My beef with all these YT celebrities who have millions of dollars of free modular gear that is gifted to them by sponsors and never admit they are paid to push product with the freebies.
-- benprusinski
Yeah, I know the set of people you're talking about. Their relationships are really suspect. Back during the Korg 2600 FS fiasco, it was interesting to see how these people had ZERO trouble getting one of these damn things, but the general public had pretty no chance to snag one. Why, if Korg liked you enough, you could even get TWO. Then there was this one interesting incident...one of the YT celebs got one, but the case (remember: the case is a big part of why this synth was "limited") had been busted up in transit. Which, when you think about it, is something WE MIGHT ALL NEED TO KNOW ABOUT, as it makes Korg's "limited edition" claim even more specious. Anyway, they shot an unboxing with this...then RAPIDLY took it down under some...odd...circumstances (involving Korg, apparently) and replaced it with a new demo vid that was very careful to NOT show the damage to the road case. I confronted them about this, and they got REAL salty about it...but also made an admission that, yes, they'd gotten their synth through "other means" and not as a retail purchase, and no, it wasn't a "loaner" for review purposes. Read that however you like.
And yes, the "LOOKATMYBIGASSSYNTHAINNITCOOL!?!?!?!" YT crowd. Pft. Yep, you're 100% spot on...these YT creators love to show off this NEWAMAZINGSHINYTHING...but do you ever see one of them giving a tutorial on how to use basic modules? Like VCAs? Y'know, the module that everyone IGNORES but that they NEED? Nah. I'd love to ask a couple specific ones about how they use LFO sync...and see if they even know how to do that!
I would like to point out that there are very good synth users on YouTube, though. Let's take loopop's reviews as an example...
OK, with loopop, you get perfect views of the device in question. No extraneous narrative; everything he's saying is germaine to what he's doing. You get scope views to see things like spectral purity of VCOs, VCF behavior, etc. There's even a "skip-to" timeline on screen! To me, THAT is what I expect in a review. The device gets a workout by a knowledgeable synthesist and we get a "fly on the wall" seat. They're not thrilling, not trendy...just purely informative, like they SHOULD BE.
Contrast that was someone telling you "YOU NEEDZ VCAZ! KAN NEVRR HAZ ENUF VCAAA!!!" and not explaining WHY you need them...OK, that's just plain sucks. Why do I need 'em, mo'fo? Hm? Buehler? Buehler? Or "demoing" a module that we can barely see behind a tangle of patchcords. OK...then, why are those patchcords there? What are you doing with this thing? What's it hooked up to? What's that knob you're turning while hiding the label behind your hand because you don't know how to stay out of the camera's way? In the end, this isn't constructive, and just confuses prospective modular users even more, which results in people getting onto MG and putting up these abortions of builds that seem like they're showcases for how much money the user in question feels like blowing...but which also won't make for anything resembling a proper synth. Great if you like to shop for deals on eBay and Reverb, I guess, but not so good for those people who bought into this under the wrongly-held mindset that they would be instantly K00L once they had that patchcord-dripper built and installed.
Basically, it's like this: YouTube, by its own design, has turned into the same sort of ugly creature as regular TV. Content gets tailored for ad revenue and max eyeballs, information suffers as a result because information in of itself doesn't sell [INSERT COMMODITY HERE]. That's not helpful.