Youtube Demos

[Delberthot]

I've been having a good old rake around for a second bass to go with the Precision and have been on Youtube a lot looking for some demos to give me a rough idea of what something will sound like.

Is it just me or do the vast majority of people who post on Youtube not have any concept of the purpose of a demo? ie to give someone else an idea of how it sounds in a normal band situation.

If I hear another video of "Portrait of Tracy" then I'm going to throw something at the telly. Likewise for tapping and general w***iness.

I want to hear a bass played with fingers, a pick and slapped as a last resort. I want to hear a fretless played normally and not with vibrato covering 5 frets on every note. There's even an official Fender video where the entire demo is with a pick with heavy distortion so you can't even hear the bloody thing properly.


Also demos of certain basses tend to be played the way you'd expect them to be played. ie every Hofner violin bass is played with a plectrum, every old school semi acoustic is played with the right hand at the end of the neck. I've heard the bass player from either Airborne or Wolfmother playing an Epiphone Jack Cassady with a pick and it sounded awesome

[wateroftyne]

I agree entirely.

[hamfist]

Ideally both audio and video should also be recorded using a mobile phone !

Yes, I agree with every point. It's a bit of a pet hate of mine also.

[mrtcat]

Would be nice to hear the bass played in a band situation as well as just solo. Basses like Stingrays aren't my favourite solo but I think they sound great in a mix.

[neepheid]

Moon on a stick!

[ratman]

I absolutely agree. A lot reviews of pedals don't go round the whole range of possible settings, like wet/dry blend, lower gain settings.
And I hate it when it's played through some clanky amp, a Ricky and with a pick. Most if us don't sound like this. No, really, we don't. Fuzzrocious demos are a classic example - but in their case they're sh*te demos, but lovely pedals, and they don't show their products off as well as they could. The other end of the spectrum is Ed Friedland, the Bass Whisperer. His demos are a lot more thorough and informative.

[tommorichards]

did you see his demo of the g&l saddle lock bridge with the saddles loose and locked down? Now thats informative.

[JapanAxe]

Yep. Every time I go through the YouTube vids in the early stages of GAS, it's 'slap... slap... v. bad slap... w**ky slap... aha! someone playing properly - on no, they've started slapping'. Slapping tells me [i]nothing[/i] about the kit being demoed, it just tells me the person likes to show off. If they play finger-style over a range of tones, from bright to dubby, and add a bit of dirt at some point, now [i]that's[/i] useful.

Edited October 26, 2013 by JapanAxe

[Coilte]

Generally I dont pay much heed to bass demos on You Tube because there are too many things in the sound chain to render it inaccurate except to the individual demonstrating. For example, the type of amp, cab, location (as in the place where the demo is taking place, i.e. acoustics) strings, along with the person's playing style can all contribute to making the same bass sound different in other circumstances. This is not to even consider the type of speakers on your computer.

In the absence of not being able to try out a bass personally, a You Tube demo can be of limited help IMO, but can be OK for telling about balance, weight, general feel etc. Just think, if you were blindfolded, and someone was to go on You Tube and play you say three clips of high end basses and three of entry level, could you tell one from the other. I doubt if I could.

We all know, it's always best to try before you buy. Otherwise take these demos (regardless of what's being played, or how )
with a sack of salt.

[JapanAxe]

[quote name='Coilte' timestamp='1382793567' post='2256631']
We all know, it's always best to try before you buy. Otherwise take these demos (regardless of what's being played, or how )
with a sack of salt.
[/quote]

Check out the demo vids from Pro Guitar Shop - they make [i]everything[/i] sound good, without exception!

[Coilte]

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1382793698' post='2256633']
Check out the demo vids from Pro Guitar Shop - they make [i]everything[/i] sound good, without exception!
[/quote]

Thanks. I'm sure you are correct. However "making everything sound good without exception" is not necessarily a good thing either. The idea of a demo is to help us decide if we like something. This means we need to balance the good points with the bad. If [i]everything[/i] sounds good, then my suspicions would be raised. [i]Making [/i]something sound good is not what a demo should be about. Besides, "good" means different things to different people. Again my point is that even if you were to accept their superior presentation, there is no guarantee that the bass is going to sound anyway near the same if/when you play it yourself in a shop, or through your own gear. All you get is just a very general idea of the sound. That sack of salt needs to be close at hand.

[snotsnail]

It's not visually entertaining in the slightest, and not sure if it's enough criteria to choose a bass from, but the Thomann shop site has a fairly extensive sound archive for the many of the instruments they sell at decent audio bit rate. Have no idea through what tech they are compiled though, but they do seem to be fairly distinctive.

[Grangur]

2nd favourite to the show-off slappers has to ne the bedroom demos where you can scarcely hear anything over the drum machine or backing track.

It amazes me that these plonkers don't watch the video before posting. If they did SURELY they would realise it's about as good as a demo as an ashtray is on a motorcycle?

[AntLockyer]

What are you after a review of? Someone here probably has one.

[Dingus]

Totally agree , and I too have noticed an increasing number of YT clips that use distortion on part or all of the demonstration . It makes me despair at how stupid some people are . IF YOU PUT THEM THROUGH A FUZZBOX ALL BASSES SOUND APPROXIMATELY THE BLEEDIN' SAME!

Slapping is of some use , tapping is of no use , and it would be nice if , as the O.P says , folks doing You Tube demonstration videos would actually play some basslines on a bass to let other bass players know how that particular bass sounds when you play bass on it in a bass guitar- type fashion .

Edited October 26, 2013 by Dingus

[thebasswhisperer]

Thanks for the positive comments. Yeah, the slapping thing seems to bug a lot of players... but the reality is, I came up in the 70s and everyone was slapping back then... I love the style, it's fun, and sure - it's attention grabbing. But more importantly, it's an extreme use of the instrument that gives me a really good sense of its capabilities. When I hear how a bass responds to slap, I get all sorts of info about its general performance - but that's because I've been slapping for so long. I'm not super attached to slapping all the time, in fact, in my gig life, I almost never slap these days, but hey.... if I didn't slap, people would complain about me NOT slapping. However, I will NOT slap in a demo that features a hollow body bass, or flatwounds, a man has to draw the line [i]somewhere![/i]

[Paul S]

What you should do is ignore the Youtube vids (unless they are by The Bass Whisperer - I still can't believe you joined, Ed!) and simply ask on here what a particular bass is like. The first response will be from someone who thinks it is the best bass he ever bought, the second from someone who believes it is the worst. The third will be from someone who hasn't ever tried one but can heartily recommend something completely different. Then I will probably recommend buying a Westone.

Edited December 1, 2013 by Paul S

[thebasswhisperer]

Thanks for the honorable mention. The democracy of the internet (perhaps a thing of the past soon) allows everyone to be a star, and so... they are. They say it takes a village... but hopefully not Expert Village! Have you seen any of their videos? They have how-to videos on every subject from "Machine Gun Slap Triplets" to knitting sweaters, and amazingly they seemed to have found the least qualified person in the world to demonstrate each topic! It's a brilliant concept. The fellow they had demonstrating the slap triplets was actually playing two 16ths and an 8th note and called it a triplet. Well, at least he could tell there were three notes being played.

I wouldn't discourage anyone from trying, but it seems people no longer understand the concept of "not ready for public consumption". It used to be people practiced, and developed a skill before they let everyone see what they're doing.... now we get to see everyone's first attempt at everything. And of course, there are enough boneheads out there that will say "Awesome vid!" - and so they keep doing it.

I never envisioned doing this, I fell into it by accident, and just kept having to produce things every month for a few years... I'm still relatively unskilled in terms of video.... but I've learned to do what I do, and keep it fairly tight. I try to address the main points of the piece, show what it does, but I never "sweeten" the audio with eq, just compression (very important when mixing to -6dB for video). But it's not my goal to make it sound "bad" either, just accurate. At this point in time, I'm only demoing things that I'm personally interested in, so if I'm spending all that time to shoot and edit it, I've already decided that I like it, so it's not really an objective thing... These days, if I'm demoing something, it can be taken as a "stamp of approval" for whatever it's worth.