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Know your 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. What are we at? 436. 436. I hope everybody had a fantastic, fantastic week. We have a lot to talk about. I got flooded with a lot of emails. In fact, they started happening last Friday on the show. So let me tell you what happened last Friday on the show. Before the walk and the new bike or new scooter and new boot. I was getting lots of chimes on my phone and I was. Sometimes when I get that many, I stop and, and, and check it on the show. But I kind of, kind of saw what it was and then I was like, oh, I don't want to, I don't want to talk about on the live show last week. So I'm going to tell you what happened and then we will to answer people's questions that had the questions for me. So what I got told by several friends on Friday was that Paul R.E. smith guitars had done some layoffs. And I'm going to just tell you what I heard and I'm going to tell you what I'm going to. So the official. I got an official response from PRs. Okay, so basically what what I was told was. And this is all hypothetical, it's sure kind of be hypothetical. It's just what I was told by friends. Okay. They said that there was layoffs and there were 72 employees laid off. There's nothing to confirm how many employees were laid off. And to give you an idea, that could be about 10% of their staff, right? Maybe 10 to 15%. What I will tell you is that I reached out on the official Paul Reed Smith channels. I did not go through my normal channels. As you guys know. I can reach out to people, but I kind of wanted to just get an official statement of either the accuracy or inaccuracy of that. And so I reached out through the official channels. Hold on a second. And they gave me an official response. So let me read the official response and then we'll talk about what this is. Okay, ready? Um, go back one more. Sorry. You know, I should have just had it queued up, but huh, why do I not have it? Oh, here it is. Nope, I still don't have it. Okay, maybe I don't have their official response. I would have swore I got an official response sent to me and now I don't have it. And I didn't think this is gonna be so hard because literally I got an email response to them, but it's not in my. Okay, here it is. I found it. I'm sorry. So a little suspense. Okay, so this official response from Paul Pradesmith Guitars, it says, hello, Philip. We made a limited workforce adjustment to align with our current business needs. This decision, these decisions are never made lightly. We, we provided support resources to those impacted and remain focused on, on our team. The staffing changes should be. Should in no way affect or impact, I should say impact the, our ability to serve our customers with distinction out of respect for everyone involved. We're not sharing further details and it's basically the public relations team. So that's the official response from Paul Reesmith Guitars. So, okay, so the reason why I think this kind of. I got a lot of emails sent to me was I'm. I'm just going to tell you what I feel like. I think it's because on the heels of obviously within the last 30 days, we had GNL guitars furlough their employees, then lay off their employees, then close, then say they're going to get, you know, bought. And then they kind of went dark. And we don't know what's going on with GNL guitars. As far as we know, they're closed forever. It could be possible. Who knows? What I want to tell you about this because again, that's what I know. The official response. I did not reach out to anyone from prs. I don't think they would tell me anything and really actually want to know. I'll tell you what I think, and I think I'm probably going to be pretty close to accurate on this. What, what I think's happening now is if you pay attention to after the guitar boom, right after the guitar boom, there was layoffs from Fender. If you guys remember, Fender laid off employees. That was like in 2023. It sounds about right. Might have been 2024. We can look it up if anyone wants to look up the official when that happened. But it was really when all of a sudden we saw the sales just start coming back down again. Okay, so. And what I want to tell you is, is that this is also what happened before when there was a slowdown in the guitar industry back in 2008. And what happened was we saw Fender reduce force and then Gibson at that time, Gibson then reduced their employees and then PRs followed suit probably about a year or two later. Again, seems to be the same kind of logic again about a year or Two later. Again, PRS is kind of adjusting. And so I think we've been talking about it on this channel for months, if not years, about the fact that this is, we're adjusting back down to the normal markets. Whether the markets get worse. I mean that's always a discussion to have at another time, but we definitely are not having. Oh, so somebody said 2022. So that. Think of this. The Fender did it in 2022. So PRS was able to hold back for three years. And that makes sense because again, they're a smaller company for sure and they can try to kind of keep their employees, you know, going along. I think that you're going to see an adjustment. What I notice when I look out there, when I say look out there, you know, in, in, in stores, first of all is, and when I go online on Reverb in places, you see a glut of guitars all of a sudden. And that's kind of what we talked about. There's just a lot. And this is what has to happen. They have to slow down how many guitars they make. Now before you guys think this total dim and gloom, keep in mind that when stuff like this happens, although it's, it's horrible for the employees and my heart always goes out to them because again, and we're all just the workers out here, so it's really who we get affected by it, you know. But what I will tell you is when they do these reductions, one of the things they're doing is reducing how many guitars they get, they build. Therefore you're not going to see the guitars kind of rock bottom price out again, you know, and I know that sounds silly, okay? But I'm just going to give you some, some thoughts that goes unintuitively to most guitar players that are out there that like, you know, that like to buy guitars like me. A lot of times people get excited when the prices fall on in the guitar industry, right? You know, hey, I could pick up a Strat for half of what they were going for. That's a great news for you. However, at some point what happens is guitar players live in a special little bubble of the world where the things they buy still have value. And that belief in that value makes us be a little bit more risky with our wallets. Like a perfect example, you know, you could buy yourself a 2500 dollar TV or $1000 TV or a $500 TV and it's worth nothing. It doesn't matter which one I just said. Whichever one I just said is worth Nothing as soon as you buy it. So you know, when you make that purchase, you're like, okay, I want to make sure I'm happy because that's my money. It's harder and it's gone. But when you buy a 500 or thousand dollars, $2,500 guitar, everyone knows worst case, it's worth half. So yeah, you're losing money, but you don't lose the whole thing. You can always get some of it back if you change your mind later. And so when the prices fall really bad, which we've seen this before, you see the. It actually starts like a panic. And the people don't buy as much. The guitar players don't want to buy as much. And I don't see that right now. The prices seem pretty firm. And this is how companies adjust to keep those prices firm, which will keep you buying. Like I said, it seems totally unintuitive, right? You're like, wait a minute. If the prices stay high, I don't want to buy high. Phil, they're not going to. I'm not going to buy. But I'm telling you guys, because I've been through this. When the prices get too low, then no one buys. It's just no one. Everybody gets freaked out. And plus then no one can sell to buy. And that's a bigger problem. You know, no one wants to buy a guitar for a thousand dollars and then say, okay, it's only worth $200. How am I gonna. And then put that $200 tied towards another thousand dollar guitar. It just doesn't work that way. So ZZ says he's seeing tops, tons of drops. I am too. In fact, I almost. I've told you this before. I'm almost like getting annoyed on Reverb anytime I look any. I'm not making this up. Look, while I was. Was booting up the show, talking to you guys, I just got a message from Reverb about a deal. Let's see what. I'm just curious. Let's see what the deal is that somebody sent me. I got an offer and it's not even. I'm not even looking for anything, so I don't. Okay, offers. Two. Okay. I don't know what that is. Oh, I just got an offer for two things. So you guys know. There you go. Two things I just got an offer for. Okay. One was a little older. So this one was because. Because I can tell by how many hours I have left. So J Rocket Audio. I was looking at the PXO pedal by the way they're 349. I was looking at one and I saw one for 299. I was like, oh, you know, 299. Maybe I'll buy that pedal. And then before I could even click on that deal, which I think was Gear Junkies, which is Sweetwater's reverb store, before I could even click on 299, I was like, oh, maybe I'll do it for 299. I got a offer for 279 from Pitbull Audio. And then I'm pretty sure I got another offer too. And then I just happened to graze my eyes. I wish I was kidding. I'm not on an Ernie ball. Music Man Majesty 7 in this crazy. I was really just looking at the color. Let me show you the color. It's pretty crazy. I was just looking at the color. Oh, now it's not showing me. Here it is. Boy, how many? Why does everything take 10. There you go. For those that can see. Look at that. So I was looking at a car going, oh, that's crazy. And. And I just got an offer. And okay, so this guitar is crazy expensive, but so the guitar is $5,700. I'm really curious now, what's this offer? Because this offer is 47. So $1,000 off. So basically almost 20%, right? 15. 15%. I guess so. 15%. So anyway, so like I said, we know that there's deals to be had out there. The reason I tell you all that is, you know, it's really easy, especially for YouTubers and anybody, you know, has a platform or a podcast to go, oh, doom and gloom, you know, because it's going to get me clicks. Hey, the world's crashing. But I don't think this is. I think that PR being very forthcoming with saying this is a realignment. I think a lot of companies been attritioning out some employees in real time for the last couple years as well. I see it. There's just gonna be less. There's less market share out there. And then this is the last thing. This is a speech. I wish somebody would have told me. I wish somebody would have told me this when I had my business in the 2008 recession. It's a great analogy. So I'm gonna give it to you. When you give a kid $10 and tell him, go into the corner store and get candy, he's going to come out with 10 candy bars. Okay? This is important for those that are watching this, that are businesses right now. I want you to think about this. I want you all to really hear this. If you didn't tell that if you. Next time you give that kid only $5, he'll go in and he'll get only five candy bars this time, right? So half as many candy bars. And then the next time, if you give that kid $1, he'll go in and pick his favorite candy bar. He'll only get one. It'll be his favorite. But here's what's guaranteed in all three of those scenarios. He bought his favorite candy bar. And so the point of this story is in a boom market, everyone gets to sell a candy bar. In a softer market, half of us get to sell a candy bar. And as long as you make the best candy bar, you're always going to win. So I. That's. I hope people take that to heart when it comes to. When the market slow down, when it comes to businesses and stuff, then we're going to segue this into. Into the. Well, you know what? Let me hold off on the next section. Let's. Let's talk about what you guys want to say. Anything response to that. Let's see if, if you guys say anything on that. Any. Any concerns, any thoughts. And looks like you said everybody's basically saying the same things. We're super happy. We can't wait to buy more guitars this weekend. I'm just kidding. I bought a guitar. Ironically. I did buy a guitar, but I gotta tell you, the guitar was 269. So it was not the super expensive guitar purchase for sure. But I'm hoping to have the guitar for next Friday's guitar of the week. I'm really excited about it for the Halloween edition. So anyone want to guess if it's a Halloween theme guitar? Because it is. All right, Mark wants to know. Hey, Phil, did you take advantage of the 50% off the J. JHS Legends of Fuzz? I did not. So if you guys didn't hear, I guess JHS did a 50% off sale on this fuzz pedal and they sold like 3,000 in like an hour or something like that. Two hours. And, and yeah, that's pretty crazy. No, I wasn't in the market for a fuzz. I've been buying pedals lately, but obviously I was looking at a pxo. But I'm not a fuzz pedal. Wasn't on my thing. Well, let's see. What else do we got? All right. Oh, I don't know. Somebody just ask question. I just don't know it. All right. Let's, let's grab some next subjects and questions. So this is the. Nope, go. Next one. Okay, here we go. Says Phil. Ever play a ratio Supro guitar guitar? Bought one a few months ago and it's pretty cool. I have played some of the Supro ratio guitars. Not officially like as a deep dive or anything that. But I picked them up and played them. I always like their guitars for sure. I like their amps, I like Supro. I think they're a cool company. So I'm a fan. But not as a formal deep dive. Maybe it'd be nice to add that to the Deep Dive series. Do you know that Floyd Wait. Do you know that Floyd Rose are now being made in North Carolina? Yes, I do. I was going to ask you if you know why the Floyd Rose website has most of its products sold out and not being replenished. So they're in. Okay. So yes, Floyd Rose is now making a bridge in the US in North Carolina. And if they're out of stock, here is my guess, My guess is they're out of stock because they had to tool that facility up and get those going. And I'm sure there was a time where they were just not making any high end Floyd Roses. So as you guys know, Floyd Rose is really like there was the inexpensive models, like the, you know, what is it, the Floyd Rose special. And then they make a slightly better one, a Korean made one that has better posts and it's just a little bit higher quality called The Floyd rose 1000. And then of course everybody kind of knew the German Schaller. The Schaller Floyd Roses were the best bridges. What happened is during COVID during that time, something happened in the. And there was a lot of scuttlebutt about the quality of the Schaller bridges not being very good or having issues, all kinds of stuff. I heard thousands of rumors. Really none of those rumors matter. Here's why. Because it ended in result with Floyd Rose retooling and building Floyd Roses back in the United States again. So that's kind of what happened. So my guess is doing that they probably had a period where they went because you understand we're not the only ones just buying a Floyd Rose. The manufacturers are buying these Floyd Roses and they need them too. And they're waiting too. So I would imagine it's going to be tough. This, this, this is really common when a parts company is back ordered, especially something like a high end bridge like that because you know, you know they're not making hundreds of Thousands? I don't think so. I wouldn't think they were making hundreds of thousands, but they could be. So they just got to get that. I'm sure they got to get that all dialed in. That is my guess. But it's. I'll find out if it's not, says Phil. Hey, have her used the oxid to clean nickel hardware or pickup covers as a tarnish or is oxidation? I have not. AI says it's safe, but I'm too scared to try. Well, how could you not trust AI? What could go wrong? What could go wrong? Just kidding. I'm making jokes. I, I. But I've never tried it as a cleaner. So you know, so I don't know. I'll tell you what I'll do. I have to look. I will look. I'm pretty sure I have some nickel hardware. I know I have chrome hardware, but I gotta find some nickel hardware this weekend I will find a piece of nickel hardware. I will clean it with the oxit and I will report back next week. I'll have to remember to do that covers gonna write it down, but I don't have a thing and obviously I can't get up right now. Oh, I do. I hear this. Okay, I'm sorry. I do have it. I was gonna say I have to have this. Sorry guys. Unfortunately if I don't write this down, it's not going to be done clean hardware anyway. So I'll do, I'll do the hardware clean, which is great because I'll do it this weekend for you and then I'll show you on Friday what happened to it. So. And which deoxycana used. So if that helps, we'll, we'll give that a try. That should be fun. It says Rob says hey Phil, my new to me 60s origin jazz master has threaded barrel saddles. It seems like it could break the thinner strings. Is this not a worry? I don't think it's a worry. I don't know if I would absolutely worry about that. No. Nope. First of all, the string should go in between those threading those threading pieces. And the only thing is sometimes, you know, over time, you know, they get little barbs and stuff in the metal that can cut into the string. But here's the easy part. If you're not snapping strings on a regular, then you don't have any issues anyways. But I don' no issues particularly with that bridge, but especially if you're not having any issues, then don't worry about it because it's, you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it kind of logic. It's not acting up. It and you'll know when it will start acting up. Nathan says. Hey, Phil. Love the show. On an old podcast, you mentioned having several Northern Lights pickups, but not in match sets. Any chance I could buy one of the HSS delos for our oh for the HSS Dello build. Would it pair well with the beryllium single wheels? Yeah, I believe it would. I would believe so. The answer is yes. I will get that again. We'll get that situated for you, Nathaniel. What I would do is can you email the ask at Ask know your gear podcast? The email contact address. It's. What is it? Ask know your gear as it just ask know your gear duck@gmail.com. it's ask know your gear gmail.com. if you send that message, that will come to Sean and I and we will get you all squared away on that. I do have a new video and there'll be some Northern Lights in that video too. So you'll kind of see what I'm doing with those two. Because I've been putting. Obviously, I've been putting some in some other guitars as I do. Shadow Animal says, hey, I just received an album of the original music made by the PRS villa, a 60 Silvertone amp. Wait, what? Bella, I just really. Oh, I just released an album of original music. Why am I reading this wrong? I apologize. Shadow Animal, it says of original music that was made with a purest Vella, a 60s silver tone amp, and. And my fractal audio. Thanks for the gear advice over the years. It feels great to use my gear to create. I absolutely. That's my absolute favorite is to. To actually play music. Um, I play music a lot. I record a lot. I don't. You know, it's funny. It's like. It's like, you know, I'm one of those people. I record all the time. I was recording a lot today. I just record. I come up with ideas. I record it and do it. I just enjoy it. I don't really need to perform in front of people or play anything in front of people, but I do need this feeling of playing. I need to play something. So. So I'm glad you made record. That's exciting. Cyber says new guitar day 59 M2N LP VOS R9. That's a lot of letters, man. This is flipped 2 Back to the Future epiphones for 4K profit went to GC and the R9 on the clearance was $4200 win. Yeah, I would imagine a lot of those back to the futures. If you guys didn't know, they released the $20,000 back to the futures. So they did 80 the $20,000 Gibson back to the future guitars. And then I believe they did 1985 of the epiphones. I don't remember what they were going for, but, I mean, this is kind of the new strategy is companies kind of want stuff to be bought and flipped. And if you don't believe that there's a great video, I'll try and find it and link it on YouTube explaining how many industries, not just the guitar industry, how many manufacturers are really focused now on making unobtainable product that people buy and flip for more money. And then what happens is it causes, like, all this frenzy buying. And we see it a lot now. And all I can tell you guys is, you know, hey, it's your money. Do what you want with it. But I never do that stuff. I don't flip or I don't buy that stuff either for that reason. Yeah. Susan says the Gibson one sold out immediately for $20,000. And see, what people don't understand is, like, you know, when people go, you know, who buys these guitars? Well, obviously There's. There's. There's 20. There's 88 rich people on the planet Earth. So they can buy a guitar, but a lot of people buy it to flip it. It's. It's built in market, it's there again, kind of like the Epphone bought to literally flip. So it's just a thing now. It's happened to every element out there, so of course it's gonna happen to guitars as well. It's not my most exciting subject to talk about, but what I will tell you is I look at all that stuff as more like memorabilia and less like actual guitars. Nathaniel says, hey, he sent his super chat for the new Boot beer fund. I've had two of those new boots and scooters. I feel for you. You know, what's great is, man, is the scooter is fantastic. I was. I was throttling around the house. It's not electric or anything. I was just kind of, you know, you know, pushing with my leg, and I was having a good old time. And I told Sean, I go, I kind of feel bad because she, you know, she has to help me get my coffee and do all this stuff, you know, for the first couple days. And I said, here I am. I'm like, having a ball I'm just scooting around the house and my cool new, my cool new bike. It was kind of fun. So let's see. So this is a question that says, hey, does new relic guitars make non musicians think non musicians? So he's talking about just fans or consumers of music, but not the actual guitar players and musicians says, wow, that guitarist must be great. Like seeing Steve Ray Vaughan in his Strat with the decades of worth playing, you know, I don't think so. What it definitely is is people, the way they dress, look, the way you dress on stage, the way you look on stage and the way in the type of guitar you play does have an effect. It has a visual effect of what people think they're going to see. Okay, so I mean think about this. Just put it in perspective. You walk into a place, you know, a bar or somewhere. You walk into a club and there's a band on the stage and they're all wearing spandex, leopard spandex. And, and they have long hair and they have fluorescent pink T shirts on or you know, whatever spandex shirts on. And they'll have, you know like a BC rich warlock in fluorescent pink. And then they start playing a blue set. You'd be like, that's kind of weird, right? So there is a little bit of. You kind of align that guitars do have that effect. One thing I can tell you to, to kind of give that credibility is over the years, millions and millions of demo views that I've done, which is why I kind of learned this to be true, is I will sometimes play the same riffs through, through tons of videos. You know, I'll just take this, this thing that I play and I'll play it through almost the same amp and I'll play it through a different looking guitar and the comments will change about that riff. In other words, like if I take a riff that I play and I played on that Gibson Les Paul, then I play the same riff on that sparkly Charvel. Somebody will say, man, that was a really cool 80s riff, Phil. And then somebody go, wow, I loved your blues riff, Phil. And I always think it's funny. I'm like, wow, it's kind of funny. I played the same tone, same amp, but the just visuals. So over the time you kind of learned that visuals are a big part of how people consume things. You know, it's a, it's a big, big deal. Happy good things says hey, fixing and modding rather than buying. I bought a soldering iron. That's awesome. Good for you replacing single coil pickups for the first time, it was okay. But coil split humbucker is hard, sure. But yes, modding instruments and getting a soldering iron is. I mean look, tools are great investments now, especially since guitars. You know, think about this. The thing that makes a guitar great and the thing that makes a guitar pretty good in a factory sense is not a whole lot of end of it effort. In other words, you know, you can take a guitar that's pretty good and make it amazing by just finishing some of the things that they just didn't do in the factory to get this, the guitar done and get out that, that way. That's a good segue to talk about the, the Cortek video. So if you guys didn't see, I did the Cortex factory video and I released that it got half a million views in Basically the first 48 hours. A little bit over 40 like 50 hours. It got 50 million or 50 500,000 views, which is pretty crazy. So it's very likely it will hit 5001000 views. Had to go for the joke anyways. So yeah, so it's over 500,000 views. So I want to thank you guys for that. You know, that was really, really cool. And what was the best part ever was what. And I just want to tell you this is kind of cool because this never, this has never really happened. Like this court only requested three minor changes to the video, to the original video that was presented to them. And I'm going to tell you what the changes are. So. Because I don't. Because it's not going to matter because I'm not going to tell you, you'll understand. They asked me to remove the visuals from two of the buildings that distinguished what two manufacturers were there because those manufacturers did not give us a sign off to show their guitars. So. So that's it. So two. So that's it. You didn't see. You know, it's not the buildings you didn't see and the, the stuff you just didn't see the signage. So you didn't see the brand's names. And so I removed two brands names from the video and in one scene that guitar was being worked on. They wanted me to only show the back of the guitar, not the front. And I don't even know why. I assumed it could be because it's a brand, but it also could have been because it's not out yet. So they basically unrestricted let me put out everything I wanted to publish, which was, which was very cool. So I just Want to thank you guys for that. I hope you guys enjoyed the video. I was, it was the video I was hoping we would get to see. You know, is just how does it work? It all started, I'll tell you a funny thing and then I'll move on. But I gotta tell you how this all started in my head was I did an interview with Ola Strandberg and if you saw the video, I used a cut from that podcast and he was saying why he uses Cortec guitars and to build his guitars. And then what happened was Cortek reached out to me after that interview and said, can we take a clip from your podcast and put it in our 30 30. They sent me a cup 30 year at PT Corp. Their 30th anniversary. They sent me a nice little gift right this is a while back. And they said, hey, can we use the clip of Ola Strandberg talking about us for a like a montage video for our 30th anniversary? And I said sure. And then in passing, in just a quick communication with them, I said, oh, I'd love to come out to the factory. I said, I hear it's really big. And they said, we do about 1.2 to 1.3 million guitars a year. And I just couldn't unhear that. I would go to sleep at night, I'm not exaggerating. And I would think. And I would lie in bed and think, how do you make a million guitars? And just to give you a reference, that's like 900,000 more guitars than Fenders Factory, okay? So I was like, right, Like I'm the biggest factory I've ever been to until PT Court was the Fender factory. I'm like, that's insane. So anyways, I was. I couldn't stop thinking about it. And all I wanted to know is one thing. And I solved that and I was able to share that with you, which is this. I just want to know how you make a million guitars. You know, to give you reference. A company like Paul Reed Smith Guitars. I don't know their official numbers, but I'll give you a guess and it's going to get you in the same. Same. I'm going to. I'm going to say this, this is my guess. And I'm. I'm going to round it up. I'm going to put it as high as I think they make. I'm talking about USA miguitars in the PRS facility. Here is my guess. 36,000. That's my guess. About 3,000amonth. That's my guess. They could be. We could even go a little higher than that. So here's why I tell you, and I want to tell you where my guests came from. In 2009, when I was in their factory, they. They were shooting for 1400, 1500 guitars a month. So a month. And that was 2009 was before S2 guitars. So they didn't have that production line in there. So I'm just kind of like, oh, well, maybe they doubled or tripled that. If they tripled that, let's go. You. You understand what I'm saying? Like, Pierce is not making like a hundred thousand guitars a year out of that factory here in the US and so, same thing. When you look at Gibson, it's pretty big, but it ain't no million guitars. And same offender. It's not. So it was really crazy. So I wanted to know how you make a million guitars. And if you watch that video, I think we. Well, I know why. I know how they do it. It's not a factory that makes a Million, guitars. It's 10 factories making guitars and 10 factories. So think about this. It just happens to be. They're all on the same. The campus. So it'd be like saying, okay, what if Gibson, Fender, you know, Heritage PRs. Rickenbacker and Martin, just to name a few, were all in the same compound, right? And then ironically owned by the same company, but also in the same compound. That's kind of how it looks. So. And then Brian says, a million seems like a lot. It is a lot. In fact, I asked them a question, and they don't have the official answer, but I asked them when I was there, I asked them, I said, is this the largest guitar factory in the world? I said, I imagine the Chinese factories have to be bigger. And they said, no. They said that collectively, Chinese manufacturers are making a lot more guitars, but not in any one designated spot. As far as they know. They might be the biggest manufacturer of one. You know, one brand of like company, like Court, but. But still pretty crazy. That's. That's a pretty crazy thing. This is from the Joe Wince project. Hey, Joe, what's up? He's got a great channel. We talked about him a couple weeks ago. Let's see what his question is. He says, hey, thank you so much for the shout out of my channel the other week, my friend. I don't know how you came across it. Oh, I can tell you that. But I'm very thankful that you did. I hope you have a wonderful day and God Bless my friend. So the Joe Wins project. How I came across his channel was. I'm not going to tell you. I'm going to tell you. I just. I know it's a bad idea. All right, here's why. Joe, I watched your channel. Let me just tell you why I watched it, not how I found it. Okay, I will tell you, but just let me get this out first. I watched your channel because you were doing a store. You and Ralph were going through stores, and I was looking for anything in my feeds that wasn't, you know, politics or negative or something, you know, so I'm just looking for guitar content all the time, you know, like everybody else. And. And I consume so much guitar content sometimes that I don't have anything else to consume other than the negative stuff that's out there that's just constantly in your feeds. And so I was like, oh, I watched this video, and then it was you and Ralph going through a store. And I was like, oh, this is really cool. And then I. I watched you go through another store, and I just kept watching you go through the store tours, and I thought, it's really cool, especially since you live mostly, like, on the eastern side of the country, and there's a lot more stores, you know, next to each other here in the West Coast. The stores are really spread out. So it was really cool to see so many stores in a short period of time. Like, in other words, you've hit a lot of stores. You might not feel that way, but I was like, one after another, another, you know, watching these videos. Okay, this is why I don't want. I didn't want to tell you this because not you, Joe. I just don't want to tell anybody else. But you're going to know this. When people mention you in videos, when they mention your name, when you get to a certain. I don't want to say size of channel, but let's just say if you're talking about me and you're in your videos, YouTube tells me, like, it just says, hey, you've been mentioned in this video, and it gives you this. I have this thing and it gives you, like, data, and it says how many times you're mentioned a month, and. Which is crazy. I don't even want to say that because I think, first of all, you probably wouldn't believe me. But two, it's just so weird to say how many times I mentioned in a video a month on YouTube. Let me put it this way. It's way more than I get in views in A month. So if you know what my monthly views are, just understand I mentioned more than I get monthly views, which is just crazy to comprehend. And so why I'm, I'm telling you that, Joe, is you mentioned me somewhere in a. In a stream, in a live stream. You were talking about me. So of course the system says, hey, you were mentioned in a video. Sometimes you can be tagged in videos. I don't get notified of that too, but just the AI now just kind of says, hey, you were mentioned. Somebody said you. Because remember, everything gets. Did you know, your words get, you know, whatever digitized. And so now I guess the AI can go, hey, it says Philip McKnight in this video, and it doesn't tell me where. So I tend to go and watch a bunch of people who mentioned me in videos because I'm like, oh, what are they talking about? And so, you know, I feel like 99% of the time, and I believe Joe is doing the same thing. They're just mentioning or referencing something that was said here on the podcast or a video I did, like, probably like the Cortex video. Like, hey, did you see Film ignites cortex video? And that's all they really say about me. I'm like, oh, okay. But. But they're usually giving me some kind of shout out or, or, you know, credit for the reference. So. So what? Anyways, Joe, you mentioned me. So then I watched what you. You said, and I was like, oh, okay. And then understand, now that I've clicked on it, you're in my feed. So the next video that came in my feed was the store. I'm trying to remember which one because I've watched so many now of the. Of the store videos, I want to say the first one I watched was the first store. I can tell you, I hear. You know what? I can guess. But I'll just tell you for. For sure so you don't have to. So we don't have to keep it in suspense. And then everybody else can check out that one too. Okay, let me go to. I got to go to my YouTube account because it's in my histories. I don't know why I just put an S at the histories. Histories. Okay, so the very first one I ever watched was scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. I apologize. So it's been a while because I've watched a bunch since then. Oh, interesting. It was Lonely Hound Guitar Co. And Greenville, South Carolina. And then interesting enough, Joe, you ended up becoming a discussion. By the way, the one I enjoyed next was the revisiting Cornerstone Christian And Music Supply in Easley, South Carolina. And so. And then I. I'm just gonna read off all the ones I did. And then I watched visiting Cornerstone Christian and Music Supply in East. East Easley, South Carolina. And then I watched. I'll just. I can keep going. I watched a ton of these. Just one after another after another. I'm scrolling now. And the next. Then the next one was visiting Centro in Greenville. Greenville, South Carolina. And then I watched what happened to Midtown Music? And then I watched Visiting Midtown Music in Easley, South Carolina. And then I watched Visiting. I pick. Pickle. Net. Picknell. Picknell Music in Greenville, South Carolina. And then I watched Visiting Guitar center in Charleston, South Carolina. And then I'm scrolling through, you know, going through. And then I watched. This could get boring if I just keep scrolling, just telling. Oh. Then I watched visiting east side Guitars and Drums in Greenville, South Carolina. And that looked like where I chilled out for a minute. And then I started watching other stuff. Okay, so I enjoyed them very much. I did watch. It's not in my history list, but I know for a fact I watched the one where you guys were not allowed to film the one in music and Arts. And I thought that was funny because. Joe, here's what I'm gonna tell you, because I know something that's funny is. And why we were discussing this, you had said somewhere in your content, you know, something to the effect of, like, if you get a little bigger, you know, if your channel gets a little bigger, you know, like, stores will invite you. And I have bad news. That's not how any of this works. I have 440,000 subscribers. Whatever. 200 million views, whatever the hell that is. I don't even know anymore. All the things. All the things. You know, I got a little plaque thing, whatever. There. Look at that. It's like a little stupid thing that they send email. It's not stupid. But you understand, I got a thing. None of that matters. I still have to explain to companies every single day, what is YouTube? What do I do on YouTube? Why do I want. Why. Why do I want to come visit them? Why would they let me visit them? Deal with it all the time. It took Me, Marty Schwartz, 3 million subscriber channel. Me and Marty couldn't convince Guitar center to let us film in their store. Couldn't do it. Couldn't do it. Finally, we did. I did. I filmed in a Guitar Center. But I'm just saying. I just. I'm telling you that not to discourage you. I just want you to know it's a long hard road and you'll be doing it forever. And look, I got told by a bunch of people, you know, friends of mine, like, hey, it's amazing you went to Indonesia, went to Cortech. That was so cool they invited you. I'm like, look, it was great that they let me go. They didn't invite me. It was years of just constant pushing and trying to figure out the way to get, to get that to work. It's still not an easy task. No one's knocking down my door every day going, hey, we'd love you to do content for us. I'm still fighting for content every day. So I tell you that and all the people that are watching that, is that not to discourage you at all. I just need, I need, you need to understand that it doesn't get handed to you ever at any point. The, you know, the only thing that happens that's important is if you can keep going and you can get. Figure out the thing that gets your channel doing well, you can start driving enough revenue that makes it easier for you to afford things. To give you, to give you an example, just to give you an idea, the Cortex video has half a million views and the PRSS SE video has 135,000 views. Those two videos, right? That's pretty impressive. And Cortec even helped and so did PRs Purass and Cortec help helped with the costs of me going there. Right? So in other words, they obviously didn't pay me but they helped with the cost of going to Indonesian back. We, we shared cost in this and I don't know if I'm even break even. I mean I'm happy I made the video and I think it's amazing and I'm, I'm feel blessed that I can break even almost. And, and if I do. And when I say break even, I just want to be clear. We're not even talking about the fact that I was. It was seven days of travel, working, walking, you know, sleeping, you name it. I'm not even trying to pay myself for my time. I'm just trying to take what I paid for rental cars or hotels or. I don't know what to explain this. I don't know if I didn't tell anybody this stuff to people to travel a lot. I didn't know about this but you know, I had eight hour layovers and in airports and so I paid like $80 for the day to go stay in a, like have a nice seat and be able to, you know, have food and stuff. So anyways, I'm just telling you, just you're doing a great job. Keep pushing. And I know it's not gonna get easier, but it will start to make more sense. That's my two cents on that. And thank you for the super chat. I appreciate that. And I'll keep watching. So, you know, and you guys check out his channel. Not because it's great channel, that's a good reason. But just watch those store tours, they're freaking great. I don't think you understand how hard it is if you watch his channel, you'll see what he's saying. He's absolutely telling you the truth. That it's. In 2025, it's, you're still talking to music stores, you're still talking to manufacturers and saying, I would like to do free marketing for you. And they're like, why not? Why? Like they don't trust you. Like, why would we do this? What will we. Why would we want you to do this? Give you free marketing? I don't know why anyone would give you free marketing. I don't know what's wrong with us. We're so, we're just, we're not, I'm not gonna say we're dumb. We're just, we just love what we do. Happy good thing says, hey, fixing and modding. Oh, you already read this. So let's go to a next, next subject then. Here's the next subject. The next subject is Steve. I want to know any thoughts on the new Korn K7 signature guitars. So, no, not really. I think it was a good time to re up, you know, and change the Corn guitars. So the band Korn came out with some new seven string type instruments. And it makes sense to me. I mean, it was good timing. I saw the video of them releasing them. I, I have a, an RG 7620 that I call basically my Corn style guitar. Because that's what I play. If I play Corn style. Because I love the band Korn, I'll tell you, I'll tell you a funny story. Let's tell, let's do a funny story. So this is actually a really crazy story. So the band Korn is interesting. If you guys don't know the band Corn, it's spelled with a K and it's got a reverse R. There you go. For those that don't listen to that style of music, the only thing you need to know about Korn is, is that I've seen Corn live more than any other band ever in in any period, I've seen the most. The most live, and for all the weirdest reasons I'm a Korn fan. I'm going to say that I'm a fan of the band for sure, but that's not why I've seen them more than anybody else. The first time I ever saw Corn, their first album hadn't even really hit yet. And I'm going to. So I had. I have a friend. I had a friend. This is in high school. So we're in high school and. Or around that time, right? I don't know if it's high school right after high school, but around that time. So my friend who's into death metal, he's into bands like Morbid Angel. He's into, like, you know, he's just into, like, Slayer, right? Sepultura, he's into stuff like that. Okay. And. And of course, other stuff too. But, you know, a lot of the death metal at the time, speed metal, death metal, thrash, you know, so Anthrax, you know, things like that. And I was not. Let's just say that I was not. And. And at the time, ska had got really huge. You guys remember, ska was like a huge thing at the time. You know, that's when no Doubt was popping, which, you know, I know is not technically a ska band, but you understand, you know, they're popping a lot of ska bands. And where I live, there was a local band called Itsy Bitsy Spiders, and they were freaking amazing. And they used to play ska. And what I loved was, I don't know if I can do it. Let's do it. They used to play a song. They used to do a cover. Hold on, let me turn this off. Hold on. Don't need delay. Anyways, they used to do a cover since we. Since we should. We should do this because Ozzy recently passed. I gotta work it out. Okay, so they used to do a ska version of Iron man. And it would sound like this. It would be like. So the ska singer would sing Iron Iron man, but very ska, like, right? And it would be like, wait, and he. And. And Pageant. Imagine Trumpets and a band orchestra. And I'd be like, I am Iron Man. And it was like a SCA version of Iron Man. Anyways. Itsy Bitsy Spiders. Scott was big. That's all that matters. So my friend says, hey, do you want to go see L7? If you guys don't know who L7 is, you might want to Google it. But also be prepared for it. You're going to Google for It's a. It's a. It's an extreme band there. It's a female band, and it's crazy. And I knew that they, like. This is his taste. Oh, L7. He likes, you know, this kind of music. I'm like, okay, cool. And he says, oh. And there's a band called Korn opening for him. I have no idea why to this day I thought this. But I thought, oh, cool, I like ska. I didn't say that. If I would have said that, I wouldn't have had the problem I had. I thought it. I didn't say it. I thought, oh, cool. But it was like inner monologue. And. And anyways, so I go. I go, okay, let's go. So we go to this bar, and it's just a little bar, and they had a, you know, under 18 show, and they had all the tables and chairs gone, which is like. I thought that was okay. And we walked in, and we're standing there, and Corn opens, right? And the singer comes out and he's playing bagpipes. And I'm thinking, this is a weird bagpipes in a ska band. This is really strange. This is strange, right? And I'm looking at my buddy Brian, like, this is strange, right? Oh, El Dorano. You know how it starts, man? And then all of a sudden, he goes, are you ready? And then everyone loses their shit. And I didn't know what was happening. Remember, I knew something was gonna happen when El Salvin later comes on stage. I was not ready, says Phil was not ready. And they were smashing into me. It was crazy. And I was like, what is going on? And I was like, this is the weirdest, by the way. At this point, I figured out they're not a ska band. I would say that's probably the first time I've. Probably maybe the only time, but definitely the first time I ever went to a band and not realized what I was seeing, I'm gonna see, right? And if you've ever had. I don't know if you've ever had an experience like that where you went to see a band and then the band is not what you thought and the crowd is. It was crazy. So. But here's the funny. By the end of the show, I actually liked Corn. So I was like, oh, I like this band. And then funny enough, I went and saw him again. And then one time, I think it was Ibanez or Ampeg, somebody gave me backstage passes to Corn. And then here's what's funny about Corn. I went to a Meet and greet, backstage pass thing with korn, I was like a vip. They were like, hey, you want to go hang out with Korn and hang backstage? And I'm like, sure. And they gave me these passes, and what I didn't know. And if you guys have never had this experience, let me tell you how it works. You don't get a seat. So if anyone ever goes, hey, I got you some backstage passes, what they're really saying is, hey, I got you into the show, but you don't have anywhere to. You can't be anywhere other than on the stage. And so I got there early to hang out with korn. It was an outdoor event in July in Arizona. It was a hundred bazillion degrees. It was so hot. And Corn never came out of their bus until the last second. They literally came out of the bus to start the show because it was so hot. So we stood there on the side of the stage. It wasn't. And so, you know, it wasn't like they ditched us. There wasn't, like, any promise they were going to hang out with us. It was just, hey, that we're going to be backstage and Corn's backstage and you get to hang out with them. The only problem is they really didn't have a backstage. The backstage was 115 degrees, so they stayed in the bus. So I didn't get to meet Corn. So. And then. And then. And then I went and saw him again. I don't know why. I just, for some reason, just kept seeing Corn all the time. And then they were on a mega tour with a bunch of other bands, and I saw them. So I've seen a lot of Corn. I've seen Corn probably six times. Maybe seven. At least six. Okay, all right, that's. I think we went off the rails a little bit, but it was kind of funny. And good, good time. Good to really relive my moment of when I thought Corn was a ska band. So, you know, I'll tell you what's funny about age and time in life and being comfortable with yourself. You know, I probably never told anybody that for five or ten years that I thought KORN was a Skull. So, you know, I don't want you to think that at that night, I went look at my buddy Brian and said, oh, they're not a Skull band. No, I didn't say anything. I was too. I was too embarrassed. I pretend the whole time like everything that was happening made total sense to me. I was like, mm, this is what happens. This is the Band I thought I was gonna see. So. All right. Okay. Okay, so let's go next. Nope. Somebody ask, have you ever tried Groat guitars before? I have not. I'm planning to buy one from Amazon. Their specs are great, especially fretwork and ball end frat ends. What do you think? I have not tried them. There would be a model I would check out. I really like doing those. Inexpensive guitars are some of the favorite ones to do the video of, but they take the longest. It's just because usually they have a problem. And if they have a problem, if a guitar is a problem, you have a tech ticket, tech tip. And if you have a tech tip that adds about three hours to the. To to of making the content, not the content's length, obviously. So Arnest wants to know, hey Phil, any more details from your trip to court? Love the stories of the culture difference or any other info you may share. Sure. I mean, obviously it was a whirlwind, it was fast. I think, you know, the question of the day is, well, I'll tell you just so you know, because the way it works there was. There's some con, lots of confusion about the Court factory and I think we cleared up a lot of it. Some people I still would like to know, you know, like what brands are made there. What I can tell you is, is this, I'll tell you just what I saw and I saw. So I'm not giving specific details, just giving you brands. I saw, I saw Offender there. I saw Squire there. I saw EVH there. I saw Sterling Music man there. I saw Jackson there. I, I think I saw Charvel there. I'm pretty sure I saw a Charvel there. I saw. What else? Obviously Strandberg, obviously PRs because they were in the SE factory, a lot of cork guitars. But I think one thing that gets confusing to you guys and was confusing to me is, yeah, Ibanez, Ibanez has their own building and then there are multiple buildings. So. And the thing that's confusing to some people is like somebody asked me if I saw GNL there and I did not see any GNL guitars there. But keep in mind that doesn't mean anything just because, you know, they make so many guitars that they can make guitars for like two weeks and then that's the supply of guitars for the year for some company, right? They can make guitars. I mean, think about this. Like, think about how, you know, PRSSE is making 500 guitars a day. Think about somebody like that. Somebody, let's say somebody sells 2,000 guitars a year. PT Court can make 2,000 guitars in a couple weeks and then ship them out. And then you could Visit that factory 10 times in a year and still never see that brand ever. Because they were just in and out in a minute. They don't like parcel them out. They fill a container. And this is where, this is where it was interesting. Is this. The, the interesting part of this business model is it's an absolute change in the way guitars are sold. The way guitars are predominantly sold in, in, in the current market is what they call just in time manufacturing, which we've talked about. In other words, you order it and then they build it. This is definitely a different animal they have to forecast. It's like more like fashion. They have to go, okay, what, what, not only what guitars are people going to buy next quarter or next year or next month, but also what color is gonna be the, you know, like, you know, if you order 50 of the black ones and 50 the white ones and 50 of the red ones, but the red ones sell out and the, and the, and the white ones don't and the black ones do, you know, now you're stuck with the wrong colors, just like fashion. And there's this constant and I believe so. You know, I have a theory and it's just a theory on the PRSS kind of blowing out guitars at 20% off at the end of the year. I think that eventually stops. I don't think that continues. And I don't even think it has a whole lot to do with the market. Obviously it has to do with the market. The market softened, but I think PRs kn knew that. I don't think they walked into 2025 with any kind of delusions that they thought they were going to sell more guitars. Or maybe they are selling more guitars, but not by a huge amount than the previous year. I think that the sell offs at the end of the year for them is them learning. They're learning like we forecasted too many of this wrong color, right? Too much. Because if you go and you look at what has Sweetwater has in stock, yeah, they have deals, but then there's certain colors missing and certain models missing. So I don't think it's going to be a thing every year. I don't think they're going to blow out guitars in the year. I think they'll finally figure out exactly how many guitars they should making of what colors and they'll refine it a little bit better. And then when the market stabilizes a little bit better, then they'll, they'll be able to forecast it ever a little bit better. So. Yeah. Any other funny stories about Cortech the. No, it was, it was just like said it was a whirlwind. You know, I got there, got to the hotel. I don't know if I told you, you get to the hotel and then like there's a dog and like, I don't know if it's sniffing for bombs or weapons, but it's, it goes around your car and smells the car that brings you in and then you go, and then all your, your luggage goes through a scanner like the airport and then you go through a metal detector and then you're in the hotel. So that's how the hotel worked, which was a little like, a little odd. I was like, okay, this is a thing. And then every day at the factory was. I mean, you gotta understand, you saw the size of it. We walked that thing every. Well, every day. We walked it all day for two days. That was a big facility. It was about 90 degrees and 90% humidity. It was rather warm. So I was rather warm. Yeah. Donald says, makes, makes sense why so many manufacturers won't take color chances. Black, white, red again. Yeah, I believe that is absolutely. You're saying it perfectly. I believe that, you know, they try to do shorter runs of something interesting that they know they can sell through, but I don't think they want to be stuck with. Like I said, you know, what's missing in all this is, you know, in the fashion industry, first of all, it's bigger customer market, but also, you know, there's outlet stores so they can take off all this stuff and they can blow it out on outlets. You know, these guitar manufacturers, they have to do what you know, we see, which is they'd have to just discount or the dealers have to take the discount. So it's, it's really crazy. And, but I think obviously that's the future, you know, is they're going to have to do that. Obviously they'll, they'll always do high end guitars, but you know, high end guitars are expensive. I mean everything's expensive. Even now the fast made instruments are expensive. Everything's expensive. I don't know how that's going to change or if it's going to change. So Devin says, hey, the prs Silver sky has to be one of their top sellers. I would say it's, I would say it's absolutely one of their top sellers in the US version and the SE version. I would have to, I would. That's my guess, you know, it's funny is I can't even tell you, you know, because I was obviously there looking around the factory and you think I could go hey, this is what they were mostly making. But unfortunately that wouldn't tell me anything if I told you because when I was there they were mostly making Herman Lees. Obviously because they were gearing up for the Herman Lee launched. So that isn't accurate if I said oh they mostly make Herman Lee's because that's not accurate. They just happened to be making Herman leans the two days I was there to to hurry up and get those, you know, for they were, you know getting those guitars for October launch. So I'm really curious to see how the Herman Lee did. Let me know in the comments if anyone ended up buying one of the two thousand dollar Herman Lee's. I'm really curious to see how it did. But I don't know. I can't. I don't have a sense of it. I can't tell. Okay, next besides a drink of water. Okay, this one. I don't know what this David Carpenter says. Hey Phil, I'm newish to the guitar and I am now looking to upgrade. In your opinion, what is the best guitar in the market for a thousand dollars. I really appreciate what you do. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thousand dollars used man, you know, look new. You can have anything you want for a thousand bucks. Used, you can definitely have anything you want for a thousand dollars. There is no reason in this current market you can't find exactly what you want for a thousand dollars. When I say exactly. Let's not be, you know too crazy about that, right? But like if you told me hey I want a Gibson, a brand, a Gibson, USA Gibson. A thousand bucks, I think you could achieve it. Would you get the best one? I don't think you'll get the best one. You'll get a good one. You could buy a studio, you could find that. You could buy a tribute, you could find an sg, you could find something Gibson logo to get that. You could definitely find a Fender. If you want a USA Fender, you can find one for a thousand dollars. Hell, I have two then cases in the racks that you know because we have guitars that we use. I have a thousand dollars USA made Fender in mint condition in case. So they exist. Made Mexico Fenders. Absolutely. Thousand dollars you can buy new used, you're got it. You're. You're. You're golden. You want an Ibanez, you can get an. You can get them made. In Japan, Japan, Ibanez, you can find pretty much anything you want for $1,000. So I think at that price point, you, you know, that's, I think that's a sweet spot even in this market. I think, you know, sometimes all money does is make it easier to get something without working for it, you know, trying to find it. So if you had $2,000 or $3,000 or $10,000, I'm like, sure, you can get whatever you want and you can just click it online or go and buy it and you're fine. But when somebody says they have a thousand dollars, here's what I can tell you. $1,000 and a couple weeks patience, you'll find your dream guitar. And so you're new to guitar and the part of your problem is you don't know what that is, but you kind of do. You know, what do you like, what does it look, you know, first go off the aesthetics. You know, that's going to help you a little bit. And then, you know, if you could pick it up, going to stores again, $1,000. I'm just trying to tell you there's no limitations to what you can get. You can get yourself a pure SSE right now for about 6, $700 new, even much less used. And they're fantastic instruments. So, I mean, there's just tons and tons and tons of great guitars for a thousand dollars. So, so there, that's, that's my thoughts. Is this, it's funny. Hold on a second. Oh, is this, is this real? Is this a real question? So I'm going through Amanda's questions and I'm like, I'm trying to figure out if it's in the system. It's correct. Okay, let me go backwards. Sorry. Tom Abrams says, hey, what's a good alternative to the fret kisser? Need to level one fret. So there's a bunch of, there's a bunch of, bunch of them. So there's a one I bought on Reverb and I've been using it. I like it. I don't like it as much as a fre. I don't know what it is about. You know, sometimes I think a tool, sometimes is the first time you use. The first time you use a tool, then you decide that's the tool for you kind of thought logic, right? What I'm trying to say is, you know, I use the frat kisser first for that, and I just really liked it for that type of tool. But let me show you the tools that you can Buy that are going to be easy for you. So I bought this. So this is the spot, level and crown at the same time. Diamond file. This is $99.99 in free shipping. So this would be like 100. And where I live, it's like 107 bucks with tax. This would keep you $107. I think that's less than the fret kisser. So if you're thinking about this, I don't like this as much as the frat kisser. I don't know why. I can't explain it yet, but I like it. I will have a video of it or I already made the video. I just need to publish it. So there's that option. What I will tell you though, is that for years and years and years and years, this is what I used and I'm now ch. And before I tell you, I'm checking to see if they still make them because that would help. I do have a video and I can even tell you the video and where they're used. And I don't think they make them anymore. Are you serious? Hold on. Hmm. They don't make them anymore. Hold on. So I was looking. I have a Stumact. Yeah, they don't make them anymore. So I have a video where I show. I used to use fret levelers. They're in my. I go get it. But I have a boot and it'd take me forever at this point. They're in the background of my videos on the. On the wall. They're these sandpaper things that you. I used to get from stumac and I use those forever. In fact, I like said in one of my videos, I use them. I'll put a link to the video. I can't remember the. Well, I can go here content, but I don't see Stumac makes them anymore. And sadly enough, they were really affordable this ad. And I'm sure it's because the fret kisser the other music demand makes the under saddle ones are the understring fret kissers. Are those cheaper? Let's take a look at the prices here. Hold on. Let's look at the fret kisser. So I showed you that one for $99. What is the frat kisser? The fret kisser is. Oh, my God. It's 50 bucks. Look at that. It's on sale for half off. Dude, get this, get this. 50 bucks. Buy this. I know, I know. 50 bucks. A lot of money. I'm not. I'm not trying to Say anything. But, dude, 50 bucks. Buy this. This is crazy. Stu Mac will guarantee this thing for life. Buy this thing. 50 bucks. They're going to kill you on the shipping, right? They're going to charge you like 10, 15 bucks for shipping, but so 65 bucks. Just buy that. That's freaking great. Because Stu Mac, I thought I saw Stu max doing a 50% off sale. Use my affiliate link because I'll make a million dollars. But you don't have to. But I'm just saying I have affiliate link. But Stu Mac, 50 bucks for the frat kisser. Dude, just. Yeah, that's. It's worth it. I use mine. It's fast, it's easy. It's a good quality tool. And they guarantee their stuff for life. Dude, that is. It's not. It's a no brainer. Whatever. I'm gonna. Whatever I think I was gonna find. Find for you. I thought it was gonna be 30 bucks. Okay. It was gonna be these little. You'll see them. They're little sanding paper sticks. I don't know, I don't know what you call them. One's red and one's green. But no, for 50 bucks, get the frat kisser. That's really cool. Wow. What else is Stumac blowing out? So obviously, like I said, we know the market's tough right now. They're all trying to make sales. So let's see what Stumak's doing. Hold on a second. Let's take a look. I thought I saw them say they had 50% off on their pedals. Oh, best sellers. Okay, let's go to best sellers and see. Okay, here we go. So. Okay. Potatiometers not on sale. Oh, half off on the front end. Dress file. I just bought two of these. Hey, Stumac, do you price match yourself when you put some on? I just. I just. You're gonna see a video in the next couple days where I just literally. In the video, I show you opening the pack. I just bought two of those because I was doing jumbo stainless steel frets and I was. And I knew I was gonna burn through one of those. Almost 10, but half off. Okay. I'm not kidding. I'm going to order two of these right now. I'm gonna put them in my cart, so. Okay. And then save that for after the show. And then what else? Let's see what else I can. So that's really cool. That's. I love this thing. Okay. This tools kit, I absolutely love it. I have one right here. Look at that. I keep one. I wore it off though, so I love it. But they used to be 40 bucks and I thought that was expensive. Now another 50, back down to 40 bucks. It's still pretty expensive for what it is, but it's a really handy toolkit. What else? Anything else? Cool. Anybody else see anything else? Cool? That's a pretty good deal. 1016 going down to 855. You know, not amazing. Mostly the frat kisser is the deal. Man, that's crazy. Yep, that's. These, you can. Oh, that's pretty good. At 21. You can still find these better on Amazon. The micro meshes under saddles, that's a little bit of a discount. I mean, some of the stuff's just, I mean, you know that. I mean, that's pretty good. That's 30 bucks off for the digital nut slotting gauge. I would, I would take advantage of this. This seems like real sales. Like this seems like a real deal sale. So I would take advantage of any of these, any tools you think about getting and why you can get it. Because what I understand from most of the manufacturers I've been talking to, what's happening is because sales are slow, they're dropping prices to get us to move the needle to get us to buy stuff. But they all know secretly, and they've all been telling us secretly that when they get resupplied, the resupplies are going to cost them more and then they're going to have to raise prices. So that's what they're telling. I don't know if it's gonna happen. I'm just telling you what they're all saying. They're all saying that basically these deals will, you know, when we buy up all the deals, apparently then we're gonna get shell shocked with what the prices shoot up to. So I don't know. Okay, so that. Get the frat kisser. That's my answer. Okay, so this question is, hey, what's your experience with rechargeable 9 volt batteries and guitars? EMG says not to use them, but in another podcast you said use them. Do they work okay with emg active pickups or acoustic preamps? I don't know why EMG would say not to use a rechargeable battery. Did they explain why they would not use a rechargeable battery? I've been using rechargeable batteries for years and all kinds of things, so I don't know what the logic would be. Maybe there's a reasoning for that. First of all, EMGs are really low voltage so they're not pulling a lot of power. So maybe that has something to do with it. I don't know. I don't necessarily use. I don't use rechargeable batteries in my bass active bass but I've used rechargeable batteries in my guitars with active pickups. So I don't know. I would really curious to see what what their reasoning is. But I do it so and I've done it for years. I can tell you what batteries you that I stay away from. I don't use alkaline type batteries because they can corrode and then they gunk up your your insides of where your battery compartment is. Oh, you're going to have to wait until Christmas for the red fret kisser. I mean if you. I hope it's there at Christmas. So Steve says rechargeable batteries have a much different voltage profile as they wear out. Okay, so in theory then what would happen? I says I have rechargeable batteries that cause screeching in my music man Cutlass. I've never had that problem. I will tell you that. Yes, they, it's possible they have a different profile and therefore the instrument will. Because what happens is as you, as you. As the battery decreases it kind of does change the sound of the instrument a little bit. So for example, what do I have in my Guitar is the 18 volt system, right? No, it's not 18. It's the crazy thing. 18. I have the adapter. Is it 20 volts? It's something crazy. 18 volts. Hold on. 9B adapter. I don't have it. It's not going to come up. Not on this fast search. I'll have to find it. I'll show it next week. I have an adapter in my guitar and I don't actually have a 9 volt battery in my guitar. Isn't that funny? So I'll have to show it to you guys. Okay, next. Go back here. I'm going the wrong way. Okay, this one Nathan says hey, where to find wiring diagram for the your Kizil Delos Copper Strat Tried to have my local music store do it by explaining it to them and they fumbled it. We wrote it out and then the hope was I was gonna just do a video on walking everybody through it and then that got pushed back because of cortex when the cortex thing happened. As you can imagine, I've been playing catch up. So that's my really horrible way of saying you're gonna get it. But not anytime funny, you know, Anytime soon. Anytime funny. Anytime soon because of the fact that the Cortek thing really did throw a wrench and everything, as you guys know. So, I mean, when they basically came back and said, yes, we will let you come, I was like, oh, okay. I had to go. And then obviously, the time it takes to prep for that. And then, of course, I went to Sweetwater and all that stuff. And then. So all that stuff that we've been. We've been backlogged ever since then. And I don't know when it's gonna stop. But I can tell you this, and I'm just gonna say this because I can tell if I don't, my wife's gonna say that this year, I have not taken a. Not only a vacation, I've not taken a vacation this year. That's not a big deal. I have not taken a weekend trip this year. I have officially took one day off. This year was my birthday, so. And then technically, technically, although my wife's gonna frowny face at me, I know it. The day I came back from Cortex and slept for 20 hours straight, that was a day off too, because I slept all day. But because I've been playing catch up all year, it's just. I'm just not getting anywhere. In fact, even with my spring foot, when I was. We still had to work on Saturday. So we've been playing catch up this year. So we're hoping that we're going to catch up and then be able to relax. So I'm just telling you that we. We're not even taking days off. It's been pretty. Pretty brutal this year for. Because. Because of all the extra things. As you know, I had to go to. I went to. In February, went to California, interviewed Gabe. I went to Sweetwater and interviewed Mike, and I went to Cortech. And then there was another trip. And so, you know, I just got invited to another factory. And we're working that out as well, too. So this factory, I think, will be excited. This is a big. This is a us factory that no one. I don't think anyone's actually visited before. And if they have, it's not really out there. It's not really well known. Okay, hold on. I feel like I'm just clicking. Here it is. Go back this way. Okay. All right. Wrong direction. Okay, this is. This one came. This one says Phil. How about really dead pedals, like the Head Rush MX? I am stuck with a 400 to $500 step stool. Can I update it at all I have no idea anything. I don't know anything about the head Rush pedals. I tried a head Rush pedal because the touch screen and this is a couple years ago and I love the interface, but I just didn't. I wasn't finding any sounds that connected with me right away. So, you know, it's just how it goes. It's the same thing. It's like, you know, the Helix stuff, it's really good. But I, I just connected with the Kemper for some reason. So I have not tried the quad cortex really in any kind of lengthy way. So I hear good things. But I. Like I said, now I've kind of found my thing, but I don't know. I don't know much about them. Hans wants to know who is buying the 2 million guitars made year after year. No. You think there's only 2 million guitars made a year, year after year? We just showed you a factory makes 1 million. You think the rest of the world's only making 1 million other guitars? But I understand where you're going. He says we are all. Where are all these guitars? Why aren't guitars cheap? Why are you. Aren't guitar cheaper? Supply and demand rule. Okay, Hans, let me, Let me give you an education. You're not going to like tens of millions of guitars are made a year. Tens, Tens and tens, if not way more. Okay, like I said, the first of all, the largest guitar manufacturer in North America is Godin guitars. So just let me tell you how it all works. Godin guitars, which is Simon Patrick Arts and Luthery, Lepatre, Siegel Norman, they are the largest guitar manufacturer in North America. Okay, Fender, you would think Fender. But we're talking about physically building guitars in North America. Fender has a big factory in California and one in Mexico. And that technically is North America. So those count. Those two still aren't as big as the Godin factory. So I'm just give you an idea. So when you think of that, that factory, then you got Gibson Heritage, Fender, both in Mexico and the US In Mexico you also have Martin. And in Mexico you also have Taylor. And then you have, you know, PRs, and you have Rickenbacker and you have Taylor and Martin again. And then you have Kiesel and sir. So there's a lot of guitar builders just. And then thousand small builders across the country. Just a thousand of them. With no exaggeration to that. That's just here. Okay, we're not even the biggest makers of guitars, North America. We're not even. We're not. So think about that, just think about, I want you to think about that volume. That volume is definitely a million guitars. Just that volume, maybe more, but definitely a million guitars. Then you think again, we're the smallest manufacturer of that because obviously most manufacturing is done in Asia. Now India has massive factories as well making guitars. Obviously China has tons of factories. Vietnam has factories making guitars. Indonesia has factories making guitars. Korea has factories making guitars. Germany has factories making guitars. England has factories making guitars. Italy has factories that make guitars. And I mean there's, there's just, it's a overwhelmingly amount of guitars. Why are guitars cheaper? Guitars are so cheap right now. It's ridiculous. They have gone up. So from where they were to where they are. Yes, they have gotten expensive. So when you're having an emotional reaction to like, hey, it was 800 and now it's 12, that's ridiculous. Sure, it's ridiculous. It's inflation. It's all the things we know. We don't have to get into this. We already know the money's devalued. You know, you know, the tariffs, everything you think of everything is causing the price to go up. Those go up. But to think that guitars are not cheap. Guitars are rock bottom cheap across all, all boards. Now granted, when we talk about $20,000, you know, back to the future guitar from Gibson. Yeah, that's not a real guitar. That's memorabilia. Okay. That's not made. No one, no one, no one woke up the day they announced that and thought, oh, finally, I've always wanted a $20,000 back to the future guitar. And they fulfilled my promise and now I can play on stage next week and actually have a good sound. And, and so to, to answer your question, you know, guitars are very inexpensive. If you just do any kind of AI searches if you want, you will see that if you take all of the Fender guitars from, from the 50s when they came out and now if they factored in inflation, they're all more expensive than they are now. All of them. So guitars have, are pushed down. It's, we're definitely the cheapest. And the, and that's not even taking in all account all the crazy inexpensive Amazon, Teemu, all the guitars that you can buy for a nickel guitars are cheap right now. And I, I don't want. Look, we're all looking for a good deal because everyone wants to save their money that they work hard for and you want to get the best for your money. And I think that's nothing wrong with that. But you shouldn't also think that there's the guitars are outrageous. You can buy. In fact, I did a video, I showed it. I did a video, I did a deep dive of a Sears guitar with an amp built in amp case. And I showed you that essentially. Think about this. I want you to think about this, okay? With inflation for what you could, what you would buy in 1960 at Sears when you got a silver tone. For with inflation, you can almost buy a Paul Reed Smith SE Satin Finish custom 24 with a deluxe gig bag for the same price. It's pretty, pretty crazy if you think about inflation. When you think of the quality of that guitar versus the quality of the Sears guitar. It's pretty crazy, right? So guitars, now who's buying them all? Well, not only is there a huge population on the planet Earth, guitar players are habitual buyers. Let's just call it that. So guitar players tend to have lots of guitars. Very rarely do you see guitar player with one guitar. It's not very. It's not very. So they do. Now. Are they making too many guitars? Well, they probably are right now because they were making guitars for higher demand and, and now there's less. PKD's ghost says what guitars are made in India? That BC rich right there is made in India. That I'm pointing out. There's a beast rich warlock right there. That's a neck through guitar. It's made in India. So there's tons of guitars. Jackson has some guitars that are also made in India. I believe Chapman guitars has some guitars made in India. Now a lot of guitar man guitar manufacturing happening India. So, so, and, and not even inexpensive. Think about this. That those Beast Richard guitars, those are 1500 guitars. They're made in India. So Helen says we are loyal to the addiction. That's a nice quote. Thank you. But yes, we are loyal to the addiction. So Hans. Yeah, it's, it's one thing I've been told since the day I've been in the guitar industry is like, who's buying all these guitars? You know, I've never had to explain it more. Then I had to explain it to my own mother. Okay. When I decided that I was gonna open a music store, which is crazy because it's something I don't talk about. No one's ever asked me. I always think it's funny. No one ever asked me like, why'd you open a music store? No one asked me on the channel. They always ask me everything else. And I, I just gotta tell you, from the moment I decided to open a new store to the, to the moment we opened it, it was. It was months. Like, it just. I decided this was gonna happen. Okay. And there's a long story about that. We won't bore you with that today. What I will tell you, though, is that if you've ever had this experience, everybody always talks about my wife. They're. What'd your wife say? I'm like, what did my mother say? I was working at a Fortune 500. Actually a Fortune 100 company, making really good money with one of those 401k Inc. Things. I'm just kidding. 401k things. 401k. I heard a funny way of saying it. 401ks. I had one of those. I had stock option profit sharing. It was really nice. I bought a. I bought some nice stuff. I'm not even gonna tell you. I bought some nice stuff in my profit sharing. It was a really nice gig, man. My boss liked me. The company liked me. I did really well. I liked it. I liked the job, and I was paid really well. And I had, at that time, also on the side. I was building bases and selling bases and doing well with that. And so I will tell you, it's a weird thing to ever have to explain when you go, first of all, to this day, my. My mom. My mother unfortunately passed away, but to the day she died, she still really didn't understand the difference between a bass and a guitar. Which is always funny to me because she'd be like, my son plays guitar. And I'm like, mom, I play bass now. Anyways, that's not the important part of the story. The important part of the story is I had to tell my mother. I'm like, hey, I'm gonna leave my. My. My. My corporate job that, you know, for my two children. That. And I'm gonna open a music store, a guitar store. I'm gonna sell guitars now. My mother was like, who's gonna buy all these guitars? And I remember the first time she ever came in our store, and she walked in and she's like, looked at the walls full of guitars. She goes, who's. Who's gonna buy all these? I don't understand how many. She's like, I don't even know any guitar players. My mother worked for American Airlines. She had thousands of people work with her. And she's like, I don't even know one guitar player there. Well, she knew one, actually. She knew one. That's it, right? One person. And I told her, I said, I don't know. I think. And this is a true story. I told her this. I go, I don't know. I think, like, 20 people buy most of the guitars. I said, I don't think I have to sell. I don't think I have to find a thousand customers. I said, I think it's like, I just have to find 20 people who just keep buying guitars from the store every day, every week. And that's kind of how it works. So a lot of people just keep buying guitars. They're addicted to them. So, yeah, Weird, weird experience. Like I said. And to answer, in case anyone's curious, did my mom ever change her mind or anything? Yeah, of course. Once she saw that we made money, she was like, oh. And then she was. She told me she doesn't still. She never really understood it, how we made money. I think I would have done better if I just told my mom, if I said, hey, I'm gonna open a music store as a front to sell drugs to kids. And I bet my mom would be like, that makes sense. She's like, you can make money doing that. But my mom never really could understand. She told me all the time. She's like, I don't understand how you guys make money selling guitars. Who buys them? And I'm like, well, they're addicted. Hey, Phil. After trying the purest Cleo's, which wish, which Fishman Fluence pickups do you like the best? Omni Force. Tim Henson. Classic or modern? My favorite. My favorite fisherman pickups are the. I did the video on them, and I just am spacing the guitar player's name. It's the guitar player from Slipknot. Why can't I think of him? Fishman gonna say this. Oh, that's funny, huh? I cannot for the life of me. There we go. Mike Thompson. Thompson. Tom Thompson. Mike Thompson. So let me show you. So I have reviewed tons of fishermen pickups in detail. I have done tons. And obviously the plate Cleof played everybody's Fisherman's. These are absolutely my hands down, no questions asked, no exceptions, favorite fisherman pickups. And I am 100% convinced. Which, when I say convinced, I mean I'm not using facts. I'm using feelings. I am 100 convinced. These are dead copies for an EMG8185 set. So. So my. That, that's. But they're my favorite. And I think they're actually better than the EMG 81 set. 85. 81. 85 set. I just think they're 8185, but they're just something a little better. And plus, they have more options. So if I was going to build a guitar and put Fisherman's in it, that's exactly what I'd put in them. And that's from trying all the Fishman's. And I say, oh, I mean, you guys watch my videos. Fishman, he was sending me pickups on the red on the regular. So did I. Oh, somebody says Mick, did I say Mike Thompson? It's Mick Thompson. So but, but anyways, the MC Thompson's were my favorite set of Fishman pickups for sure. And that's the answer to that question. Let's see. Frisky Dev says, hey Phil, why are guitars so different in weight? A Gibson Les Paul standard on Sweetwater was a huge difference in weight from 10 pounds to 5 pound. 10 pounds, 5 ounces to 9 pounds, 2 ounces. All the same. Exact model. Yes. Guitars can vary almost three pounds. Now think about that, three entire pounds. First of all, there's a lot of things going on. So first of all, when we talk about guitar weights, the biggest confusion everybody has and everybody, everybody's got a theory and every time it doesn't matter. Let's just stick with the facts. The guitar can be different weights based on how much moisture is in the guitar and how much SAP is in the guitar, which is essentially a form of moisture. This is why they like to kill and dry stuff. It's why they like to roast it. So I like to dry it out. What happens is if you go and you watch, this is the benefit of going to so many factories around the world. When I go to factories, every factory except for one, every factory shows you how they dry wood. They put it and they bake it. Essentially they are doing what you do in the kitchen. They go, hey, we're going to take this piece of wood, we're going to stick it in the oven at a low temperature and we're going to use heat to dry out the guitar, okay? And so essentially pulls the moisture out and they'll use a vacuum to do that too because again, heat and pressure, they pull the wood out and are the water out of the wood. And essentially that's how they do it. However, I have seen factories like the Framis factory, who lets it air dry over years, explain that you cannot do it that way. That time is the only way to get the moisture out of the wood, right? And when they say they, they wait. They don't even keep the wood in a dry facility. Like it's out in the elements, it's outside, it like rains on it. And I'm like, wait, it rained on the wood. Now it makes it rewet. And they're like, no, no, no, no. It's drying from the inside out. Over time, it's going to. Right? So essentially, when you pick up a guitar and it's, let's say, a pound heavier than the guitar, that £1 can just be moisture in the wood. And of course, the guitar has been painted and sealed. And like an M M's candy, the chocolate's inside, but they've cut now. Now the chocolate's not going to get it out, so it's not going to melt in your hand, right? So the guitar, the moisture is in there. You get the guitar and that moisture is in that wood and under that finish, and it's never coming out. And your guitar is just heavy for life. I have heard stories and I've seen it actually where a guitar that was like 20 years old is technically like 5 or 6 ounces lighter than it was 20 years ago. Because again, even with being sealed just over time, the moisture just gets out of there. That's one reason that it doesn't. The other thing is density, right? So think about it. When you see a tree grow, right, you obviously we're talking about the same wood. So like ash to ash, alder to alder, the fibers can be compressed, right? So it can be more dense. So a tree can be heavier. A piece of wood can be heavier. Not even with the moisture, just because it's more dense. It's packed in. Think of it like, again, like, I want to use this visualization, like a visual visualization, like a sponge, right? Not wet or dry. Just think about how sponge, you push it in, right? It's going to take up smaller area, but it's going to be more dense. And then therefore, you could cut a bigger piece of sponge. It'll be more dense, right? So again, that's how it does, how it can be heavier. The other thing that can throw you off is the manufacturers can also change components and you don't not know it. So for instance, one guitar could have a aluminum bridge piece and the other one has a steel or brass one. And you don't know it. And you're like, well, it's the same model, but remember, they could be using different parts. They do that. It's not as common, but it is. I've seen it. The other thing happens is sometimes they chamber the bodies, and if they're chaming their bodies, that's again, not all the same because sometimes they don't they chamber exactly. And sometimes they don't check exactly. But most of the time when you're experiencing a guitar being a different weight, it's literally just the. It's either the woods more dense or it's more dense and it has more moisture. And that's why. And that's why a lot of people like a lighter guitar. Not only because it's lighter, but they believe that now all the moisture has been moved out of the guitar. There's a theory that that removal, that moisture makes the guitar resonate better, right? It plays better, it feels better. Me personally, I'm like, my logic is simple. Why have a heavier guitar if you don't need it, right? So like for instance, if I like a guitar and it's £10 and I like it, I like it. But if you gave me two guitars and I thought they were the same and one's eight pounds and one's ten pounds, I'm like, well, I'll just take the eight pound. Why, why take something that's heavier for no reason? It doesn't have to be. I have experienced though heavy guitars do tend to sound better. So. But that's it. But that's the main reason. Moisture. That's the biggest culprit for sure. Nathan wants to know, hey Phil, when can I get a back to basics to. So he's making, he's commenting. I had a CD called Back to basics that I made a long time ago and he's on sequel. Then I never. Nathan, the answer is going to be never. So hold on a second. Let's try and go through here. We're wrapping up the show now. This is from Alex. He says, hey, this is our last question. He goes, I bought a strat with a 2020American. I'm going to say am original 50 ash body. American original 50s ash body and what appears to be a 1991American vintage 60s neck. How much does that devalue the instrument, if at all? Okay, let's make sure what I understand what's happening. You got a 2020 guitar with an American original 50s body in ash, but the neck is a 1991. So you have a parts guitar, it heavily devalues the guitar. It doesn't make the guitar value less. But typically speaking, when you put a parts caster together, even if you put it in a premium parts, it's just not going to be as valuable as a completed instrument of any kind. Does that make sense? So yes, 2020American original 50s guitar is worth more than yours. And a and a American vintage 60s guitar from 1991 is worth more than yours. Because if they're complete. Right. Think about this. More original parts, the, the, the more the value it has. But again, I don't want you to think that you have something that's valueless. First of all, I don't know what you paid for it. So you might have just paid enough to where it's fine. It might be worth more sold back out as parts. Again, you'd have to do your own research. That is a thing. The way you can fix that. That has happened before. I have seen customers do that where they brought a guitar into us and we were able to identify that it was a parts guitar and they didn't know that. And then in that particular case that I'm thinking of, what happened with that person was one of the recommendations was exactly what I told you. Go research the parts. And in that particular case, one of the parts happened to be worth half of the value he paid for it. Just that part. So he ended up being okay. He didn't make any money, but he got out of it while his money and was fine. But yes, and that's what's, that's what's tough. Everybody puts a lot of guitars together, especially Fenders. Like, it's very hard. In all the years selling Fenders at the store, we would very rarely come across fenders that were 100%, 100% original. You know, it was funny to us. We had three or four John Muir Fender Strats come into the store for trade. And every one of them, we would take them apart and every single one of those three or four we took in the original pickups were missing because they were. You couldn't buy them. The Big dippers, right? Or was it the Little Dippers? Whatever they were, you couldn't buy them. So people would take them out. Now, I'm not saying the person was trying to trade it to us, was trying to trick us. Could have been. But I think in that case they, they got tricked themselves. Every time we would take American Fenders, especially American Fenders on trade. Now, keep in mind, when I say not original parts, I mean just like, even if they were upgrades, you know, you get a Strat. It's just weird. It was weird. If you think about it, it was very rarely do you ever, ever, ever see like a full original Fender Strat or telly. It's just they would come in and they were like. Even if it was simple as the strap buttons have been replaced. And I know what you're thinking, so what? You know. But it's just weird. It was, It's a very Fender thing. You have to understand. Fender customers are people who mod by nature. That seems to be the customer demographic, right? I would say I don't know the numbers and I don't know if anyone does. But I mean you can know from your travels as guitar players out there, you know, how many modified Gibsons have you seen versus modified Fenders? I mean it's night and day, the difference of volume. So most Fenders are not original in some way. The tuning keys of upgrade to the locking keys. And keep in mind again back to what I'm saying. You buy an American Fender strap, they upgraded to Fender locking keys, you're going to go like, well, that's not a big deal. But what I'm saying is, what I really am saying is this. We once had this discussion 15 years ago about this going I wonder what's going to happen in 30 years when almost no fenders are 100% original and 100% original ones will probably be valuable because everyone has messed with one. And it used to be that way back when they were real vintage ones. And I think it's 10 times bigger than that now. So, so. And then Elroy just sent the last question. He just came in so I just want to grab it. He said, hold on, I don't know why I can't see your question, buddy. Let me pull it in fresh. Okay, here it is. It is. He says, Mr. McKnight, please talk to us a bit about scales and weight accuracy. A friend shipped a guitar from the US to col. I don't know where that is. His scale missed at least £4. Yep, scales are. Here's, here's some advice to everyone now that Amazon exists and things are relatively cheap. If you're gonna ship guitars, buy yourself a good shipping scale. Get a real scale. Everyone uses the wrong uses home scales. They. And, and you know, I told you it's like no one can, no one can weigh anything correctly. It's really funny. So no, a good scale is everything. It's really, really. John says if your friend scale missed four pounds, it's broken. Yeah, well, you know, it's funny Sean, is you're 100, right? And then also there's this oddity that happens. Like I said, I, I told you it happened to me. So I just. We'll end with this funny thing that happened. It's happened to me many times. The first time it happened to me was funny. A guy sold me a Guitar online. And he was like, it's like ten pounds. Or not ten pounds. What am I talking about? He's like, it's like seven pounds. I'm like, oh, cool. Seven pounds, you know, two ounces, Whatever. I was like, cool. And then I got. It was like £10. I was like, what the hell, dude? And he's like. And he goes, well, I don't have a scale. So what I did is I held the guitar, I weighed myself, then I held the. Held the guitar, and then I deducted the two. You know, I. I deducted the difference. And I was like, yeah, that's not how you do it. And. Yeah, so a lot of people are just cheap and they want to buy shipping scales because they don't think they ship very much. But it's really. If you don't want to buy a shipping scale and if you don't have the. The space, borrow one. This is the absolute best advice I could ever give anyone. If you don't want to buy good tools or good scales, then try to make friends with people who do and borrow them. Say, okay, that's it. We're ending the show. We're gonna call it that. We have two cool videos coming out for you guys this weekend. I hope you guys enjoyed them. If you haven't seen the Corte Factory video, I, you know, hey, you can check it out if you'd like it. It's doing really well, and I want to thank you guys for that. Also want to thank you for the. The second channel. It is crushing. So, you know, if you haven't subscribed to the channel, it's called Know your Gear. It's funny because everybody thinks this channel is called Know your Gear, but they're wrong. In fact, we called the second channel Know youw Gear because everyone always tells me, everyone, even Sweetwater, while they go, hey, this is Phil McKnight from the Know youw Gear channel. And I go, I don't have a channel called Know youw Gear. I have a channel called Phil McKnight. So we thought, why not have a channel called Know youw Gear? So the second channel has short versions of the podcast and clips, and it also has bonus material like pedals and stuff. It's about to hit. It's coming on the right side of 30,000 subscribers. So check it out. It does half a million views this month. You guys killed it. That channel is massively doing 100 times better than we ever predicted. I want to thank you guys for that. So you guys can check that out. And I'm gonna go put my foot up and timestamp this thing. And like I said, appreciate everything you guys do for the channel so much. Until 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.