Tutorial - Tips for making your own Youtube demo videos

Started by Elantric, November 23, 2017, 06:37:56 AM

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Elantric

http://tonereport.com/blogs/lifestyle/tips-for-making-your-own-youtube-demo-video
Tips for Making Your Own YouTube Demo Video
By Jamie Wolfert @tonereportMarch 26, 201510 Comments



We here at Tone Report and Pro Guitar Shop have been in the video demo game for quite some time (since 2007 to be exact), and I think it's fair to say that, in that time, we have contributed significantly to the effort to make guitar gear demos better sounding, better looking, more useful, and more entertaining for the average viewer. Most of the credit for these improvements should rightfully go to our chief video guy, the illustrious Andy Martin, whose playing, personality, and production skills have long been our greatest asset. In recent years, we have noticed that many other professional gear demonstrators have followed our lead, and many of them are also making video demos of excellent quality. However, despite the overall higher standards that have been set in the current gear demo scene, we still see an awful lot of terrible demo videos out there in YouTube land, and not just from enthusiastic amateurs. There are a number of paid professionals producing gear videos that sound atrocious, look a fright, and contain more tongue wagging and aimless noodling than useful, appropriate product demonstration. Thus, as a community service, we would like to impart to everyone—paid professional and bedroom amateur alike—a few friendly pieces of advice for making better video demos. These tips are based on years of our own accumulated production experiences, feedback from our millions of channel viewers, and countless hours watching and listening to the videos of others.

Make it Sound Good

It should be obvious that the sound of the video is, by a large margin, the most important aspect of it. Players primarily watch gear demo videos to hear how the gear sounds, either to educate themselves before making a purchase, or to satisfy some curiosity about a product they cannot try out for themselves. In our experience, there are a few major missteps that we see frequently in videos of low quality:

Guitar out of tune: An out-of-tune guitar can quickly ruin an otherwise great demo video, so start at the very beginning of the signal chain, and make sure the guitar is in tune before you hit the Record button. Use an actual tuner of some kind, because your ears probably aren't as keen to tuning anomalies as you think they are, and even small tuning problems that might be hidden in the context of a full band can become glaringly apparent when playing solo. Tuning only takes a minute, and it can make even the worst video much more bearable.





Turn the amp up: If you're using a tube amp, especially a non-master volume model, you must turn it up enough to get the power tubes cooking a little. It doesn't have to be on eleven, but most tube amplifiers will sound anemic and brittle with the volume just barely cracked open, at so-called "bedroom levels". This will not make for a good, useful demo. Find the sweet spot, which is usually just where the amp begins to break up. If this is still too loud for your location, then consider purchasing a power attenuator, or recording your demo somewhere where you can turn the amp up.





Poor mic technique: There are a number of complicated techniques than can be employed to mike a guitar cabinet, and countless fancy, expensive microphones that sound fabulous in front of a cab, but none of these things are necessary to get a good, basic sound for a demo video. One serviceable, inexpensive dynamic microphone placed roughly an inch off of the center of the speaker cone, or just on the edge of it, will do the job well enough in most cases. Small changes in placement can make a huge difference, so take a few minutes to move the microphone around and ascertain the best sounding position for it. The payoff will be more than worth the small amount of time invested.



Avoid camera microphones: The previous tip was made under the assumption that a proper recording microphone is being used to capture the sound of the amplifier, but unfortunately, this is often not the case with gear demos. Many are recorded with built-in video camera or (cringe) smartphone microphones, and the results are rarely useful. Besides not sounding acceptable, these mikes are typically easily distorted. They also tend to pick up more of the acoustic sound of the guitar being strummed in the room, rather than the actual sound of the amplified guitar emanating from the speaker cabinet. We've noted this phenomenon in more than a few paid, supposedly professional, gear videos, and it has become a huge pet peeve, as well as a handy litmus test of overall production standards. Please use a real microphone for the amp, and mute the camera audio during the playing portion of the video. The improvement will be substantial, and your viewers will thank you.

Make it look good

Though secondary to sound quality, the appearance of the video is important as well. A video that is pleasing to the eye certainly increases the entertainment factor, as well as the overall perception of quality and competency. In our experience, there are a few areas where many aspiring demo makers go wrong:

Location, location, location: We see a lot of demos that look like an episode of Hoarders, filmed in dingy, poorly lit basements and bedrooms, often with piles of filth and random household flotsam and jetsam lurking in the background. This is not cool. It's not a cool way to live your life, first of all, and second of all, many potential viewers are going to be grossed out and will quickly move on to something else. Not making people feel icky is a crucial element of producing a good gear demo.



Personal appearance: Speaking of icky, if I see one more homemade pedal demo where the demonstrator is barefoot, turning knobs with a big, dirty toe, or has a stained, stretched-out tube sock hanging half off of his foot, I swear, someone's going to pay. Also, avoid terrycloth shorts at all costs, and in general, maybe dress like you've got a little respect for yourself and your viewers. It may be your day off, but the least you can do is put on some pants. Get yourself together, man.





Lighting: The key to professional-looking video is, for the most part, all in the lighting. Lighting will make or break you, more so than the camera, editing, or any other factor. Unfortunately, quality video lighting is not within everyone's budget, but there are steps that can be taken to make the most of the light on hand. The best option is to film near the biggest window in the house, where the most natural light can come in. Natural lighting is superior (though direct sunlight should be avoided), and should be used whenever available. If necessary, it can be supported by whatever artificial lighting is handy, but mixing light types often complicates the process of achieving accurate color and white balance. Whatever you do, be sure to avoid backlighting, and get very familiar with your camera's white balance settings.

Create interesting, useful video content

Now that we've addressed the audio and visual aspects of the gear demo making process, let us examine the content aspect of it. Even well-produced videos are often lacking in useful content, either because the demonstrator doesn't really know the gear very well, can't shut up long enough to play a few chords, or just noodles aimlessly with no regard to the intended function of the product being demonstrated. Here are a few content considerations to take into account prior to venturing into your gear demoing career:



Shut up and play yer guitar: No matter how hilarious and personable you are, I can assure you, no one on the Internet wants to hear you talk any more than absolutely necessary. Make a quick introduction, if you must, and then get to playing the guitar. People want to hear the gear, so let them. Few things are more annoying than an eight-minute pedal demo with six minutes of talking preceding it, or worse, interspersed throughout. Covering basic functions of a fairly complicated piece of gear can be informative, but keep the explanation under a minute. 30–45 seconds is optimum.

Play something appropriate: One does not have to be a virtuoso to make a high quality, informative demo video. Foremost, be sure that the musical choices are appropriate to the gear and its intended use. Playing a favorite Gorgoroth tune in a Tube Screamer demo, for instance, would be an example of a poorly considered pairing of demo product and musical selection. Secondly, play a song, rather than several minutes of wanking and noodling. A short solo section, played well, can be helpful and appropriate to the viewer, but make sure it's in the context of an actual piece of music. Thirdly, play within your abilities. Obvious mistakes and bum notes will be incredibly distracting, and will take away from any other positive qualities the video might have, so get your chops together prior to hitting record, and make sure the chosen piece of music is within your present skill level.

I hope you have found these tips illuminating in some way, and that if you're a maker (or aspiring maker) of gear demos, they might help you improve the quality of your productions. In summation, I would encourage you to always keep the wants and needs of the end user in mind, and when in doubt, keep it short and sweet, with both the playing and (especially) the talking. Good luck, and we'll see you on the 'Tubes.





In regards to the 1st video above
I really wish these folks who create online Youtube reviews would get a clue and avoid simply using the  on camera (smartphone) mic  for the audio capture in these youtube videos


( Listen at 2:06 minutes )The room mic is always picking up the  initial "click"  of the pick hitting the string  , thus masking the unit under review's initial note response characteristics  = in other words based on the video above, its impossible to know what the GE200 would sound like in a direct to board recording studio situation or heard in the FOH PA when used direct to the Mix board   = real world use - instead of these "clickiy"clicky" bedroom iphone recordings 


The  video below  reveals a bit more care in post production, and sounds like the actual GE200 unit direct to the recorder - without the room mic, and no "Pick attack click" from a room mic on every note   




Avoid camera microphones: The previous tip was made under the assumption that a proper recording microphone is being used to capture the sound of the amplifier, but unfortunately, this is often not the case with gear demos. Many are recorded with built-in video camera or (cringe) smartphone microphones, and the results are rarely useful. Besides not sounding acceptable, these mikes are typically easily distorted. They also tend to pick up more of the acoustic sound of the guitar being strummed in the room, rather than the actual sound of the amplified guitar emanating from the speaker cabinet.



http://tonereport.com/

myksara

hi all..
can anyone help with understanding how these kinda videos are made that sync with the tabs?..which is a good software/app to auto create guitar tabs?



also how are these mullti frame vids made?

Guitars: Ibanez Prestige S5470, Ibanez Jem 7v, Ibanez JS2410, PRS SE Custom24, Cort  Ltd G16, Ibanez RG370Ahmz,
MultiFX: Roland GR55, Zoom 1on, BOSS GT00
Loopers: Digitech trio+, Line 6 JM4
MIDI:, MAudio Axiom24 keyboard, Alesis IO Dock with iPad air 2


Antonuzzo

#3
But make sure you adhere to the format:


  • A two-minute 'humorous" intro showing off your awesome chops
  • "We'll get right into it!" followed by three minutes of why you're doing the lesson, what the song means to you, and a few pithy anecdotes
  • 90 seconds of requesting the viewer to subscribe and contribute to your Patreon
  • Three minutes of showing off your guitar, amp, and boutique pedals
  • Tuning notes, with one wrong note inserted for humorous value
  • More waffling about the song, plus some played examples of how it inspired you to write your own track, followed by 90 second demo of said track
  • A full-speed playthrough of the section / song in question
  • More talk about how difficult is, how long it took you to learn it and how hard it is to make these videos, followed by yet more pleading for subscriptions and donations
  • 45 actual seconds of lesson (optional)
  • "That's all for now - join me for part two..." followed by another three minutes of subscription and donation requests

Monetised YouTube adverts should of course be peppered liberally through the video. Don't forget to 'umm' and 'ahh' as much as possible, and remove the pop shield from the microphone - and make sure that the microphone is pointed into the flow of the air con unit for added noise.





plexified

Nice content gang!   
                              I've just ventured off into this portion of the website and this is going to be a significant topic to cover in the upcoming years. One of my favorite places to visit recently (aside from here, while learning synth guitar) has been Rick Beato. He has been a successful recording engineer and has put up some amazing content. In fact it seems he has been fulfilling a calling to teach and share in a way that has made it a large part of his life. I myself am appreciative of this content and its impact on growing as an artist and also learning the importance of sharing back with the community we area all a part of. If you learn , share. That has been huge for me and in addition to the above I wanted to comment a bit on some ideas for others to consider.

                               The process of publishing your own videos takes a lot of hard work and refinement. Along the way I have found super talented work with virtually no attention. Getting involved with a few friends along the way, we took a look at some of the reasons why this was the case. It was a small study to see if quality content could be helped along when in and of itself it was not getting discovered nor supported. Here is what we did.
                               
                                 The first thing was to brainstorm together regarding what we observed regarding our own viewing habits, our preferences, our red flags and our categories of interest. I suggested we start with the search engine of You Tube. We selected 'Hit Artists' for viral viewcount and why it was so popular. Using these two components we looked at the youtube algorithm in this context and how it would suggest videos to users. So we identified who the top artists were, the highest view count videos and examined the you tube 'suggestions' as we were 'using' the system as average 'consumers' . This can be done by anyone with any particular market or interest.
                                 
                                  For example, take any topic, and consider it a research project. Find out who the competition is, gauge just how successful they are and break it down. What are they doing that creates this success? Make notes because your dissecting a successful template. Ever wonder how you have a Home Depot in a town that is just jamming every weekend, making say 75 million dollars a year and then a huge space is cleared for a Lowes that is moving in across the street? You say how is this possible? its a game of chicken, how will they co exist, surely revenue will go down and jobs will be lost, right? Actually the study shows , both locations will thrive and usually continue to grow. It happens every day with rival stores, Target V Walmart or  Autozone V Napa etc etc. So don't be afraid to dive in and go for it, know your market. Without just laying it all on the table, its much better for you to begin your own investigation here and try to figure out why success has taken place. Take Pewdiepie for example, I don't watch this person or know what type of stuff goes on, but I do know the market metrics or measurement of success of this channel is epic and here , a large amount can be learned as to why this is the case.

                          So your dealing with a search engine and an algorithm that are the core of this format, it responds to how you title your video, the length of the video, the thumbnail picture itself and the entire page you set up for your work. You have to remember a search engine consumes your page and your work and matches it with demands and parameters. That's why your investigation of the successful sites educates you on what is being consumed the most, approved of the most, these are the things the machine uses to machine learn. Machine being the algorithm or search engine package. Google and You Tube are essentially the same machine designed by the same people from the start so keep this in mind.

                          So there you go, some food for thought rattled off the tips of my fingers and top of my head to give you a shot at getting your videos out of the reach of your friends and family, hint , hint and get them 'booted' into the machine so your recommended  and suggested to others and you can grow if that's your intentions. This is the future market in its infancy right now , so get used to terms like metrics and traffic and seek out ways to monitor them so you know where you stand and how your tweaks are effecting your hard work and efforts. Good Luck!

Piing

Great tips. Thank you for sharing it.

Another important recommendation: CLEAN YOUR NAILS! It is disgusting to see a closeup of filthy fingernails. I have stopped viewing several videos because of that.

aliensporebomb

And for the love of Pete: don't go barefoot so I have to look at your toenails on camera.  Brrrrr.....scary kids.
My music projects online at http://www.aliensporebomb.com/

GK Devices:  Roland VG-99, Boss GP-10, Boss SY-1000.


admin

Please Mute the Room Microphone when making Gear demo recordings!

We all want to actually hear the gear under review - and nothing else! - no room mics - Not singling anyone out, but on many Youtube and Facebook Videos attempting to show off the sound of new gear or custom patches , I can still hear a significant decibel level of the initial attack of the raw strings on your guitar bleeding into your room mic or headset mic - which masks what the actual gear under review would sound like if recorded directly.
Frankly this is my biggest pet peeve with 90% of all Guitar Demos on Youtube - If you neglect to mute the room mic or your headset vocal mic when showing off the gear under review - it really spoils your recording as we can still hear the clean vibrating sound of the raw strings on your guitar on all initial attack transients - which swamps out the actual tones of the gear under review when you still have a hot microphone in the same room as the guitar.

And skip the gameboy backing tracks that swamp out your dialog

admin

Quote from: admin on September 03, 2019, 11:03:21 AM
Please Mute the Room Microphone when making Gear demo recordings!

We all want to actually hear the gear under review - and nothing else! - no room mics - Not singling anyone out, but on many Youtube and Facebook Videos attempting to show off the sound of new gear or custom patches , I can still hear a significant decibel level of the initial attack of the raw strings on your guitar bleeding into your room mic or headset mic - which masks what the actual gear under review would sound like if recorded directly.
Frankly this is my biggest pet peeve with 90% of all Guitar Demos on Youtube - If you neglect to mute the room mic or your headset vocal mic when showing off the gear under review - it really spoils your recording as we can still hear the clean vibrating sound of the raw strings on your guitar on all initial attack transients - which swamps out the actual tones of the gear under review when you still have a hot microphone in the same room as the guitar.

And skip the gameboy backing tracks that swamp out your dialog


I actually cover that in one part of my series called "So You Want To Be A Guitar YouTuber" - the first episode comes out next Friday. It's basically a multipart look at all the things I learned in my first year about lights, cameras, micing for video, multi source micing for video, etc. I used to get grief for it and solved it by using a wireless lav for my voice parts, and running the amp mic or guitar into DAW into a separate track and pulling my lav fader down when the playing starts. I probably also could side chain a noise gate to duck my mic when the guitar starts - would be less of a pain.

But yeah, now when I hear that I cringe too.
So feedback from people here and on YT has been a big help. If the OP wants, I'll drop a link when the first one goes live. Will be one a week for 4 weeks or so, on Fridays. There's a ton to learn when starting a YT channel - it's far from easy.


https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoSJ2Z_VB31g7DvLHqdpJtw?view_as=subscriber


admin

The big issue when making a YouTube video is you want to capture the straight output of your actual guitar effects modeler if that's what you're recording

if it's one of the devices we talked about :capture that straight to your PC and dub that audio straight back into the video o Adpbe Premiere, Sony/Magix Vegas, etc)


years ago I showed Bill Ruppert Sony Vegas
although today there's other platforms for  editing videos and dubbing in seperate recordered Audio from the guitar processir.
some like a multi-camera shot some like using a app like Roland 4 Camera and a Roland GO:MIXER with their iPhone iPad there's even Android equivalents (FILMIC PRO) 
If you can Avoid simply using your smartphone microphone to capture the room sound

That's my beef with roockie videos  a must to avoid

Use an app that allows you to use multitrack audio - (or better yet,  skip your voice and just record straight audio from your guitar processor out) which is a possible using a go mixer or go mixer Pro and the Roland 4 cam app on an iPad this lets you overdub and do one man band virtual type multi Image videos with the actual audio from your guitar processir






admin

Since Youtube is no longer a Free speech platform,  - here are alternatives compared

https://www.saashub.com/compare-rumble-vs-bitchute

https://odysee.com/

www.Lbry.tv

https://open.lbry.com/@Xirtus:2/youtube-is-over-lbry-odysee-are-here:c

whippinpost91850