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The Know youw Gear Podcast the Know youw Gear Podcast is brought to you by Patreon Members Channel members and viewers who like and subscribe. Thank you for making this possible. All right, hello everybody. Welcome to Know youw Gear podcast, episode 426. I need to tilt my screen like that. Have you seen Stumax True Temperament necks for Telecaster and Stratocaster style guitars? Could you please do a video of replacing a Squire neck with one of these? I will not. I did a video on True Temperament. I. I bought a Strandberg guitar with True Temperament. I really did like it. I did not end up keeping it. I'm going to tell you where true temperament lies for me. Here's the the reason I did it. Why did I buy such an expensive Strandberg guitar? Well, because like everything, like the Evertune video and stuff, I like to experience things and then share that experience. The best advice I ever got on YouTube came from an amazing YouTube channel who unfortunately lost. He passed away. But he said this thing, it was private. It wasn't even on like a live show. He said you work kind of like a surrogate. In other words, somebody can't physically be there to try this piece of gear. And you know, and like we said in the environment of you got to buy before you can try, it's nice if someone can relay that information to you. And with experience like, hey, I tried it. Not just hey, I opened out of the box and it was fine for five minutes. It's like, I tried it. So what did I learn from one year of having a True Temperament guitar? So I had the guitar for one year. I made sure I kept it for one year. I actually had a little longer in a year. But I like anything six months, a year minimum, just to see because you do kind of go through like, I love it, I hate it. I don't use it. Why don't I use it? Kind of modes. Here's the thing with True Temperament, I think the system is fantastic. I really love the way the guitar sounds. It really is really pleasing to me. Some people have a different response. They think it sounds like sterile, like a keyboard or whatever. To me it sounds really beautiful and sustains and sounds great. But. But what I learned is I can't play it with any other guitar. So I can't play with any other musicians with it. It doesn't sound right to me. So if they grab like a Telecaster and you grab a True Temperament guitar, you just kind of sound slightly out of tune from each other. I really didn't enjoy that experience. And for somebody out there, maybe some super, like Dr. Andre Flood, who's like a super amazing player who has an amazing ear, maybe he hears something and he can make some adjustments. But for me, from where I'm at, I played it and I was like, I'm not digging it when I'm jamming with somebody. So realistically love true temperament as a acoustic guitar. In fact, I really would like to own a true temperament acoustic guitar. I think that's. I like it for chords. It really does nothing for me for scales or anything like that. I don't really find a need for myself. Again, just my needs. I really like strumming, especially like the C chord, right. Or the Bart F chord and stuff. Mostly the C chord where it sounds a little dissonant to me. To my ears, like, it always sounds a little like if I pick up a guitar and that chord sounds, you know, you tune it up and you intonate it, but the chord still sounds a little out sometimes. On the true temperament, the chord sounded beautiful. In fact, I started playing chords I never played. You know, a lot of times musicians, which is fine. Everybody's. A critic will tell you, like, why do you use those traditional chords? Why don't you use these fancier chords? And I'm like, I ha. Look like everybody else. I have the book and I learn a bunch of chords and I'll use them. And, and you get. First you gotta get used to your fingers playing these new chords. But the thing that happens to you next is they don't sound great. Sometimes they sound weird. You know, your. Your guitar just, you know, it doesn't. They don't sound as. To me, they don't sound as pleasant. And again, it's. It's a salt to taste thing. It's everybody's preference. I really would love a temperament acoustic guitar. So I was re. I just got literally this morning or maybe yesterday morning, but within the last 24 hours, a company reached out and said, hey, we want to send you one of three guitars. They gave me the choices, and one is another true temperament. And there's a part of me, it's like, maybe I should do another true temperament, especially this one, because it's a more affordable or obtainable guitar. But no, I don't really want. I don't really want one. Although, you know, there's a cool true temperament on a telly might be a cool thing. I just don't see myself using it. So if Stu Mac wants to send out a neck and you Know, because I have bodies and stuff to do a video for. A video for you guys for illustration purposes. I'd be up for that if it made sense. What I mean, made sense is if I think there's a video there that you guys would be interested in, you know, a lot of times. And not to go too sideways, but it's just important because I think sometimes when we talk, you hear something without hearing the whole meaning of what I mean. When I say a video, I want you to understand I don't think of videos in context of money or no money. You know, oh, this one makes money and this one doesn't make money for the most part. None of them really make any money. It's very rare. Luckily, it's not. It's not. It's. It is very rare, but it's not, like, impossible. So I do make money on videos, you know, collectively, of course, but also big ones hit every once in a while, and those will carry the channel for weeks, if not months, which is great. But that's not. When I say I'm interested in video. The way I look at videos, the way I look at what I do as a content creator, if that's what you want to call what I do, is this analogy is my favorite analogy. It's like I made. I spent all night cooking to bring something to the potluck, and I come to the potluck and nobody ate it. And I feel so you understand when you guys don't watch a video. I don't. I'm not. Look, it's my fault when I make a video, nobody likes it. It's my fault, not your fault. But I want you to understand how I feel. It really eats at me. It kills my soul a little bit. Like, why? What, did I make a mistake? What did I do? I thought it was engaging. I thought it was good. And then. And then sometimes the video isn't as bad as that analogy. Sometimes the analogy is no one ate it. And then you go, hey, was anyone, like, some leftovers to take home? And they're like, no. And then you have to take all your. I'm gonna say casserole. You gotta bring all your casserole back home. And then you give it to the dog, and the dog doesn't eat it. And then you're like, holy crap, why did I even make this? What's wrong with me? So versus the difference. Versus you go to get, you know, maybe your piece of the. The food you made at the potluck, and it's all gone. Everybody ate it in the first hour. And you're like, whoa. And they're like, that was the best thing, Phil. It's a feeling thing. So if I think you guys will engage in a video, I think it's good, I think it's interesting. Maybe I'll learn something because that's important to me too, because it makes, it makes my life more enjoyable. Lately this is. And then I gotta get off this topic. But lately a lot of people are asking, like, Phil, what's with all these high boutique amps? It's because, you know, I love, I love katanas. I love the inexpensive amps. I try to do as many of those on the channel as possible. But you understand, sometimes after a while of thousands of pieces of gear, even I get like, I don't know, I'm looking for something interesting. So when somebody goes, hey, look at this exotic looking amp. I'm like, oh, let's, let's learn about it. I'm curious. So, so that's. So that's my take on true temperament. I tried it, it's cool. I don't think it's for me. And that's in that solution. I would like it in an acoustic guitar solution. If I was ever offered to review an acoustic guitar with true temperament, the answer is absolutely yes. I would absolutely do it as long as I could borrow it for a few months at least. So. So that's it. Okay, let's. Let's go to the next one, the next topic question. What do we got? We got suns, sun, tease, Bean. I don't know. You put a Z in there, so that's all you get. Hey, Philip, I have an issue with my Rev Star standard stainless steel frets. If I keep rubbing the strings on the fret during vibrato, I get this metal grinding sound. Can I email you a video? I don't need a video. So that is. Could be the type of string you're using with the fret. You understand stainless steel frets is, is different than nickel. First of all, the hardest thing about stainless steel frets is getting out all of the micro scratches in them. You'll hear some repair text luthiers say, oh, standstill frets suck because they're never polished. They're never really polished smooth. And I used to believe that until I went to two factories that make guitars with stainless frets and saw how they were getting all the scratches out of them. And by the way, secret, secret, secret, secret, whatever, Secret answer. It's work. I mean, no, there's a little Bit of a trick to it, but it's mostly just more work. It's a crap tonight, polishing, polish until you can't take it anymore and then polish a little bit more and you just kind of keep working them out. But, but more importantly, that's the main thing. There's some other techniques but. So it is possible, especially in a mass produced instrument. Especially if the instrument was made to be, you know, mass produced and you know, quickly. Sometimes they don't spend the time on the frets. Look, people talk about the quality of SIR guitars, let's talk about the quality of Sirs fret frets. SIR guitars I think are obviously beautiful made instruments. But one of the things that's really impressive about SIR guitars is the their frets. How well and how detailed polished they are. Not leveled. Look, it's a $4,000 guitar. Of course the frets are leveled. They'd be stupid if they weren't leveled right. But they're very leveled, very polished, very, you know, just very perfect. And in my guess, which is just a good guess, is that the main reason Sirs frets seem so much better than most other manufacturers frets is because SIR spends a good amount of time on the end. Now how do I know that? I've talked to people who work at SIR and worked for SIR and now are happier to work for other companies where they don't have to polish frets as long. They were basically telling me, like in one instance somebody was telling me they spend half the time at their new job working for another high end company than they did at SIR doing fret work, you know, polishing and getting the frets right. So SIR spends a lot of time. So in your Rev star, I would imagine your frets just need to be heavily polished. Because first of all what you're talking about is this. You know, during vibrato you're getting a grinding sound. That could be that. The other thing could be is you. I don't know what you. What I don't know is what string you're using. So if you're using a nickel string or nickel plated string or wound round, wound round nickel string, you shouldn't be having this problem. But sometimes if you get into like the solarium cobalts and all those weird type of strings or maybe in Y xls or different harder material strings, remember now you're putting two hard materials next to each other. They don't necessarily work as well. So the reason I bring that up too is remember strings are a big part of this as well as frets. You know, we. We talk about a thing because we talk about a subject. I feel like when I read the comments, people think like they have. We're ignoring all the other 10 things that are important. It's like, no, we're just talking about this one thing. Talking about frets. Frets are not the end and the beginning, the beginning and the end of everything. Okay? Strings are a huge part of this. I purposely will use nickel strings on my stainless steel fret guitars. I prefer them. I just like it better that way. And that's just how it works, right? But. But I might use more of a harder string with my nickel frets, even though that's unintuitive because a harder string obviously can wear into a nickel fret because of the fret material softer, like an NYXL is a very, very hard material string. It can. It could possibly chew into your frets a little easier than a nickel string or a pure nickel string into your nickel frets. But that's just over time. And obviously if you don't polish your frets and take care of things. But also the other thing that can happen, unfortunately, with stainless steel frets that you need to worry about is you would need a magnifying glass to see this. But if you look at your strings sometimes, if you actually physically look like, here's your string long ways, right? And you look underneath it where it's touching the fret, you might see flat spots on the string where the steel. The stainless steel string is so hard, it's not going to lose, right? You have a nickel string and a stainless steel fret. The fret wins. That's why we say they don't wear out as fast. They're going to win. It's two materials bumping against, grinding against each other, right? And the harder material wins. So the stainless steel will wear flat spots on your string. And then when you're bending, you're going to hear it's. It's literally what you can imagine. It's a flat, flat, rough spot. You've lost the. I say cylindrical part of the string, which is important for friction, right? You need the string to be round when you're pushing the string side to side on contacting it on the, on the, on the fret. So first thing I would suggest you to do is change your strings. If you haven't already done it. That's going to be my first tip. Before you send a video or try to do anything, that's the first thing I'm going to Tell you because one, it's super cheap. If you think changing a type of strings is worth it, you can. I wouldn't. If you like your brand of strings in the type, I would just. New set. If you're saying this is a brand new set, first we could always take into consideration you got a bad set, that's possible. So maybe another set. But you don't have to really go crazy. Right. But the other thing I would consider is, like I said, look at those options. Look for flat spots, look for wear, and look for your frets. One of the things that's great, if you notice, is what I do when I do the fret test. Yeah. I use the nylon sock for the sides, but I'll use my fingernail and I'll just scrape across the fret from treble side to bass side crosswise. Right. Not up and down, obviously across. And I'm feeling with my finger and the. My fingernail trying to catch any of those little scratches in the fret. And then you need to polish them out. I polish them out with stainless steel. I'm sorry, Steel wool. Stainless steel. So quadruple ought. Steel wool would work great. I might go triple zero, then quadruple ought. You could use the micro mesh pads, all that stuff. But for stainless steel frets, I really like steel wool. One of the companies that if you watch the Kiesel factory tour, which is the only to date factory tour I've ever done, that's unedited. In other words, they didn't ask me to remove anything or we didn't blur anything or anything like that. There's. In the video, you'll see what it looks like a shoe polisher. You know, those things with two bristle brushes on each side. And you put your shoe. For those of us old enough to remember when you used to wear shoes besides sneakers anyways, you used to polish your shoe. They had one. If you watch that video closely, you'll see one in the background and it has steel wool instead of a brush. And they're running their frets on that. They're not just buffing them on the buffers like you see a lot of companies buffing the frets with a buffer. They're buffing with steel wool. And I thought that was interesting. You guys may not see it's interesting. Why it's interesting to me is 36 factories and shops I've seen or ever. And I've only seen that one or two places. So it's not as common. And it was definitely. I didn't ask them. But it was definitely felt like that was something that they were like, oh, this is a good way to get the frets polished. The stainless steel. So those are things I would. I would recommend. Let's. Let's pull a thing from Amanda. Amanda sent this. Says PK PK we on. We. I'm gonna do it. PK we on. I don't know what it is, but that's what it is. Says, hey Phil, what are some good aftermarket piezo saddles for electric guitar? And is it easy? Easy to install with someone with no experience with modifying instrument. Love everything you do. Sure. You Ghost saddles and stuff from Graphtec. That's a good system, the ghost system. I mean, what I don't know is what guitar you are. You know, have. I've installed a few. I think one for myself once and then a bunch for customers over the years. Never really found any difficult into it. It's. I would say it's up there with running electronics into a hollow body. It's not difficult. It's just not fast. You're not going to move fast. A lot of testing. You know, you got to hook everything up, run all the wires through, find a way to get the wires there. That's important. So no, yeah, you can do it. And I would say that that system is probably a good system. I'm not really hip on the newest model, so if there's somebody out there making a new aftermarket new thing, pretty cool. So me personally, I don't love the way they sound. So it's. It's always been a necessity thing like you want them. You know, you want. You need it. Not you. You know, you want it, you need it. You're in a situation where like I need an acoustic guitar, I need that switch on stage and, you know, I can't. I can't, you know, switch guitars or anything like that. I. I understand why you would want it. What I've kind of learned is, is that you can shove it in all kinds of guitars, but for some reason, certain guitars just sound really good and certain guitars just never sound good with it. It's weird. And I always think, I always kind of liken that to the way the manufacturers, when they construct the guitar, they. If they have that system in mind, they kind of make some choices on the guitar that I think make that system sound a little better. That's just my. My thought. And I think mostly that's because. Because when you have a transducer pick up on an acoustic guitar, whether, you know, Obviously the strings are touching the transducer essentially, and that is being sent out. And that's what the amp and the PAs are going to hear. I've kind of noticed that. I think because the top moves. There's a flex in the top in the strings when you hit a chord. I find that for some reason that acoustic sound sounds more accurate or truthful. Like it sounds more like a real acoustic when you put it on a hard piece of wood. It just really is just. It just doesn't have it. It's missing the part that I love. So like a hollow body PRS or a hollow body guitar, like PRS or Schecter makes or, you know, thin line acoustics or even what the, you know, the acoustic sonic or whatever that Fender's doing. For some reason, just having the guitar be able to flex a little bit, I think makes the strings act more like an acoustic guitar. So the sound coming out sounds more true to what an acoustic guitar sounds. Keeping in mind that even when using that transducer pickup on an acoustic guitar, it doesn't really sound exactly like an acoustic. Right. Even that's hard to get the acoustic to sound right. But just my thoughts on that. But yeah, why not do it? You got an afternoon, right? You got a weekend. Have some fun. Most of it should. You should be able to. Here's what I would consider. You should be able to install the system in an instrument in most instruments without making any permanent modifications to guitar. So if you end up not liking it, you should be able to remove it all out and put it all back to normal and without anybody seeing any actual heavy modifications. So that's something to think about, if you can do that. All right, what else? Amanda sent this one from Josh. It says, hey, Phil, I'm writing an album and I'm thinking of getting an evh Tom Wolfgang or an older music man to record with. Any thoughts or suggestions? Yeah, the Wolfgang's the music man, which is. I have one like the axis. The necks are really small, Very small, super small. Okay. So the PV Wolfgang and the EVH Wolfgang's necks are much different. A little wider on the nut, a little wider on the neck, a little deeper. And that sounds sometimes like, oh, no, I don't like that. Just makes those necks, regular necks where the. The axis is extra small, extra, extra small neck. I'm not. I don't know if it is the smallest neck in a production guitar, but it sure feels like it for an electric guitar. I don't know what's out there that's technically smaller feeling than that. So that's the main thing. Why do I have a musicman axis? Well, I have a musicman axis because I showed the. This magazine cover. Look at that. So obviously I've never put it back since the show. Since I showed you on the show, it's been just sitting here. Just the things that don't get done sometimes. So, yeah, I wanted to have a purple one because of this ad. But why do I have an access? Well, because if you guys remember, back when we lost Eddie and Eddie passed away, one of my buddies, who is Larry DiMargio, he and I had a heartfelt discussion. Like a lot of people, we, you know, look, a lot of grown men were crying that day. It was a weird time. I think it was not only the loss of Eddie, because, you know, obviously losing Ozzy and all the artists we've lost since, it was the Eddie and the fact that it was just, you know, the world had been so crazy for a couple years, I think. Just, I mean, I had friends that literally fell down in their kitchen and cried. It hit me hard, too, for some reason. So obviously me and Larry had some bonding time. A couple hours on the phone talking about, you know, you know, just the passing of Eddie. And as a gift, you guys remember, Larry sent me some actual photos he took at Eddie on stage with the Access Music band that they worked on from that tour. And they were in black and white. That's how. Cause that's how he shot it. He shot it on 35 millimeter film in black and white. And he did it. I don't know if I told you guys, he did it in black and white because he wanted really great shots of Eddie, and he didn't want to use a flash at the concert. So what he had was, I think Eddie's manager or roadie or somebody was there next to Larry. And Larry was like, let me know when he jumps. Let me know when he does certain things in the show. And they were telling Larry when he was gonna do stuff. So that's why, if you ever seen my photo of, of Eddie, it's him midair, you know, jumping with the guitar. And then Larry signed it and gave it to me. That's what's in my front room. So essentially, that's gonna go in my front room next to it. That's kind of why I, I, I wanted that. But of course I want to play it, you know, and before it becomes my family room guitar that I'll play in there. But so that's I just want you to know what my reasoning for that guitar was. So it was. It's more of a. I don't know, just an emotional thing. Freddie. Even though it's tough because think about this. I was at the Eddie Van Halen Wolfgang launch party and I got to take pictures with Eddie and talk to Eddie, and I have those photos so that, well, I can put a Wolfgang next to that. Maybe I should do that one day, too. I don't know. But I don't know. For some reason, Larry sending me those photos just meant a lot to me and. And my wife knew it, too, because let me tell you, I'm not going to say they don't match the decor in the family room, but let's just say it's great that my family room has pictures. I didn't even hail it. That's what's in my family room. That's a. All right. David says. David's got a good question on topic. He says, hey, why are much more hung up. Why are we. Why are we much more hung up over Van Halen's death than someone like Jeff Beck? I don't know the answer. So, you know, I want to. I've been very clear about this. Eddie is. I'm very huge Eddie fan. Like everybody. He was not. He was an element in the players or he was a. What do you call it? He was an influence in the players that have influenced me. I don't have any Eddie Van Halen direct influence. In other words, I've never purposely learned an Eddie Van Halen song in school or anything really, like, you know what I mean? It's. To me, I think, I look back because I never been that upset about someone who passed away. I mean, I've been upset, but not that upset. It was really weird. And I do think it was the time. I think it's just all of it. It was just a lot. You know, it's kind of like. I think a lot of us were. It's just a lot. Look back at that time, and I think that was a lot. And I think, although Jeff Beck, you know, they're all amazing, so I'm not going to grade them in kind of like merit of what they're worth. That's just not. Not what I'm going to do. But I will tell you that for me personally, Eddie is a chapter of time. For me, like, this is when this was Eddie, you know, I don't know. I don't know how to explain it. So I don't even know if I can so. But yeah, I don't know why, but I do, I do understand a lot of people, a lot of my friends who have been upset about a lot of their favorite guitar players passing for some reason were hit a little different than Ed with Eddie. And I was too. I don't know. Like I said to this day, don't know what that was, why I did that, why I was, was. Okay, so let's, let's jump another topic. We got this one. Maybe we'll know in a second. This comes from Seth. Seth says, hey, doing my first refrap this weekend on an old beat up made in Mexico Strat neck. Hoping to learn enough to have the confidence to do it on some of my nicer guitars. Sure worth buying an under $100 guitar for more practice. Yes, absolutely. Refreading the process is not hard, but solving the problems of it gets really problematic. I mean if it goes smooth, you'll notice it's like refresh are like anything. You can pull the frets out, clean everything up, put in new frets, glue and press them, polish them do, you know, level them, round them over and then put the neck, the guitar back together and go wow, that was not that difficult. And then until the day when one of the frets won't seat at all. And you gotta rethink this whole process, you know, because you gotta, you gotta do all kinds of crazy problem fixing or you have a really bad chip out one day, that happens. So you know, do you have to do lots of them? No, but I would do more. Sure, why not? Yeah, and go get yourself a hundred dollar guitar and practice on it for sure, you know. Yeah, that's it. That's it. And you know what's great about that is I've had lots, and I mean lots Seth, lots of people. Viewers of this show have told me that they have refreaded guitars and practice. You know, basically go buy some junker guitars. Trust me, a music store has got tons of them. Go find your local mom pop store. They're sitting on a bunch of $100 boat anchors they'd love to get rid of to you. You buy them up, you buy two or three. I'd buy two or three because you maybe get a deal. Hey, if I buy three of these jungle guitars or whatever, buy one, maybe buy one at a time and they, you fix them up and then you donate them and that's, it's just the best thing you can do. And I 100% what a way to get. You cannot buy that Skill. Any cheaper than that and you're doing something for the community, which is fantastic. Mike says, hey, New amp Day 64 Princeton Reverb hand wired. I have that amp. It's a beautiful amp. I waited a long time, but it was worth the wait. I now understand that. All the hype. I see why you have kept yours all these years. Yes, I love the Princetons and I've said this before, my 68 reissue Princeton, my 64 hand wired, which is what I'm down to at this point, those two. And the main reason is I have the Morgan PR12. I don't know why I can't remember that, but I always have to look at it. It's right next to me. And those are my three Princetons. Okay, so I have the 68 now is converted to a head so I can run that as a Princeton into whatever amp I want. I have the 64 pristine. In other words, like the 64 stays the way it is, original speaker, everything, you know, the way Fender built it. And then I have the PR12 which is the Morgan's version of a Princeton. And I don't know what it is about Princeton's. I just love the way they feel and sound at low volumes. They do everything for me. And somebody even asked me once here on the channel like oh, compared it to 65 Deluxe or anything else and I always go, oh, that stuff sounds better. Like if I ab the Princeton to certain other amps, the other amps always win. Except for when I'm playing the Princeton just by itself, not comparing it and I'm trying to keep the volume relatively low. And for me it's not about distortion, you know, I don't even care about that stuff. Overdrive. To me it's about the clean sound. And what I like in clean is when I strum a chord, I like to feel some kind of movement, percussiveness and feel compression, something happening. And the Princeton does that for me and absolutely love it. I have done tests over the years, so you guys know of taking other amps that are not so much at Princeton, but running them through maybe like a 110 inch speaker cabinet to see how much of the Magic is the 10 inch speaker. And not a lot of it, it's some, but most of the magic is just the Princeton. And yeah, it's kind of a really beautiful amplifier. And I'll always have a Princeton. I just can't imagine a world where I don't. So it's the only amp I believe maybe except for my Mesa Boogie Mark 525. It's the only amp I believe I've had since the very first day I started this channel. I still have so 10 years. I've had my Princeton 68. Princeton for 10 years. My 64 for about two, maybe three. But before the 64 I had a 65 and same thing had that for five, six years. There's just something about it. Let's, let's hop around, let's see what you guys got. I need. What do I need? Martin. This came from Amanda. Martin says. Hey Phil, has, have you ever tried or have you have an opinion on frat King guitars? So Freck King guitars are believe are made in Korea in the Mirror Factory. Trev Wilkinson's brand, I believe. And I don't know if they're going out of business. I mean I don't know if you guys heard but I guess Vintage Guitars is closing at the end of the year now again, things change. Okay, this was, I'll just tell you. I saw a Rob, a Rob Chapman reaction video to it. Rob Chapman made a video, this is a month or two ago saying that the people at Vintage Guitars and I believe their distributor and everything's connected to Fret King. So I got the impression the two brands were. They're not going out of business as a bankruptcy. They are going to attrition out. In other words, as they sell out their inventory, they don't replenish and then their hope hopefully to hopefully going to dissolve by the end of the year. And this was my take on his what he state, what he stated and what I've seen since is this is another one of those cases where we have a lot of this guys. There's a lot of this coming our way which is a lot of people in the industry with no successorship. Successorship say that so twice as fast. A lot of it, lots of it. I. When I talk to people in the industry that I respect that are in their 70s because that's really the start of it. You know, the start is like they're in their 70s. You, you know, they're usually thinking, you know, like maybe I'll start dipping out in 10 years or whatever. And that when I talk to them, most of them have no successorship. No shit. I don't think any of them have it. I'm saying most like, you know, they're maybe nine out of 10. I think it's 10 out of 10. I don't know very think about this. In most cases if they did that, that person would already be doing the company. So I think we're gonna see a lot. I'm not saying 100 because I'm not 100 informed in this. Like I said, this isn't. I didn't investigate the vintage thing. I just kind of heard what happened and went, okay, that makes sense. And have great respect for Trev the. I tried to buy some of their guitars. I met them at a NAMM show. I think I've told the story. So it's self serving to me because I was walking. The NAMM show was early in, it was 2017, I want to say. So it was early in the YouTube career and, and before I even knew there was a thing like a, you know, hey, this is a job. And Trev Wilkinson stopped me and said, hey, you're the only. I can't remember exactly. He said something to the fact like, you're the only person on YouTube knows what they're talking about. It was really funny, right? I was like, oh, wow. Like first I was like, you know who I am? And also. What? No. And it was really obviously flattering, right? I was very flattered. And we talked and he invited me. He's like, yeah, you ever in England come to my apartment? I think he was telling me he has Jimi Hendrix car. I don't like. I said, he said a lot of stuff. It was crazy. It was a really cool time. My buddy Thor was with me. We, we talked to him and then he introduced me to the person that I guess runs U.S. distribution. And I said, yeah, I'd love to buy some frat king guitars and do videos. And he's like, okay. And then I gave him my information and I emailed him and I never, I never heard from them again. So I tried to get them on the channel. I tried to buy them. So. And nothing happened. But yeah, my guess is that's going away now. Of course, here's the things that could happen. Somebody could buy it. It's a brand and that's an easy brand to buy because it's being. It's just OEM somewhere else. So it's not like you have to buy the equipment or anything. You would just be buying the licensing. The, not the licensing, but yeah, the, the ip. You would buy the ip, the designs, the trademark. I would imagine then you'd have to figure out distribution for yourself. So maybe, I don't know, maybe if there's a thousand of you, maybe I'll. Maybe a bunch of you get together and why don't you run up some money, reach out to Vintage and buy Fret King. If they're selling it, I'll do a video for free for you guys. You guys, here's my deal. You guys buy Fred King and I will do a video for you for free. So there. But yeah. Don't know know anything besides that. By my kind of estimates, I think we're going to lose about a dozen guitar companies and amp companies this year. So one a month. And that's been about what we've been losing if you think about it from either announcements or what I know are pre announcements, which means I've heard something but they're not telling you guys yet. We'll lose one big company or not big but. Well, we're going to lose a brand that you'll know of once a month. And that's just how the this works. Again, I don't in vintage case. I really do believe it was, you know what I said that they're just, they're just done, you know. Right. Want to take their. Take their money and go on the beach. Maybe that's what people do when they get money, go to the beach. That's what I always been told. But yeah. Yeah. So Kennedy says we only really need Fender anyways. Yeah, that's this face is the face. Thinking about Fender with no competition. So a strat would be $11,000 made in Indonesia and an American made Strat would be just less than a Toyota Tundra fully loaded. I'm convinced Fender doesn't make a decision anymore that it's not a physical financial decision at all. And I love Fender. They're still my favorite guitars that just. They'll always be. That's my favorite logo. It's my favorite vibe. I think it's because it's the California vibe, but it's the romantic 50s, 60s California vibe. You know that. You know that. That's why it appeals to me. Some people live this and love it. Some people live this time and hated it. I didn't live it obviously. I just look at it and it just pulls me into like a. Oh man. Surf music and wow. You know, rock and roll and blues and you know, just. I don't know. And so there's just something I love about Fender. But man. Man, that's it. That's all I want to say. I don't want to go any more about it. I'm hoping you know Fender to me since I've been a Fender dealer, I've been a Fender fan, I've worked with Fender as a YouTuber even. I'm waiting for the next iteration of Fender to come. I'm hoping it comes soon. So that's what happens. Fender, to me, changes every five to six years. They become a different Fender. And that's just how. I can only explain it. It's like all of a sudden, they're like, oh, man, they're doing really cool stuff. Oh, man, they're really cashing in. Oh, wow. Right? It's just. I don't know how it works. Somebody said, Gidget, Gidget. Oh, that's the stuff. I grew up on watching all those reruns of that stuff. So, all right. Dirt Racer says eighteen hundred dollars for a Fender for a new Fender Deluxe Reverb. He says, get bent. It's tough, man. It's tough. It's tough. You know, Dirt Razor, think about this. I paid 350 for my 65 Deluxe Reverb in 2016. Had to be 16. Couldn't be 17. So 2016, in 2016, I bought that for $350 with a British green Celestial in it. Used. Yep. That's a real tough one to put your head around sometimes. And that wasn't like a, oh, my goodness, I stole it. That was like, I'll take it at that price. That's what that was. In fact, that's how I ended up with it. It was just like somebody was selling it. I've told this story before. It was a friend and a customer of mine named Eddie, and he had bought, I thought, a Gretch. He got a Gretch on Craigslist, and it was a package deal with that amp. And he just made a deal and got that amp. He got the amp for, like, basically free, you know? Right. Like, he'll buy the Gretsch, but throw in this amp. And then he's like, what do you think the amp's worth? And I'm like, at the time in the store, we had two just sitting. No one wanted them used. I go, I got one or two. I got one in display, new one in the back. New, two used. It's not really worth anything to me. I said. And he's like, yeah, I put on Craigslist for five and no takers. And I go, yeah. I said, I'd give you 350. And he's like, I'll take it. I'm like, sweet. I'll take it, because I'll. I'll literally keep it. And then I've had it since then. So for 350, I love it. And those days are. Those days are gone. I don't know. Yeah, just fine. Said I paid $700 for my 68 Princeton used. Sure. Yep. Different times, I guess. I feel like we're talking about it, like, decades. Okay, so this one is from Bovin 10. Bertie. I like doing this, by the way. You guys are like, he. I just love it. Says, Dear Phil, in 2000. A gig at 2000. At a gig, a guy came up to me, compliment me. My play. Complimented my playing and told me my guitars were all inferior to his. Oh, well, okay. He had a moonstone. Is it possible there's two Moon Pie guys as I am in England? That's funny. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I know there's multiple moonstones out there, so it's possible, you know, I don't know what that is. I don't. I've never had that in my brain. Like, I've never watched a musician on stage. I'll tell you what's funny. I've never seen a musician on stage who played like ass, but had great gear and was jealous of them. Never. Not once ever. I. I think it's the same reason I don't get jealous of somebody when they have, like, a really fancy car and I go, oh, you know, like, oh, look at that car. You know, I really don't think that way. But I have been very jealous of players who play well, period. Much less on cheap gear. Oh, eats it. My soul Just kills me. Just kills me, right? It's like. It's like when you're trying to run your fat ass up a hill and then somebody runs right by you. We're in, like, golfing shoes, and you're like, what the hell? Or sandals, right? You're like. You're in sandals. You're beating. You know, like that. There's like, really? So. Same thing. I want to see a musician and they're just killing it, and they have, you know, cheap gear, whatever you want to call it. I always go, man. But on a side note, I must say this because it's absolutely true. I also do feel very sad sometimes when I see someone who plays really well and their sound is ass. And it is actually a very painful feeling. It physically hurts a little bit. Like. And I know you guys have seen this. It's happening. It happens in different ways. You can be on. You watch somebody on stage, they're killing it. They play great. They sound amazing, but the tone is either like a can of bees or it's just not very good, or it doesn't sound right, or it's Feeding back in the wrong spots and the wrong tones. It's just not really great, or it's just buried in the mix. And you can tell they just can't cut through because they don't have the right tone or a good tone for cutting through. Right? And when I say good tone, I don't mean, like, tone the way you guys think. Like, it's just not cutting through and it doesn't sound very, very good. And there's this. It physically hurts to see that. Like, oh, man, it's almost like opportunity lost, you know, because instead of enjoying their playing, I'm thinking about these shortcomings, which are really not necessarily their fault. And in most cases, it's not an expense thing. Like, when they just bought some nicer gear, it's usually like they just learned. Tweak that amp a little bit, you know? And I know that's the truth because I have. I have. I think the. The boss katana is a great litmus test as an amplifier. I think that if you. I think if you take a boss katana and you. You've. We've all seen this. Somebody. I've seen it, so I know you guys have seen it. You see somebody on stage with a boss katana and the tone is amazing, and they're killing it, and you're like, wow, guess you don't need this stuff, right? And you're like, wow. And then you hear somebody with a boss katana and it sounds like ass. And then you're thinking, wow, how different. Learning to just adjust controls on the amp really does help, you know, learning. Learning where, you know, the bass player and the drummer is in the mix and just figuring out, you know. Right. Figuring out or figuring out where this amp sounds great and where it stops sounding great and. Yeah, so, yeah, that's why I think it's a great amp for testing that stuff. I think it's almost like, you know, it's like when you're. I guess when. I guess when your parents say, hey, you should learn to drive on a stick shift. Although this is a funny story. I was told I was supposed to learn how to drive on a stick shift, because if I didn't, you know, I don't know, whatever. There was some kind of logic to this, like, oh, man, what are you gonna do if you can't drive up a stick shift? And so I had to learn to drive stick shift. And which now I've just really chummed up. We're really. Just come consider. It's just we were poor you're gonna drive a stick shift? Why? Because it's better for you. And ironically, it's what we have. So anyways, I learned to drive on a stick shift. Then when I joined the army, I was a mechanic. Thinking the funniest thing, I'm like, wow, I know. Thank goodness I won't be embarrassed in the army that I don't know how to drive stick shift. Because I know how to drive a stick shift. And you get the army and you get the AIT and the army doesn't have stick shifts anymore. None. For those of you that were in the service a long time ago, let me explain something to you because you're like, what? Yeah. None. None, None, None. Every vehicle, none. Everything's automatic transmission. Everything. The entire fleet we, we maintained was automatic transmissions. So no stick shifts. That's. So there you go. That usually shocks some of my older arm buddies. They're like, what? Yeah, that's just how it was. Can someone clarify if Epiphone Les Pauls have a maple cap or is it just a thin veneer? The answer is yes. Yes. Now I'll tell you how wide. That's yes. The answer is yes to both. Most meaning the majority of Epiphone Les Paul's, barring the really inexpensive solid mahogany models, which will probably be disclosed as one piece, not one piece, but no cap on the guitar other than those, they will all have a quarter inch maple cap. It's a real piece of maple that is capped onto the mahogany body. And then there'll be a flamed maple veneer put on the top or a maple veneer. So in other words, even if it doesn't look flame, maybe they just put a veneer on it. They'll put a maple veneer over the top. So the answer is yes. They use. That is very typical overseas. Overseas manufacturing. It's probably the most. Most typical you're going to see. It's just because it's very easy to do that they use a maple cap and then they put a maple veneer on it. When you see. I have two videos that are, by the way, this week, if you notice, there was no deep dives and nothing like that. Um, it's because I'm really, really, really spinning. I have so much editing time. That's all I've been doing is editing. Because I have the court video coming to you guys. I have a Prsse video coming to you of the factory. A Prsse factory video coming to you. And I have the interview with Mike Klim at Sweetwater and all of these have to be created and then sent to those companies to make sure that nothing is being shown or disclosed that was not agreed upon. So you understand, obviously, that's the whole reason I get access to that. Again, just to point out, no one's ever been given this much access, ever, to these facilities. I'm the first one, and I still can't tell you why. I had a friend ask me the other day, like, you know, literally. So why they let you do this, I have no idea. I have some theories, but I don't know for sure. They just let me do what I want, go where I want, see what I want. I filmed everything, by the way, I'd like to point out I filmed almost 100% of the entire trip. I have seven hours of total footage from the Cortec factory. So I filmed a lot. So obviously I'm working that. So what I'm basically telling you is in there is a great section about veneers and why they use veneers and what veneers look and how they buy the veneers. It's really, really cool. These will be really interesting videos. And that particular piece, which is cool, is a lot of you guys have been asking, like, how was the trip? How was the trip? I'm a little cautious to talk about it because I would really hate to say something to you guys and then not. Not show you. So let me explain this real quick, just so you guys understand. I'm not barred technically from saying anything to you guys. So in other words, like, when you guys ask questions about the factories and stuff, I can. I can tell you a lot. There's just certain stuff I'm not allowed to show you. So I don't really want to talk about it until I've. After I've showed you everything. Then if you have some questions that weren't shown, maybe there's. There is topics there for me to talk about why they do things or why things. Why certain policies are a certain way or why things happen. But yeah, and those vids will be. The vids will be hopefully very soon. They're. They're the PRS one. Just so you guys know, that's not going to be until October, so let's just get that out there right now. I did a video of the Prsse factory, and especially when you see the Cortech factory, that. That statement, the way I'm saying it's gonna make a lot, a lot of sense in a second. But the problem with the PR SE factory, I just want to be very clear is that there's almost no scenes in that. There's no was nothing in that video I can show you at all until at least fourth quarter. And that's if. And this is where the bad news is, guys. If they decide not to release some of those guitars that are in those factories right now, then that video is postponed to whenever those videos come out. But let's just say there's a lot of guitars coming out. There's a lot. So they probably. Probably don't want me to say that. But I don't think I'm getting too much fire for that. But you know, fire heat from it. But yeah, there's a lot of new models and a lot of cool updates to the SE's coming. So that was one of the cool things about being there. I was actually. I just so happened to. To got to film the PRSS SE factory as it was updating all of these new models. So totally new models, totally new concepts, you know, really exciting stuff. And that was one of the concerns we had, we meaning them and me, when we were discussing before I got there. This is gonna be a problem. You're gonna be there and then all this stuff you can't show until that stuff comes out. So I can tell you for a fact, pure SSCV video is the fastest it's going to be out is in October, and that's the fastest. So I'm don't. I apologize. Cortek will come out as soon as they approve it, which is as soon as I have a final edit for them and then whatever. And like I said, there's the only thing they're going to probably ask me to remove, which I don't think there's anything. I'm smart enough to know what they're sensitive about. And I. And we. And I can tell you exactly up front because they're not. Because I'm going to explain it in the video. What they're sensitive about. It's all the brands they don't have permission to show. So you understand, some brands pay. Well, a lot of brands pay Cortec to build their instruments. And those brands just for some. What other reason, which is their. Their business don't want us to know, even though we all know my joke. I got a joke for you guys. It's like the brands are like they're all wearing a toupee and we all have to pretend that we don't know they're wearing a toupee. That's how I kind of felt like every Time in the video. I'll get back to business, I promise. Every time the video, they're like, you can't show that brand because they don't want people to know that we make it. I'm like, huh? We know. I'm laughing because it was kind of funny. It was all the brands that don't want you to know. In fact, all the brands that don't want you to know, the brands that you absolutely already know. So I don't know. Okay. But who knows? It's their business. Again, I'm not here to, to, to, to do, to talk about that more than I, I'm allowed to. Okay, all right. It's kind of funny. Let's go back to, let's go back to the stuff we can actually talk about. And. Okay, let's refresh this. Let's drink some water. Perfect timing. We're flowing. I think we're on time. Kinda probably not. We have Michael, he says, making, making a purchase. Wonderland Overdrive V22. Okay, so he's talking about the 22 watt Wonderland Overdrive or the 50 watt for home studios use. What are the differences between the three speaker options? Okay, so let's, let's go back there. So the 22 watt versus the 50. All of the amplified nation amps that I've reviewed, including the one that I have downstairs, which will be. I have one more amplified nation amp I'm going to be doing a video of. Taylor reached out and asked me if I was interested in checking out one. You guys can probably figure it out. I think it's like the only one or one of the only two that I haven't done a video of of the amps have been 50 waters. Why? Is. Because I asked him, you know, it depends on your thought process. My thought process is if I go to a new restaurant I've ever been to, I like to ask the staff, like, what would you eat if you were going to eat here? You know, and first of all, and I don't trust anyone who says, oh, it's all good. I'm like, oh, I hate you. Either you're new or you're a liar. So anyways. But I love it when somebody's like. In fact, one of my best experiences ever was at my favorite restaurant that I take everybody to when they come to town is one time I asked the waiter, like, what, what do you eat here? And he goes, oh, we eat something that's off the menu. It's just for employees. I'm like, what? And so I, I Got it. It was the most amazing thing ever. And so every time I go there, that's what I order. And every time I order it, I enjoy secretly when I say it, the waiter, a waitress, whenever I see it, they always smile like, ooh, he's in the know, you know, so it's kind of cool. But anyways, I asked Taylor what. What wattage is the best wattage of his amps? And he said 50 watts. And I was like, oh, I was thinking 50 watts too loud. I only need 22 wat. He just thinks the sweet spot for the amps is 50 watts. And then so I picked all 50 water. So, Michael, that's the thought process. What I can tell you from the 50 Watters, there's been no issues where I was like, oh man, it's just too loud. All of them have a some kind of power switch in the back. And to be honest with you, most of them will do what you want them to do at a moderate level volume in it. And if it doesn't, you're going to put it out through attenuator. So 22 or 50 is not going to matter anyway. So just keep that for thoughts on speakers. I have no idea what the speakers is. This is another discussion that I had with Taylor Cox. As you know, I've interviewed him twice about the amps and I told him that I just really like creamback speakers. And he says him too. And I said, oh great, then I'll just use Creamback. So what I have in all my amps are creamback speakers. That's what's in there. Now, I did have. So, you know, I do have a 112 cabinet on order from Amplify Nation. I've kind of. This 212 is just huge sounding. I like it, but it's big. If you guys notice, I don't use it is I use it, but I don't use it all the time. It's because this cabinet is just a really powerfully big cabinet. I didn't know that the cabinet was going to sound so huge. I've usually used smaller amps into bigger cabinets and had great success with just lower volume but sounding a little fuller. This thing just sounds beautiful but enormous every time. So I ordered a 112 cabinet from MFI Nation in the matching turquoise, which I call neon blue because that's what I'm going to call it because I like it. And I ordered it empty because I have a cream back to throw in there. And it saved me a little money because I can you know, I already have a speaker, so why buy a speaker? I'd suggest cream backs, but it's just my preference of taste, so. And I didn't see. On your. On your question, if you're getting a 112 or 212. If you're getting 112, I prefer cream. Cream backs. If you're getting the 212, I actually prefer a cream back and a red back now. Or two cream backs. The red back is a little brighter and clearer than the cream backs, and I think it sounds really good when mixed with them. That's a good combination. I'm enjoying. Okay, Tom. Tom says Happy Friday, Phil. I'm looking for an EQ pedal. Okay. And I'm a big fan of the Boss products. Okay. Sounds like you found one, buddy. I was wondering if you have any experience with the boss GE7. Yep. Compared to the analog mag version. Nope. My. I did a video with Tim Pierce on his channel. Like the just type filming night 10 Pierce. It comes up. It got like a gazillion views, right? Like 700,000 views. It's me and Tim Pierce talking about our absolute favorite pedal in the world, which is the boss G7 because it's like the problem solving pedal. That video was great because it was like literally 10 Pierce reached out to me one day, we were talking and he was like, hey, you want to come on my channel and do a video? And I was like, yeah, but it's a little tough when you do crossover videos with people when they not the same. So like, oh, yeah, me and Tim are both guitar fanatics, but I mean, he's a talented Grammy, you know, awesome musician, and I'm just this turd in a bedroom talking on YouTube about gear. So. So you're like, how do you. How do you have a conversation that's interesting to the audience? You know, you can't have any kind of like, you know. And. And so what's funny was I said, hey, I have an idea for a video. I think the boss GE7 is like the greatest problem solving product ever. And he was like, ironically, I do too. And we're like, oh, cool. And we found that common ground. We made that video. He did tell me, I think in the video, but if not in the video, it's off. Off the air or whatever when we're off. He did tell me he likes the modified G7 way better. I went and looked at them, but it was shortly after doing that video was Covid. And then it was like, prices were just too crazy for me. And I'm not spending 2, 300 bucks for those things. But I think now the prices have come back to a reasonable price, comparatively speaking. Reasonable meaning not that price anymore. So I have the boss G7. I've heard nothing but great things about the modified ones. I plan to eventually get a modified one. This is going to probably prompt me, except for I don't really want to bid against you right now. If you're. There's one or two out there used, I don't want to be like, I'm going to get it before you do, Tom. In fact, Tom, while I'm answering your question, I'm on reverb right now. No, I'm just kidding. So. But yeah, so I think the modified one doesn't seem like a bad idea. Look, Tempier said to get the modified one. That's all you need to know, man. That's the answer right there. Parker says, I bought a used guitar with Lambertone crema pickups. Oh, interesting. What's your opinion of them? Never heard of them. There's so many pickup companies, right? It's just. It's just a forever, forever thing. It's like guitar companies, pedal really. Pickup companies and pedal companies are where it gets, like, bazillions of them because the. The barrier to entry is so low. That's really what it is. If you think about it. The barrier entry to build a guitar is really low. Most people can do it out of their garage. So, I mean, it's not like you can build an iPhone out of your garage. So if you're gonna go compete with, you know, apple, you're gonna need probably a little bit more than just maybe some garage tools and some. And. But you could build a guitar and you could be a guitar company out of a garage. That's. The barrier entry is very, very, very cheap. Most of the tools are standardized tools that. That, you know, that you would already have or you could get at the harbor freight or you could get at a yard sale, even better. And same thing with pickups. Tools are very basic. Skills are pretty much on YouTube where you could just watch that information and start yourself down that road. So your barrier entry is no, no. No official schooling needed. No official training needed. You know, really just some. I hope. Just be safe, obviously, guys. And. And then pedals are the same thing, right? I mean, no real. I mean, a soldering iron, maybe a mask at first, you know, so you don't breathe in all that solder smoke. So there's going to be a lot of those companies and it gets forever into that category. But it's not a pickup company I'm familiar with. What I will tell you, Parker, is that we do have the know your Gear channel. So if you guys don't understand, this channel has never been the know your gear channel. Most people don't know that. It's always been the Phil McKnight channel. I just said know your gear. In fact, funny, funny little tidbit that most people don't know. You'd have to be a die hard fan to know that. I never even showed know your Gear until I said it at the end of the show. And then people say, kept saying, I'm introduced to this. Well, now it makes sense because I put it at the beginning of the videos now, but forever. I never said it or showed that logo until after the end of the video. And then people go from the know your gear channel. And so very long, very long. When I say long story. It was a very long, long discussion thing. We talked about changing the name of this channel to the Know youw Gear channel. This was something we discussed for a long time. And I just decided, I'll just be honest. Here's what happened. When we looked in Google and we looked in YouTube, my name, Philip McKnight was searched 30% more than know youw Gear was searched. So the concern was, well, why would you change the name of a channel to something that's searched less on YouTube? That is a very bad business decision. So. But I really wanted to have a know your Gear channel. So we created the second channel. And the intent of that was always to be the know your Gear channel. That's what kind of. We already knew what we were doing. Okay, at first we, we call it Filmmak night too because we were just trying to get it monetized. You have to get so many hours consumed and so many subscribers and get it monetized. Because obviously, you know, once it's monetized, you can start throwing a lot of work and time after it. So the second channel is now called you know your gear. Know your Gear. That channel is where we put the pod clips. Because that way the people that don't want to watch the videos and maybe don't understand timestamps, which happens every week. 11 Comments Last week, guys, on 2 hours to find out why stainless steel, it's like it's timestamped. I don't understand. I timestamp it. I put timestamps in the notes. You just go to the timestamp. You don't even have to skip 20 minute crap of me talking about an ad. Like, I can't even watch a podcast now where I watch and then they start going into an ad. Not the YouTube ads, but you know what I'm talking about. Like today I want to talk about shaving your balls. And this company helps you do that. And then you talk about that for three minutes. But anyways, my point is the second channel is also where we can now do something that we never had the ability to do, which is pretty much do any kind of smaller company. And this is problematic because companies don't understand. And let me just tell you what happened to us. And most recent, that will make a ton of sense. We had a company sponsor a video, okay? They were very determined. They were like, hey, we want you to do a video. We're going to sponsor it. I said, okay. So sponsors show, you know, so to me means they're. They're going to compensate us in some way, like some kind of payment. So we're like, okay, that's great, right? It's great. Those sponsored videos definitely pay the bills. Like I said, I told you guys, I have no video. I have no video. Even though I have videos. 3 million views. I have no video that's ever paid me. What a sponsor will just pay you. You can't make as much on YouTube as you can with a sponsor, which is why sponsorship is so prevalent in this. In this environment. But I'm trying not, you know, as always, I try to keep the sponsorships to a minimum. So anyways, they want to sponsor the video. We did the video. We. We were very upfront about everything that was going to happen, and we did the video. And I just want to tell you something that's funny. They sold out a product in the first two hours of the video. The video got 9,000 views in the first two hours. And they sold out a product. I only know this because you figure it out. When somebody like, you know, somebody comes to me and says, hey, Phil, do you see the last five comments are like, they're out of stock. They're out of stock. That's great, Phil, but they're out of stock. That video got 150,000 views. So 100. 100 and I don't know, do the math. 141,000 views was you guys watching something you can't even buy, right? They didn't need 150,000 views, which is what we told them. So, you know, that's why I'm getting to this. I actually told them to go to smaller YouTube channel. They didn't want to. I'm like, go to a smaller channel. They'll 10,000 views. Get somebody who can get you 10,000 views. They'll sell all your product. Their. Their audience will love it. It'll be great. Life will be awesome. You don't need a hundred thousand views if you don't have the product. So the second channel now does. I don't know what the average is. I think the average video is like 10 to 15,000 views per video is the average, or 10,000 views, which is perfect. And that's probably what's going to stay for a long time. By the way, thank you guys all because the channel hit 25,000 subs on that second channel this week. So that's fantastic. But this is going to allow us to do exactly what, what, what I've been wanting to do for years, which is every time I have a product and I go, this is a fun video, but I don't think, you know, the majority of the audience is going to be into this now we have a place to do those videos. So like I said, we, we can. So if we do get small companies, and also it will help me with time because I don't talk to the companies now, Shawna does that. Just to give you guys an example. This isn't a big woe is me, but I just need to understand what I'm going through. I just spent some time with a small builder in California, which. Which was a big, huge waste of time. So they reached out, they wanted to do a video. I explained to them the process, which is we have to kind of vet the company, kind of figure out, you know, how. Well, you know, they. I mean, think of this. In this particular case, I actually found an ex employee and talked to an ex employee of theirs who was laid off by them, and they said what? They all say, hey, we're a small company. We don't have a budget. You would just really be helping us. I'm like, okay, okay. So after I vetted them, what I came to the conclusion was they're, I'll say, legit to the most part, I guess maybe not, because I didn't. Maybe I didn't know. And I said, okay. So I got to that point and I said, let's go ahead. Let's have you build a guitar and you can send it to the channel and then we'll do the video. And then a few months went by and then they just randomly, I think two weeks ago, out of nowhere, just sent me an email saying, we're sorry, but we can't make your guitar. That's it. Now, I just want to let you guys know something. My thought process, if that's. I could talk. I could say their name right now. I could be like, yeah, this company, they. I mean, as far as I know, they're going out of business. I don't know what's going on with them. But I'm trying to say is I would imagine they're going to treat me hopefully as good as a customer, if not better, because I can, you know, shine a light on their company and help them. But I'm just saying it's getting really hard to do that kind of stuff to deal with these companies. So that's where I'm saying, so if you have small. I'm trying to tell you guys, if you have small builders and people you want to suggest, please email them to us. We'll vet them through. Shauna will vet them, and then we'll. We'll put them on the smaller channel so that it doesn't take up so much time and we don't have to spend so much time on this. On this channel because it really is. Like I said, to be honest with you, it's not. I'm gonna fix it next week. But there's two small, other guitar builders I've been talking with. And because this builder just dropped out at the last minute after I went through all the trouble working with them, I haven't responded to the two other small builders. So right now, if you're one of those small builders that wondering why I'm not emailing you back, it's because my thought process was I'm done with small builders. I'm done with people doing weird stuff. Like, I just don't know who these companies are. So I don't know. Maybe it's therapy time. Sorry, guys. I just did therapy. Let me get back to your guys's stuff. But again, keep the suggestions coming because now we have two avenues to do stuff. Martin, thank you for the super chat. I appreciate that very much. Elroy says. Hey. Oh, Eloi. Oh, not Elroy, please. Well, I should have read that first. Eloe. That's phonetics. That's how I got it. So I hope that's right, too. I was able to buy a Servo 3. Oh, yeah, the pedal. I love that pedal. And now I have the T15. Looking for a compliment, a complimentary guitar. Thinking of a Squire Tornado. Oh, that's a great guitar. That would be a great guitar. You Know what? That's a guitar. When you said that, I'm like, you know, I think all the time of guitars that I could do videos. Like when I do these, like these deep dives where I go back in time. The Squire Tornado is a guitar that I should just do a video. I'm going to make a note of that. I might do that as a, as a guitar for the video. I think that's a cool sleeper Squire guitar. The Tornado is a cool guitar. Thank you, fire medic, for the super chat. I appreciate that. Sam says, hey, I just, I just can't do digital versus real amps. Really tried. Yeah, that's no problem. They said tips on what gain pedals work well with the JTM20. Okay, so we'll go back and forth with this. First of all, there's nothing wrong with you if you can't do digital. Nothing. Like, if you think digital sounds horrible, then it sounds horrible. The idea is no one should be able to tell you what sounds good or bad. You're the chef, you're the musician. It's your job. Even if you're a hobbyist, it's your job. That's part of this magic. It's to create. You're creating things. You're not just, you know, I think hobbyists most. So I don't want to. The poor hobbyists get picked on the most, but they do, right? I've talked about this a lot. This industry is a kind of weird industry. It's one of the few industries I see where the hobbyists that support it pretty much 90%, if not, they shit on them. I don't understand it. I've never. I've made for sense of it and made sense of it. I understand why someone would say, hey, man, only doctors and lawyers buy expensive guitars. I'm like, yeah, I get it, man. Stick it to the man. Like I've said, people make more than you. You can make fun of them. That's kind of how it works, right? You get to punch up. That's how it works, right? Rich people are assholes. Ha. It's kind of funny, right? You. If you said the other. It sounds mean and crazy, right? Poor people, they have. What's their problem really? Right? Like you understand what I'm saying? So what I think's funny about this, what I think is funny about this is that as a hobbyist, if you're doing the hobby right, you know, which is most people are saying, oh, all they're doing is buying guitars. No, they're trying things. They're experimenting, right? That's how it works. Like I said, I don't understand the logic. Only I don't know where the this weird and it's not a YouTube thing by the way. I know the YouTube communities get a lot of crap and the Reddit's and stuff for stuff. They didn't invent this stuff. I owned a music store. This is what the crap was talked about in the music store all the time. Not, not us. We never said in our store I was happy to take your money no matter what your reasoning was. You're like, oh, you didn't play great, but you want to buy a 4,000 RPMs. I'm like, well, you know what? Your card swiped perfectly, so good for you. Please enjoy your life. So here's my point. My point is, is if you were going to learn to become a chef and you bought all kinds of pots and pans and knives and everything and ingredients and it was like, why every week are you buying? Why are you buying, you know, tilapia? Well, I don't know, maybe that's not a good choice. Why are you buying sea bass? You know, you don't even know how to eat sea bass. You're like, it's because I'm trying to explain experience it. It's about the experience. I want to make music. I buy a fuzz pedal because I want to make songs that were made with fuzz pedals. I want to experience music. Listening to music is the greatest thing that's ever happened in my life. I'm just telling you for my. I'm going to give you my testimonial. And then after that, I wanted to experience every element of that. I wanted to know what it was like to write a song. I want to know what it's like to figure out how to record something. I want to know how to make a tone. I wanted to learn every aspect of this experience, even if I don't want to do it. Like, I don't want to produce records. But I wanted to learn how to record a little bit. Again, you want to have this experience. It's, it's what? It's the passion part of you that's coming out. Now granted, some of us do click and buy a little bit too much, right? That happens. We're all guilty, some of us more than others. But anyways, that's not the point. The point is, is that don't forget what you're doing here, whether you're a hobbyist or you're a pro musician or you're a working musician, or whatever title that they've thrown on you or that you want to be called is that you want to have these experiences, and one of them is to create. You're creating. You're creating a sound. And so if you go, hey, man, these guys all say, you know, the Kempers, the cat, you know, the cat's pajamas. That's a horrible saying, isn't it? Okay, so this is the new thing to do, but I don't enjoy it. Well, that's your job, is to figure out what you enjoy, what inspires you, what makes you do something. You know, some musicians really just focus on. And I've learned this really through the music store, something I probably want to learn anywhere else. But when you have to sell things to people, you learn what they care about. And if you're gonna be successful in business, you're gonna learn to take what they care about and help them figure it out. Working musicians. I don't know why I'm doing this. Okay. Working musicians really like to play music in front of people. Like, that's their passion. It just. It's in them. Like, I just want to play in front of people so they don't need to impress people with a shiny guitar they don't have. And by the way, impress is sometimes the wrong word. You know, a lot of people go, oh, they. He. Buy. They bought an expensive guitar because they're trying to impress their, you know, their friends and neighbors. I'm like, well. And sometimes they're trying to artificially give themselves some. Some courage. You know, it's a little. Sometimes you walk up on stage and you just feel like you have a little bit more courage when your guitar is a little cooler, whether it's expensive or just you feel it's cool, right? It's a lot easier to walk up kind of on a weird tirade. It's a lot easier to walk up to a girl if you think you dress nice. You know, you're like, ah, got my stuff dialed in. You know, I walk up, you know, I can talk to this person. I feel confident. Same thing with musician. You walk on that stage, you need all the courage you can muster. And if a $3,000 strat does that for you, well, good, because for some, that wouldn't even be close to what you need. Right? You need more than that tooth of courage. So my point is, tone wise, we talk about on the show, and I notice I don't take any hard lines, any direction, because. Which is where sometimes my channel suffers because I would do a lot better if I just picked a vein. In other words, picked a group of you and said, just feed you guys what you want, right? To say, hey, this brand sucks, and this brand's great. And that's all we'll talk about every week. We'll just bash on these brands and, you know, praise these brands or whatever we talk about. But really, it's just about. Like I said, I want to talk about it all because I'm interested in it all. But I think in your world, what reason I'm answering your question this way is because I think you should. If this is what inspires you to make great music, that's what you need. And like I said, and if what inspires you is a boss katana and a $300, you know, Epiphone, like I said, that's awesome. I think that's cool. I think it's amazing. You know, I'll segue into a funny story. So my. My buddy Pat, who's amazing, by the way, he was. Pat was my first customer in my store. And he's just a lifetime, lifetime friend, really cool guy. He's. He's moving. He's moving out of the city. So he's doing what a lot of people doing. He's selling his big house and he's going to a smaller house that's really cool, where the weather is great. He's decided having a nicer house where it's 115 is not as cool, literally, as having a smaller house where it is is cool. And so he's thinning down the herd, as we all know. He's getting rid of a bunch of guitars and. And he asked me if I'd help him sell him a little bit or maybe I volunteered, actually, I volunteered. Let's put there. I volunteered to sell him anyways. And. And of course, I'm trying not to buy all of them, but he gave me a really nice gift, me and Shauna this week. He. He said, hey, I got these concert tickets. I can't go. Do you want to go? So we went. Last night, I went and saw Christopher Cross Minute Work and Toto. So right now I can hear the oh, that's awesome. And ooh at the same time. Right? I'm a huge Christopher Cross fan. Just. I am, right? It's just somebody who was our earliest memories for me in music, one of the earliest memories I have a music in my life is in my mom's car sitting in the front seat. When kids used to sit in the front seat. With no seatbelt, because my mom's seatbelt was her arm. And Christopher Cross songs, that's like her. She must have had the cassette. Kind of could have been a track. I'm pretty sure it was cassette, though. But it could have been an eight track. And we listening to that over and over again, because that's what happened back then when you didn't have streaming satellite or itunes in your car, you listened to the same tracks over and over again. So we would listen to Christophe, and of course he was playing Tom Anderson guitars. Let me just tell you, Christopher Cross is 74 years old. His voice was amazing, his band was dialed in, the sound was perfect, and he was awesome. And nothing he played warranted a $4,000 Tom Anderson. Like, if I was the Internet, I'd be like, man, you got a six thousand dollar custom Tom Anderson to strum just those four chords, right? His tone, by the way, was amazing. It was pretty. Well, he's playing some divided by 13s. Oh, he had three amps, because you need three amps for. He had three divided by 13amps and a huge pedal board. Huge, meaning bigger than. Right? Big enough. And then of course, his Tom Anderson guitars. And I was laughing going, isn't that funny? Like, if this guy wasn't Christopher Cross, if this guy was In a bar, four douchey guitar players would make fun of him. GCND, man, $6,000 guitar for that. Guy's got more guitars than he's got chords, right? Like, it just made me laugh. In fact, at some point with Shawna, I just laughed at the show. I just laughed, right? Actually, I'll tell you exactly when I laughed. Even though he sings romantic love songs, which, by the way, take your women to those at concerts. That's. That's a great, great idea. So anyways, they. We're watching it, and at some point he. He busts out. Oh, man, it Christopher Cross. Let me tell you, Chris, Christopher Cross never gonna see this. But just in case the Internet's weird and Chris Grass ever sees this, I'd like to point out, I bought your shirt. I bought my wife your shirt. You were amazing. And now I'm going to say the next thing, so please don't get mad at me. Boy, did he bust out this one pentatonic solo. And it was, you know, it was. It was. Yeah, it was average. It was boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. And the crowd. This is why I'm telling you this. He's like, boop, boop, boop. And they're like, wow. People are like, wow. I'm, like, blowing their mind. All six notes. So my point. Why am I saying this? Not to bash on Christopher Cross. My point is to talk about this in a practical sense, which is, why does he have expensive guitars and expensive amps? Because Christopher Cross, that's what it. That's what he wants to make music. That's what inspires him. That's what motivated him. The next man at work had no amps on stage at all. I can assume all of it was digital. They sounded fantastic, by the way. And then, of course, if I don't say the next thing, you guys are going to kill me. Which is. Then Toto came out. Of course, Steve Lukather played continuously. He was amazing, by the way, is a Steve Lukather guitar right there. I did that as a tribute, kind of pull out a Steve L. Guitar. This is my friend Pat's, by the way. But anyways, he was amazing. Toto was amazing, and they sounded great, and the show was amazing. And of course, he was playing his Bogner half stacks with pedals and. And of course, his music man guitars. So. So that's my whole way of saying, you know, this discussion every week, if there's one thing we could talk about that's more important than anything else in the show is that as musicians that are trying to communicate with each other, even through the Internet, even through qa, you know, send me a topic or question, we talk. If there's one thing we should all learn from each other is that we all have different needs and wants and desires of what we're trying to accomplish. And whatever it is that works for you, it works for you. It's okay, though, also to have a hard opinion on what you like. That's the other thing, too. You can, you know, so. And I see this a lot, and I think it's because when I talk about the future of. Is gonna be modeling and modeling and of course, what do you call it, profiling, I see people going, oh, but, Phil, you don't understand. I'm like, well, wait a minute, man. I understand a lot. And I'm four amps, because I don't have to drag them anywhere. Well, my point isn't that this is not as good as a profiler. My point is, is that this is harder than a profile to move around economically and physically. And that is why those things are going to be prevalent in the future. And it's just about having a discussion about that. But, man. Yeah, so if you. If you can have an amp play an amp. One guy told me, by the way, a couple weeks ago, he said, phil, what you don't understand is that everything goes in cycles. In 10 years, they're all going to be playing amps again. I'm like, if they can afford to, they will. That. That is true, but it's a lot of it is expense a lot of them. I don't hear people saying, man, I don't need an amp anymore, Phil, I can use a modeler. I hear, man, Phil, it is so much easier to use the modeler economically and physically. So what else do we have? We talked about. I wanted to talk about the concert. So I'm glad I got to tie that in too, because I think. And I want to thank my buddy Pat for those tickets. That was awesome. I sent him a message today. I don't know if he got it yet. And I thought there was one other thing before we go. I know we need to. I had a couple more quick ones that I got. I know Sam's second part that I didn't get to was what gain pedal works well with the JTM20? I mean, again, it's a preference of your sound. Are you trying to get the Marshall sound out of the amp, you know, at a lower volume? I like the pedal pal. For Marshall sound. I like the. The 19. Is it the 1984? It's just called the 87. The 87 by LPD is my high gain pedal is what I use. I mean, obviously I like what I use when it comes to pedals. So what pedals do I use? I use the pedal pal Plexi pedal. I use the Blues Breaker pedal by Marshall. I use the Raya pedal, which is a clone kind of boost. I use the 87 and that's pretty much what I use now for gain. There's a few others that I like and then I love lots of boost. I use the Taurus pedals for boost. I'll use some exotic pedals for boost. I like a lot of boost pedals into an amp too, but those are the gain pedals I use. And. But there's so many pedals. It's like a tough question to answer. Albert has a. Oh, he maybe question. I don't know. Let's see. Says Happy Friday, Phil. I got an x series rde7 string with an 8185 emgs. I wanted to upgrade electronics to. Any recommendations and kind of pots. I don't recommend that you upgrade the pots. Usually the 8185 set that they use EMG provides usually even, especially if it was installed by the manufacturer. It came as a kit from emg. Most likely. That's how EMG does it. Keeps it pretty easy. They use small dime size potentiometers, they're 25K. They that they're designed specifically to be with those pickups. Nothing that I, nothing that I've ever experienced. There is no significant upgrade in potentiometers to those types of pickups. Remember those pickups kind of like having all that resistance, kind of like. I don't know if that's. I always, when I say this stuff, some people get really itchy about it. Anyways. The only thing sometimes I've modified personally or for customers for EMG type products, the three way switches. By the way, no proprietary technology or components with EMGs. So you don't have to use any brand of potentiometer or anything like that. My guess also is if you haven't pulled it apart to look inside, it's probably going to be all plug and play. Which means those potentiometers have those pins where the pin cables lock, you know, because again they sell it as a kit. So you're going to have to just gut all that stuff. None of this stuff you're going to put in there is going to improve any sound whatsoever. I promise you. You know, I just promise you I've done it, I've done it and because customers have asked me to do it and there's just no gain there. The only thing that you can do sometimes if you, if they're using a cheap. Which is not usually the case if they're using a cheaper stereo because they're going to use a stereo output jack. The reason is, is because they need one. The stereo output jack isn't running stereo. Obviously what they need is essentially three, three connections, right? They need the ground, then they need the, the hot right for the cable and then they need another ground which is. Connects the battery. So when you unplug the cable, the battery is disconnected. That's how. Otherwise if you leave the cable in your guitar all the time your battery's running, your battery is running. Those EMGs are running on battery until there's no cable in the guitar. So that's why they'll use a stereo plug because that's how they can wire it up that way. They need a third terminal so to speak. Second terminal. But third terminal thing, I don't know what you would call it because one's a, one's a sleeve, one's a One's a terminal and the other one's a terminal. So the only thing I usually recommend upgrading is the switches because again, they're not proprietary and they might use a cheaper switch. So whether you have a three way, a five way, a toggle, a blade, sometimes upgrading that to a better quality switch is a nice improvement. But I wouldn't even do that. I mean, it's up to you. That's a preference. You know, this kind of ties back into what we're talking about, confidence on stage. One of the things that helps me, you know what helps me on stage, when I've been on stage, what is paramount to me is stuff not breaking. I freak out, constantly worry. I worry about. I get on stage and it shorts out or it cuts out or something stops. So that is where, when I walk on stage and I know that everything's going to work, or at least I believe in this work, my confidence level, I just perform so much better. I play so much better and I feel so much better. I have a good time knowing, you know, that everything's working. So I understand if you want to upgrade the switch, but that's all. I would upgrade on that. And I will see you guys next Friday and tip your waiter. The Know youw Gear Podcast. The Know youw Gear Podcast is brought to you by Patreon members, Channel members and viewers who like and subscribe. Thank you for making this possible.