Matrix did a poll for what people look for in demos.(click it)
I was happy to see that 57% of 577 votes wanted to hear what the gear sounds like as apposed to hearing music made with the synth.
I like both, however What someone else does with gear isnt what Im going to do with it most of the time, so why should I care what kind of music they make? I dont really.
I want to see what "this knob" and "that knob" do and what they do together, and what happens when you combine them, and what happens when you add other gear into the mix.
I want to see unusual behaviors and hidden tricks, I dont want to see the same stuff I see on Gearwire and the others all the time, I know what a Phaser sounds like howabout you show me how to make a phaser sound like something else?
That goes for anything, Show the chameleons that the gear can be.
I've seen some great music being made with some great gear, I like that too.
But I feel its better to see how the gear functions, and hope that there are enough people out there who stop and think about how that sound is being created.
"That sounds like crap, some middle aged noodler making noise..."
They need to stop and think about the how the sound was created,
again focus not on what your hearing but how it was created thats what makes it beautiful...Doesnt it??? I think so..
This is the perfect example of a good demo(Plexuss):
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7 comments:
I agree, I want to hear how the sound was made and more importantly, the details of the functions of the particular piece of gear being demoed. What I find most often is there are demos of things and the person never describes what they are doing...you just have to listen (to the poorly recorded and overly compressed, thanks YouTube) resultant audio.
I'm slightly guilty of the last part in my own demos...I need to hookup the mixer into my camera.
Overall, I think the most important part is the person doing the demo speaks and explains...not just turns a knob.
Or record the audio direct into the DAW so that there is an audio file that is legible.
The dialog can be usefull too, although I prefer written descriptions of what went on.
cheers!
Excellent demo-- thanks for pointing me to it. It shows exactly what you mean: when he starts twiddling the knobs, he unlocks some very interesting features of the pedal. That, in my opinion, is what a demo should be all about.
Yeah I really want an Improbability Drive, and that video is why..
Plexuss has some other really cool jams on youtube that I enjoy as well.
I dream of being able to work with other manufacturers to unlock these gems of their creations and capture it so others can see what the device does and what it can do for them..
Then let the rest of the users show the songs they have made with them.
I need to get a video camera of my own or work with someone else(even better) to get going on my resume of creations I want to share with the rest of the world.
That's an excellent example you've posted. Where I disagree with you slightly is that I think a big reason that video works (apart from all the detail the guy provides) is that he is demonstrating the gear within a meaningful musical context. I don't care what music he makes, since it isn't ever going to be remotely like the music I make, but I want to hear how the gear handles in a musical context.
Let's face it, some of the gear in this world is so monochromatic in its utility, that it is fundamentally useless for all but one or two musical contexts. Some guy twiddling knobs so his machine goes bloop doesn't really provide any helpful info, since it provides little context for the bloops you're hearing.
This for example is something that doesn't help me find out more about the gear:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayrpX6go9g8
The two problems I see are that, one, he's moving those knobs constantly, so you have no idea how the gear can be really worked over to suit your needs (especially since he conveys no needs of his own), and two, because it is really just more machine bloop, you have no sense how these machines might interact with other elements in a musical application.
While I see where you're coming from (and am more than guilty of my share of bloop-esque demos), I can usually pick interesting parts out of less musical demos.
A demo wherein the user simply shows the abilities of the synth should, if it's complete enough, also be relevent to anybody's music. I suppose where I'm coming from is that if the demo's complete enough, it doesn't necessarily have to be musical.
An example is at blacet.com. The Miniwave only has one demo up currently. This demo is a house-ish beat presumably using a set of miniwave waveforms in addition to the percussion. It's very musical and would be a nice addition to some more conventional demos but, in my eyes, isn't very helpful since it's only demonstrating one feature of a feature-rich module.
Thanks for the replies everyone.
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