YouTube Modulation Pedal demos - why the focus on extremes?

ebagjones

ebagjones

New member
So I’ve been shopping for a chorus pedal or a rotary pedal. I don’t have any stores nearby so I listen to tons of demos. It’s so hard finding useful ones for modulation. Why does nearly every demo spend 90% of its time on the most impractical, wild settings? If it’s a chorus pedal I guarantee the majority of it will have the depth and/or speed cranked and it will sound like a choppy, wildly out-of-tune mess, rotary pedals always seem to focus on the fastest settings, which, on my phone speakers, make them sound indistinguishable from most Tremelo on fast settings, and flanging is always about the most sea sick wildly oscillating comb filtering available. Sure those settings may be fun for a lark, or even inspire something unusual to add to a recording project, but isn’t going to be where most of us are 90% of the time.

Has anyone else noticed this or am I having a kids-need-to-stay-off-my-lawn moment?
 
More and more people are surfing the web on their phones, especially millennials. Subtle nuances are not easy to pick up on a cellphone speaker or though some earbuds. A lot of these guys doing the demos are playing to the audience and the devices.
 
ebagjones said:
So I’ve been shopping for a chorus pedal or a rotary pedal. I don’t have any stores nearby so I listen to tons of demos. It’s so hard finding useful ones for modulation. Why does nearly every demo spend 90% of its time on the most impractical, wild settings? If it’s a chorus pedal I guarantee the majority of it will have the depth and/or speed cranked and it will sound like a choppy, wildly out-of-tune mess, rotary pedals always seem to focus on the fastest settings, which, on my phone speakers, make them sound indistinguishable from most Tremelo on fast settings, and flanging is always about the most sea sick wildly oscillating comb filtering available. Sure those settings may be fun for a lark, or even inspire something unusual to add to a recording project, but isn’t going to be where most of us are 90% of the time.

Has anyone else noticed this or am I having a kids-need-to-stay-off-my-lawn moment?
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A good way to combat this is make the videos you wish to watch. Show them how it's done!
 
The only way I know to get around this is you have to find videos of people teaching how to get a particular song/sound that uses the chorus sound you like, and avoid product demos. In the song tutorial type videos, they'll say things like "I'm using a such-and-such chorus" but they are using it exactly how you would want to hear it, so you can tell if it's going to get you to that grail tone you want.

For example, my favorite chorus sounds are on things like Rush's Power Windows album and Hemispheres, so if I wanted to find a great chorus, I'd look for song tutorials on songs that I liked and see if they mention the chorus they use, and settings; or contact the poster if they don't mention it in the video.
 
The demos I watch are the opposite of what the OP said. They just use the mildest setting on the pedal like the mildest chorus setting. I want to know how the pedal behaves. Just give me an example of what the pedal are at different settings. Then I would know that, if it is the kind of pedal that I want. My pet peeve is overdrive pedal demos and they just use the mildest settings. That is frustrating to not to know if I could crank it when needed.

The best demos are made by EHX and especially Bill Ruppert. That man could sell sand to people who live in Sahara. When he demoes a pedal he goes through quite a lot settings and useful settings at that.
 
GuitarStv said:
Check out the mini vent for a rotary pedal. They sound stellar.
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I have the larger first generation. It is the closest thing I have found to a real Leslie. It even duplicates the tube overdrive of the original Leslie and speaker simulation

Ventilator-large.jpg
 
A lot has to do with who you are watching. You rarely get lucky on a true, proper demo of anything if you just type in the product and then click on what appears.
 
Just don't watch those. You can tell pretty fast what sucks. Move on

My pet peeve list is long:

No clean tone reference
Using other effects in conjunction like Delay and reverb on a chorus demo
Excessive playing that distracts from the tone
Extreme odd noises (range max & min is good - but quickly please)
All solo, powerchord, or arpeggios.
 
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