DHR Create

I confess I love You Tube. I originally started watching You Tube videos (2000s) to learn how to use new software for work and for “how to’s” on my music software. When software companies began outsourcing their tech support to overseas companies or only offering support through their website, you were left to wander the vast internet for answers to problems you couldn’t solve on your own. It was no fun. I spent probably 20% of every week searching for answers and trying to solve problems.

When You Tube exploded into an entertainment platform with music videos, talk show personalities and obscure “How To” channels I continued using it for what I originally needed. Information. You could find videos on how to do almost anything, and I found a lot of great stuff, that saved me time and money. It was invaluable for my interest in guitar building for instance, and there were endless videos about the music software I used.

After I retired, I started watching You Tube videos for reviews on guitar related products, to try and figure out what new stuff was good and whether it was worth purchasing. There were new channels popping up all the time with famous “pro” guitarists doing demos, and music stores featuring guitar gear demo’d by the store or pro musicians. It was a great way to see some of the new guitars, guitar amps and effects… The guitar pedal business alone was exploding. My setup at the time was a quilter super block pedal amplifier running into a 12″ cabinet with a Celestion Neo V-Type speaker. My multi-fx pedal was a Nux Cerebrus which is a simple multi fx unit that includes the basics: reverb, delay, tremelo, chorus and distortion and overdrive. The pedal has a built-in tuner and 4 foot switches for user programmable banks of presets. It’s a great, simple pedal built like a tank, and it does everything I need. For comparison, I decided to purchase a couple of the new multi-fx pedals from Amazon to test, based on You Tube reviews. After a number of tests and returned products I was a little surprised that I was not getting the sounds the reviewers were getting and I had a lot of issues with the products themselves i.e. they didn’t work properly. Bottom line, my Nux Cerebrus sounded a LOT better than the stuff I tested. And I would even say my setup made the stuff I tested sound like crap. I was starting to get a little skeptical of internet product reviews…

It’s a Business

Product reviews on You Tube ideally would be an honest assessment of a products capabilities and its usefulness, as well as how it compares to other similar products in its category and price range. However, I noticed reviews started to be “Is this the only pedal you’ll need”… “This pedal may be the perfect answer to your blah blah blah”… and not really a critical review at all. If you think about it, saying a product is not good, probably guarantees no manufacturer is going to give you their products to review. Right? So how do you do an honest review without pissing off the companies you need to stay in business? Good question. If I was reviewing 5 distortion pedals I would say after testing them all. This is the best one. It does everything you need and has better features, so don’t bother with these other 4. Bam! I wouldn’t be reviewing products very long. Therein lies the problem with You Tube. People who make a living from these videos HAVE to keep posting videos… So its a matter of doing reviews without saying anything is bad, but finding something good about everything. Kind of like “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” Sorry, I want the truth, Man… Ha.

Conclusion?

So, what do I watch these days? I still watch channels that do interviews with people in the music business like “Rick Beato”, who is a fantastic interviewer and great musician. There are a few artists channels like, “Home Skoolin” which is Tom Bukovac playing guitar and offering insight into a studio musicians life… Some of these channels, the business is about subscribers and views… that’s what makes money, but there are still a few that do it for fun, no selling. There are still some great stories to tell, and interesting people to interview, but in between is a lot of crap that is really just advertising. It’s getting harder to find stuff to watch but I haven’t given up yet. In the end, I’m still looking for good information that I can use in my life.