Pedal Demos - What Format?

[Frank_NH]

Hey all,

I've been thinking about putting together some pedal demos for my DIY circuits, but I'm wondering about alternative formats.  The two basic alternatives as I see it are:

* Video upload to YouTube (or similar site).  Use an iPad or video camera to shoot both video and audio.  Advantages: Get to visually see the pedal settings and hear it in real time.  Disadvantages: Time consuming to produce (with titles. editing, etc.) and audio quality may not be the best.

* Audio only upload to Soundcloud (or similar site).  Use a portable recorder (e.g. a TASCAM multitrack recorder) to record live audio tracks.  Advantages:  Good audio quality, easy to edit and upload.  Disadvantages:  Need some way of indicating pedal control settings for each track, which may mean recording multiple tracks with settings labelled for each track  (like Runoffgroove does for their demos).

Let me know what people prefer and find most useful.

[inefficiency]

I would do both personally.

Record them both at the same time. Have the video camera recording whilst you also have the cab mic'd up too.

You can put annotations on Soundcloud tracks at certain points, so you could probably use that to indicate settings changes.

EDIT: You could also then use the higher quality audio recording with the video for youtube. Youtube compression will still ruin it a little, but it will probably be better than the camera audio.

[IvIark]

I suppose it's easier to keep the quality high if you do audio only, but I do like seeing the vids more

[Geiri]

I got a Tascam iXZ which allows you to hook up mics to your iOS device. It's super easy to use. I recommend getting a decent mic preamp to use between the mic and the iXZ since it's cheap and doesn't have a good preamp.

I record all my demos using this and I get some decent demos. You can find me at www.youtube.com/geirisk8

If you want me to further explain, just ask!

[rocket88]

I've got a focusrite Scarlett 2i2 that I use for recording purposes. It's not too expensive I think I paid like $100 for it, and it's for a decent preamp. I also have a sennheiser e609e mic that ran me like $100 as well. It's a great mic for recording guitar and can handle bass frequencies with ease.

[Frank_NH]

Hi Geiri,

Thanks for the advice.  I already have a bookmark for your YouTube channel - thanks for all the demos!  They really help give me a sense of what a particular pedal circuit will sound like.  (Someday, maybe you can publish a cross reference to your pedal videos and the parent circuits here at tagboardeffects ).

I may go ahead and try the iPad route.  I've gotten some good video with it, and audio can be enhanced as you suggest with something like the iXZ.  I could set up a video shooting space in my basement with a table + lighting for the pedal, and mount the iPad to shoot the pedal controls so you can see how the pedal responds to changes in volume, gain, tone, etc. in real time.  I like that format better than showing me playing (and not seeing the pedal).

By the way, if other builders have YouTube videos they'd like to share of effects they built using the vero layouts at Tagboardeffects, perhaps we should have a permanent chat message so folks could post links to their videos.

[Ciaran Haslett]

I personally think the format of the demo itself is more important than how audio is captured.  Obviously audio is important too but I find demos too wrapped up in the creators style of playing and do not detail the functions of each control.  

As we are all DIYer's we are always trying to cross reference our builds with other successfully built circuits.  That would mean knowing exactly what each pot should sound like.  How many times here have you read a comment saying "My tone control is really subtle" and someone responding saying the exact opposite.

Then there's the style issue.  Playing a shred solo throughout the demo tells me nothing about how it sounds for open chords, power chords and lazy blues lead.

I would like to see some kind of standardised demo format amongst all the great builders here that could replace all the PGS demos etc that are linked to in the pedal threads.  The demos actually demoing the build instead of the original.  A DIY demo, demoing a DIY build, created from a DIY website!  How cool would that be!?!

I would like to see something akin to the following...(dirt pedals as an example)

Demo starts with clean guitar chords
Engage pedal with everything at 12oC
Then sweep every pot through its full rotation one at a time (that would sort out most troubleshooting questions)
Demo open rhythm chords with unity Volume, appropriate Tone and varying Gain
Clean guitar with power chords
Engage pedal and vary gain
Clean guitar with lead
Engage pedal and vary gain

The demo could finish on what the builder believes is the pedals strong point which may well be a shred solo.  It could also be split into two parts like a few of Geiri's.  One for Humbucker LP style guitars and one for single coil Strat style guitars.  

Something like the above would give a much better idea of exactly what a pedal is capable of/sounds like.  And because it was built using Mark and Miros layouts we, the builders, will know exactly what to expect when we take the plunge.

I appreciate how much work would be involved in actually making a demo like this but as far as I can see there isn't anything like this out there.  Gearmandude has the rough and ready approach and PGS have the production factor but they both fall short of showing you exactly what each control does.  They're forever randomly turning pots while playing the same thing over and over again and its next to impossible to get a full sense of the pedal and what it'll bring to my pedalboard.

Anyway, sorry for the long post but its something I've been waiting for a long time to see.  Good luck!

[Frank_NH]

Great thoughts Ciaran!  I have to say that I think Gearmandude and Andy at PGS have the best demo styles I've seen, although not everyone has a "65 amp Soho" or a "Dr. Z Maz" and boutique Teles, Strats, and LPs to play.

I was thinking of adopting a format similar to yours (except you won't get warp speed shredding from me ).  Try to demo the range of tones first (though you do have to play some riff over and over to illustrate the range), then play some chords and familiar riffs, blues stuff, and whatever you think appropriate at the end, all the while changing the effect settings to reflect the music.  You could also add an effect or two (like delay or chorus) to show how the effect works with other effects in a chain.  Sometimes a distortion can sound blah on its own but magical when delay and phasing are added.

I would also try to keep it to 5 minutes or under so it doesn't get tedious (and to keep the video file sizes manageable).

I'll try to get something going soon.  So far, I've built and boxed a Univox Fuzz, a Clark Gainster, a Zendrive, a ROG Omega booster, and a ROG UBE Screamer (with several other overdrive circuits in the boxing pipeline).  Any of them could be the subject of a demo.

[alex.s]

Not that I've done many, only a couple, but when I did I used both techniques mentioned: shot the video on my iPhone and recorded the sound through my recording setup, then sync'd them up and uploaded on YouTube.

I also agree the format is very important (though personally I rarely ever bother watching demos with the audio coming from a phone/tablet mic), don't more than 10 seconds of chatting and best when short and sweet, with enough variety but without dragging on (something I miserably failed to do in my Octavia demo...!).

Been meaning to do a few more lately, might do a few more in the coming couple of weeks...

[Frank_NH]

Alex - what did you use to sync up the audio and video?  I haven't tried anything beyond basic video on my iPad (using the built-in mic).  I record to my Windows desktop computer all the time and have a mixer-->audio card-->recording software arrangement that could capture a good quality mp3 file.

[Ciaran Haslett]

Excellent Frank!  Looking forward to seeing them.  All the best.

[induction]

I've only done one pedal demo (All-Star Reverb), and I used Cubase for the audio and my digital camera for the video. Then I opened both in a free video editor my wife found (I can't remember what it's called) and synced them up the old-fashioned way.

You know the clapper they use on movie sets:


That's what that's for. It gives you a visual reference point to sync audio to. Match up the closing of the clapper to the clapping sound, and you're all lined up.

You know what makes a decent clapper for stompbox videos? Stomp switches. Line up the mechanical click to the led coming on (or to when you push the button down, if you don't have an led). Done.

[alex.s]

I used Final Cut to put audio (SM57 -> audio interface -> Logic Pro) and video (my humble iPhone) together, but any free, standard software (iMovie, or Movie Maker in Windows) would work as well.

Just make sure you bounce the audio in the right format, as many video editing softwares won't accept mp3 files, but with .was or .aiff you should be dandy.

The stompbox switch click tip is a good one, as it does make a good clapper, but literally just clapping your hands off camera before starting the proper video will work. Just sync up using the audio waveform, head and tail and it's job done!

[Frank_NH]

Induction - I didn't know that about the movie set clapper (always wondered) - I learned something new today!

Actually, since i don't plan to be shown playing in the video (not yet at least), exact sync isn't really too critical.  I would just shoot video of the pedal and twist the knobs live.

Thanks for all the tips everyone.

[Meomy]

There have been some great suggestions so far.
As far as "format" goes, one thing you might want to consider would be getting a loop pedal for your demos. Everyone throws up a demo, strums, fiddles with the knobs, strums 2X harder, fiddles, etc.. so you never really hear how the pedal interacts with the same EXACT strum or pick attack in a phrase. It'll also free up your hands to slowly sweep through the controls.

[induction]

I agree with the looper idea, but with one caveat. The sound of some pedals (Fuzz Face/Factory, Cot-50, etc.) is very dependent on the output impedance of whatever comes in front of it, and the output impedance of most loopers is extremely low compared to the output impedance of most pickups. If you use a looper to demo a pedal that sounds best first in the chain, you can get misleading results. A pickup simulator or series resistor can improve things, but it won't be as useful for demonstrating how the tone changes with the guitar's volume knob.

[Frank_NH]

It would make sense to use a looper for consistency, but actually I don't mind a little variation.  It's up to me (the demo-er) to include hard, soft strumming, single note lines and licks, riffs, harmonics, etc.  I actually like using phrases from well-known songs (like the intro riff to "Day Tripper") and playing a I-IV-V rhythm guitar sequence so you can hear the pedal tone in context with an actual song or a part of a song.  Both gearmandude and Andy from PGS do an excellent job with this.