Yes.
Some of that music became a staple on my daily rotation (mainly State Azure and Oora)
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Yeah you get some easy / free engagement from doing “gear” style video performances but ultimately I don’t think you gain many actual “fans” from that free engagement, especially if you tend to just do this with whatever new bit of gear. You get people passing by, maybe with a few questions about whatever kit you have. If you use the same machines a lot then you start to see people who are more into what you can do, instead of what the machines can do… even then it is mixed to a degree. Submit your music to some of the music sharing youtube channels with some album art and you will get all sorts of different engagement, people more excited about music than gear.
I think the thing is any one musician isn’t going to be able to post and get traction on their personal youtube just posting songs with album art unless they already have a good following or make an insane amount of quality tracks. I’ve found more success on bandcamp than other platforms, its also nice to just be able to post some tunes and some art that goes with them and not worry about all the troubles that video brings.
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Bandcamp is pretty amazing for artists. Just got a few records from Ilian Tape (finally also Skee Mask’s ‘Pool’ on vinyl.
…since i make a living from music, i hardly really consume/enjoy/just listen to music in the rest of my daily life anymore…
if i want my sourrounding filled with sonic athmosphere in private daily life, i turn on classic music or ballroom music from the last century to just fill the background with a moodsetting, kinda sonic wallpaper…but most of the time, if i listen to anything in private, it’s a podcast or an audiobook…
sure, i still listen to all sorts of what’s going on, but nah, not really…that’s all just snippets for intrest/curiosity/to stay informed and kinda up to date…
last moments where i really listen for pure enjoyment/excitement, is on concerts or in clubs to let the music move me…
or if i have a walk and put my headphones on…then, it’s most of the time, random picks from my like list on spotify…
videos are an extension of the artform…
and if it’s just gearporn, it’s not for me…
if it’s creative storytelling of any kind, to bring the music more into an additional artistic perspective, i’m fine with it…and have a watch, sometimes…
while all sorts of tutorials are a different thing…there’s never the actual music what it’s all about…
then it’s only about certain gear or production techniques…and it might be of any intrest to me…
if u have a nice live show and it includes how u treat ur instruments of any kind, ok…
but usually it get’s pretty lame quite soon…
live events don’t translate that well on screen in general…
so, for all recording/performing/producing artists out there, i hardly suggest, if ur in for the music u make, don’t tell/show people how u made it…that’s way too one dimensional for any kind of truu musical approach…let it speak for itself, crank up the unknown mysteries, or become a great visual pretender, too, or add some visual artistic xrta of any kind to ur music…
make a move and a difference that’s visually more appealing than just twiddeling knobs…
and if ur into both, then keep these two things strictly separated…
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I often mute the music and just watch people twist knobs and do that little flick with their fingers when they mute/unmute like they touched something hot. You know what I’m talking about.
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I go to concerts to see and listen the musicans, i really like cercle shows, they have super locations, and some well done acts, which also played a live act. You can call it content, but i personally like the music, it has intent, i watch it like i watch a napalm death concert in Brazil.
Synth tubers, well if its good music, i like watching them doing it too, its for sure not the same as a cercle show, but i dont mind, i also watch painters paint, because i like to see their process.
Serious music listening i do when i find something really good and buy their tracks and put it on my hifi system.
Generally i prefer soundcloud to seek music, its quicker and has better fellowship system.
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Shifting a tick, what electronic performances have been inspiring to watch?
Against the clock eps can be good there for me, focus entirely on the artists and usually pretty improvisational and better lit, better view of equipment.
I appreciate your perspective and get where you’re coming from. I think what you’re saying has merit, but I feel like this is part of the double standard put on electronic music artists. If you’re a folk guitarist, you can just record a video of you playing your folk song on a guitar. But an EM artist posting a video of their song can be accused of gear fetisization. So they now need to also create art or a video piece? I signed up to make music, not to be a videographer.
So, in general, an EM artist needs to…
Compose their melodic work (fair, because that’s what musicians do)
Write and play the drums, because loops are cheating (even though bands have a dedicated drummer who writes their own part)
Learn to record, mix, and master their work (even though that’s usually three different jobs)
Now: Learn videography and/or visual art medium to showcase their work (because using AI is cheating and showing yourself playing is gear porn)
I’ve seen EM artists mocked for outsourcing each of these steps on various forums, which is something I never encountered playing in a rock band. Sorry, I’m not trying to put you on blast here, just a do-it-all mentality that seems pervasive in the EM community 
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…yep, it’s a shame…thankfully enough, what happened to all sorts of electronic music creators in the last 15 years, now happens also to all sorts of visual content creators…
tools get so common and outfront, that modern days selfpromoting lala land is finally eating it itself in inflationary uberdiversification…
all music visualisation, no matter how artfully crafted, was nothing but a promotion vehicle in first place…hoping/begging/waiting for clicks/attention is a miserable deathtrap…
listening to music vs watching music ?
in best case, music speaks for itself, is an universal language from the heart, to the heart and needs nothing but itself and some vibrating air to translate…no matter what instruments or sounds it’s made of…
concepts and ideas are the last stand in the age of information…no one is twiddeling knobs tomorrow…we all gonna prompt the shit out of ourselves…
or sit at a campfire…watchting the flames while listening to nightbirds…and from time to time, we come together to just make music again…together, not home alone, but in circles, for nothing but the pure fun and magic of it, we’ve long forgotten…
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it doesn’t matter how an artist chooses to share their art. Obviously it doesn’t become less worthy let alone worthless because the performance is shown on video. Completely agree with @cogsy here.
So bleak 
. Also slightly offensive to a lot of artists tbh. Judging what is art and what is not and calling all that nothing more than a miserable way of seeking attention…. you lost me there. The way cogsy sees it is much more spot on really. If a singer / songwriter records themselves on video singing a song, that’s not much different from someone recording a piece of music with a groovebox on video.
Nothing wrong with promoting yourself as an artist either. And if you want to share your art, of course you want to try and reach as many people as you can. Some people find it very difficult to share their art and often releasing it on their own through video is the only way that feels more comfortable as opposed to releasing something officially or even through something like bandcamp. It can be anxiety inducing even as that can feel much bigger than recording a video of a performance.
To bring it back OT: I think turning off the screen is a great idea. Music can speak for itself that way. But it can be really interesting and beautiful to see someone perform their work and see how they are in control of their instruments. It can be part of what makes the experience work.
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I think there are a number of differences you aren’t taking into account. I’d say, generally, a video of a person playing an acoustic guitar while singing will usually be just that, a person using their tools to play. A video of a performance that is made for people to enjoy the performance is a different thing to a video made to demonstrate gear. Looking at my own habits with youtube, when I’m listening to something worth listening to for its own sake, the video portion is on a tab tucked away from view, just like now where I have one of the Stoor Pink Noise sets on while I’m typing this. If I search for a piece of gear I want to hear demos of on youtube, the kind where gear used is listed in the title of a piece, I’ll most likely be watching to see how the gear is used, and the likelihood that I am going to be paying much attention to the actual music played beyond the basic sounds and the workflow is very low.
Edit: There are exceptions, of course. @DaveMech 's videos where he goes around sampling things and then uses the sounds to make a track are both great music and great process. Ihor’s videos where he makes music on the fly and talks about his process also often groove really nicely.
The wide array of sounds, melodic and rhythmic, and the continuum between these, available to an electronic musician aren’t really separable in the same way traditional instruments played by multiple individuals are.
I’ve certainly never played in a band where the drummer writes their part in exclusion of what the guitarist is doing. I guess it could work that way, but it seems rather sterile. For me it has always been a collaborative process. In the same way two electronic musicians working together is collaborative, it’s just that in electronic music, collaboration can be split in many different ways compared to how it works with two people playing more traditional instruments. Sure, the expectation for what is included in one person’s performance on an acoustic instrument is different to a performance of electronic music, but the reasons are pretty damn obvious.
Every band I’ve played in worth something can record a performance live and get something of quality quickly. The problem is that recording instruments individually using individual mics, room setup, etc is difficult. In electronic music it is incredibly easy. The barrier to entry is so much lower for an individual recording their own electronic music setup compared to recording a full band, that I think the reaction you are describing is not really reasonable, but it is understandable.
The mixing and mastering thing is kind of fuzzy. When I’m making electronic music I control all the elements going in, and mixing on the go is just a matter of using my ears and making judgements. Admittedly, I find a lot of professionally mixed and mastered electronic music to be practically dead, with 90% of the life squeezed out of it. I’d say the same about a lot of band music.
I’ll also say, by most metrics I am not good at what I do, and everything I make is a learning process. I could well be wrong about portions of this stuff, just trying to figure out what I think as I go.
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It’s compelling to watch someone play an instrument that’s connected directly to their body. Sequencers and drum machines are not… they’re programming interfaces, not instruments. You can achieve insane and beautiful sounds, but in performance you’re trading bodily eroticism for an infinite sonic palette. That’s the deal as I see it. What compensates somewhat is that electronic music is often supported by powerful soundsystems, which are bodily erotic in their own right, for obvious reasons.
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POV: you should have just uploaded your set to Bandcamp because no one wants to see you make music
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I feel the sound system, I see the light show, I see the stage, I see funny costumes, I see sexy humans dancing, I can practically smell the crowd… but I don’t see anyone making music!!! In fact, the stage is specifically designed to obscure where the body touches the sound-making stuff because it’s a negligible part of what’s impressive.
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It was meant jokingly but to answer your points there’s also something like a bicep live set (also there’s no bodies anyway because Daft Punk are robots 
)
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Wow, wish I was there. Totally get it.
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Yeah Bicep Live is a vibe. Also didn’t mean my comments directly at you, I was just trying to add a bit of silliness to the thread.
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I appreciate the videos, but would prefer to stay OT. Videos of artists performing tracks that have been released live on stage is not the point of this topic.
People listen to Daft Punk or Bicep regardless of seeing their gear or not. And they definitely did not become famous because they used a certain piece of equipment.
On topic:
I’ve reflected a bit on my feelings towards music being released as a gear video rather than just audio and come to an, imo, interesting conclusion.
When listening to audio I feel the music was made to evoke emotions in me, give me a nice listening experience and something to amplify my surroundings. It’s an overal unconditional experience and very pure.
When seeing a track accompanied by a gear video I feel like my experience of the music is not taken in regard.
The vibe I get is that it’s more about the creator trying to gain something from me, rather than the creator giving me or a community something to enjoy. I feel like I’m being target marketed. Especially when creators share videos and their descriptions are full of urls to patreon etc.
It feels disingenuous as the motive to share the video is about personal gain rather than unconditionally sharing something with a community.
The feelings of annoyance become even more amplified because I come to Elektronauts to escape the YT / social media shit show where I get bombarded with ads every second. I like to think of Elektronauts as a place where people come because they have a shared passion.
But unfortunately, Elektronauts is not free of spammy “look at me” content.
I wish we had more creators like @DaveMech who are interested in giving back to the community rather than using the community as a platform to sell their YT videos.
TLDR: pls if you share a track, also share a link to the audio because I’m not interested in boosting your channel stats. If I like the music I’ll buy it and support you that way.
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I really love Substans music, while he has a pic of his new toy in the picture, i still listen because of the music, and not because a certain device is shown. Sure i can watch a explanation video about the Gear afterwards, but it wasnt the primary reason to listen.
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My 5 cents:
Speaking for myself: it’s related to “being nerdy about synths” 
I like both listening to full releases on bandcamp or CDs (yeah, this is also very old-fashioned nowadays) and watching/listening on YT, and I don’t value neither of both. Even if someone post a video with only a little of movement (or even not at all, just everything programmed) I feel like someone is sharing her/his moment of feeling good with what she/he is doing.
But in general, the trend on YT is to put more musical content on Patreon and encourage the YT audience to pay for the extra content, which some years back was normally part of YT, or released as audio on bandcamp. And this is where I prefer to pay for bandcamp release rather than Patreon subscriptions.
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