Musician Gear & Tech Discussion

learning to make youtube videos of my pedals... any tips welcome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTsAIQvcZnM

Pretty cool.
The thing that has always amased me about YouTube is how something with such dreadfull definition and video quality has become so popular.
Can you get a better picture of your product?
You dont sound to excited about your product, I mean you dont have to be all sham-wow but a little more upbeat me thinks.
Oh and paint your toenails black. You can stirr up the goth chicks.

you just made me spit up coke all over my desk with the sham wow comment. literally LOL.

you mentioned the quality... yes, that is an issue... but in order to keep my audio good, and the size less than 10m, the video had to be 'so-so'.

I have high rez pics on my myspace so... unless anyone can offer advice on a video compression codec... that'll have to do!

afa toes... NOTE TO SELF: I should probably stop grossing folks out with my toes!

LOL

Yes the audio is the main point I suppose.
Now clean up that coke before the ants find it.

roger that... cleaning up coke asap.

Like the pedal, Mike. Good work as always. Edit out the feedback...LOL...& yeah, get a pedicure.

"It can really put a hurtin' on your toe."

Good line, that!

hey philby... thanks for your thoughts...
I didn't want folks thinkin' I doctored my video so I left the feedback in... it only feeds back when the vol is over 50% which is way above the volume of the gtr straight in... and even so only does this cause I'm 2' away from a cranked tube amp... do you think it'll hurt me? should I record it all over?
I know I know... my toe = gross!
thanks again!

Personally, I'd do a do-over, cuz the f/b makes you look less like you know what you're doing to an amateur. I wouldn't worry about the toe thingie, either. Your feet look one helluva lot better than my nasty ol' hammer-toed hoofs do.

Other than that, you might wanna work up an actual sales pitch, if you're looking to sell these. That would take out those "um's & ah's & er's" that sound less like you know what you want to say. There's something to be said for impromptu honesty, but in a video where you're going through the steps to show something, it's not as good, imho, as knowing what you're gonna say & when you're gonna say it. Since you aren't showing your face on cam, you could easily use cheat sheets to prompt yourself.

I know - I'm being picky, now, but it's just how I see it.

very valid points philby. I may make up some notes... will be posting a new one soon... thanks, as always, for your feedback.

mv

Yea, It's hard to capture good audio without doing a seperate mic to a recorder.

The pedal sounds good. In all honesty though, I just bought a Biyang Metal End that can get the same sounds. They sell new for $65. Nice pedal so far. Not knocking your pedal, it is nice too.

no offense taken shredd. actually the biyang is not true bypass, and uses pretty cheap parts... I've seen the inside of them... and tone snobs know you don't get a boutique quality pedal using 5% carbon film resistors and low tolerance caps... but if your happy with it - that's all that counts.

Hell yea.. Works fine.

Here it is in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vztitLAn ... ofilepage#

boy it's hard to really give it a fair shake based on that video... the sound quality is pretty muddy. Interesting band tho.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZuOOO59H-8
this youtube clip is a much better sound test. It's pretty nice, a bit noisy but not bad at all. I wish I could understand what the guy is running it thru.

you know, I have a danelectro fab metal that is really not bad either. if you want that super saturated sound it gets a pretty good one and it's $20 new. No suprise that danos stuff is often an exact clone of other popular pedals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5UDT4NkUtA
then I heard this one! horrible! probably in front of a modeling amp.

This one is more like how I use mine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7a1P3EUiPw

What I like about the Metal End is the midrange options. The mid-range is surprisingly clean. I rotate 6-guitars when I'm gigging, so I need to adjust to each guitar. When you're going from single coil to Humbuckers, Dimarzio to Seymour Duncan, the mid-ranges change quite a bit. I have a Tri OD that I'll be adding to my board as well. But the Biyang responds well with my wah pedal. Better than the Tri OD.

To find a pedal with the mid options of the Biyang for $65 isn't very easy. Most lower level pedals just want to add a "contour" or "tone", which usually doens't sound very good. They always seem to dirty things up rather than just add a clean mid.

The high mid freq. setting acts like a presence knob. That's why I think you're hearing such a trebly bite in the other vids. Most Metal players commonly go for that sound and crank it up. And my guess is that's who the pedal is marketed to. But when you cut back on that presence knob a little, and add it to a mix, it can sound more like this (listen to the lead):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lww4zwKbjYA

So yea, I found a good sweet-spot on the pedal, and depending an what pickup I'm using on any given night, I can make it warmer or give it a little more mid-range bite. I've been able to get any sound I want out of it so far.

Like I said, I do like your pedal, but I wouldn't have the time to put one together, and I don't have the money for a high end boutique. Given the circumstance, the Biyang was a great buy for me. None of my dist. Pedals seem to rob me of tone. True bypass isn't exactly a totally necessary thing to have. It's nice, but not always necessary.

When you're cutting through a mix, people in the crowd really can't tell a difference. I could use my X-Series Hot Rod and nobody would even know. But I need the mid-range to cut through. And I need it to be clean.

I dunno, that 'satch boogie' sounded terrible to my ears, but that pedal wasn't meant to get 'that' sound. my digitech has a patch that satch himself made for that exact sound and it pretty much nails it... but then it's not exactly a great sound for anything else. still, the metal end lead sound wasn't bad for a $65 pedal.

it seems to me that most pedals do one thing really well, and that's why I have some $20 dirt pedals next to $300 boutique pedals... and that's also what has led me to 50+ pedals on my pedal board!

anywho, thanks again for taking the time to view my demo and give your honest opinion... any chance I can get you to listen to a few more in a post that will be showing up in about 30 min?

cheers,
mv