I spend a lot of time on YouTube researching techniques and products. It’s the least expensive and most efficient way to learn about audio engineering. And there are a lot of great channels out there that continually provide excellent content like Warren Huart and Produce Like A Pro and White Sea Studio.
And there are a ton of channels with a low follower count which do the same. There are also some really good channels that have great content that are somewhat questionable at times. Especially when it comes to gear reviews.
EDITOR NOTE: As of early 2023, YouTube is now requiring videos that contain a "Paid Advertisement" be noted in the first few seconds of the video, in the top left. Most of the examples below have NOT been tagged.
TRUSTWORTHY GEAR REVIEWS
Most studio owners and engineers don’t have an endless supply of cash to spend on top quality equipment. So many times we depend on the recommendations of experts or other musicians who have experience with products before we make a decision.
In the audio industry, YouTube is a huge part of how companies market their products. Most of them appear to spend very little money on their own marketing and much more on getting “independent” YouTubers to pump their products.
Take for example the latest video by In The Mix (https://youtu.be/hY6pkoawYSY). I absolutely love this channel! Michael Wynn is easy to understand and has amassed nearly a million subscribers in just 5 years because he targets much of what aspiring engineers need to know.
Michael is usually promoting free plugins, so it is rare he promotes a paid product. And he does this with full disclosure stating Steve Slate provided him with the product and paid him extra to purchase the other equipment. He doesn’t say, however, how much more he was paid for the review. And that’s my point.
I love Steven Slate’s products. Just about everything he does is solid gold. Does he need to have Michael promote his product? No. But it’s a hell of a good idea! But the concern I have is: are these companies compromising the integrity of some of our favorite YouTubers in their efforts to market their products? Time will tell.
FLAT-OUT PROMOTION
Keeping with the Slate family of products, Slate Digital was recently purchased, so I can’t pin this one on Steven Slate directly. But over the 2022 holiday season Slate Digital was promoting the crap out of their ML-1 modeling microphone. It became an inescapable onslaught of emails, tweets, insta posts, and YouTube videos…
I own the ML-1, long before this promotion, and I think it is a quality microphone. So these promotions had no effect on my purchase. But the gauntlet of ads felt more like watching TV commercials during an NFL game. Inescapable drivel and mind-numbing talking points.
Worst of all, two YouTubers in particular, one of whom I actually respect, got caught-up in the holiday cheer, dare I say blatantly compromised their reputations.
Edward Smith - The first of these “promoters” is a guy named Edward Smith. Since I am an avid YouTube user, Edward’s “reviews” come-up pretty frequently. He has been at it as long as Michael Wynn. But I have always found his content to be very light weight; his gear reviews are more like unboxing videos.
Edward is an actual recording artist, so he has put his money where his mouth is unlike many other YouTubers. Venus Theory, who has 200k subscribers, was bullied into publishing his first album in 2022. He bemoaned having to do so in his release video; felt like more of a hostage video than a celebration. So artists that actually release music and not just exercise their video skills on YouTube at least get my immediate respect.
But this video by Edward just pissed me off: https://youtu.be/eoIrvYVOoO4. He spends 3.5 minutes unboxing and slobbering over the product and less than 1 minute comparing it to a U87ai, apparently the only top microphone he owns. But then he states he has literally reviewed hundreds of microphones! Where are the microphones Edward?
Again, I believe everything Edward is saying because I own an ML-1. And I don’t own a U87, so props to him for at least owning one classic mic. But dude, your career is founded on “reviews”!!! His 200k+ subscribers must fancy his voice.
And by the way, no mention in his video that he was given or loaned the mic from Slate or if he was paid. This is a commercial, hands-down, simping.
David Gnozzi - The next YouTuber I am going to hate-on actually hurts a little. MixBusTV, run by David Gnozzi, is one of my favorite channels. David is a very outspoken engineer and has a ton of experience to backup his positions.
If you don’t subscribe to David’s channel, you are missing some excellent content. He’s a bit difficult to understand at times, but I like his approach! He’s very straight-forward and unapologetic!
The problem I had with David, and I am not talking about his hair, is he also got caught-up in the Slate Digital promotion blitz. And when pressed by some of his subscribers, he did not admit he was paid, but he also didn’t deny it. And his video looked to be very quickly pulled-together. Not at all like most of his reviews.
It was pretty obvious David was being paid by Slate for the video, which makes him also look like a simp.
I won’t stop watching David’s videos, I stopped watching Edward Smith after just a couple of weeks.
THE SORTA BRIGHT SIDE
I recently saw a video by one of my favorite engineers, Kristian Kohle, where he promoted the Neve RNT by SE Electronics. In it he states he was sent the mic, has used it for some time, and recommends it for studios. It wasn’t a review, it wasn’t a commercial, it was simply an endorsement. Here it is: https://youtu.be/RrVvGbT-5wk
Was this blatant simping? Nope. In fact, it was exactly what Edward Smith and all YouTubers should be doing in most cases. But frankly, I doubt Smith could pull it off because he is just a home studio nerd and promoter, not a professional mixer like Kohle.
David’s video actually provided some content, so he somewhat saved himself in my opinion. But if you aren’t going to provide substantive content, blatant promotion like Edward Smith just serves the mindless masses who will go into debt buying shiny objects.
Compromising your integrity is a norm nowadays. Do I care if Edward Smith looks like a simp? Nope. But when David did this it definitely made me second-guess his integrity. And I was not alone. T&A is a great recipe for building an audience of dipshits: https://youtu.be/lQnDVhmdqr0
Comments