

Fuck


That

Where's my pitchfork? I feel a lynching coming on

wayneirie

Is it genuinely 290? wheres the crying laughing emoji when you need it. 

mattdavis

I thought the pedal's main virtue demonstrated was its versatility. I can imagine it being dialled in to sound decent in any rig. But I doubt it will become a classic. I guess fundamentally it's like the Fractals/ helices etc - brilliant reproducibility from gig to gig.
I'm also finding the show a bit tiresome. Sometimes get the sense there is a certain ingenuity about it all - as with all these shows there is an underlying sales pitch going on but it feels like they are trying hide that with a veil of supposed impartiality. What the heck  is a 'preferred retailer' anyway? Don't want to knock them too much - they seem like nice dudes trying to make a living so good luck to them.