Clean vs. Dirty tones in demos...is it just me?

Tones not naturally produced by the amp or by the guitar are useless to me. I wanna know what they sound like without add-ons. What's the point otherwise? Imo anywho

 

Demos come in many varieties
IMO most modeler demos are mostly higher gain wankfests.
I have watch demos of high gain amps.
Most folks demo cleaner sounds albeit mostly chording and proceed to dial in varying degrees of dirt.
I usually like the Peach Guitars and nStuff amp demos. Danish Pete does demos with clean and dirty tones.
I play mostly cleaner and edge of breakup amp setting so I want to hear both.

 

If you are showcasing an amp or guitar then I want to hear it as is. Guitar, cable, amp. Period
If you are doing a pedal then that’s a different world.

 

I want it CLEAN.
After a point anything sounds THE SAME with distortion no matter what guitar or amp you use.

 

There’s value in both, provided the dirt is pretty light.

It’s important for me to hear how pickups sound with some dirt, it’s the determining factor in how I judge PAF types actually. For instance, Lollar Imperials sound beautiful clean, but waaaay too polite for my tastes dirty. So I’ve found I like other PAF types better by how they sounded overdriven.

 

Different people can have different use of the same amp: some want to play mostly clean, others intend to push it to overdrive all of the time, while others want to run pedals in front of it, etc.

A demo that is useful to one, will be useless to another and vice versa.
An efficient demo would be one that would demonstrate all (or at least many) of these scenarios.

Problem is, a demo also reflects the style and habits of the one who’s making it.
I, for instance, play clean 100% of the time, and with no pedals nowadays. Ask me to demo a vox ac30 and I won’t be really able to focus well on the dirty side of it.

My conclusion are:
- The best demos are the ones that are done by several players on the same video;
- A demo video shall never be able to replace the real test of the actual amp by the one who’s interested in buying it.

 

Real way is you & your guitar..

 

If you’re doing a real amp demo of a tube amp and you’re trying to appeal to the widest audience I would say a really comprehensive review should do all the following:

• straight in clean sounds with single coils
• Straight in clean sounds with humbuckers
• Dirty sounds with both, show how the amp responds to both at different volumes on the amp and how the guitar volumes behave
• Show a dirt pedal that works well with the amp and one that doesn’t and talk about why (amp eq vs pedal eq)
• If the amp has an FX loop demo a pedal in front of the amp and then in the FX loop
• If the amp has multiple channels demo each of them
• If the amp has built in reverb, tremolo, etc.. demo those
• If the amp has power options demo each power level and show how the tone changes if it does
• Take some dB readings during the demo

Yah, most videos do not do all this and do not do it well.

I don’t even have a humbucker equipped guitar so I couldn’t do it.

 

What always cracks me up is when the guy starts off with "And here's my clean tone". Ummmmm, that's your clean tone!?! That's about as raunchy a tone as I ever aim for. Then he kicks in the OD/Distortion aaaaaannnnndddd I'm out. Bye bye...

 

I like a little of both.

 

Demos I find generally useless:

Demos of an effect pedal where the guy has one or more other pedals in line with it, so you can't tell what the pedal being demoed sounds like?

Demos where the guy spends most of the time talking about the pedal and very little time playing through it.

Demos where the guy twiddles the knobs constantly to show you how extreme the control settings are, but doesn't come up with any good sounding knob settings.

Demos where the guy plays through an amp, recorded from across the room through the same mic he's talking through.

Demos where the guy compares two or more pedals (or amps) but doesn't play the same source through them (such as a looper), and doesn't even attempt to get similar sounds out of them, so you have no idea what he's comparing.

High gain wankerfest demos in general.

There's more, but these are ones I stop watching immediately.

 

Clean for me. It's how I play and is what I like to hear in a demo. I love to hear the beautiful, subtle tone qualities that a guitar can produce.

 

I don't mind both. But I would prefer both unless it's obviously a pedal video.

You don't have to be a Larry Carlton. But, out of tune is the real deal breaker.

There's no excuse for out of tune in the age of cheap tuners.

 

This. Happens in more than 50% of dirt pedal demos it seems.

 

I feel the same way about any other external effects. I've heard demos with "room reverb" added in post-production, or demos where they won't turn off the delay or chorus pedal (for an amp or guitar demo).

 

Who the H... cares about clean tone anyway ?
I sure dont....
And you really have wishes/cravings from the people who posted something you listen to for free ??
How about all of YOU post something on a free-to-use site where we can all discuss it afterwards ?
LOL...