My Most Watched YouTube Channels in 2020
It seems to be traditional at new year to produce some kind of “top ten” list or other. Well, I’m not a fan of ordered lists, but I have produced a list of the YouTube music channels I watched the most last year. And there’s nine in my “top ten”!
Before we start, a quick disclaimer. I’m not connected to these channels in any way and I’m not getting any kickbacks for plugging them. I just like them and I’ve got a lot out of them. Time to pay it forward.
And this is purely my personal choice. I’m not saying these channels are the best or that there aren’t any others out there. These are genuinely just the channels I actually watch! Having said that, I’d love to hear of any other channels anyone thinks I might be interested in following - please use the comments.
Glad that’s clear. Here we go:
My first love, muscically, is the acoustic guitar – primarily fingerstyle acoustic blues. So I’ll start with a couple of acoustic players I follow.
Rainer Brunn
First up is Rainer Brunn. Rainer is based in Germany and mainly publishes blues performance videos. He also sells his arrangements of blues songs on tab with occasional paid video tutorials.
I’ve bought quite a bit of his stuff, and even learned some of them, but the main attraction is his excellent performance videos. He’s a hell of a player.
Daddy Stovepipe
Next, and similar to Rainer Brunn, comes Daddy Stovepipe. This is the channel of Carl Bludts, based in Belgium.
Carl produces (mainly) blues performance videos with occasional tutorials. The tutorials are usually free but there’s often a charge for the associated tab.
I’ve paid a one off subscription that gets me some, but not all, the tabs as Carl produces them. I reckon it's good value.
I’m trying to learn to be a better composer, so there’s a few composers that I follow on YouTube. Some of them are also samplists - and I’m also interested in learning how to sample
Guy Michelmore
Guy Michelmore is a TV, film and game composer who also runs a training company called Thinkspace Education, based in Southern England.
I love Guy’s slightly bonkers and bouncy presentation style. While I’m not aiming to be a film composer a lot of the techniques Guy describes apply elsewhere.
Watching these videos did result in me spending some money, because I ended up buying two of Guy’s courses: “Learn Music Theory” and “How To Write Music”.
Christian Henson
I follow Christian for a few reasons.
First he’s another TV, film and media composer with a totally different style to Guy Michelmore. I find his descriptions of the world of TV and film composition fascinating.
I also like Christian’s occasional interviews other composers and samplists.
Christian is also a really good and experienced samplist. In particular he runs the Pianobook website that provides lots of free sampled instruments – and it’s not all pianos.
And he’s a partner in Spitfire Audio, the sample company. I can’t afford their main products but they do produce the free (and marvellous) LABs series of instruments – worth investigating.
Dan Keen Music
Dan’s a young composer and talented samplist. I found him via Pianobook, where he’s published several good sample instruments – I’ve downloaded all of ‘em.
Dan also discusses composition and sampling, does reviews and films an occasional real time composition.
David Hilowitz Music
I started watching David’s channel because of his sampling and Kontakt tutorials - he’s a whizz with Kontakt.
In addition he’s a talented composer who also conducts musical experiments and provides some music tutorials.
12tone
A bit different to the other channels, 12tone is all about music theory.
This fast talking presenter covers music theory in general while doodling away on manuscript paper. He has some good introductory videos – see his Building Blocks playlist.
He also produces some interesting deconstructions of selected pop and rock songs.
The final couple of channels satisfy my interest in recording and mixing using REAPER.
In The Mix
The best I can do in describing this channel is to quote from the channel itself: “In The Mix is all about simplifying the recording, production, mixing and mastering process …”.
The presenter has a very clear teaching style and he aims his advice squarely at the home producer - people like me, who don’t have perfect studios or endless pots of money.
REAPER Mania
Kenny Gioia is well known in the REAPER world for producing comprehensive and in depth tutorials about many aspects of this digital audio workstation. In fact he produces the videos featured on the REAPER website.
I’ve been using REAPER for a few years now, but every time I watch one of Kenny’s videos I learn something new. I’ve learned not to skip videos about topics I think I know because there’s often something I’d missed that really helps with productivity.
That’s it.
Except to plug my own channel of course! I mainly produce little videos of me sitting on the settee playing guitar and singing or I put pretty pictures over my electronic music compositions.
But. for a change this year, I’m also trying my hand at some “talking head” based videos - a little series about my new home “studio” build being the first one I’ve planned. There’s nothing there yet, but fingers crossed it won’t be long.
Oh yes, and I’m planning a video version of this post. I’ll link to it when it’s finished.
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