Fascinating inside scoop on being a full-time Synth YouTuber

The Lounge General Discussion
#211

RMR grinds my gears a bit - not really sure why, just some of his vids I find hard to watch, others I enjoy and are fine.

I’m sure it has been said but I feel like the basic premise of this is misguided.

Sure, if he was commissioned by the companies to make a top notch video that then became their property then cool, you’re worth a damn good rate. But you’re not handing over the rights to the content, it’s made to further your own brand and revenue streams. He said himself upping the production quality was to compete with other YouTubers.

There’s no other way round it - if you want to get paid a decent chunk of change to have the content on your own platform then it’s a paid ad or marketing service. If that’s the service you’re offering synth companies then surely it’s on you to prove the ROI as part of your pitch?

I get that the dude is probably busy as hell and it takes a dang lot of effort putting the videos together. I get that he is probably bombarded with requests to feature gear. I get that the day one video requirements are probably balls and not very exciting after a few times doing it. I get that one offer per month of a free synth for a vid seems a good deal, but 30 offers a month of the same would feel like you’re being ripped off and being taken advantage of. Doesn’t mean you actually are though.

Shit, if you can manage to get paid healthily upfront for making the content, and then generate cash from it down the line then go for it. It’s double dipping but go for it if you can, why not?

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#212

So if it is a false binary (whatever that means) as you have claimed , what else is a possibility?

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#213

RMR does tend to take an “I’m offended”-tone of voice to most things he does, that’s not directly a review or a performance.

I do wonder if most influencers arrive at this point sooner or later, where they realise they’re pretty good at what they do, but they applied it in a culture where they’re at the mercy of the influencer business model.

They can’t get out without losing their revenue, they can’t keep it up because it’s taking too much of a toll.

That’d make me upset, too, if I came to that realisation.

And if my line of profession was to make videos to the public on stuff that’s going on in my head, that’s what I’d do when I realised that, to earn another fistful of dollars.

The irony, right?

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#214

I think there’s a distinction to be drawn between people like Nick Batt and Loopop in that they are reviewers. Their vids are structured along the lines of a traditional review. They go through the different parts of an instrument in some depth, discuss real world applications and try to offer dispassionate pro’s and con’s for different users across the spectrum of potential buyers.

Most synthtubers are more like entertainers. They make vids that are more of a gimmicky show about themselves and their opinions on gear either good or bad. I’ve no problem with that and you can tell some of them put great effort into creating that content. However the very nature of that sort of content means some people will like it and some won’t,; they don’t attempt to reach a broad church of end users but rather talk to their followers while advancing their persona in some way.

I can’t see a problem with people having and sharing opinions on anyones content whether those comments are viewed as positive or negative. Toxicity and hate are overused terms and I don’t see any of the comments here falling into either of those categories. Surely we can share our opinions of an entertainer or their content without it being labeled as hate? Some folks won’t like the style of NB and Loopop and that’s fine…they can say they are dry or boring or whatever…thats not hate in the same way as criticising the style of a sythtubers content isn’t hate. It would be a scary space that only allows for positive opinions

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#215
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#216

Is it time for a Hasselhoff pic yet?

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#217

I see your Spears and raise you a bit of a classic…

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#218

Britney was 20 years ahead of her time with that video and lyrics. :rofl:

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#219

I was watching the rogan chat with Mr Beast, I’ll be honest I didn’t know who he was, but he’s like the world’s 4th richest YouTuber or something, and he’s only like 24 or something. he makes like 50 million a year on it. but he throws millions and millions back into his videos and his charities. its YouTubing on another level, and he loves it. it’s pretty weird stuff like, look at this crazy thing we’re going to do in this video! almost jackass type stuff I guess, but more variety game show like.

anyway he was saying how like, I mean the guy has teams. he runs it like a business. he has 4 teams that rotate through putting the content together, so every team gets time off and a break. he also had a crazy thought which was he makes a different YouTube channel for most major languages on earth, coz like, English is only like 10% of the population. his stuff exploded after that, tonnes of Chinese and Indians are now watching his content in their native language, and he’ll even do stuff like hire famous people in that country to do the voice overs.

but he studied YouTubing like a maniac, and while he is kinda crazy he’s also just… young. and young people have a crazy energy. like, him and his mates just tested for hours and hours what thumbnail works, what videos do better, what type of content gets more likes, views etc. and boom, off it went. I think his stuff is a lot of the reason why modern YouTube is the way it is today.

it’s also just saying that there are ways to make a channel more sustainable, to try and offload some of that pressure and to make it work by going bigger. that’s any business I guess. and even though, you know, all those thumbnails with the face, the large font, YOU WONT BELIEVE, I WAS SHOCKED, WE NEED TO TALK, all that stuff. I mean I’m just surprised people don’t deviate more from that just for arts sake. and even if someone seems to get some traction from their super basic gear jams, for some reason they start buying the mic, doing the large fonts, having yearly wrap up videos, MY 5 THINGS and all that stuff. so maybe it does get the clicks, but isn’t it worth breaking the world a bit and trying something different?

the minute someone starts putting themself in front of the camera, to me it deviates from art a bit. that’s when you become a ‘YouTuber’. and I mean, these aren’t music videos, they’re like, monologues, self talking, therapy sessions or something. its like, Interviews With Myself. which is cool, I guess. me personally, I mostly play music vids at home on YT with like, a cool animating background, or something done in a tasteful way with a cool setup. something that turns my TV into an art box in some way. I totally think there’s merit in going that way and staying that way. Staying away from the block text, the shocked face, the cliche phrases, and just doing your damn art and ditching everything else.

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#220

You make many great points in your post, I would agree it deviates from pure music as an art form. But anything can be done artfully, and I believe a YouTube video can be art. TV/movie is and can be an art form.

It’s just not a musical performance. There are near endless techno improv jams on YouTube, and all manor of electronic music. I enjoy them occasionally, I enjoy demos and reviews. I generally won’t comment on them unless it is a performance I enjoy.

Now, if you post a whiny rant for all the world to see and try to hide it behind a weak veil of ‘if you’re not a company then this isn’t for you’ then you are fair game for all manor of comments received.

I won’t support his Patreon, but I’d send him some cheese and crackers to go with his whine.

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#221

Sick burn

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#222

Im a very mean and toxic person.

And, Hasselhoff

image

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#223

… just noticing that we have quite a few synth YouTubers here on the forums who have been suspiciously quiet on this topic…

Thou art speaking volumes in thy silence.

#224

Well yeah, anything can be art. Even a marketing video. But what I’m saying is, or at least what I think most YouTubers start out doing, is, they’re in it for the music, for the art. I mean, this is different from say, someone on a yacht YouTubing their yacht life. This is music, with a history of music video, vinyl covers, tour posters, etc etc. music has a visual side to it, and yet, a lot of folks who start out with some very minimal gear music videos, probably with the sweetest of intentions, somehow turn into YouTubers. was this the goal all along? Or have they been sucked into some kind’ve vortex? It might not actually be everyone’s agenda to actually be purely expressing creative work, it could even be a dead end pursuit. But I like the link above somewhere of the Ukrainian techno artist Yan Cook, really nice example of someone sticking to their guns and doing some nice Av stuff, without getting too sucked in to the status quo

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#225

Another rad album name for the next release. Thanks!

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#226

Here here

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#227

There there

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#228

Benn Jordan´s Polybrute video is a great example of that.

also Bloom Audio does a really good job at being more artistic in its overview of a synth. which i appreciate alot more tbh.

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#229

I’m not sure what constitutes “less popular”. Just for the record here are the subscriber counts for some of those mentioned:

RMR 413k
Loopop 205k
Sonicstate 205k
Cuckoo 163k
BoBeats 111k
AccurateBeat close to 100k

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#230

Oh I meant “and other less popular” than those mentioned, as in as well as, not implying that those mentioned were less popular, so I mean like channels with less than 50k subs.

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