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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. Hey everyone. Welcome to the Know youw gear podcast, episode 445, the official, the last one of the year. This is the end of 2025 for the podcast, so this will be the last one. Seems. Seems surreal, right? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know why. First one was pretend you still run your own shop. Can you walk through how you would find the trade in value for a 19, a 1995 Epiphone Rivera Sunburst in great condition with Archel Case. So different than when you would probably want to trade or buy a. A product in a store, it is much more than just whether or not what it's sold for on a reverb or ebay platform. It's how much do you want it and how much do you want to get rid of the thing they want to trade you? So. So that's a perfect best way to think about it. So let's just. Before we go any further, let's just say this. Let's say you come in, this is the store. Hey, everyone. Hi, my name is Phil. How are you doing? You know, welcome to my store. And you're like, I want to get. Now, here's where it gets a little wacky. Let's say you want to grab something that's super valuable. Like not. Not expensive. That's not what I'm talking about. Talking about valuable. So what I mean by that is let's say you want something. Do this a little bit. So weird how the shadowing is happening. One second. I just want to do that. Okay, so let's say you want this GNL and orange flake. The G and L is gone, as we know, the company's gone. Whatever's gonna happen in the future of G and L will not be what we know it is. And so the odds of you getting one like these again is not very common. And as a dealer, I would think that if I just wait long enough, there's somebody's gonna come in and go, hey, finally, I want this. And they're gonna pay the price I would put on it. So you bringing me something? Let's say you're bringing me a 95 Epiphone. And maybe it's not something I flipped in the past very well. Maybe it's something that's people aren't interested in very much or. And so I'm not really interested in the trade. So first of all, I'm gonna probably address your trade without even looking at the value of it with that attitude that I pretty much don't want your trade as much as I wanna keep the thing I have. I'll get the full price for what I have. So now it's more of a, okay, if you're willing to take a little pain, I'm willing to make you, you know, a customer. So I would then look it up, you know, probably off reverb sold listings or. Or go into Guitar Center's database. That's always a good resource. You can then also look up the Gear Exchange by Sweetwater, or of course you can look at, you know, ebay. So all of those things. Now, in that case, in a rare case, let's say I can't find an exact 95. By the way, the year doesn't really matter to me to an epiphone. So if I found a 94 or 93 or whatever year, again, I'm not very versed in this guitar you're talking about. So I would just be researching it like anyone else at that point. I'm not really at verse in it. That would affect how I would do, how I'd want to do the trade. Now, another way this might flip is how desperate am I going to pull some money in today and pay some bills this month? That happens too, in a real small business. So you're going to be like, I don't know, I'd rather, you know, if there's a little cash coming with that guitar. So, for instance, like, okay, I think your guitar is valued. I'm just gonna make up numbers valued at 500. I want, you know, 1500 for this. I got a thousand coming in. I'll make that. You know, I might make that happen because I'd rather have a thousand dollars coming in to pay the bills. And even though I kind of thought I can hold out for that to get the full mark, maybe I would just go ahead and do that. Another trick that's real common in guitar small stores especially. You don't see this at Guitar center, but you do see it in small stores is sometimes you. You massage the numbers to make the customer feel the best. And it's not a trick. It's not like the car dealerships where I'm not talking about playing a shell game of bullshit. I'm talking about, like, you know, maybe I'm willing to discount that guitar 10%. So I said 1500 bucks. Maybe I'm willing to get anybody who walks in today that has, you know, the money to buy that guitar. That guitar is getting a 10% discount, minimum. That's what I'm willing to give without just you. You sneeze and I'm like, hey, you want 10% off that guitar? Or maybe just, you know, anything, right? Hey, if you pick that guitar up and I'm like, hey, if you're interested in that guitar, 10% off, I might instead of tell you, since it's a trade, that I'm going to give you 10% off that guitar, I might tell you, I might take the $150 discount and add it to your trade value, right? And I've done that a lot. And then what happens is somebody will go. You'll go, oh, let's say I'll go. I'll go 650 on your trade. Remember I was telling you earlier, I was thinking it was worth five in this scenario. I go 650. You'll go, oh, I was at another new store and they told me 550. And I'm like, yeah, this is a lot better. And you're like, yeah. Now here's where it gets tricky. When you play that game, sometimes when you do that, one of the things that happens to you, it's happened to me is the customer gets emboldened and going, wow, I didn't know my guitars were 650. Actually, you know what, I'm gonna go ahead and go with that. Nags. And then you're like, ah, crap. Now I gotta give this guy 650 for his guitar. I don't want to try to sell the guitar is bad. So sometimes you have to kind of anchor them to, okay, I'll give you 650. But it's only, you know, if you do it today for the guitar you're talking about sometimes like that, sometimes you may not want to play that game. I've. I've eaten. I've eaten it before where I'm like, okay, yeah, I'll. I'll do the 650 for the thing you want. So to answer your question, that's sometimes what factors in to a store into a business. Guitar center is a lot different because an employee isn't vested like that, you know, Trust me. An employee at the. And it's not a dig against the employee. Just saying an employee at the counter guitar center doesn't know what the electric is this month. The electric bill doesn't know what overtime they're paying out this month. Doesn't really think about this month's costs or this month's revenue and doesn't think like, okay, well, let's be more susceptible to making a deal and less susceptible to making a deal. And I'm not talking about market pressures. I'm just talking about the daily pressures of owning a business. You know, just what it is you're. You're trying to do. They don't, you know, sometimes I've actually given a really good trades or deals to customers just because they don't know this. But I have a large shipment coming in a couple days or a week, and that shipment's very expensive, right? And it's going to come in and I'm like, okay, look, I'd rather, you know, have some cash liquidity right now than some of this product because I'm going to have more product in a week. So I might be more susceptible to make a deal. So to answer your question, that's how I would look it up. And that's right factor, you said in a shop that's how I would do it in my store is try to figure out the best. Because keep in mind I'm balancing, I'm balancing a very delicate blade of I need to make money and I need you to come back again and be a customer again. I cannot take, I cannot make a situation where every deal makes you never want to come back again. I will never. You'll never make it as a small business. Never, never, never, never, never, never, never. Repeat buyers are a hundred and one hundred ten percent of everything that matters to a small business. If you, you cultivate a. A small store is like cultivating. It's like a small bar, it's like a hair salon. Like I've said this before, like when I was, you know, guitar tech, the best advice, which I used to say I would never give and now I give because I don't do guitar teching is that guitar techs are not like any other tech out there. They're not like a plumber. They're not like, you know, landscaping. They're not like a mechanic. They're like a hairdresser. They're exactly like that. It's a totally different customer base. It's a totally customer style. The reason why guitar tech is like a hairdresser is because you're cultivating a client list. In other words, what you want is. I always, I just say Rhonda. I don't know why I like that name for a hairdresser. I haven't been to a hair salon in A long time, if you guys can imagine. It's. In fact, I don't think I've actually had anybody cut my hair since the army. Anyways, I'm laughing because I'm ashamed of this in a sad way. But anyways, my point is, Rhonda, you. What you want is when somebody says, I don't let anybody cut my hair but Rhonda. And Rhonda's on vacation next week, so I don't get a haircut, even though I need a haircut until the following week. That's how you want people to talk about you if you're your guitar tech. No one touches my guitar but Rhonda. Only Rhonda will work on my instruments. And if Rhonda's not here, I'm gonna wait. And that's how you become a successful guitar tech. And if you use that philosophy, it's not as important as a store, because as a store, you're gonna have a lot of customers that never come back. They come in as, you know, they need strings one time and they're on the wrong side of town and, you know, and you'll never see them again. That's just. That's just how it goes. It doesn't mean you won't get word of mouth on things, but. But literally, you know, you need to run a small business more like a hair salon, and less like, you know, any other kind of, you know, like a mechanic or something like that. Because, you know, most people, if their car keeps breaking down, they don't keep going to the mechanic. They just get a new car. Most, not all. And so that's what I'm saying. You only get so much repeat business for so long. But a guitar tech is a very high, repetitive repeat business. Not as much as a hair salon, but you get the idea. And sadly enough, you know, when I started talking like that, just to give you a reference, a hair salon, even a high end woman's hair salon, was more. No, was less money than guitar tech work. And now it's more money. Think about that, man. And just think about that if you trust me, Some of you women are watching right now. Not very many, but some. And a lot of you guys are watching with your wives. Trust me, your wife is paying more to have her hair done than you are to having your guitar done. It's not even close anymore, but okay, so that's my spiel on what I would do on that trade. And again, other than just the basics of looking, stuff it up. And now here's what Question you didn't ask, which is, what would happen if I couldn't find that guitar? And that's something that happens. And I find it really annoying at guitar center is you go in there and they can't find your product, and then they're like, I don't know what to give you. And I'm like, well, what do we do now? Right? First of all, before you would ever, ever look up anything and do start any negotiation, the first thing I would ask you is what you want for it. And I know that's a very salesman y thing, and it's like, hey, you know, try to get you just. Because if you say 200 and I was willing to give you four, I come out ahead. That's not why I'm doing that, first of all. I'm doing it because most people are just. They don't understand business, nor should they. It's not their responsibility. They may think like, I paid 800 for this, and people are selling it all day long for six. So I'm gonna want stores gotta give me six. And the store's never gonna give you six. So if you come in and you say six, I'm gonna go, oh, man, I'm thinking more like four. You know, we're. We're $200 away. You know, are we gonna be able to talk? And then right there, I'll be able to know if you're like, well, you know, if once, you know. Cause I gotta give you the speech. Every store gives the speech, right? Well, I gotta sell it for, you know, I gotta buy it from you, and then I gotta make money when I sell it. Right? That's kind of the logic. You got to give them that speech. But I find to get your expectations is the best thing to do. It's not just a businessy thing to say. That's just my personal thing. Like, it's just always good to see how in line and out of line you are. Your thinking is from my thinking, so. And if I can't find a price, then I would just go with what you're. You would say, you know, not your value. But like, hey, what are you thinking? And if you said, hell, I think five, and I'd look at it, you know, I can generally look at something and go, I think I can move this for 500 bucks. And if I get it and I'm wrong later, that happens. But most of the time, it happens in your favor. Back in the day, besides having the guitar blue book, which they still make, by the way, but Back in the day, guitar stores, we, we had guitar blue books. I did not use a guitar blue book. Back in the day, you know, they had like just what prices are going for. I never did that. I always shot off the hip. It was just crazy. It was like the wild west. I pull up ebay sometimes, most of the time with no knowledge. I just look at something, I go, yeah, I'd pay that. And then I'd go, okay, I'd pay 800. So I'll give you four, you know, because I was always thinking like, if I give him four and I get eight, good. If I give them four and I get five, well, I screw up, but I still come ahead. It was like I always looked at it like I can't imagine a world. Somebody doesn't give me 400 bucks for this thing, you know, I'm buying it for four. Somebody's got to give me that. And that's not the goal to break even. But you know, you're looking at worst case scenarios in that. So. Okay, next question. Subject is, do you see guitar pedals? I do. They're right here. They're right. I got some here. I'm just kidding. Got a new volume pedal, did some trading this week. I went to Zims and traded some stuff and got some new pedals. I don't know why, but I got this cool little volume Dunlop pedal. I've not plugged it in. I don't know why I got it. Part of me thinks I just got it because it looked cute. It's impossible to keep me on track. Okay, do I see guitar pedals and amps as consumer electronic devices? When it comes to resale, people seem less willing to take a hit on an amp and pedal than they are used computer devices. Yeah, there's no, there's not. Nowhere close to the same thing is guitar pedals and amps are nowhere close to computers, you know, tablets, phones, television, just because they're technology. Now there's things in guitar land that are technology based. We know like processing sensors and things like that are more technology based, obviously interfaces, all that stuff. All tech, fully tech stuff. But I argue that pedals and amps because of the fact that they don't obsolete themselves. That's why they're not in that, that, that case. A perfect example, Sean, to this would be if I did a video of any TV, I mean any TV when I started my YouTube channel, let's say, you know, 10 years ago is when I, you know, I started putting my first video. But let's say eight years ago, because that's when I started kind of like, maybe I'll put some videos out on a regular. Eight years ago. If I put out a video of any TV. Any. You said TVs, right? TVs. Yep. Or computer. Any TV or computer. If I made a video of that, I would guess because I've seen it, there's almost no views on it today. No one's clicking on the Sony Vizio, you know, what 2017 TV model, no one's looking at that, but they're still clicking. On my review of the Ibanez Tube Screamer, it's still getting a thousand clicks a month, eight years later. So proving that it's just not the same thing. Even though it is technology, it's just not in the same vein. Why is that? I don't know. Probably because it, like I said, it doesn't obsolete itself. That's a huge part, you know, of that. It. It's why. It's really what hinders this industry is the fact that so much product lasts so long. How do manufacturers keep creating a new. A new need for a product that doesn't have a need? Because you can just get them, you know, how many times. Look, if you go on, I don't know for a fact, we could try right now, but I just don't want to. We can go on Reverb and type in Ibanez Tube Screamer and see what comes up more used or new. Somebody do that. Go on Reverb right now and type in Ibanez Tube Screamer. Look at used. Just look at the counts. Just be generic about it. Go into petals and tell me, put in the comments, how many used ones versus new ones. I kind of feel like there's more used listed than new. Well, especially since Reverb's ghosting and blacking out most of the new listings. So maybe that doesn't work. But you know, I didn't think about that. I forgot Reverb's hiding, you know, listings now from us. But. But I think that's the. Like I said, this industry has the opposite problem. It's not that it has to, it's. It's that it's technology doesn't obsolete so much. Phil says, I was wondering if you tried and liked the line six pod go. I got one and I really like it. Thanks for everything. So the Podgo, I had one a long, long time ago in a galaxy far away and I liked it a lot. You know, it's one of those products that I would Put in the category of technology. It was cool. I liked it. I'm gonna pull it up right now so we can all see it. So you guys know, because I think because it's called the Pod Go, some people are probably picturing that mini headphone little pod thing. So let's not. Sam. I recommend it. Still to this day. My. My reasoning for moving on was. Is. Was. Is. Hold on, let me go back to your screen. Was. Is the HX M. HX1. Sorry, the HX1 battle. So specifically speaking, I wasn't looking for a platform like that that has all my effects in one unit, which is really handy to run a couple at a time. I just wanted the HXM. So our HX1. I don't know why I keep calling it the HXM. It's the HX1. So the HX1 is what I switched to and that's what I have now and that's what I use. Although you can only use one effect at a time, for me, it just works for what I'm doing because I kind of do not use a whole lot of effects. I'm not a. I'm far from someone who's using a ton of like, you know, reverbs and delays and all that stuff. I use like one reverb usually most time in the amp, very rarely not in the amp delay, but nothing special. And then usually never any chorus. That's more of a. If I'm doing a cover of a song like, think about this. Unless I'm covering a certain song, I have no reason to use any effects other than the three that I like, which is Tremolo, which is a sometimes effect reverb and delay. So. And then overdrive. I kind of have my own overdrive pedals that I'm just kind of love and stuck with. So think about how funny this is. You could go back, which is something unique because it's. Not everybody can do this, right, has this ability. You could go back to my earliest videos from years and years ago, from the beginning of the channel, and look at my pedal collection and see almost all the pedals I'm using today are almost all of those same petals, almost identically. So in fact, what I'm looking at right now is I'm trying to think if there's any pet pedals here. The only pedals in my boards are using on any normal basis that was not in any videos eight years ago is because they didn't exist eight years ago and they're new. So I have Pulled in a couple of new pedals but there is no pedals that I've rotated. I just like the those ones I had. What? Let's go here. Here we go. Perfect. Time to get some water. Okay. Okay. So this question is what three way pickup switch? This came from Amanda. Thank you Amanda for grabbing this. What three way pickup switch did you use when you installed your alumitone death buckers in your Tim Miller keisel? I just used a three way mechanical Fender switch. It's a basic, basic switch. It's a blade switch. Nothing fancy because I didn't do anything anything fancy with it that does not have any fancier fancy wiring. Now the reason why I said Fender is because I still have. You got to understand, I was a Fender, you know, guitar tech for a decade and because of that Fender had some lofty buy ins. Right. Earlier was too, too, too dark. Now it's too bright. Anyways, I have a crap ton of Fender parts. That's what I'm trying to tell you guys. I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm getting to taking so long to get the point. I have drawers and drawers and drawers of brand new parts that I bought. So think about this. I haven't physically had the store since 2017. So do the math on that. And I still am using Fender parts. Oh still tons and tons of Fender parts that I have. And new in packaging. Just new in packaging. Because I was like well okay, I'm not going to tech anymore. What am I going to do with all this stuff? And I go I'll use it up. And it's a slow burnout. I probably have about 20 or 30 brand new five way switches in packaging. And I know somebody's going to say hey sell me one. It's not worth it. It's not worth it to to put it in bubble wrap and ship it to anyone. So. But yeah, so that's why I used it. Because that's what I have and it's a good switch and that's what I used. Let's see this one. Also Amanda grab. Thank you says. Hey Phil, how much do you think NAM Tech NAMM technology will impact the modeling market in 2026? So when you say naming, that's not Nam the NAMM show. That's the. I've seen this term recently. It's. You gotta say I'm not versed in what you're talking about. So let me look it up. So I only know because I saw it. I saw it. Software. So it's A software. Right. I just want to make sure we're on the same page. Is that like the dsps and all this stuff? Okay, Assuming we're on the same page. And I apologize if I'm not because again, I only know. I know I'm a guitar fanatic like you guys. So I know a lot about, you know, what's going on with the market when it comes to DSPs and stuff. But I'm not a. I'm not an authority on that subject by far. So if we're talking about the technology and the idea of what do I feel like the ds. The. Yeah, the NAM amp model. Okay. Neural. Sorry, Neural amp model. What do I think of neural amp modeling? Okay. So the, the way I will explain it to you how I feel is from my perspective of it. That's what everybody that you've probably watched and talk about it or you think about it is your perspective, right? So if you're at home, bedroom player, what do you think about plugins and neural amp modeling? You're going to have your perspective. You know, a professional musician is going to have their perspective. A studio can have that. An amp builder is going to have their perspective. Here's my perspective. And so here's what it is. It is extremely profitable to sell links to shit. It's so profitable, it's just so profitable that it's going to be an impossible thing to not have that become an avalanche upon us. What I mean by that is this. Let me give you an example that hopefully will hit home. I built a business, a physical business. I built, you know, not just a store, I'm not talking about that, but I built a store and the repair, sorry, the repair facility. And I built a lesson academy. Of course my wife Shauna co built every step of it, probably even more so. So really I co built it with her. She did more, majority of it. My point is, is that it. It was one of the largest lesson facilities in the state of Arizona, okay. To build this facility, we had to rent a building, okay, which was $7,000 a month. Then now it would be more. Okay, $7,000 a month. Somebody says NAMM is free. Hold on, I'll get there. Just get, Just hear me out, Hear me out. My point is, is that the amount of time it took to build a, a lesson academy at the level that we did, okay, the amount of students. And I'm pulling this up right now to see that amount of students which was. And I'm going to pull it up right now, approximately they were paying $120 a month as a student. You were going to have about 180 students. Okay, now you do that math. Okay, it's $21,000. 20. Well, roughly, we'll round it up with $22,000 a month. But of course you have teachers that you're paying. That's a huge part of that. Now, I wanted to talk to you not about a zealous academy. I want to talk to you about one of my teachers. I just want you to understand something that is in play right now. And it happens to do with all this and all this stuff. If one of my teachers was able to build up 60 students, 60 students times $120 a month, they made $7,200 a month. And then they would have to pay essentially $20 of that to, to us. That's how you're covering your room, your, you know, the, the amp in the room, the cables, obviously us booking and doing all stuff, you know, just, it's how you do the expenses. So if a teacher physically got 60 students, that's a 30. Not, not including gaps in students, that's 30 hours a week. We're gonna call it 40 hours a week. 40 hours a week times $100. A. $6,000 a month. Okay, $6,000 a month. I had teachers doing that, you know, and they were making a living. I don't have a friend that does online lessons now that doesn't make twice that a month. And they don't have to do anything. And when I say that, I don't mean nothing. I mean, obviously they build a lesson course, okay? But if a friend of mine came to me, a teacher came to me and said, hey Phil, I'm making five to six grand a month teaching one on one with students. And you know, I'm just. Whatever reason I need to try something different, I would say, well, you could start a lesson course and you could do digital downloads. And they go, well, I don't have a huge following. And I go, well, here's the thing. At $100 a course, how many courses does it take to make what you make in a month? So that's what you need in new sign ins. You know, you're talking about 60 sign ins a month. I know people can pull 9,000 sign ins, you know, not in a month, but they could do it. I mean, it's always going to be the size of your channel and stuff. Now, I know you think I'm off topic because I'm talking about lessons, but what I'm trying to explain to you is that just like how boss wants to make a stomp pedal where you might have to buy, you know, extra effects. Everybody has different opinions about this, but I'm trying to tell you as someone on these platforms, you understand this is the dumbest thing I can be talking to you about because literally this is how everyone makes their money. And more importantly, how I could even make a lot, lot more money the more I push a digital thing, right? Digital things are extremely profitable. They're easy for you to convert a customer to. You guys will immediately as us just go, oh yeah, I think I'll get that IR pack or oh, I'll get that lesson or I will buy that, you know, that plugin. And even if the platforms to do those plugins are free, it doesn't matter because again, you'll eventually start buying some kind of digital product. And digital products have a much lower, lower cost. No tariffs, by the way. So tariff free. And so they don't even have to factor that in. The obviously there's a lot of stop cars. Look, there's some people right now and they're probably making this stuff and they're probably watching me go, Phil, but you don't understand. No, I totally understand. There's a lot of startup costs and I understand there's maintenance costs, there's the website, there's, there's. I'm not trying to say it's just like they're laughing to the bank, but I'm saying what it is is this is going to be. And see, here's what's funny. I keep saying somebody says nam is free as in beer and an open source. That's not how everything ends though. So a perfect example is since I've been, since I was talking about this, since doing YouTube, I used to buy all of. I used to pay for a software. We used to do all the like editing all kinds of. We did the Photoshop, we did all that stuff when we bought it. Now we pay subscription rates for it this month because I have to pay for next year's stuff was $4,000 in apps and software to run this channel. That's what we paid out. And if you're wondering what that's for, I actually itemized it all to my, I was talking to my patron about it patrons about it. What it was that we break down what all these costs are to maintain these things, send out RSS feeds, you know, we have to pay for that. We have to pay to host the website. This is where everything is going to go because it's so easy to convert us this way. And if you guys. I always get pushback when I talk about this and I really don't give a shit because the reality is this is how most of the people I know in this industry are making lots of money. So I'm just telling you how they're doing it. This is how they're doing it. It's. It's essentially anything that you can download. If they can give it to you for free, they can eventually convert you into some kind of repetitive payer. And it's a very easy system. So I think that's. So the question you ask is, what do I think about it? Well, I think it's going to win because the money is there. That's where the money's at. Things are going to go to where the monies are. So nevermind, I'm not going to go down that road. Somebody's like, you need write offs. I don't think you know how businesses work. So anyways, the point is, is that I think that's why it's going to win. That's why all of that stuff would win. And it doesn't. Again, it doesn't matter if it's a free service at first. It's kind of like when everybody talked about the, the boss thing again, like they said, hey, yeah, but Phil, they're not charging you for that monthly service again, if they're not established, why would they charge you for the service now and again I use Kemper and you can get free Kemper stuff and you can pay for Kemper stuff and it works the same way. And I buy plugins too, by the way. I blow all the stuff you guys are buying too. I buy online lessons. I buy all the things. But I'm trying to tell you as someone who sits in way too many meetings with way too many of these companies that you guys think, you know, that we all love, I told you guys, a lot of them are like never it never. It's almost to the point now where if somebody says, hey Phil, you got an hour to talk real quick? Sure. And we get on a call, I know it's going to go, hey, we're going to come out with this pedal and we're going to come with this amp. And hey, what do you think about us selling a, you know, a plugin? Hey Phil, what do you think about us selling a digital product? So. And you'll see it more and more. More digital products. I don't think we're Even at the beginning of what the wave of digital products are coming from, they're definitely coming. So it's just how it goes. And like I said, I can't. I say I can't. I'm not going to say that. I don't run my channel without buying all that stuff. So I have to buy it too. And it's, it's just. And like I said, it boils up over time. So that's my answer now back to the NAMM thing being free. I'm happy it's free. I don't use that, whatever that service is or whatever it is. That's why I said I'm not aware of it. I'm just telling you about those type of products. That's where it's all going to go. The, the last thing I'll end on is, is not one, not two, not three, not four, and maybe not five, but. So four, four companies next year I talk to, basically we're talking about physical products coming out, but then a digital product version of it coming right out in the tail of it. So, yeah. And also I actually have a weird interview video that will be out in about a month to two months that you'll see talking about a company talking about a very large predominant company, talking about the hardships of the market right now in the physical amp market and how wide digital is. Whether it's digital plugins or digital, you know, like software or just digital style amps are so important to them for the future that they're banking on it. This is what they're banking on, switching. So that's just my thoughts on it. And that's. I'm just giving you a parting of what I understand from what you guys are talking about. But on that other note, I want to also point out I also like modeling technology. That's another reason why it's easy to. For me to. It's hard for me to kind of. I don't. I'm not bagging on modeling technology. I'm just saying I can see where everyone's going to focus on it. So. And by the way, here's my question because I can tell you who's done a really good job at selling digital products online as a retailer. And Sweetwater, by far, you can buy a ton of digital products on Sweetwater's website. You can go and buy, download software, all kinds of stuff, plugins. And my question is how many mom and pops are going to be able to sell any kind of digital products? All that stuff, as everything goes a Little bit more digital and I don't know how it ends. Basically what I'm trying to say is I'm kind of just paying attention to it right now. It's possible in a year or two we all get sick of it and it pulls back. But right now when I see, you know, John Mayer pushing a plug in when he could have. Think about this. You know, I would argue 10 years ago John Mayer and PRS would have came out with a $1,000 sized, you know, Mark Tremonti size PRS amp, you know, little dumble in a box, you know, 15 watts. And, and it was sold for like $1,000. And. And John Mayer would have probably saw about $60 maybe of that thousand dollars, maybe, maybe as a royalty. And now he's doing a plugin and the plugins, 150 bucks. And then you go, well, how much did they give John Mayer that And what if it was the same and look at the difference, you know. And again, that's all speculation. But my point is, is yeah, I can see digital is going to keep growing and it's very profitable, comparatively speaking. So. Yeah, everything's going to subscription based. Drug dealers taught us well. Yeah, I mean, it's just how it works. I mean, think of this. I have a patron thing and it's essentially like a subscription base. I mean, it's essentially what funds the channel. I get it. I'm trying. Like I said, I'm just being upfront about everything. Okay, let's go to something funner. See. Okay, go to the next one. Next one is. Hey Phil, anybody make a programmable pitch harmonizer like the old rack mount Digitech? I have no idea. You know who would be a good channel to resource that? Maybe Michael Nielsen's channel because he's into stuff like that. I don't use. Like I said, I'm not into the harmonizers and pitch effects. I use the, the poly, you know, the pitch effects that downtune your guitar or downtune your bass. That's interesting to me. But I don't play enough lead work to worry about harmonies and stuff. This one's. Hey Phil, I have a question. I run a small repair shop at out of my house. What my model has been is I buy the parts and tack it on at the end of the. Of the bill. Should I be taking deposits for parts? I mean, no. I mean the rule has always been, you know, you bill at the end. This is because you have essentially you have their property. So you gotta understand, you don't Want, in my opinion, I would not want to imply someone I don't trust, somebody like, hey, I need a deposit on the work or deposit for the parts. And you know, because to me, that makes me. That makes it feel like, well, they should be also doubting me going, well, I am leaving my expensive guitar with you or my guitar with you. And maybe there's a situation I can, you know, where they leave a, you know, $200 guitar and you're buying $300 for the parts. And maybe you're a little nervous about that. I understand that. But, you know, you have to decide. I understand you're doing it at your house, but you have to decide at one point if you're doing this as a hobby, if you're going to try to do this as a job, and if you're doing this as a job, you got to provide. Provide stellar service. I can tell you that you can perfectly. And the 11th one is crap. And you've lost a customer forever. There's almost no grace when it comes to customers. You know, customers are your friends, but sometimes that friendship is tied to how well you do work. So the first time you don't do work, they're not really your friend anymore. You'll be like, hey, I messed up a little bit. I'm really sorry. And they'll be like, this is unacceptable. And you'll be like, wait a minute, I thought we were buds. Remember, we always talk every week. You know, you're going to find that essentially you have to think of your customers like a work life friendship, where essentially there's another element going on besides the friendship. You know, you have. You're a business and you need to provide perfect and good surface every time. And anything that's not that is going to damage everything. Your reputation, your friendship. So I would say no. If it's an issue, if that's deeper into the question, if the issue is that you're just having trouble, like that's a lot to put up front for parts, you know, then you're gonna have to evaluate your. Your rates. Maybe your rates aren't enough. You know, my concern would be if you're concerned about parts. And I'm not saying this is the issue with you. I'm just saying if this is one of my. Would be my concern with myself. If I'm concerned about advancing money from parts, I'm probably running the business. Too delicate. Okay, I've talked about this in the past. You know, people ask me, like, what'd you make when you're Guitar tech. And I've said it, and a lot of people didn't think that was enough money. And I'm like, well, the business pulled in all kinds of money, but I can only pay myself a reasonable salary to that. But more importantly, you need holdings, you need cash capital to. For expenses. But more importantly, for the oh, crap moment, you know, the. Not only if you're going to work on people's personal property, not only do you need to be prepared to have to pay for it if you damage it, you need to pay for it very quickly. The fix of a situation that you've caused has to be very precise and very fast. In fact, it has to be almost one in the same. At the same moment. Like, if you ever have to call somebody and say, hey, I had your guitar. You know, a screwdriver dropped and it hit the front of the top of the guitar. And then literally, you got to give, you know, a minimum of two, maybe three solutions to that problem. We can fix the top. You'll never notice it. We won't charge you for anything. We're really sorry. We can get you a brand new replacement or a replacement that's like in condition exactly like that and let you a b them and choose, you know, right. You want to kind of. You kind of want to over go. This is where. When you screw up, this is where you're going to win the best. Because this is where even if they have a bad experience, they. You can turn it around. It's a very hard thing to do. You know, for instance, you know, I just made an expensive purchase for us at the house. I had some stuff done to the house. It was a decision I was. I was more prone to do than my wife. They told us, you know, the price, which was very expensive. And they told us the. The timeline. The timeline was six to eight weeks. Shauna called them at nine weeks. She called. Literally. I heard the whole conversation. I was in my office. I heard her say. She's like, hi, my name is Shawna McKnight. I'm calling from our, you know, our product that we ordered. They said it was going to be about six to eight weeks. It's nine weeks. It's getting into the holidays. You know, scheduling is going to get a little weird. Weird for us. I just want to see how it's looking. And they told her, oh, it's, it's here. And she's like, oh, okay. And then, long story, very long story short, the lady was horrible on the phone. She was laughing at Shauna and It was really weird. It's a hard thing to talk about because it was like a weird, really weird bad experience. So Shauna called the person, tech salesperson, and they called us out and. And I told Shauna when they came, because they came, you know, it got all worked out and they made nice. They said, hey, we're sorry for treating you so bad. I told Shawna before they got here, I said, you know, and a friend who was here, they said, oh, they're coming install it. And I said, yeah. And he goes. And I said, here's the suck part for them. If they do everything right and they install it perfectly today and they go perfectly on their timeline and it looks beautiful. They got a C at best because they were so horrible to us on the phone, the customer service, horrible. They gotta do. They gotta A plus this thing today to get a B. And they came in and no, no, I'm not trying to throw any issues towards the techs and the workers, but they were a C at best. So you can imagine their C was really a D. And so a DNF factor that together. It's not a great grade. My point is, is that that was their opportunity after a mistake to make to really. You got to really level up. So that's the same thing with parts. And I preach this so much because. Because especially in our industry, it's the opposite. It's like everybody just doesn't think like this. But here's the problem. Everything's getting really expensive. And the more expensive it gets, the more people are going to scrutinize what they give you. They're going to. They're scrutinize how they feel about what they've given you. You. It's just how people are. You know, it's $60 is a lot, but $160, you're just like, this is crazy. I used to pay 60, now I'm paying 160. And then when you get less service than you got at 60, it's going to make everything tougher. And this is where. And this is why I'm telling you this. And I'm telling you this because you said you're, you know, you're starting a small business, small shop. And I just want to tell you guys this. When we have a market like we have right now, this is where we're weeding out all the week. This is where all the weak businesses go. You're not going to be here. We're losing tons of businesses. That's a good segue. Let's Talk about a business going away. If you guys haven't heard, Hoffner filed bankruptcy. So Hoffner Guitars and Basses in Germany has filed for bankruptcy. Now, officially, the bankruptcy is. They're trying to reconsolidate. So in other words, this is like Guitar Center's bankruptcy, where they're not really. They're not going to, you know, sell off and close forever. This is a reorganization, essentially. They're going to try to settle with creditors and kind of settle some. Some debt and figure some stuff up and stick around and, you know, you hate hearing this stuff. But also, it's kind of like the GNL story this year. And kind of like, here's the thing that's a little sad to say when we talk about the businesses of 2025 that have either closed or doing poorly, none of them were a shocker. Not to me. Hoffner, I think, is a great look. It's. Paul McCartney played that baseball. It's an amazing bass because Paul McCartney played it. I said this once, I'll say it again. If Hartley Peavey could have. If I could have gone back in time and given Harley Peavey advice, I hoped I could, I would. I would go just like back to the future. I'd go in like. Like McFly and be like, hard. Go up to Harley going, give Eddie Van Halen half your company. Give him half. Whatever it takes to give Eddie Van Halen as much as your company as you can tolerate, you cannot lose him. Because here's the thing. Now you think about PV and where it's at. EVH is bigger as a company than pv. It's more. It's more exciting. It's doing more. Think how horrible that is. You know, same thing with Steve I. Stevie made Ibanez. You know, Ibanez. I think she gives Steve I half their company. They probably do financially, because they give him a lot, I'm sure. But, you know, Paul McCartney made Hoffner. You know, the fact that Hoffner every year should have called Paul McCartney and begged him like, hey, we'll give you half the company. Just, you know, help us, you know, keep it. Keep it going. Beatles, whatever, Whatever. This is all we got. We were the Beatles. And Brian says, give him 51, 50%. That's good Eddie Van Halen joke. And. And my point is, is that this is the. I don't want to call it the reckoning, but this is the time I told you. When the market slows, okay? And it adjusts and we're not spinning as much and we're scrutinizing every dollar. And that's really what's really happening. It's, that's where the not spending as much comes from. You're like, ah, you know what? Maybe I won't buy every new pedal release. For those of you guys that get crazy buying pedal releases, maybe only going to buy the two or three top ones. Now you got to be those two or three top ones. You don't have to slash your prices down to nothing. That's not the only thing that's out there as an opportunity. The best opportunity is to make something that we want, something that people. This is a luxury business, the guitar business. And because it's a luxury business, it's done for joy. And if you can get people to think, hey, if I get this, I'm going to feel better playing this, doing this, listening to this. This is how you, this is what you do. And the sad thing is, yeah, somebody says, remember Carvin and Vai? Same thing. Could you imagine if Carvin had the. Gave Steve Vai half the company and said, hey, you know, keep playing carbon amps and you know, I don't know, make carbon land. I don't know something. But this is my point is why I think everybody should be paying attention. I was not shocked to hear, you know, during holidays, this holiday I talk to a lot of friends in the industry and a lot. In fact, I was a little nervous. That's why today's show started posting a little late. When I do so much talking like I did over the last week with so many people in the business, so many of the things that I have in my head come out of my mouth to you guys and some of the stuff really can't come out of my mouth. But what I will tell you that I can say is it was not shocking to me the that a large portion of my friends were like, we're up 20, we're up 5%, we're up 10, we're up 12%, we're up 20%. One was up 30% and then some other friends that I have and they're like down 20% this year, down 10%. We're going to be, you know, I have a, I have a friend this, this week. I wish I could tell you that has a high end guitar slash amp or pedal business. One of the three maybe all who told me not only was a great year, they're gonna lower prices next year. They're like, yeah, we're lower the prices a little bit. I go, really? Yeah, I Go, oh. I go, you know, And I thought, oh, because the market's a little tough and a little pricey. Like. No, no. Some of the, some of the feedback was prices a little high. So we're gonna rate, we're gonna lower them a little bit. We kind of did really well this year. We overshot a little bit. We did well, but we're gonna kind of do it. I was like, it's exciting. Not all everything, but a couple, you know, a couple things that people complained about that were a little pricey. I was like, okay. So what I'm saying is, is that it's, it's going to be interesting market 2026 will probably be the end. We'll see the end results of what happened in 2025. In other words, everything that's happened in 2025, that's closures. Is why is. Is. We'll see more of it, unfortunately, of what really happened this year, next year. Somebody asked this, I thought it was interesting. Somebody says, will heritage guitars go the way of gnl? And I thought, oh, that's a, that's a good question. Because heritage is like to, to Gibson is what GNL was to Fender. The reason why Heritage won't go the way of GNL is the people who currently own Heritage and Mono Gig Bags and Harmony are not nowhere in the situation that GNL was financially, much less in any other way. But more importantly, I guess I could say is if GNL or not, sorry, if Heritage was, would not close, if it was to be sold off, it was just because maybe they're done with it as the owners. They, maybe they don't want anymore. I, I don't think that would be the case at all. But that would be the only scenario I can think of because they're financially very set. So they came in with money. They have money so that they have it. They have, they're good. Okay, this is a tough question because I don't know the answer. The question is that, that Amanda grabbed was, can you comment on the warranty for pickups? My 490T is not working. So the 490T is a Gibson pickup. Here's what I, I don't. First of all, we gotta talk about two things. One, you mean in the guitar, like if you bought a brand new guitar and the pickup in the guitar, the pickup would be attached to the guitar's warranty. So when you buy a new guitar, it's gonna be parts and workmanship. So those are the warranties and how they kind of, they kind of overlay them. So under the pickup in the guitar would be, would be covered, if it is covered under parts and workmanship of that part, so that it's covered. Now, if you're talking about you bought a new pickup, a new Gibson pickup, that pickup, I would assume, has a warranty. I have not looked at them. Have you called Gibson? That's what I'd like to know is like the, the problem though, is that I would, you know what? I didn't think about it. Aftermarket parts, usually no warranties because they don't know how, what you did to it. That's right. I forget, I always forget that parts are kind of that one thing that you literally kind of. So in the guitar, you would be safe. But yeah, if you bought an aftermarket pickup, it doesn't work. So if you got the pickup and it was not working when you got it, you can usually get some kind of an exchange on it. What I would imagine is if you had it for any period of time and maybe the warranty is expired or the warranty is, you know, avoided because the fact that it's, it's like, you know, it's a part. So therefore, if you've installed it, I would call Gibson and just try to get an exchange and just get them to just get, send them the pickup. Say, hey, I'll send you the pickup. Can you, you know, and, and they might not do it. Bigger companies are a little bit more difficult that way. Fender was always so much easier to deal with for that stuff. Fender would most likely just replace your pickups. I've had many cases where Fender has warrantied a pickup or a part where no problems. But Gibson, I, I, I gotta be honest, as a dealer, Gibson was horrible. I sold a Gibson episode. That's the main reason I stopped being a Gibson dealer. I sold a guitar at Christmas to a guy and it was defective. And Gibson was really difficult to deal with and to the point where we had to eat it as the store and take care of the customer. And then I was like, I just don't, I can't go this way anymore, man. So they're a little on the crappier side. But I'm saying that out of, you know, off that experience, I don't know what the current experience is. I would say contact Gibson. The one thing I can tell you is, is if the pickup's not working, something's usually the wire, some wire, like maybe the wire in the coil has been broken or damaged. That can happen. It's not very common Especially if it's like a. A. If it's not an exposed bobbin pickup, maybe if you have a cover on it, it's gonna be really hard to get damaged in there. So some people are saying the 490t is a cheap pickup. Upgrade it. Yeah, I mean, the 490 Ts, it's not that it's cheap. I mean, it's a good pickup. I mean, pickups are kind of a weird thing because they're really. They're. They're. Like I said, they're, they're. To everyone's ear, everybody has a different thing they're trying to get out of it. It's not. I can tell you this, it's not worth fixing if it can't be diagnosed quickly. You know, put it on a multimeter. The questions I would ask is, have you put it on a multimeter? Have you tested it? Have you tested it correctly? Do you feel confident that. That it is not working? And if it's not working, then one of two things have happened. The wire that's making it coming out of the pickup, the wire there has been damaged, or the wire in the coil has been damaged. That's essentially your two big culprits. If it's an exposed bobbin pickup, it's possible the wire in there got cut and damaged, and it's kind of a pain. And you can watch Lindy Frailin videos where Lindy takes pickups and unwinds them. I've unwound a couple pickups and found where they broke rewind. I will never do that again. It's. You know, I. I'm not. I don't have Lindy's reputation. I'm sure I'm. Either he's doing it for fun in those videos because he just wants to do it, or people are paying him through, you know, a good amount, you know, to do it. But I didn't have a customer base like that to make it make sense. But. But, yeah, that's what I would say. Just try to get. Try. Try to talk to him about exchanging it. So it's possible. Other thing, too is also where you bought it. You know, if it's. If you bought it from a credible dealer, also try to give the dealer an opportunity to try to fix the situation. So. And. And you can always find other things. I've done everything every way that's kind of worked in the past. That's kind of worked. In other words, like, I'll, you know, if it's a dealer, I'll say Hey, I have this issue. And they're like, oh, there's nothing we can do for you. And I'm like, okay, well, look. Cause you're always using the market for something. I'm like, look, I'll buy this other thing from you right now too. Could you take care of that? And I'll buy this. This thing, you know, and. And you know, that's. It just makes their life a little easier, you know, it's like they don't really need to do a lot of free work or they don't may want to do free work for you. Maybe that entice them. It's. It's tough, but. Yeah, but like I said, make sure you test it correctly and make sure. RJ wants to know, is it worth refreading a budget guitar with stainless steel frets? Well worth. It is tough. I've refreaded a gallery with stainless steel frets, and it's still playing in great today. Now, paying somebody to do it. Hell no. Don't pay somebody to do it. That's just crazy, you know, because you can take the money they're going to charge you and. And take the guitar and just buy something better, but you doing it, oh, it's. Is it worth it? Again, it's an education. The education is the. The payout. So it's not a financial. Will you get your money back? That's. Okay, so let's break that question down. Is it worth it? No, it's not that I'm saying no to that. I'm saying that's not the question. The question is, will you get your money back? No. Right? No, no, no, no. If you refrated an expensive guitar with really nice frets, if anything you've devalued the guitar. You haven't even helped it. Not only will you not get any money back out of it, you'll lose money. So don't do that. Is it worth it? In the case of. Well, remember why I did that video? I re fretted a glary because like a lot of people that reviewed a glary, Like, I reviewed a glary because somebody goes, hey, have you seen the $65 gallery? And I was like, no. And I got one I presented to you guys because I'm like, how do you make a guitar for $65? It's really crazy, right? Like, that's really nuts. That's as. That's about as cheap as you think a guitar can get. And it would make sense if it played, you know, it was unplayable, but it Was somewhat playable. And I gave it an honest assessment. I said that, you know, you shouldn't buy this guitar unless you just want to work on guitars like you couldn't buy. You couldn't walk into most pawn shops or guitar stores and buy cheap junkie guitars to work on for 65 bucks. That's the. That was the whole point, you know, hey, what a great way to cut some of the cost. Made me buy two glaries and work on them, because they're gonna need work. And then somebody said, just go ahead and take that right to the landfill. And I don't know why. That drove me nuts. It just did in the comment section. So I refried mine and turned it into a super Strat, and then we gave it to somebody. So. And it's still playing this day because I think you can turn, you know, unless you can turn most any guitar into something playable. I mean, obviously, I think our rock idols, our guitar idols have proven that taking parts guitars and putting them together. But like I said, it's a. It's not a good thing to do with your money, but it's. I think it's a great thing to do with your time, is to learn how to refread a guitar, just even if you do it once and never do it again. I told you guys I basically built two kit amps, you know, and. And everybody's like. And I tell everybody I don't want to build amps, but I feel. Not that I can build an amp now that I put the kit together, but I feel like I have a better understanding of what goes into it and what amp builders and amp repair guys are pointing at where. And I don't know if you guys remember the story. It's kind of funny. When I built my amp kit, I did something horribly wrong in it. And I was in a class, and the teacher came up to me and pointed like, wow, no, no, no, no. Stop doing what you're doing. And I'm like, what? He's like, no, look, you read here, it says, do this. And I was doing something because I thought I knew something better than what they knew. And what I was doing was I was putting the amp together in a way that I could service it later. Later, easy. Which is something I do as a guitar tech when I'm working on guitars. I want to be able to get in there and fix it again or. Or, you know, modify. And he's like, no, you need to make these wires shorter and twist them. And I'm like, he's like all access wires noise. I'm like, oh, see in the guitar, that's really not something we worry about. I don't really worry about an extra inch or 2 inches of wire as a problem. That's not going to create 60 second hum or anything or create a problem. So again, it made me understand like, oh, the tube guys are going, or the amp guys are going through a different process than the guitar guys. And that was kind of insightful. It was nice. So, okay, let's, let's grab this. Okay. I have no idea right here. Okay. So this question came in. Frugal wants to know. Frugal Fixer. Spike says, hey, do you have any experience with Vester guitars? I do. Vester Guitars, I'm looking at one and was owned by a guitar player from Marshall Tucker Band in the early 90s. Has a nice quality and feel, I think made in Japan. So Vester would probably be made in Japan or Korea. That would be real common at the time. Vester was another brand that's owned by a company, one of these. So you got to think, like, people don't realize like the Crate amps actually had a guitar brand. Essentially when you think of series 10 and West Tone, they're essentially attached to the St. Louis music distribution, which was at the time was like Crate Alvarez Crate Alvarez, west tone, series 10, audiocentron and then Ampeg and then eventually Mackie and then it all falls apart. But so that's how it works. Vester, I don't remember who they were attached to. I want to say Hamer, maybe that was through Cayman. So Vester might be a Cayman thing. You'd have to, you know, maybe you can look it up and do some research from that, knowing that. But what Vester Guitars is, is there was, there was a company, GTX was definitely from, from that. So I always associate GTX and Vester Guitars. But you understand, I could be. I'm doing off memory. But a lot of those brands like Aria Pro was, you know, different than what I'm talking about. But a lot of those brands popped up in the, in the time as, you know, the alternatives to the brands that people couldn't get or afford in stores. So, you know, they were just the offshoot brands. So I think of Vester like I think of Aria Pro, like I think of West Tone like I think of maybe Fernandez. You know, just the brands that were known but not really known. They weren't Kramer, they weren't Jackson, they weren't Charvel, they weren't, you know, Ibanez at the time. So I've picked up a bunch of vesters and played them. They all played great because again, they were all either made in Japan, most of them. The ones I played were made in Korea. So if there's no markings that say it's made in Japan, you might want to assume it's made in Korea because I'm sure early ones were, but that's how it worked. B search was the same way. A lot of them, you know, they would go to Japan and then immediately go to Korea. So a lot of companies did because, because, you know, Japan came, became very expensive very quickly and so a lot of companies went to Korea. Jess says, hey, does Jackson start their 60 inch radius at the 12 fret when leveling or somewhere else on the fretboard asking so I can fix someone's high fret overall, I'd have to know. So first of all, that's just not something I can answer here because Jackson first of all is not the same company. It's like three different companies with multiple different production points. So it's just too hard. I'd have to look at it to know. And I mean look at, physically look at it. I wouldn't. You know, the model number would mean nothing to me because you gotta understand, not only is there China Jackson, India Jackson, Indonesia Jackson, Korea Jackson, Japanese Jackson, US Jackson and Mexico Jackson. So think of this. Jackson's made and been made in at least six countries that I can think of. Then you have multiple ownerships of Jackson throughout those times. So you know, there's very few brands. That's what I said. We brands are funny to us. And you know, now that you think of brands, you think of brands like Jackson and Charvel and BC Rich and they've changed hands so many times and changed production points so many times and who's made them. So when it comes to compound radius, you don't have to. It depends on what you're doing to the fretboard you don't have. If you're using radius blocks, that's one thing you're going to have to deal with. But a lot of times you do. If you're leveling the frets, you don't have to use a rating block, a radius block. They wouldn't use a radius block, they would use a sanding beam. So that's what I would recommend you use is just a sanding beam. If you're using a sanding beam, a straight sanding beam with some sandpaper on it, which is what they would use, it's going to follow the contour of the frets and level the frets that are high. If you're trying to do that now if you're trying to re radius the frets, I mean maybe you can use sanding beams but I wouldn't just follow the user standing beam. Call it a day. That'd be my suggestion. Let's see. Right. I'm just going scrolling through the comments. This one came from Ellie Worth. Ellie with Worth. I think it's Ellie Worth. Ellie Worth. Hope I said it right. Says looking for a small puddle platform Tube amp under 15 watts for bedroom and occasional live playing. Looking at the Princeton or the Blues Junior right now. So those are two different animals, right? The Blues Junior likes pedals. So does the Princeton. To me they're different. And what I mean by different is the Blues Junior is going to have a really great clean. It's going to be a bigger sound, especially at lower volumes. You know you can get to overdrive if you turn it up. But if you're using a pedal platform, which is most people are me, I like the Blues Junior I prefer the Hot Rod Deluxe a little bit more and you can usually find them used for the same price or if not better. Right now Hot Rod Deluxe's are silly cheap, you know. So you know, you know I. I'm just blown away how cheap some of those amps are right now. I mean just ridiculously cheap. So the Hot Rod Deluxes are right now and I know you're like well that's a big amp, louder than I need. But you can turn it down if you're using it as a clean platform, it's just really great. But the Blues Junior works great. I've used that as well for pedals. Clean likes pedals. The Princeton is more compressed. It's. You run pedals through it. But I will tell you a 10 inch speaker versus a 12 inch speaker, first thing you're going to notice is your distortions have more of a fizz to them, which I like at lower volumes. I like the Princeton because at quiet volumes it feels big but not bassy because it can't get bass because it can't crank it up. And that's where sometimes when you have an amp that sounds great with bass, as you turn it down, the bass thins out. And then now your amp doesn't have any like fullness to it. I prefer the Princeton over the blues Jr. That's just my personal taste for whatever it's worth. Some others suggestions, I mean obviously going Fender Amps is almost a no brainer. You can never really lose when it comes to that. But obviously don't forget the Supro guys are out there which make really good amps for the price point too. And you can pick up some of those. Right now is a good time to go out there looking for a good little amp on a deal. Man. I, I, I'm just, just I can't even sell some. I have about 10amps, maybe eight, I don't know, 10, 10amps that I'd like to get rid of. They're not worth anything. No one wants to pay anything for them. I took some amps down to Zims Guitars in Mesa. So you guys know my George Benson. I took it down there to sell it and it's like it's worth nothing. It's like laughing. I was like oh. And it's not and it's not selling worth nothing and it's amazing amp. I would, I'm almost like maybe I should go back and grab it because I'm like it's such a great amp. I'm only doing it for space purposes. Like oh, there's only so much space. So you guys know I just got a ton of amps and I'm getting some more next month for next year. There's a lot of amps coming out and some companies sent some amps for me to check out and I was like what am I gonna do? All these amps? I only have so much room. But yeah, okay, so. Let's see. Okay, let's go back. See, hold on a second. I'm just scrolling real quick to see what you guys are. Let's go back over to here. This one. Is there any advantage to using an FR cab versus plugging into a PA? Currently I have a 15 inch Mac EPA wondering if it's worth the upgrade to a he put. You put fsfr. But I don't know if that's a Mistype. I'm just going to go with FRFR cabinet any anyways. Is there a, is there a downside? I don't know if there's a downside to a pa. I don't really don't play through the pa. I play through either studio monitors or I've tried the FR cabinets. I am not a big fan of FRFR cabinets if I don't need them. So I could see in a live performance or in a live situation running my, you know, you know, modelers through it. I could see the point of that because it's just to me, it's a flat response monitor and it's going to sound good, I guess, but I necessarily don't worry about that. I use my studio monitors and I was using studio monitors and I wasn't loving them. And then I switched to FR frfrs. And then that. I think I did a video somewhere in there. I bought all the FR monitors. Again, I say not all, but too many of them. The line 61 was probably one of my favorites. Friedman's was okay. The Mark base one, I had that one that was okay. It was good. Like I said, I just went through them all. And Head Rush, I bought the Head Rush ones. I just kept buying them hoping like, you know, when is this going to click for me? And nothing really clicked for me. And it's just okay because everybody's got different ears for different things. But right now I'll just run it through my. My monitors. If you have a pa, I don't see why not. So, I mean, think of this. Larry Mitchell plays an Axe Effects and he plays everywhere. And he will run through an fr, like the Fender one frfr. Or he'll just plug into whatever you have that's clean. When he performed here at my house, he ran through my Phil Jones bass amp. So he just plugged into the Phil Jones. We went straight cla. Ran the amp flat, and he went through. Right through the amp and it sounded fantastic in the room. So I don't know if I overly worry about that kind of stuff. I think the big thing is you just don't want something that colors your sound too much. And when I say colors, it makes your sound too bassy or too bright. Because usually with a modeling tech, you've kind of made a. The sound that you, you. You have that you love. You don't want it to add bass or low end too much, you know. Right. So. But yeah, I. And I, like I said, I absolutely just go live going through studio monitors. And then if I. At this point, I really don't like. I use the Kemper, but I won't take it. I don't take the Kemper to play with other musicians. Even though it's powered and I can run it through a monitor. I just have easier solutions than that. I really don't want technology for that. It's not what I'm looking for. Technology to me. So different players have different goals. To me, if you're bringing technology to a gig, you're trying to bring multiple, multiple sounds. I'm usually playing in two to three sounds. I'M not playing. You know, I'm not playing an album of music where I'm like, I gotta capture the song where we use this delay and then the song where I use this. And then this is not what I'm up to. I'm just. I have a sound and it works, and I can play through the music. You know, I think I told you guys this story is kind of funny. When I played at the German. I played a German soccer arena for this. For this world Guinness. World Guinness Book of World Records thing. And Hughes and Kittner supplied the amps, and they gave us all these modeling amps, and they took the time, and I want to thank them for that, to go through the set list and create all of the profiles or whatever, all the sounds for each one of the songs. And they go, here's the songs. And I go, okay. And. And what happened was I plugged into the amp and I got a clean tone and I set it. I just hit store, whatever. And I. And I found an overdrive sound with a good amount of gain. And I found a spot and I go, I like this. And I saved that. And I took the Ibanez Az I used. And whenever I needed low gain, like when we played. Because we were playing a lot of covers, we played two German covers. And I think everything else was, you know, American cover, like Nirvana or Coldplay or whatever. You know, we were doing acdc, Jack White, right. White Stripes. So roll the volume down for that. Roll the volume up. I was at. So I was. The whole show roll. I was like. And I. I thought it sounded. I thought I sounded some. A little better than some of the profiles and stuff. They were using our settings, so I could just do that, no problem. And that's how I kind of think it's like, I just need two tones. I need a. I need a just overdrive and a clean. And just make that kind of work. And I'll use the volume on the guitar to kind of figure out the sweet spot. Never had anybody go, wow, what was that? That's, you know, that's horrible. They. I just. It's. I'm just looking to keep things easy in my life, so I make sense, I guess, for me. And I was in front of 60,000 people. Not one of them complained. I thought maybe one of them stopped me in the parking lot and be like, man, what's with that tone? We didn't feel like it changed every song. Okay, Okay, hold on a second. Let's go to the next one. How are we doing Tom, we're doing good. We're going to wrap this thing up. Okay? So, Phil, he says, hey, is the Sire factory near the one where you visited? I bought a Sire V5 base and it's incredible. So Sire, I don't know is Sire. I don't know where Sire's Indonesian factory is. So, you know, Sire is another company, like Court. They're technically a Korean company. And then they build everything in Indonesia. This is my take. It's kind of going to probably whatever it's worth to me. I look at Indonesia now, being there and looking at how it was all structured. It's like Korea's Mexico. Please understand what I mean by that. I've been to Mexico, into the factories in Mexico, like Ensenada, and that's the way I looked at it. That's the way it kind of comes across. It's like, it's, it's. And I've been to Germany and Czech Republic is essentially, in my opinion, kind of like Germany's Mexico. What I mean by that is it's their source for more lower cost production. That's where they can produce stuff even for less. So that's the way it was kind of like, I see it. And it just ironically, same thing. When you go and look at like the Martin Taylor and the Fender facilities, you know, that are in. In Mexico, it's like, okay, we have this American company and then they. They build in Mexico because it's lower cost. You have the same thing where you saw, I saw German companies building in Czech Republic same thing and doing the same thing. And this is what I mean now. This is where the Korea, Indonesia thing is different. What's different is in Mexico and in the United States, you see them actually start a product or send the product to Mexico for finishing or vice versa. They'll do some products in Mexico and bring them back in the United States. And there's a little bit of a crossover. I noticed the same thing in Germany. Some products were going to Czech Republic to be finished, or they were, you know, started in Germany and then go there. I didn't really see anything go the other way, but I'm sure it could. Where I. You didn't see anything like that with Korea, Like Korean product going to Indonesia. So that's where the analogy would then stop. But, you know, I would imagine that's why almost all the Korean manufacturers went to Indonesia. It's just, again, it's just a lower cost point to make an instrument. At this point, that's what everybody's shooting for it's like how can they compete in this market of ever ending, how can we do it for less money kind of thing? And that's just the reality of it. You know, it's a, you know, I don't know, I don't know how to, I don't know how to. I don't know how to explain it. I don't know how to justify it all, if that makes any sense. Okay, Okay. Brian says where does Mexico outsource or outsource stuff to be cheaper? China? I don't know. I don't. Maybe everybody does China. Think about this. Every, everybody uses China at some point. You know, we were talking about this on a, on a personal, private business call, behind the scenes kind of thing. And one of the comments that I thought I could take away from that share with you guys is somebody was saying that it's so impossible to make anything anywhere. Now even if you get something made in China, it's not all made in China. Like that's the irony. Even something that says made in China isn't 100 made in China. That's how impossible it's getting to make anything anywhere now in one place. It's a very, very tough thing to, to do. But we all, we all know the game. The game is, you know, they're all trying to figure out how to make a guitar price point that's something you'll buy but also very profitable for them. And the future for them is definitely overseas. Which is why I've been saying this for years, that every time, you know, you guys talk about Gibson or fender or PRs in the vein of like American made product, I'm like, yes, they make a product in the United States and yes, I think that's great. And, but also they, they all equally do a equal amount or more overseas. And that's really where things are, you know, that's where the growth is. I, I don't know. I can't look in their books. I'm just guessing, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna guess that Gibson, Fender and PRS's growth is really rooted in overseas market that's not only building overseas, but they're, they're opening up new, new markets overseas. PRS is opening up India. They're had a good, they had a bunch of clinics in India for guitars and they said it went really well. Well, really, really well. So they say fast. Now Brian says, where does China outsource things to be made cheaper? There's cheaper than China for sure. So you know, like Vietnam's, I don't know. But there's that they, they outsource as well. Everybody outsources a little bit. So Robert says Moon Pie is the best in the world. It is. Moon Pie is outsourced nowhere. It's why, you know, I said this to the patrons and I don't know if I ever told you guys this. I have no problem talking about any product or anything. Again, I don't like politics, so we don't talk about politics. I say that in the vein, not that I don't want to take a side in politics. I just like sports. I just don't have the attention span for it. It's not something I'm interested in. So to talk about it would just be a waste everybody's time. That being said, products and on the channel, I've told you guys, I will review whatever I think is either interesting or more importantly, what I think you guys might find interesting and we'll just discuss it on the channel. And a lot of the stuff, of course, that's most interesting, you guys, based on the analytics is affordable guitars. I, I think I told you end of year, let's just tell you this year I did way too many. We're going to readjust that for 2026, I did too many high end USA made guitars on the channel. Whether or not when I say that people go, really? And I go, that's because you didn't watch them. That's the videos that didn't get watched. Yes. All the guitars I did that were made in China, made in Indonesia were essentially like 70 of the views, total views for the year of this channel. But they were the minority of the videos I made. They actually, I think actually Indonesia and China combined were still a little less than Made in USA product. Why? Because, I mean, look at my wall here. I'm, I'm, I, you know, I like Made in USA product. Like I said, I don't know if it's a pride thing because I served in the military or because I am, you know, an American. I don't know if it's because it's more, they're more collectible. I don't know if it's because it's what I desired when I was a kid, but that's what I lean into. But it's not what I just value only does it make sense. I don't look like, I don't look at any one of the guitars in this wall and go, oh, this one's better because it's made so. And so made. So somewhere, however, I. Like I've said before, and I'll say it again, and I think made in USA stuff is a luxury to buy, and if you can afford to do it, you know, good for you. I try to do it myself because, again, it's a luxury. But it's also, I think, naive to not understand that, you know, there are great guitars for a quarter of the price, and you can't ignore them as a channel. That's supposed to be a dissection of guitars across the platform. So that's my whole point with all this, is what I'm trying to say. But when it comes to that, what I. What I told the patrons, which I apparently have never told you guys, so I thought maybe, maybe now it's worth mentioning, I made a deal where, as you guys know, I have a signature guitar with Kiesel. I don't get paid for that guitar because that's the deal I wanted to make me made. But that essentially is a guitar I'm endorsing. That's what that means. Means I'm endorsing Kiesel because I said, hey, put my name next to that guitar. I've also, as you guys know, I've had zither stands and I've put my logo on them, and I've sold them to you. This is a zither stand with the Know youw Gear logo. Scissor stands with a string swing cradle. And soon, probably next month, you'll be hearing what's happening to Blackstock pickups. And you'll know. I've also, again, partnered with another company. And the one thing you'll notice, just like when I helped launch the Badlands guitars, the cons, there's a consistency in that. And I, again, I don't mean to be political about it. I just need to understand my logic, because I think that's what's fair. All those companies have something in common I just mentioned, which is they solely make products in the usa. They do not make any products outside the usa. Zither does not make any products outside the usa. They only make stuff in Texas. Kiesel only makes products. And in. In California, he does not have a import line of products. The new partnership you'll see or endorsement you'll see next month is a 100 USA manufacturer. Again, obviously, Badlands was a 100. That's why I lent my help to them. This is for one reason, one reason only. I think that's who needs the most help. So if I'm going to give My wholehearted full force endorsement of something which I rarely do. That's why I do it. I'll do it because I that's I think they need the help. I don't as you I just told you a second ago I can do a video of a 300 main China guitar and I can get a half a million views and they'll sell a quarter million guitars and good for them and I'm glad they did it. I don't really get anything for it so it's not really a good for us. It's more good for them. But I'll. When I put my full energy behind something I always put it behind something I feel a little bit more passionate about personally. So it's more of a personal thing to me which is something you know that's just my own personal thing and then also, also someone who needs it. Brandon says Badlands and past tense. Well I'm no longer a partner with Badlands so I partner with them because of the fact that like I said that was the only way to make it financially feasible for them. They were, they didn't have any way to you know compensate me in any way. So we did it as a partnership agreement. So. Okay so anyways I just thought I'd share that with you. Okay so hold on, Hold on a question. There's a question. I don't understand the question. Somebody says why would someone Are you talking about earlier when I was talking about company lowering prices we said why 60 seconds. Steve said why would they lower prices? I don't know if you're talking because this is where it gets troublesome in the comment sections. I don't know what you guys are going on about. Why would a company lower prices? In the reference in the point of the company I'm talking about their sales went up this year when they were projecting flat or down so they were very excited about that. But what happened in their case one they didn't you was mentioned. I'm just getting credit mentioned tariffs. They didn't have any tariffs so I'm just being just telling you what happened. They didn't really have any tariff pressure. They're. They are, I mean nobody can say like I said nothing's made 100% anywhere but they are made you know in the high 90% in USA and in fact I've talked to four companies who are in that percentage and they all said the same thing. They just didn't see a whole lot of price increasing this year on them. Just telling you what they said. Don't kill the messenger. I just thought it was interesting they all had said this. They don't know each other. They just all know me and we were just talking because it's the holidays and. And also we. They were all asking me to do content for next month. This was something that was in discussion and what was in discussion was they didn't see a huge. They didn't see cost increases in 2025 and they didn't see sales losses which they were anticipating. So in the particular case of the company who says they're going to lower some prices, what they noticed was a couple of their SKUs were not selling as strong as the other SKUs and they felt the prices were a little high and that they said the feedback from the customers with the prices were a little high and they actually have room to bring them down because of the fact that they just had. They haven't felt any pressures that have to lift. They don't have to raise that price. So that's how it works. But so you know, that's the minority, the majority is the company talks. Talk to are talking about that, you know, price prices are up and some of the profits were down. So that's how it works. So. But I think they were all in agreement with. I was too with some of them were saying they were up 5% this year and they said that 5% was great because flat would have been good for them. And I agree. Let's see, The rent, the return. The return of TC says the whole selling point of Badlands was the final check by Phil. Well, that was what people grabbed onto as the selling point. That was not supposed to be the selling point of the guitars. I wasn't even supposed to do the quality assurance in those guitars. That wasn't anything I was going to do the quality assurance of me doing the guitars. The original idea was there was issues with the builder. So I was going there to make sure everything was fine is what the. The plan was. The main selling point of the Badlands guitars, besides trying to offer something unique, was the disclosure of every component and where it came from. That was the needle I was trying to move. They were very aware of this by way of Badlands, which is. I saw this as an opportunity. Look, everything I do with a company, I try to try to figure out how to make that as an opportunity for what I do here. That makes perfect sense, I think. Not financially. Notice I'm not saying financial, I'm saying opportunity. So for instance, if I can work with a company and go to their factory. That's going to benefit us here because I can share that with you guys. You know, now that I've had a signature guitar for many years, I could tell you all about signature guitars. No one's asked. But if you want to know how people are compensated, how it works, what decisions are made, what you can and cannot do, what I can say and not say, what a company can say and not say, I'm more versed into it than the people who pull it from their ass. Constantly on YouTube, constantly. I've heard now in the last month, I've heard three different people explain a signature deal. They have never. They have no idea how it works because they haven't negotiated one. I've negotiated not only to have one. I've negotiated for companies for somebody to have one with a company. I've been on both sides of that fence, so I know what they get paid out. And I know, generally speaking, I can't know everybody's business, but I can know you what. I can tell you what somebody agreed to and what I agreed to. So that's insightful. Maybe we'll discuss that one day. The point is, is back with Badlands, when they came to me with the idea that they want to make this USA made guitar and they want to do something really fun and different and colors, you know, and paint jobs. One of the things I'll show you. This is what I did is. And you know it. Did it move the needle? No, because there was. There's a reason why. So let me go here. Go to it. Okay, Give me a second, guys. Takes me a second to fail it. And remember, I'm looking on right now. They could have took away what I did, And they might have. They might have ditched it. Yeah, because I don't see it. Let me try something. Hold on. One last try. Yeah, I don't see it. So maybe they took it away. Let me try one more thing. Huh? Oh, here it is. I found it. Or at least I think about it. Right here. Let's try this. Okay, so. First Honda. You know, I think I. I'm doing off memory, guys. Don't kill me. Okay. When I bought my first Honda, I pretty sure it said, like, body made in, like, Arkansas. And then it was like, engine made in Japan, transmission made in, like, somewhere else in the US And I was like, oh, that's cool. And then, like, my current Honda, it's pretty much mostly made in the US And. Oh, you know, think of this. I had a. I've owned a bunch Of Hondas. One Honda was made partly in Canada and part of the US and partly Japan. This one is the most main USA Honda I've ever owned. The current one I have. And I thought it was cool. Truth. So I thought, oh, let's do that. And I thought maybe that would put pressure on the industry to kind of do that. What I learned, okay, is most of, most of the companies don't. They. They have suppliers and the suppliers don't know. It became this, this badlands when they were doing this. They can tell you this. If you want to talk to them. They will tell you that. The. It's really difficult to get anyone to disclose where they're getting it from. So yeah, if you bought it and you, okay, when you, when you buy something you, you can't. I'm basically, what I'm trying to say is like I build a guitar in the USA and I buy a bridge from Godo and it says made in Japan. You're like, okay, so that part is made in Japan. Then I want to get fret wire. The fret wire is usually made in the USA or made Japan. But maybe I go to the fretwire company, go, where do you get your wire from? From? And they're like, they don't know. It's just like I said, it's really, really tricky. And when you make pickups, like I've made pickups for years, sometimes just asking common questions about raw materials and pickups is almost impossible. The. The manufacturer that's making the part, when you contact them, they just don't know. The, they just don't know. So. So yeah, it's tricky. It's all, it's all, you know. But like I said, I think better informed consumers are, as always, a better situation. All right, let's wrap this show up. Let's. We probably got stuff to do this weekend. What are we going to do? Let's. Let me refresh, make sure I haven't missed anything. I'm going to see what Amanda grabbed for me and let's try to do one more. Interesting. Okay. Beer. The. The sign on is beer. That's their name. Beer. Like B E R. Anyways, it says thoughts on Guild. I have a. I have an S200 and I love it. I owned a bunch of Guilds and I love them, especially Guild's 12 strings. I still till this day think it's one of the best 12 string guitars ever. You know, Guild was a thing because I was a dealer when Fender had Guild and that's not even Necessarily known as the best guild by far. You know, obviously, you know, Fender acquired Guild, and then now a guild is owned by another company. But when Fender offshot Guild, I lost it as a dealer. So we lost the guild line. And that was where I lost a connection with the brand. Does it make sense? I didn't. I didn't have it away, but. So that's why I said Guild is another brand where it's like kind of like what I talk about, Jackson. Like, which guild are we talking about? There's three different guilds, and I don't know which one, but they're another one I would like to see on the channel. The. The. Well, since it's the end of the show, I'll give you the end of the show. Announcements were cool for 2026. There's a lot of new changes coming in 2026 this year. For 2025, we spent the majority of our time, focus and money on improving the content by the, you know, the scorecards, the new cameras. The new cameras, you know, editing process, the increasing information per video that you get, you know, while compressing the video so the videos are technically shorter but have more information than they ever had before. That was where we focused, you know, kind of how can we refine the process to make something better for you guys? That's ultimately the goal. So I want to thank the patrons, the channel members, all of you guys subscribe, all that stuff for that. The other thing we did was we also consciously brought down the amount of sponsored videos that we had this year and the type of sponsorship, you know, because there's obviously multiple times the sponsorship, the two biggest being they supply product. Either they give it to you or loan it to you, or they pay you. And essentially all of it is a form of payment. But we're talking about there's cold hard cash payment and then there's free product payment, and then there's loaning your product and, you know, and we were able to. To push that down a little bit, but also refine to the most raw type, which is just product. And 2026 will be even less sponsored content than before because again, we only do. I only do so many videos a year. Whether you guys realize it or not doesn't really matter to me, it does. Probably doesn't matter to you, but that's how many I do. So when I decide to take less. Well, not take less. Monsters, basically, when I only do so many videos, it's not like if a company reached out tomorrow and said, hey, we'll Pay you to do a video, I'll do another video on top of what I'm going to do. Just make sense. And what I'm basically trying to say is we've, we're calendaring out the videos I want to do for the year. So that's how we know we're gonna have less sponsorship videos in 2026. Because a lot of the videos are just videos I think you guys want to see. Again, I'm just trying to focus. The other thing that I want to tell you that's really interesting about 2026 and because I want to end on a positive note when I can, is the average view video of a know your gear video went from in 2024 from 38,000 views per video. That was the average because we had some 10,000 view videos and to 98,000 views per video for the year. That's not total for the channel for Lifetime, that's just for this year. So we doubled our average view durations views this year and coincidentally that was from non sponsored content. So obviously the more stuff we did that wasn't heavily sponsored, the more people engaged with it. And I just want to thank you for that. And I, I want to thank. You know who I'd like to thank? I'd like to thank my wife a lot for that because not only did she help me do that, but she was supportive in the idea because you know that's, I can tell you right now, you could triple, you could quadruple your views. You're not going to make on YouTube what a company would have gave you to sponsor video. So. But ultimately better content, dude, I'm not going to complain. So I want to thank you guys all for that. I hope you guys have a fantastic weekend. Something fun. I should have mentioned at the beginning of the video because I'm the idiot and I didn't do it. I'm doing a. You know how we did a live pedal board build. I'm doing a live 1980s rack mount build on the other channel. I'll put a link to that. I think I'm going to try and do it tomorrow, if not Sunday, definitely by Sunday. So I'm going to do a live rack mount build and then demo it live and everything. And I'm really excited about that. So I want to. So just look for that on the second channel. If you haven't subscribed to second channel you could, you could check it out if you want. And on that note, I want to thank you all for your time to the next time. Know your gear. If you're learning something or having a good time, don't forget you can subscribe for free and help this channel. Or for $10 a month, you can join me on Patreon for live clinics where you can ask questions every single week.