What sort of video content would you want?

digitalscream

mgaw said:

assuming the content will be aimed at establishing a well established and supported youtube channel created some members of the Fretboard Forum, too what extent do you feel it will be able to remain free from the commercially driven nature of many other channels especially when it comes to reviews etc..


What I am curious about and hopeful of is an informative media outlet NOT driven by the vested interests of advertisers or indeed associates with something to sell.


Tis a rarity to find unpaid for opinion in the modern world and due to this would it not be a prudent initial strategic aim to target this particular point and build a REAL reputation for unbiased opinion, reviewing and content.


I do feel that going forwards this kind of ethos will be a big deal to some especially given the inevitable hangover from the present cultural bankruptcy

That's a very true thing. However, you have to balance that with the fact that as soon as you've put out a few videos with negative reviews, you'll discover it's almost impossible to find a manufacturer willing to send you their products for review.

Also, when you're talking about smaller companies, it's possible to sink their chances of success with one bad review...that's against one of the ideals we had when we set the forum up: help small businesses in the UK develop.

That means that any reviews you do have to be self-funded - you have to buy the things yourselves in order to review them. We don't have the budget for that, much like many YouTube channel operators.

So...possible alternatives:

1 - Do what lots of channels do and only review stuff you can do a mostly-positive review of (ie if you don't like something, politely decline and send it back to them).

2 - Scrap all that, and use the community - get them to lend you stuff to review (and possibly be in the review). This will, however, will almost guarantee little manufacturer support, pretty much forever.

Until the channel becomes bigger than the companies who're sending stuff in, it's quite a hard problem to solve.

Sporky

digitalscream said:

Also, when you're talking about smaller companies, it's possible to sink their chances of success with one bad review...that's against one of the ideals we had when we set the forum up: help small businesses in the UK develop..

Very much this - Guitarist pretty much sunk monkeyFX with two middling reviews. One said the best noise the VelvetVervet made was the sound from the Rhubarb And Custard theme tune, the other described the MonkeyFuzzle3 as overpriced when it was a third of the price of the factory-built overdrive on the facing page.

Then Bradders had a go at me because people on the internet thought the reviews were a bit harsh. People who weren't me. Something about not doing me a favour again... when I got the pedals back it looked like they'd had a kickabout with them in the office.

mgaw

digitalscream said:

mgaw said:

assuming the content will be aimed at establishing a well established and supported youtube channel created some members of the Fretboard Forum, too what extent do you feel it will be able to remain free from the commercially driven nature of many other channels especially when it comes to reviews etc..


What I am curious about and hopeful of is an informative media outlet NOT driven by the vested interests of advertisers or indeed associates with something to sell.


Tis a rarity to find unpaid for opinion in the modern world and due to this would it not be a prudent initial strategic aim to target this particular point and build a REAL reputation for unbiased opinion, reviewing and content.


I do feel that going forwards this kind of ethos will be a big deal to some especially given the inevitable hangover from the present cultural bankruptcy

That's a very true thing. However, you have to balance that with the fact that as soon as you've put out a few videos with negative reviews, you'll discover it's almost impossible to find a manufacturer willing to send you their products for review.

Also, when you're talking about smaller companies, it's possible to sink their chances of success with one bad review...that's against one of the ideals we had when we set the forum up: help small businesses in the UK develop.

That means that any reviews you do have to be self-funded - you have to buy the things yourselves in order to review them. We don't have the budget for that, much like many YouTube channel operators.

So...possible alternatives:

1 - Do what lots of channels do and only review stuff you can do a mostly-positive review of (ie if you don't like something, politely decline and send it back to them).

2 - Scrap all that, and use the community - get them to lend you stuff to review (and possibly be in the review). This will, however, will almost guarantee little manufacturer support, pretty much forever.

Until the channel becomes bigger than the companies who're sending stuff in, it's quite a hard problem to solve.

I wouldn't assume that delivering a bad reviews equates with integrity etc at @digitalscream I think a format whereby pedals can be reviewed in a way that illuminates them not only in isolation but also across the various price points etc would work well,  I also tend to think that the world is saturated with reviews, and like most things that are over used the value placed on them is greatly diminished...

I agree that the policy of no bad reviews is effective and quite possibly a good solution, especially in light of the impact on small companies.....I do think having a strongly "biased" UK channel is a great idea especially as we the consumer could be shown direct comparisons between the "holy grails" and the new comers..this delivered in a framework of educated opinion, fact, informative what makes a pedal work "pieces"  could go a long way to helping local companies break through the discrimination they face either by geography, fashion, or indeed price point.


Drew does look a bit like Dan, what being bald and wearing glasses  would some kind of wig help the channel stand apart, going to be very easy to vanish out there, so maybe consider him adopting Grayson Perry's ingenous attention seeking wardrobe changes may be useful

mgaw

also don't you think its possible to exist without big company support and thrive? read the runes, things will shift away from the current standards

digitalscream

mgaw said:

also don't you think its possible to exist without big company support and thrive? read the runes, things will shift away from the current standards

Sure - if you've got 10 years to build it up from nothing We're aiming for more of a leg-up, through using the forum's existing profile within the UK music business.

There are other considerations - for example, do you suppose we'd survive a Cab Clone incident within the first 6-12 months?

I get that, in an ideal world, everything would be bias-free and there would be no outside influences and no reliance on support from companies, but that ideal world assumes an infinite budget and infinite time available. This is the real world...there's a damn good reason there are very few channels out there doing what you suggest; do that, and they can't survive because the resource they need in order to continue creating content (ie things to review) dries up almost immediately.

Glenn Fricker does it with his Patreon-supported Fearless Gear Reviews - he's got 289k subscribers, and he can't afford to do it without getting somebody to pay for it. What chance do you think we've got? It's also worth noting that as soon as he started doing those reviews, he's found it much harder to get hold of gear from non-small-companies to review.

On top of that, there's the point that this isn't going to be exclusively a review channel. There will be more involved stuff, and if we fuck the manufacturers off so much that barely anybody will talk to us for fear of getting slagged, then there's even less useful content that we can make.

This is about being pragmatic, not building a utopia. We don't have that much power.

WiresDreamDisasters

mgaw said:

assuming the content will be aimed at establishing a well established and supported youtube channel created some members of the Fretboard Forum, too what extent do you feel it will be able to remain free from the commercially driven nature of many other channels especially when it comes to reviews etc..


What I am curious about and hopeful of is an informative media outlet NOT driven by the vested interests of advertisers or indeed associates with something to sell.


Tis a rarity to find unpaid for opinion in the modern world and due to this would it not be a prudent initial strategic aim to target this particular point and build a REAL reputation for unbiased opinion, reviewing and content.


I do feel that going forwards this kind of ethos will be a big deal to some especially given the inevitable hangover from the present cultural bankruptcy

There almost certainly will be an element of advertisement, sponsorship, or otherwise cooperation with brands. For instance, the studio in London will most likely be the one I have access to.

But there is a lot of grey in that area. Advertisement doesn't mean vested interest.

crunchman

I would have thought that forum members own enough gear to keep the reviews side of it going for a long time.

fastonebaz

What if fretboarders get involved in making videos,  and the channel takes off with loads of subscribers and annual viewing hours,  and youtube monetization kicks in,  you'll need a plan for those fretboarders who contributed to videos but get no share in the monetization revenue and start complaining. 

digitalscream

crunchman said:

I would have thought that forum members own enough gear to keep the reviews side of it going for a long time.

It's not just about gear reviews, though. If no company will talk to us for fear of negative coverage, then we really are stuck. Like it or not, it's the music industry, not the music collection of hobbyists who all want to help for the good of humanity

digitalscream

fastonebaz said:

What if fretboarders get involved in making videos,  and the channel takes off with loads of subscribers and annual viewing hours,  and youtube monetization kicks in,  you'll need a plan for those fretboarders who contributed to videos but get no share in the monetization revenue and start complaining. 

We really don't. Neither of us (myself and Drew) will be making money out of it, and until we've got ~300k subscribers the channel will barely be paying for itself. I don't see that happening any time soon (we're talking years, if at all).

If anybody's not comfortable with donating their time as we have, then they're welcome to not join in.

WiresDreamDisasters

I've been in a band for 10 years that has made probably less than £10,000 in the entire time. I'm very accustomed to working for free !!  

mgaw

@digitalscream   wasn't really pushing for Utopia and don't think it should be shot down so readily, I get the reality of business world more than you know I suspect after being in  it for some time.....I think things could be framed in such a way as to work smoothly, I think Drew responded to the points very succinctly hes obviously to be the spokesperson...that was what I was digging for....you should perhaps state the aims clearly...the channel will operate as a commercial entity within a commercial environment..nothing wrong with that at all

mgaw

as for getting gear to review, sorry to be the pedant I am but its no biggie to buy then flip quickly...you have several hundred experts right here:)

ThePrettyDamned

Production stuff would be nice  

crunchman

mgaw said:

as for getting gear to review, sorry to be the pedant I am but its no biggie to buy then flip quickly...you have several hundred experts right here:)

Flipping it without making a loss is a bit harder though.  Might get a bit expensive if there is a £200 loss every week on the gear being reviewed!

WiresDreamDisasters

mgaw said:

@digitalscream   wasn't really pushing for Utopia and don't think it should be shot down so readily, I get the reality of business world more than you know I suspect after being in  it for some time.....I think things could be framed in such a way as to work smoothly, I think Drew responded to the points very succinctly hes obviously to be the spokesperson...that was what I was digging for....you should perhaps state the aims clearly...the channel will operate as a commercial entity within a commercial environment..nothing wrong with that at all

I wont be the "spokesperson" as such. It depends on the format of the show. Lee has a few cool ideas. It wont just be me, and we may be able to link up with other people as time goes on. Really, what we need to do initially is try a few things out. Which was the point of this thread - to brainstorm amongst us.

Discussions about finances, community driven content production, people earning the BIG YOOTOOOBERZ buxxxx.... it's a little premature to be honest. Maybe we'll get there eventually. Let's see what we can do.

digitalscream

@mgaw - sorry, I'm currently writing the new forum software, so I may have come across a little more blunt than I was intending to.

The aim of the channel is to increase the level of influence of the community and the channel as an entity together, within the music business. That may or may not come off - however, if it does, then there's the potential to leverage that to the (possible) benefit of everybody (things like promoting bands and companies from the forum could actually happen then).

However, we have to bear in mind that it's a massive "maybe". If every non-spammer who's ever signed up to this forum instantly subscribed to the channel, we'd be of a size whereby approaching big companies with proposals would still be met with, "LOLWHUT? Get back in touch when you've got ten times as many subscribers....".

mgaw

@digitalscream no worries...it sounds like a good plan to me and with a captive membership on here off to a "start" of sorts from the getgo…. every reason to be positive

Roland

digitalscream said:

... However...we have to start somewhere ... That last bit is the key, really. This is going to evolve over time; take a look at all the decent-sized YouTube channels, and you'll see that they're a far cry from where they started. What we're effectively talking about here is a starting point for the first 6-12 months to help us get it established and get some regular viewers. From there, it'll probably be a case of taking stock of the audience we then have (big assumption in that) and working out where we'd like to go next versus what's practical ...

 

mgaw said:

What I am curious about and hopeful of is an informative media outlet NOT driven by the vested interests of advertisers or indeed associates with something to sell.

Tis a rarity to find unpaid for opinion in the modern world and due to this would it not be a prudent initial strategic aim to target this particular point and build a REAL reputation for unbiased opinion, reviewing and content.

Digitalscream and mgaw have picked out my two thoughts on the matter. Paraphrased: this discussion should be about what we start the channel with, and the real gap in the market is for truly independent content from someone who knows what he’s talking about.

With that in mind I suggest a series of product comparison videos. The intention is not to come up with a “best”, because there often isn’t one. The videos should focus on two aspects:
1. This is what chorus/reverb/delay/etc does.
2. This is how Boss/Helix/Strymon/etc does it.

It’s my belief that many people aren’t even aware of what someone like the-artist-formerly-known-as-Drew is listening to in a reverb or a delay. So a video which runs through aspects such as early and late reflections, tail modulation and EQ would have a lot of value. These aspect can be illustrated both by changing pedal settings, and by A/Bing pedals. Just these three effects contain more than enough scope for the first half dozen videos.

shrinkwrap

What about a thing where forum members pay for the forum to buy the pedal upfront (maybe at 5% discount ) and then *after* it's reviewed they get the pedal .. and a gold star on their profile.. learn to resist the gas or something.

I did promo vids for a while: film, design, edit - and separately voice overs - fun fun fun-  and I'm sure you know what to do - but get a different look from Andertons so it's unique to FB - and ya better get some FB t-shirts made or wear shirts and FB branded ties/socks/underpants.