Video Demos: general question

[atreidesheir]

I like to see the pedal's settings when a demo is played.  That is the big thing to me.  Gives me an impression of the controls.
And the less exotic the guitar and amp used for the demo the better.

[gordo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGb2z5EoV30

I did this demo trying to toe the line between showing the pedal and mixing up the knobs.  I tried to keep the jabbering to a minimum.  I used a Les Paul Special with P90's (not a good idea if you don't want to have noise) into Amplitube on the THD amp model which felt fairly real when pushed and was nice and quiet.  So it's guitar, pedal, Audio interface, Amplitube.  I used a separate mic for voice over and recorded it separately so if I buggered up either playing or talking I didn't have to start over.  I also recorded all the clips in a sitting and then edited out extraneous audio junk between settings.  Ironically the only effect I added was a panned delay to my voice on the first sentence of the intro.

So although I would rather just see a raw board with good audio, this was done to market the pedal so it had to look as good as I could make it.

[hoodoo]

This is a no brainer IMO. Everyone puts their own spin on what their final builds look like, so what would it matter, for the sake of a demo, if the pedal was pretty or not. Surely, the sound of the circuit is the priority, and whether or not, it will do what you want it to do, for your own needs, not the fact that it looks appealing for a short youtube vid. 

[lincolnic]

I don't care if it's pretty. I do care if the video features a proper recording of your amp, as opposed to the audio captured by the camera in your phone across the room somewhere. I want to hear what the pedal sounds like, not what your living room sounds like. Excess room tone is the enemy of a good demo.

[Stomptown]

I would say it depends on what you are looking to accomplish. You obviously have a lot of supporters around here who will buy your projects regardless of what your build looks like. Around here, were just waiting to heat that Attack Decay in action regardless of what the box looks like. If your happy with your business model as is, I do not think it is a big deal. On the other hand, if you are looking to expand and grab new builders I do think the box matters. It's analogous to a random musician handing me a professional CD vs a demo on a blank CD they burnt off their computer. Fair or not, I think most people will be more willing to listen to a packaged demo; and I definitely fall in this category.

Now that I think about it... You could just send a bunch of proto builds to gearmandude for free and let him demo them!

[flanagan0718]

Ok, Here is my 2 cents. I personally love video demos. I don't care what the pedal looks like especially if it is an inexpensive build (say $60 and under, just a random value I picked). It (unfortunately) annoys me to no end that most of the demos for commercial pedals are done with unattainable equipment to the average musician. For example: "here are a few sounds you can get from this EHX Cathedral. I am playing a 1967 Gibson Les Paul Custom through a Matchless 2x12 with Vintage Celestions and Mogami Studio grade cables". For some reason this just irritates me.

[haveyouseenhim]

For madbean projects I think it would be better to just have the board on a test bed. Since the whole point is to market the PCB to builders. With function fx I would have it a finished box since it's marketed to consumers, who in my experience, will buy a pedal just for the looks.

Also, a huge +1 on what stomptown said about the ehx attack decay. I'm still waiting to cash in my prize from march to get a board.

[kothoma]

I think you could get away with a mockup of the layout done in Inkscape or Photoshop or whatever with clearly indicated knob settings.
If it is all about audio nobody will mind seeing a slide show.
Recording gear and voice separately and mixing them afterwards could be the way to go, too.

[selfdestroyer]

I have seen some videos where people put knobs on the board mounted pots when testing a "out of box" PCB. It does help to see where the gain and tone setting are visually. I could see how this is useful not only as a "I wonder what this circuit sounds like and do I want to build it" but also the "I just built this circuit and does mine sound like yours" information.

Sometimes I build a circuit simply because someone says its the bees knees but I love to have a base sound to compare mine to and see if maybe I am way off on bias or maybe some wrong values.. stuff like that.

I'm rambling now..

Cody

[mah62]

I'm rambling now..

Cody

Ha, ha! Ramble on, Bruv!

Mark

[Gledison]

I think the pool results are already pretty clear.
IMO the audio demos are enough in order to judge the effect.
But if you are thinking about your whole business, a nicely done video with a ready box its great. as it was said before, marketing, unfortunatly, still dominates! Its always nicier to see that from a nice box come a nice sounding effect, from a unfinished one, its always a surprise
Cheers