What drives you crazy about tutorial videos?

This is the video for you ^.
jump cut tutorial

The main thing that bugs me is the constant "you guys"..."you guys" which, at some point, led to the possessive "your guyses".
That drives me mental - "looking forward to reading your guyses comments".
It's just "your". :(

The one that has been bugging me lately is the habit of journalists,(especially on radio) of starting every sentence with "So".
 
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Ugh. :(
How about all these guys who haven't a clue how to ask a question properly. Establish context if necessary, ask question, stop talking.
Now all you seem to get is ask question, say because, talk about self for half an hour. I really don't like that.
 
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The one that has been bugging me lately is the habit of journalists,(especially on radion) of starting every sentence with "So"
That one has been driving me to distraction for 3 or 4 years but I first really noticed it with the children I work with in school. When they hit about 9, they begin the answers to so many questions with "so" ~ but it's the way it's done that I find really irritating. It's "so" unnecessary !

Ugh. :(
How about all these guys who haven't a clue how to ask a question properly. Establish context if necessary, ask question, stop talking.
Now all you seem to get is ask question, say because, talk about self for half an hour. I really don't like that
Equally as annoying are those journalists and politicians that don't give the subject of their questions any opportunity to actually answer their questions, but keep on interrupting with follow up questions before the question is even quarter way answered.
No wonder twitter and YouTube took off like they did !
Welcome to the new brave world of one way conversation, folks.
 
1 When they start with "hi what's up?"

2 When they don't edit their videos
Like a comedian saying to the audience: "how's everyone doing tonight?" What's worse is when the response isn't loud enough, and then the person says "I said, how's everyone doing tonight!!!" Common with rock concerts as well, if you remember those.

I'm with most people... taking too long to get to the subject at hand... too much talking, when it's about music... not offering a click-to menu in the video description (e.g., clean, crunch and hi-gain tones should have the time locater in the description so that you can click to the subject, rather than trying to find it). Several others, but those come to mind quickly.
 
You watch things because you need to know things. The people doing so many videos don't consider this but bombard you with stuff. As said, following a recording of somebodies screen is rarely useful. It is like teacher training - they train you to work out what the person's needs are and how to give it to them. The thing they totally ignore is how skilled the audience are. Hi - this video is real beginners to ......... or this video is intended for people who have been using XXX for a while - there's a link below to the beginner's intro to XXX. One of my old college students does bass guitar videos and he was better than me when he was 18, and now he is 40, he's way, way above me - but I can learn from him because he pitches the videos at my kind of level, so with a bit of effort I get there. Beginners would be totally stuck - but that's not who the videos are for!
 
Yeah.....^^^^^Rob has it right IMO. So many videos seem to want to cover beginners to experts and everything in between. They need to stick to certain levels of experience and tell that up front. Man.....how many vids have you watched where you got maybe 2 minutes of anything of value out of 20 minutes of blah...blah. Wandering off topic....changing the subject for a while....offhand remarks.....bad camera angles.....bad lighting.....bad audio....and SOOOO many who end up not really knowing what they're talking about when all is said and done.

Just my 2 cents (or less) worth.

Mick
 
Most times, unless it's a very simple vid, I find they either go into way too much detail, or way too little. Sometimes I have a mixed bag of knowledge, so I need things laid out in pretty simple terms some of the time, but can grasp and move on on others... I just prefer a simple html doc. Just being real. I can skim what I know and go in depth on what I don't and I don't have to listen to some prat prattling on about their opinions and side stories...
 
I think good tutorial vids should have links to the different topics, then you could skip over what you're solid on. Maybe a "skip ramble" button that could be added by viewers to shorten the curve would be nice as well.
 
If you’re trying to show me how a thing sounds, but I have to grab my volume knob every time you start talking. I acknowledge that it’s a bit tough to really even those things out especially when you’re trying to make it work across a relatively wide audience listening in any number of circumstances, but... If I’m listening to the subtle way that your favorite compressor colors this drum track, I’m sitting in front of my calibrated monitors turned up to my nominal working level and then your voice is just normalized to be as loud as fucking possible! Warren Huart is terrible about this. Glen Fricker is even worse because it seems like a lot of times the music parts are smashed through the same compression as the voice so you can’t actually tell what’s coming from the plugin he’s demonstrating and what’s coming from the “radio processing”.
 
any video on high passing. there's a hundred of them. it irks me when it doesnt clearly state this in the video title but instead its called (the secret EQ move for clearer and punchier mixes) I saw this one pop up yesterday. started watching and realised it was another video on high passing... yet again
 
If you’re trying to show me how a thing sounds, but I have to grab my volume knob every time you start talking. I acknowledge that it’s a bit tough to really even those things out especially when you’re trying to make it work across a relatively wide audience listening in any number of circumstances, but... If I’m listening to the subtle way that your favorite compressor colors this drum track, I’m sitting in front of my calibrated monitors turned up to my nominal working level and then your voice is just normalized to be as loud as fucking possible! Warren Huart is terrible about this. Glen Fricker is even worse because it seems like a lot of times the music parts are smashed through the same compression as the voice so you can’t actually tell what’s coming from the plugin he’s demonstrating and what’s coming from the “radio processing”.
^^^^^ Oh yeah...what he says. Why in tarnation don't these people realize that no one wants to keep adjusting volume....for a bunch of reasons??? Terrible mic use....or just bad production.....etc....etc. Not looking for perfection but leveling the volume overall......at least to a more usable point......is not that hard to do.

Mick
 
I've been watching a lot of recording related tutorial videos over the past year - some are very professional, and many are semi. Many are just cheesy.

Above all else, the one thing that drives me batty is when they (whoever) cannot stay on the subject. When they have to comment on why or what the reasons are for this or that which have nothing to do with the subject at hand - they cannot resist explaining that this particular example track is bad because they were up all night and hadn't had breakfast yet... you know.



Kenny Gioia (Reaper) does not fall into this category.

I've stopped watching them. Here's why:

1. constant use of the phrase: I'm going to "go ahead and" xyz. For example: I'm going to go ahead and mute this track/ I'm going to just go ahead and get started./ Let's go ahead and see how that sounds. etc
2. Constant hawking of email subscription to get their "free recording guide". The desperately want your email.
3. Use of words like cheat, hack, life hack, top 10, top 5, hax
4. Starting every single video with "What's up guys?" or "Hey what's good?" or anything like that.
5. Rambling for an age before they get to anything resembling a point
6. Speaking in a thinly disguised 'fed up' manner...fed up with explaining this again/ treating viewers like morons...but trying to be nice (and faking it badly) because they want viewership
7. begging for clicks/ spending inordinate amounts of time reminding us about hitting that like guys, smashing that bell, subscribing
8. seemingly promising pointed, specific approaches to recording or mixing only to waffle on for ages with highly generic "make sure to tune your guitar" or "make sure you sit in the triangle" or "remember to write down your thoughts about the mix" or "use a reference track" or some other easily, low effort "hack" to pad out a new video
9. using neon colours, huge graphics and contorted facial expressions in the video thumbnail preview like a true youtubing moron
10. never shutting the hell up about patreon
11. using the phrase "you know what". e.g: And you know what...here's the thing...it's all about tracking./ You know what, I am going to throw a compressor on there.
12. using the phrase "you know what" in conjunction with the phrase "go ahead and". e.g: You know what, I am gonna go ahead and throw a compressor on there.
13. saying things, with regards to hitting like and thumbing up etc, like: Coz guys it really helps the channel. Or...it really helps the channel algorithm. Yeah, what you mean is that you get money for clicks. Just say it.
14. making their "free cheat sheet" sound easy to get...hiding the fact you have to navigate a minefield of links, clicks, agreements, only to have to give them your email. If you are SO sincere about getting this vital free info out, just give a link to google downloads or something. It's not hard. Ohhhh, you're desperate for a large stable of strangers' emails for your business plan? Right, I get it.
15. not being transparent about their business plan
16. doing what everyone else does...because that must be right
17. assuming everybody is onboard with your social/ life views. No, we don't all swallow the kind of social engineering you have.
18. using inserted pictures on screen to add humour to your boring rambling
19. editing your presentation to be a bunch of quick clips/ phrases all piled back to back so it's cool and fast and catchy
20. sucking at mixing and tracking
21. video starts...rambling for 2 minutes then comes the cut to the channel promo video blurb intro for a minute that blows your head off
22. quick vocal mixing guides with 400 plugins on them
23. being called "friend"
24. making adjustments that can't be heard
25. people who say "It's your boy xyz...what's good, what's good?"

:)
 
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I really, really hate it when the person doing the video clearly has no user experience, no understanding of the physics, no understanding of the product and no idea how to explain difficult concepts. These people also assume all viewers are like them, and make no allowances for folk who are beginners, or speak a different variety of English or simply don't understand the concepts.

I watched one this morning, about a very common Chinese dirt cheap mic. His explanations at what phantom power is were laughable. Condenser mics need power because the use electricity. Dynamic mics don't - they use magnets. Phantom power is electricity without wires. Dynamic mics move. Condenser ones collect everything. Big circuit boards are balanced. Little ones aren't (despite the three connections to the XLR from the PCB being very visible). They're so mangled, that despite being based on facts, they're spun out of all control.

Worst are the ones where the person is really just trying to show off. I simply sigh when you read the comments -" thanks man, now I really understand how to condenser my guitar" - really??
 
The most immediate reason to click away from a tutorial is when the video audio is horrible. If you can't get your video narrative to sound good, how are you going to convince me you are credible? You aren't.
 
Being a visual learner, let alone being 65+ ;-) I would be thrilled if instructors would slow down their mouse movements so I can better see the icons they "click" on as they move to/through different process steps.
 
I've been watching a lot of recording related tutorial videos over the past year - some are very professional, and many are semi. Many are just cheesy.

Above all else, the one thing that drives me batty is when they (whoever) cannot stay on the subject. When they have to comment on why or what the reasons are for this or that which have nothing to do with the subject at hand - they cannot resist explaining that this particular example track is bad because they were up all night and hadn't had breakfast yet... you know.



Kenny Gioia (Reaper) does not fall into this category.

When someone uses expressions like "this has a very small form factor" instead of saying this is tiny, or "at this price point" instead of price, I click to close the video.
 
I watched the first in a series of US YouTube videos about TV studios. Us Brits are quite used the different US processes, but I watched, hit pause, and responded with a message "I didn't realise the US studio practice was XXX, we always do ZZZ in the UK. Then watched more and found another difference. I thought I'd leaned something. A few videos later, I'd found clear differences in how US teleprompting works. again, I thought I'd remember this in case it came in useful. THEN I watched the audio mixing video and there was a piece of kit I know well with some major out and out mistakes in what they said button X did as opposed to Y - the person (the Technical Director) was simply wrong, but I figured he might really be a manager and just got it wrong. THEN the same man did the microphone video. There was an SM58 in the mic holder on a stand, backwards! It was described as a condenser and needs power to operate and then a caption came up saying OMNI. at this point I realised I'd wasted nearly an hour. This wasn't different UK/US terminology and process it was an idiot with some quite nice gear who knew nothing about the subject at all. Like a new kid in the sweet shop guessing the taste of everything and never having eaten any!



Here's the worst one. listen and weep to the woeful rubbish. the other mics, like the RE15 get equally mangled. Once you've watched this try some of the others. I can forgive presenters on YouTube being young or old, having silly voices or weird clothes - but if you pretend to be a professional, you should at least have done your homework, and maybe even read the stuff from an autocue if you can't remember it - especially when you HAVE autocue.
 
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