Why is it difficult to find good guitar demos on YouTube?

This review was submitted by Guitar Jar contributor: Pedals For Hire

YouTube is alive with the sound of pedals. Anyone with a webcam and a bedroom can crank out demo after demo of their latest and greatest new toy. And good luck to them.

But sometimes those demos fall down. I don’t always want to hear Yngwie licks played badly on an Ibanez, or the chuggiest of rhythm tones with the middle long since sold to the god of heavy metal. That’s not my sound, and my sound is a hard thing to find. That’s exactly why I started Pedals For Hire…

And don’t get me started on those people that take 3 minutes talking over their choice of tube, where they got it from, what a good deal it was, blah blah blah. I’m here for the guitar tone – quit your jibber jabber!

But YouTube videos do have their place and so I wanted to join the machine and give something back to the flickering videos that I’ve have GASed over.

So, how to do this?

My real issue was that I could never find demos that used gear that sounded like mine.

So I decided to turn the usual demo on its head and put as many setups as I can into one demo. I deliberately played a range of single note leads, chords and plucked arpeggios and I played them over and over; altering the pedal settings methodically as I went.

Then I did the same with a different pickup and then with a different guitar (and then with each of its pickups).

It might seem boring to the less discerning listeners but for those who take the time, I hope it gives them a better chance of hearing what the pedal might sound like with their setup. Clearly I can never re-create every setup but that’s what hiring is for 😉

I’ve have some slightly mixed feedback from the demo (which I expected) but would live to hear what readers of Guitar Jar had to say!

This review was submitted by Guitar Jar contributor: Pedals For Hire