5 Watt World

p90fool

I find Keith "Weeyams" quite pleasant, but the lack of actual music makes it all a bit tedious fairly quickly. 

Lewy

DrJazzTap said:

Don't take this the wrong way, I've been guilty of  moaning about youtubers in the past. 

I have started to think to myself, "it's like pissing against a cliff. You aren't going to make a dent, and you'll just end up with piss on yourself".

Don't like it, move on life is too short. I'm not a fan of 5w world, he seems to counter his channels ethos "most amount of music with the least amount of gear".
 Except we all want to see the latest shiny thing, going over scales and practical applications of ear training isn't as sexy as another new guitar toy.

 And i understand the agitation against female youtubers  "she doesn't even know her modes yadda yadda, it's just horny men blah blah" 
 again who cares??? if they encourage one person to play a guitar that is all that matters. 

I’ve got no problem with female YouTubers. Sophies Burrell and Lloyd, Nili Brosh…awesome. The difference is they can play, and in fact do in the real world away from the gaze of scruffy Neville in his wanking chariot while Margaret is at the W.I. 

Calling out one overexposed incompetent, so musically undeserving of any attention by any objective meritocratic standard, doesn’t constitute “agitation against female YouTubers”.

She bills herself as “session guitarist” by the way. Deluded. Perhaps she should do a video with Carole Kaye. They can swap session stories.

Tannin

Lewy said:

Beato is a real beacon of quality amongst it all, though.

Beato is on my block list. His grating voice and smarmy manner are awful. Worse than nails on a blackboard. I cannot stand hearing the man. 

(There is plenty of other good content on You-tube; no need to put up with painful stuff.)

DrJazzTap

Lewy said:

DrJazzTap said:

Don't take this the wrong way, I've been guilty of  moaning about youtubers in the past. 

I have started to think to myself, "it's like pissing against a cliff. You aren't going to make a dent, and you'll just end up with piss on yourself".

Don't like it, move on life is too short. I'm not a fan of 5w world, he seems to counter his channels ethos "most amount of music with the least amount of gear".
 Except we all want to see the latest shiny thing, going over scales and practical applications of ear training isn't as sexy as another new guitar toy.

 And i understand the agitation against female youtubers  "she doesn't even know her modes yadda yadda, it's just horny men blah blah" 
 again who cares??? if they encourage one person to play a guitar that is all that matters. 

I’ve got no problem with female YouTubers. Sophies Burrell and Lloyd, Nili Brosh…awesome. The difference is they can play, and in fact do in the real world away from the gaze of scruffy Neville in his wanking chariot while Margaret is at the W.I. 

Calling out one overexposed incompetent, so musically undeserving of any attention by any objective meritocratic standard, doesn’t constitute “agitation against female YouTubers”.

She bills herself as “session guitarist” by the way. Deluded. Perhaps she should do a video with Carole Kaye. They can swap session stories.

And how does that affect your day to day? Don't take that the wrong way. I am a world class moaner, and I'm trying my best not to be. For me recognising people or shit that triggers me and then avoiding it has helped. 

 We've had hordes of posers over the years, back in the day at the new York jazz clubs they'd be pulled off stage and kicked to shit for pretending they could play.  These days we can be a bit more cordial. 

If she has played on one song in one studio, technically she can call herself a "studio musician". 

Music is subjective, some people think bob Dylan is the greatest singer in the world. I just don't see the point in getting riled up by it.

Don't get me wrong I used to get just as annoyed. She's not a joni Mitchell, Carol Kaye, Jennifer batten or insert other. 
We all know its called the music business, these channels are going to feature musicians with large social media presences. 

Tannin

As for 5 Watt World, I've only ever watched his history videos - either "The guitars of Fred Nurk" or "The History of the Such-and-such".  These can be of mild interest.

I like his low-key presentation - far, far better than most You-tubers in that regard.

I can't comment on his factual accuracy as he only does history videos on electrics* (which are of only peripheral interest to me - he could make up complete nonsense and I wouldn't know the difference).

* I do have a vague memory of watching something - I think it was him - about the history of a famous acoustic model. Martin D-28 maybe? It was not much good - I mean I'm no Martin junkie and only have a moderate knowledge of the make but even so I remember picking up errors. 

Lewy

DrJazzTap said:

Lewy said:

DrJazzTap said:

Don't take this the wrong way, I've been guilty of  moaning about youtubers in the past. 

I have started to think to myself, "it's like pissing against a cliff. You aren't going to make a dent, and you'll just end up with piss on yourself".

Don't like it, move on life is too short. I'm not a fan of 5w world, he seems to counter his channels ethos "most amount of music with the least amount of gear".
 Except we all want to see the latest shiny thing, going over scales and practical applications of ear training isn't as sexy as another new guitar toy.

 And i understand the agitation against female youtubers  "she doesn't even know her modes yadda yadda, it's just horny men blah blah" 
 again who cares??? if they encourage one person to play a guitar that is all that matters. 

I’ve got no problem with female YouTubers. Sophies Burrell and Lloyd, Nili Brosh…awesome. The difference is they can play, and in fact do in the real world away from the gaze of scruffy Neville in his wanking chariot while Margaret is at the W.I. 

Calling out one overexposed incompetent, so musically undeserving of any attention by any objective meritocratic standard, doesn’t constitute “agitation against female YouTubers”.

She bills herself as “session guitarist” by the way. Deluded. Perhaps she should do a video with Carole Kaye. They can swap session stories.

And how does that affect your day to day? Don't take that the wrong way. I am a world class moaner, and I'm trying my best not to be. For me recognising people or shit that triggers me and then avoiding it has helped. 

It doesn't affect my day to day at all. It affects what I might say in an online discussion around guitar youtubers and whether they do/don't/can/can't play and that's the only time I'll think about it. 

On the whole I practice the same sort of avoidance you describe. 

Nerine

Well, I said I’d written a rant on TPS. Here it is. 

I might give it its own thread. I hope it comes across as observational rather than being overly critical:

1/2

Firstly. 

I think TPS is a good resource. For information, at least. However, I believe it’s flawed. In the same way that a lot of similar content is and I’ll try to outline why. I’m not bagging on them, by the way. I’d love to be in their position and just futz around with guitar stuff on a day to day basis. 

I feel like I’ve been compelled to get this off my chest for some time and I observed it back in the day with the Pro Guitar Shop demos that Andy put out. 

I should note I generally LIKE That Pedal Show. I’m not here to slag it off. 

I guess the headline is this: 

I’ve never heard such a wide array of equipment sound quite so samey. Which, I think, makes the whole premise a bit pointless. 

You put That Pedal Show on and you hear that very familiar midrange honk of an A chord played on “Red” (yuck) through some drive pedal into a pair of cleanish amps mic’d with the same pair of microphones in similar positions. Great. 

I could be blindfolded and I could listen to the audio excerpts sans the spiel and I’d instantly know what and who I was listening to. Not the individual pedals - that would be impossible and at the same time, completely arbitrary. It simply wouldn’t matter what pedals were being used. 

There are a few reasons for this. 

TPS has “a sound”. It will never deviate from this. It’ll always be bluesy Strat and honky Tele. These instruments (and in fairness, the fairly narrow range of styles they are being played in) will always have a sound. (Yes I’m aware that they have guests on, and I’d argue they even those guests don’t sound “quite” like themselves when on the show).

Next, the speakers are always mic’d (from what I can deduce) in the same positions with the same microphones. Different microphones and positioning (and cabinets) make large differences to the sound. You run a few different amps and pedals into a couple of cabinets and microphone arrangements that remain the same and you’ll be left with not a whole load of variation in tone. Your overall frequency response won’t be that drastically difference because the cabinet, speaker and mic will most of the time have the most bearing on that. 

I made a post on the above a while back stating that speaker/cabinet changes make more of a difference on a recorded sound than the amp itself (assuming similar styles of amp etc. I.e not a clean Twin against a Rectifier on channel 3 Modern with the gain dimed). You’d be hard pushed to hear the difference between a JCM 800 and a Bogner or Friedman through the same cabinets with the same mics, for example. Especially in a mix. You would be hard pushed to tell. It’d be difficult. I’ve overdubbed rhythm guitar parts on clients albums that were originally recorded with a Friedman with a Marshall and been able to get them to blend pretty seamlessly/unnoticeably. The difference in sound between pedals is going to be just as small when it reaches our ears via cabinets, microphones and YouTube. 

Next. There’s no reference point. Yeah, you hear the clean tone blah blah. Great. Your ears get accustomed to it within about 10 seconds of starting the video, though and that’s your objectivity gone. Not to mention that it’s already been subject to all of the standard TPS process which leads me nicely on to one of the main points. 

Dan and Mick dial things to their tastes based on the room they’re in. Their tastes do not change from episode to episode. They are going to gravitate towards preferred amounts of bass, top end, midrange, gain etc that represents what a guitar sound should be *to them*. The pedal becomes even less important at that point. 

Say you were given two sets of different gear. Couple of amps, couple of cabs and a few pedals and someone said “make that combination work for you and dial up a sound you like” You’d do it. 

Then you’d do the same with the other set of gear and probably come up with something very similar completely subconsciously. That can’t be helped. That’s how that player perceives a guitar to sound. TPS is no different in that regard. 

Add in the almost rigid mic positioning and post processing etc and you can probably begin to see my point a bit. 

Now let’s examine the players. It’s VERY easy to tell them apart. VERY. Even through identically set amps and pedals and sometimes even with very similar guitars they sound very different to each other. Mick sounds like Mick. Dan sounds like Dan. 

This is a bit of a problem though. 

The gear you’re listening to becomes secondary to the very characteristic styles of the presenters. 

Think of either of them and I bet right now you can hear either of them in your head. What their guitar sounds like. What licks etc. 

What pedal were they plugged into in your mind, though? You don’t know. 

That’s because it’s irrelevant and almost meaningless. The sound of TPS isn’t the pedals. It’s TPS and the pair that create it. And that’s fine because that’s human. 

I mentioned PGS Andy a while back. His demos always kinda sounded similar to each other to me. When you realise he plays with his thumb, that kinda makes everything take on a certain characteristic warmth or dullness straight away. Everything sounds like it’s being played with a thumb rather than the pedal you’re supposed to be listening to. 

Extrapolate that out to the TPS setup. As I say, a good resource for information. But tonally? No. Not for me.

Modulations and time based effects? Yeah. Ok. That’s better and less influenced by “TPS”. You can objectively assess what a delay repeat sounds like based on what preceded it and how a reverb sounds based on what was played. You have a reference point. An on off. A “this is the sound, now this is the sound with the chorus”. A direct comparison.

I know they back to back drive pedals so a comparison should be easy to make. But, it’s not. Not really. You might be able to say that pedal sounds gainier or brighter than that pedal. But that’s about it. You have no other reference point. 

I was flicking through the YouTube app on my PlayStation whilst I was eating just now and it gives you a preview of any video you highlight. It starts playing and fades out after about 20 seconds or so. I wasn’t paying attention to what I landed on as such because I was browsing though recommended videos and eating. Then I heard it. That honky A power chord preceded by a pair of quick E and G notes. I knew instantly what it was. It sounded so familiar. 

Nerine

2/2

Yep.

 “Red” (Yuck. I have to mention it this time. It’s just naff to name your guitars in my book especially something so contrived yet vanilla.) 

Weird I should instantly recognise that sound seeing as it was a load of different amps and different pedals through different cabinets on a different day on a different TPS YouTube video about different guitar gear that I’ve not seen before. 

Perhaps I should have just led with the last couple of paragraphs and left it at that. 

Hope this doesn’t come across as disparaging or a put down on either of the presenters. I genuinely think they’re dudes and I’m sure they’d be great to have a beer with. I’m also not knocking their knowledge and experience. It’s an observation I’ve always had that I’ve never bothered to get off my chest prior. You may agree. You may not. They are not the only people doing this kind of thing that I feel similarly about. The dude (Paul?) from “The Studio Rats” is another I could mention. Leon Todd, again - has a sound. That’s fine. 

Weirdly, I could listen to Tim Pierce’s channel and not think he has a sound. His guitar sounds quite different on a video to video basis. More of a chameleon, perhaps. Now I don’t know what is actually more commendable.

Perhaps because TPS are the mainstream it makes them an easier target. However, as stated. I find their videos on modulations and delays and their deeper dives into a concept much more inspiring and interesting. 

Who knows. 

Perhaps it’s not them. Perhaps it’s the overdrive pedals that sound samey…. 

Can of worms, this…. 

Tannin

^ So you have two blokes who consistently play the same style in the same way with the same EQ and sound reinforcement, varying only the pedals.  Think about it: this is the ONLY way you will ever be able to hear the difference (if any!) between the pedals. To compare two pedals (or two microphones, two pickups, two of anything) you MUST keep all the other variables the same. Anything else is just chaos and madness.

Habanero

I quite like the History Of and Guitars Of videos depending on the player. I did watch a Live recording at the weekend, which had a Q&A section with some dead air while he searched for Qs. Won’t do that again.

I generally like the TPS episodes, but they’ve got a bit cork sniffy recently. 

lustycourtier

Strat54 said:

He's too busy making his little world there pristine and shiny to bother playing. Looks like a manic obsessive to me.
 He's gets mightily upset when you question his 'facts' and adopts the well I've hundreds of thousands of followers so I must be right RIGHT line...how dare you question my superior knowledge lol. You can see I don't subscribe.....I think he may be AI generated and a dentist. I'll stick with Jedd, Tom and our own Alex Farran

Does he? I find him very chatty, friendly and open to discussions about his videos. 

26.2

Well I enjoy TPS… 

RaymondLin

I enjoy his videos for what they are, the history stuff are pretty good summary I thought.

randella

rze99 said:

Only watch if I'm interested in the subject, then it's usually ok. I have stopped watching recently because he has simply run out of interesting things.

If I'm down a rabbit hole and one of his vids comes up related to the subject, I'll give it a watch. I don't think he really claims to have 'new' knowledge on topics like the history of the Bassman, but he's got a style I find soothing.

I do subscribe in case something comes up that I'm into at the time, but I don't watch them all as they're released.

Not my fave channel but there are far, far worse out there.

57Deluxe

its all about the George V beard

DrCornelius

It is slow TV for gear heads - although its not for me there is definitely a place for it as an antidote to a lot of the snappier, noisier vids out there

guitarjack66

Musicman20 said:

Strat54 said:

He's too busy making his little world there pristine and shiny to bother playing. Looks like a manic obsessive to me.
 He's gets mightily upset when you question his 'facts' and adopts the well I've hundreds of thousands of followers so I must be right RIGHT line...how dare you question my superior knowledge lol. You can see I don't subscribe.....I think he may be AI generated and a dentist. I'll stick with Jedd, Tom and our own Alex Farran

Agreed. Just think he’s similar to Trogly. 

Is he in a band/can he play or does he just talk about it?!

The getting the most from the least gear didn’t last long hahaha! 

I am almost certain I heard Rick Beato say that Keith Williams is a friend and he either taught him or he was a fellow music tutor at one of his Colleges,that Beato was a Music Professor at? Not absolutely certain but think they both have Jazz backgrounds. Beato certainly does.

pluckbuddy

Just re TPS: I still see Dan and Mick as lockdown pals, but they did make me laugh recently when they did a show about underrated/forgotten pedals and with no sense of irony they wheeled out an Analogman modded tube screamer. Seemed like a metaphor for the format of the show really. 

I still like them though. I like Andertons too, mainly because they're a bit daft and very transparent about advertising gear for sale in their shop. I think because they're just selling gear they don't have to work the format too hard to keep it reasonably interesting.

Edit for clarification on a couple of points.

Second edit: obs when I say Andertons are selling gear I mean strictly legal gear and no innuendo about 'gear' was intended! 

inewham

pretty sure I recall something like that too.

scrumhalf

I quite like 5 Watt World and Rick Beato. I sae the two of them with Rick's mates Dave? Amorato? and Rhett thingy.

There's enough bandwidth out there for all sorts.