If you're like me you do a lot of research before buying a pedal. If you're also like me and you don't live in the middle of a major metropolitan area filled with well stocked music stores you do a lot of that research online. With headphones. On youtube. Couldn't live without those demo videos put up by amateurs and publishers alike. But after having spent countless hours with these videos I have to ask: do they have to suck so much?
The problems are many and varied. Off the top of my head, and in no particular order:
1. The bass is being played by a guitar player... who plays bass like a guitar player.
2. The bass audio is just the ambient sound of the guy's amp going through the same mic he's talking to you with. You can even hear the unamplified string noise over the amp.
3. The bass is being played in a strange style for the entire demo: like all in chords above the 12th fret. Why?
4. The player has chosen to set one key knob on the effect in a strange position and then leaves it there for the entire demo while he laboriously demos the range of every other flipping knob on the thing. Can having the Blend knob set for 75% clean signal help anyone better understand this miracle effect? It cannot.
5. The video is so slickly produced and heavily scripted that it's narrator ends up saying things that don't mean anything except to their marketing department. "Giving you PURE BASS TONE!" Um, it's a bypass switch. It's not "giving" me anything.
I could go on. I'm sure you could, too. (And perhaps you will in the comments.) But now that my rant is through I should pause for a genuine thank you to everyone who puts up these videos. Some of them are great, many of them are ..not. But having them there is a lot better than not having them.
The problems are many and varied. Off the top of my head, and in no particular order:
1. The bass is being played by a guitar player... who plays bass like a guitar player.
2. The bass audio is just the ambient sound of the guy's amp going through the same mic he's talking to you with. You can even hear the unamplified string noise over the amp.
3. The bass is being played in a strange style for the entire demo: like all in chords above the 12th fret. Why?
4. The player has chosen to set one key knob on the effect in a strange position and then leaves it there for the entire demo while he laboriously demos the range of every other flipping knob on the thing. Can having the Blend knob set for 75% clean signal help anyone better understand this miracle effect? It cannot.
5. The video is so slickly produced and heavily scripted that it's narrator ends up saying things that don't mean anything except to their marketing department. "Giving you PURE BASS TONE!" Um, it's a bypass switch. It's not "giving" me anything.
I could go on. I'm sure you could, too. (And perhaps you will in the comments.) But now that my rant is through I should pause for a genuine thank you to everyone who puts up these videos. Some of them are great, many of them are ..not. But having them there is a lot better than not having them.
