Pro Guitar Shop seems to be one of the webs more visible online guitar gear retailers. With a seemingly endless stream of contests, video demos and recently, a new riff of the day, taught by the popular Andy.
Their latest marketing blitz is something they are calling “Demo It Live”. It’s essentially just a web page, where they have hundreds of gear sound samples. The thing thats different, is that the FX pedals and guitars aren’t recorded with a mic in front of an amp as is typical. Instead they ran the sound straight to a recording console, and EQ’d it as neutrally as possible.
Without going into an amp, the samples actually don’t sound that good. But, they then ask that you take your smartphone, tablet or PC and get an adapter cable that will allow you to output it’s sound into your amp. So the sound samples are now running through your own rig. It’s about the best solution I’ve seen for remotely demoing gear, though still not a replacement for physically trying it yourself. And I don’t understand how this process could be “patent pending”, as it’s simply “re-amping”, a technique that’s been used by recording studios for quite some time.
