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The Know youw Gear Podcast. The Know youw Gear Podcast is brought to you by Patreon Members Channel members and viewers who like and subscribe. Thank you for making this possible. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Know youw Gear podcast. Episode 446. In 2026, I want to get into my favorite first thing, which is important thing to me. And, uh, we will be doing. So we did this last year and it was a big deal. And I want to share with you. So we did this. I guess we're gonna do it every January. I don't know. This will be once a year thing. Maybe once every year thing. I don't know. Uh, but if you guys know a friend of the channel, his name is Tim Pierce. Uh, Tim Pierce, obviously not only has a great YouTube channel and is an amazing artist. He does his own lesson academy. It's the masterclass. Let me switch right here. Look at that. I'm looking at it right here. The masterclass. This is the class that I took, the lesson program. I took that everybody gives me lot of credit for sounding a lot better now than I used to. And I'll be going into that for Guitar of the Week this week on some of the things I learned from his masterclass. So we'll be sharing that. But more importantly, there's two things. When he did this last year, it was really huge. So we will do it again. He's giving you 30% off. This is the important part. So you pay $104 for the year and you get access to all of his lessons. So it's beginners, you have intermediate, you have lead guitar, you have blues, you have rhythm, you have theory, you have gear. Tips on gear. Remember, keep in mind, he's a session artist from for multiple decades across multiple hit songs. He has special guests. More importantly, has other content creators. In fact, some content creators that have their own lesson programs. They're giving lessons in his programs as well. 3,000 videos. This is it pays for the year. And then he adds even more. So it's not like you buy this and then if you want the extra stuff, you pay extra for another course. He just keeps adding to it constantly. But here's the reason why I promote it. Not just because I'm a fan. It's the only lesson program that I promote. It's because if you go here, I believe. Let's click on it. Okay, so normally, 150 bucks money back, 30 days guaranteed. No, no, no trickery here. Okay? So basically, you can pay for it. You have 30 days to cancel it and get a full money back guarantee. And I've, I've, I've never had anyone complain about any issues with that. It's hassle free. He doesn't take it personally, I promise you. It's, he doesn't want you to feel like you didn't get your value's worth. So just let you know. And I gotta tell you, and this is gonna sound like the most salesman y thing I've ever said ever on the channel, which is probably saying something, which is every time I've talked about this, I have you guys giving me feedback that I'm underselling it. So. And that comes back consistently that I'm not promoting it enough, telling you how amazing it is enough. It was really, really changed me. And for those of you that want to check out lessons, look, 30 days to check it out. It's the whole access to everything. You give it a shot. But here's why it's special and here's why we promote it. Not only am I a fan of it, a user of it, a friend of his, and of course that's one of the reasons why I like doing it. But also he gives us a very generous piece of this when you sign up through our affiliate link with him. So it really promotes the channel. Last year, so you guys know, if you noticed in January and you'll see it again this year. We'll see, but probably see it again this year. Can't guarantee it. We did like four or five independent videos in a row the beginning of the year. They were all paid for by the, this masterclass, by you guys. So you guys got the program. It didn't cost you any more. In fact, you got 30% or less. And then the money that he sent us, we used that to basically sponsor and fund videos. So to me it's a win, win. So I mean if I thought I could teach a guitar class, I'd probably try to sell you on that. But I mean this is my favorite one. If you guys have another favorite one, if you have something else that works for you, if you want to go to one on one lessons, as you guys know, please do that. You know, again, there's no, there's a. Don't, don't, don't do anything you don't feel you need. I just figured it's January, it's time for a new you. Maybe a new you is a better guitar player. So give it a, give it a shot. Okay, let's talk about some guitar stuff. Not that that wasn't guitar stuff, but something specific. I had some early wisers give some questions and some comments. Let's see what the first one I saw was. It says Phil. Happy New Year Kyg team. Do you have any gear wish list for 2026? I do. This is going to be awkward in a minute. I know because as soon as I'm thinking of like I do and it's stuff that no one knows about yet. Okay. Says if you could persuade a guitar or amp maker into making your dream product, what would it be? I'll give you three. I'll give you a guitar, a pedal and an amp. It's very self indulgent. I love this already. I, I feel like, you know, this is great actually. I get. Okay, so let me start with an amp. I gotta tell you my favorite. I love. You know, I always gotta throw this out there just because I gotta. I love Friedman amps, I love Saldano amps, I love EVH amps, I love Morgan amps. I mean I love Fender amps probably a lot. I love Fender amps a lot. Marshalls, you name it. However, I have found myself over the years getting to try everything and refining down. In other words, I still like those amps, I still play those amps. But I just find myself always playing one of two amps all the time. And, and it's just a personal thing. It's not the best. So I, I don't want you to think like this is the best amp. It's not about that for some reason, just they click with me. My Amplified nation that I'm pointing to right now is not my favorite amp, but it is my favorite does everything amp. It can do high gain, mid gain, low gain and clean. And so I really love that. It's a very expensive amp, so it's not saying a whole lot. Of course it should be doing something like that. If you guys haven't noticed, it looks like it's smaller. It's because I now have the 112 cabinet. I had the 212 and that was just a little too big for me. It was just a two volumes volumes in the room. Volumous was too volumous. It's too much, too much all the time. I was like, I found myself kind of trying to find the sweet spot where now with the 112, which is a cream back 112, I can kind of push it a little bit hard. But still not my favorite amp. My favorite amp is my magnetone by far. I have a magnetone right there. Which I will have a video soon about it. It's a funny story about how basically I got kicked out of guitar center for it. But it's my. It's my Magnetone Super 15. I. I don't know what it is about that amp. I just really like it and it's everything that's not what I want. It doesn't have reverb, which I absolutely hate that it doesn't have reverb. It doesn't even really have a clean channel. It'll clean up but I got to run it kind of gain and then clean up with my guitar. So it doesn't give me the cleanest clean channel. But for some reason if I was clocking hours on amps that amps getting the most hours then probably Amp nation after that. So it's really funny somebody who you know has played at Princeton most of his, you know, most of the last five, 10 years and now to find myself playing that. So you asked what would I have them do if I had them do. I'd have mad reverb. In fact, how about this? I'll make it easy for everybody if every amp company would just add reverb. I wish Freeman would add reverb. I wish I would just add reverb. I just think it's. It's just a nice feature in an amp and it sounds good. But I. I guess my magnetom guitar wise, this one will probably bum you guys out. But I'm sorry, it's just the truth. If I could have anything, I would probably have my Delos Kiesel Delos where I would remove. Have them move the output jack right there that I'm pointing out with my thumb in the most weirdest way. I don't know if you guys, if you guys ever had the misfortune of doing this. This reverse image stuff where everything's backwards, which I see. I really would like this output jack. See that? Look how my fingers blocking it. Remove from there and put on the side. And then pickups wise I would put in my Northern Lights. Something special about those. So if I had that, I think that. I think the PM delos with the output jack on the side and Northern Lights I think would be my ultimate favorite guitar if I could get that pedal. I have never no idea what I would use for a pedal. Pedal. What pedal would I want? I don't know. What pedal am I pining for? You didn't ask about pedals. I kind of added this to my own problem, I guess. I guess if I was gonna have the ultimate pedal. Somebody I would have, I don't know, maybe a boost pedal. I don't know. I have so many good boost pedals. I don't know why I would want another one. Maybe a boost pedal. I don't know. You know what's funny is I think I've only ever wanted really one pedal ever. You know, I've only even considered one to even like, kind of, you know, have, you know, co designer work with it. And that'd be a delay reverb. Maybe that still. No, I take the boost thing back. Delayed reverb. I'd still like a delayed reverb. I like my new X, the Atlantic. It's what I still use. It's right here. And I don't know what it is. I don't really dislike anything about it. So I don't know what would change about it. So. But I guess if I had my way, I could have some input on it. Maybe so. But. So, yeah. So that's it. Somebody said the Tone King Preamp. I love the Tone King Pramp. That's what I'm using today. You're gonna hear that today. It's fantastic. I'd like the Tone King Preamp. No, I was gonna say with something else, but maybe a boost in front of it, a boost pedal built into it. Who knows? But, yeah, what's nice is not really super anything. I would have any dream. Anything dreamed up right now. Gear for 2026 that I'm excited about. So, okay, so this is probably where I get in trouble. But, you know, obviously I haven't heard a lot of the new gear. I've been told about a lot of the new gear from companies, so of course I can't tell you guys about it, but things I'm excited about this year, I'm excited. Something from Magnetone sounded really exciting to me. They're shared with me. I think I'm okay saying that. Obviously, the NAMM show's coming, so, you know, people are going to release and stuff. So Magneto been releasing a couple things at NAMM that I thought was cool, and all of them seemed exciting, but one specifically more than the others. Especially, you know, for someone like me that's excited about that kind of stuff. The other thing I'm excited about is Kiesel's got some new models. They've discontinued some models. So. So I'm trying to think what else I've seen that's really cool that I'm excited about. I don't know. I'd really interested to see what Reverend and Gretch introduced this year. I'm hoping that they're gonna have something fun this year, so that'll be fun, too. Smear glove base. Smear smear gloves base. As the Helix Stadium. I'm not really interested in the Helix Stadium. I've seen all the stuff that you guys seen. It looks really exciting, but like I said, I use. I use. I guess you call it modeling technology. Although every time I say that, I use. Because I use a Kemper. So it's profiling technology, not modeling technology. When it comes to modeling and profiling technology, I use it a lot, but it's more of a tool. It's not something I get excited about. So there's nothing in modeling or profile modeling technology that is missing for me because I don't feel like whatever's coming next is going to be the next level to the point where I. There's nothing that's going to make me not love, like, a really beautiful tube amp. So I really like what I have now. I like. I could use an HX stomp. I could gig anywhere with an HX stomp. I could make YouTube content anywhere with an HX stomp. I mean, just using the HX stomp is fine. It's good enough. It's good enough for the audience. They. They can't tell. They just can't tell when you use it. Right. When you use that technology. Right? So the fact that it could be a little better, a little cleaner, a little more tube, like that sounds great. I'm up for that all day long. However, there's nothing that's. I'm excited about that stuff. In fact, even if they came out with, you know, even if they keep coming out with something more and more exciting each time, it's just. To me, it's like, okay, I'm really kind of happy where I'm at now. So I'm not really interested in relearning a technology or re. Messing with presets. I mean, it takes hours and hours to get that stuff dialed in, and that's really what it is. The Helix Stadium sounds like homework to me. Think of it this way. Just to put things in perspective and just be really clear. Obviously, Lane 6 probably would not reach out to me, but if they did and said, hey, would you be interested in the Helix Stadium? I would have a fee. There would be no way I would do the video for free. It would be three, four days of work minimum, to go in there and really get a sense of it, to share Something with everybody. So, I mean, that would be one of the videos where, like I said, there would have to be a fee just for the time suck in it. And it's not because I don't like the unit. It's not that. It's just, like I said, I'm not. I'm not. I'm excited about it, but I'm not excited about redoing all the sounds to get where I hopefully get better than what I have now. And I can't tell, I don't know about you guys. Every time somebody comes out with a new effects modeler, it's great. Everybody's excited about. When I plug into it, my first thought is like, okay, let's start editing. Like, nothing plugs in and just sounds great. So I guess that's if the Helix Stadium did that. If a modeler did that for me. If I could just plug into a modeler and play like 3amp, find 3amp sounds. I knew we always need like a high gain, high gain, a low to mid gain, and a clean. If I could find those three tones and then be totally happy without hours of just tweaking, I would be very happy. But I've never experienced that. And I can tell you this, the amount of time I put in my Kemper is not only insane because I've never put that much time probably in any one product ever, but for a fact, I still use my three same sounds in my Kemper. And I have the Kemper player because I'm looking at it down now. That's the foot switch and I have the Kemper, the powered unit, I have to have both. They both have the same presets in them. I have the same three presets, and I've had those same three presets for at least three to five years. It's. You'd have to go back to look when I got the Kemper. So I feel like it was 2020. So about five years ago, that's how much once I got it dialed in, how I'm just leaving it alone. I'm not messing with it ever again. I get a good sound out of it. I can work with it and I'm good, but I'm just not really into tweaking on that stuff for hours at a time. It's not fun to me. Now, keeping in mind, here's what's different. Christmas day. What did I do Christmas Day? I spent hours in my front room making Shauna. And then the kids listened to me ab tons of acoustic guitars. I had A dozen. Basically a dozen acoustic guitars in the front room ranging from $100 to, like $5,000. And I was abing and abing and abing, and I'd have them close their eyes and like, this one. How about this one? This one? This one. Same with amps. I can do that for hours, too. I did it probably on New Year's Eve, too. Amps. I put a couple amps in a row, and then I ab them and I have them listen. I can do that for hours. But for some reason, modelers, although I like the way that they work and I need them, I just don't enjoy tweaking on them. I feel like instead of like, oh, this is fun, a little different. It's always, like, unusable, usable, usable, and then I'm fine. So. Okay. I don't know how to say your name, because it's just like R. Manchum9137 says. Would you buy a Kemper today? I would say yes, only because I bought the Kemper player in August. So that was, like, six months ago. So half a year ago, I bought the second Kemper, and that was because I needed a portable version of sound, you know, to take with me. And I had the HX Stomp. I like it. I could have been. I could have been happy and stayed with the HX Stomp. I just kind of felt like there was something a little bit. Actually, I'll just tell you the HX Stomp. I was happy with it, but when it would a be the sound of that recorded against my Kemper, I always felt like the Kemper sounded a little fuller in the recording. And so I was like, okay, well, as you guys know, I checked out the UA audios, and I checked out all kinds of stuff, and then I decided, you know what? Hey, I like the Kemper. Can I. Can the Kemper player do what my Kemper does? Kind of. Yeah, it does. It's close enough. So it's really good. Again, it's. It's a. I would argue. And I'm going to argue that, you know, I'm not going to argue that my Kemper is better. I'm going to argue that the quad cortex and all that stuff probably does it just as good, if not better. But it's. Again, I'm not looking for the best. I'm looking for usable sound that I can do stuff with. So. And I like the Kemper. It's fine. And it was a big investment for what it was, so. And what's interesting about it, is considering its technology, it's crazy that you can. You know, I bought the Kemper, what, five years ago, and it was like five years old then, and it's still relevant. It's pretty impressive. So. Oh, yeah, yeah, the. You should. Somebody said you should record Kemper using Spitf, by the way, I've done it both ways. So, you know, one of the things I caution you guys about is I have some friends that, you know, like, I have a friend who's an. Who's in. Not only an Axe effects guy, he's one of the clinicians, you know, for teaching Axe effects. So, like, I have some insights and same with Kemper. And I can tell you this, my friends that know Kemper really well think the way that I run Kemper is just crazy, but nuts crazy. So I'm just going to tell you right now, whatever you're going to suggest to me, just you. You don't want to go down that road. They have told me flat out that is the craziest thing they've ever heard with how I. How I use my Kemper. So and, and. And stuff like that. And again, it's just because I try experiment. Experiment. You know, one of the luxuries of having a YouTube channel. You try stuff and then I find a sound that works and I go, oh, okay, I like this. I'm gonna work with this. So. Brandon says, hey, when did your channel name change the real Phil McKnight? It's not my channel. So your username. My username changes the real Phil McKnight. I've explained this already that YouTube has auto assign you guys usernames. So you guys know. Okay, so we'll do this real quick. I told you guys, I do updates. If you want to fix your name on YouTube, it's super easy. You just go to your YouTube studio and then you're going to go down to where it says on the left column, it's going to say dashboard, Content analytics, Community languages, Content detection, Earn, if you have that one. And customization, you click customization. And then as you scroll down and I think I can show you guys this. If I do here, scroll down here and then you'll see your face. That's my name on my YouTube channel. It's Philip McKnight. And then that's your handle. And then you put in your handle and you get to change that. And that will be your handle now. Now, why this has happened is. Is a little interesting thing is that YouTube names, channels are not. You don't claim them. You don't own them. So, you know, so a little funny story. I don't know if I ever told this story. I didn't do it intentionally, so I don't have anything to feel bad about. When I started my YouTube channel, my channel was called Phil McKnight, Philip McKnight. Because I happened to sign into YouTube or sign up to do YouTube. Right when Google, you know, because Google owns YouTube, right when Google had decided for a brief moment in the YouTube history that that your YouTube channel name had to be your email address, it was like this weird thing had to be your real name. I don't know why they did that. Um, I've talked to so many people before and after that, and they go, yeah, I remember when they did that. I just happened to be one of those people that when you signed up, you couldn't name your channel. I was gonna name the channel something, but it wouldn't let me. So I just. I was Philip McKnight. So that was my name on my channel. Now, what I didn't know, and I don't know why you would know this, but you're going to learn now, because it still works that way, is that when you name your YouTube channel Philip McKnight, anyone can name your channel Philip McKnight. You can do it right now. You can create a YouTube channel. Right now. All of you can go create a channel called Philip McKnight. It's not. It's not blocked from you. It won't say, oh, it's been taken. In fact, no channel names are really taken. What happens that's strange is, is what YouTube does is they just kind of use the survival of the fittest is the way I like kind of look at it. So when I started my YouTube channel, Philip McKnight, there was a Philip McKnight already with a YouTube channel that does coffee reviews. And his channel was pretty big. I think you could probably still. It would probably find him on YouTube still. See if we can find him. It's going to be tough because it's because I've kind of ruined it. So anyways, I didn't know this, by the way. That's why I said, I'm not going to feel guilty because. Because I didn't know. So anyways, so Phil, Philip McKnight. There he is. Look at him. Okay, so we'll go here. Living coffee with Phil McKnight. So anyways, so this guy has a YouTube channel, and it was called Philip McKnight. I think it's now called something else. But anyways, Philip McKnight. And when I made my channel, we both have the same name, because there's tons of people with lots of Philip McKnight names. Apparently on YouTube, what really happens is whoever gets the most views, whoever becomes the dominant, that's the one that just gets presented to you all the time. So in theory, like, if I was to pick a smaller YouTube channel, I'm just. It doesn't have to be a gear channel and name a channel after them and just start grinding and making my channel successful, I would literally just surpass them. And then that's what you would search. Every time you search that name, I'd come up. My channel would come up. So, like, I could. You know, I could. If you could. I could be Rick Beato. I could type. I could create a channel right now called Rick Beato. And if I could figure out how to get 48, 49 million views a month, maybe I could outpace Rick Beato. And then Rick Beato would be like, what? Why does this other Rick Beato guy come up? So that's how it works. So anyways, that's a long story to tell you. That's why I think the handles are there, because that's different. Different than your channel name. Your handle name is specific to you, and it can't be duplicated or, you know, I mean, you know, it could be hacked, I'm sure. But. So if you see somebody with that name. So there should be only one the real Phil McKnight on YouTube now, because I. I took it. I. I requested it, you know, you know, submitted it, whatever you call it, you put it in, and. And it gave it to me. So now you can't have it. So there you go. I'm just for those that are interested how it works. That's how it works. So. So. So now, you know, you guys can create a Phil McKnight channel or know your channel. And. Because take me out. Just go ahead, do it. So. And. And then that's why the second channel is called Know youw Gear, because this channel was never called Know youw Gear. It was just something I said. And then everybody used to say Phil McKnight from know your Gear. And then one day I was like, I should have a channel called Know youw Gear, since everyone says that's the name of my channel. And I was actually gonna change this channel to Know youw Gear. So you guys know. And the reason I didn't do that was, luckily, you know, you have a YouTube person. I have a YouTube person that you can contact and talk to. And when I went to change my channel name, they let me know, advised me that the amount of searches per month for Philip McKnight, I'd be losing all that. I'm like, oh. And they go, yeah. Although no so on. Believe it or not, on my. In my world, Phil McKnight is the number one searched. Know your gear is the second most searched. And Phil McKnight's the third search in my category. So it's like. And by the millions. So I was like, oh, I don't want to. I don't want to mess that up. Okay. But you could always be somebody. Could always be the real, real Philip McKnight. You know, the master, master luthier. You guys can be the real, real Phil McKnight. I'm sure that's not taken. For those that want that sign on for some reason, Funky Funky says, my new account is Gibson tv. See, you just gotta. You just gotta get. You gotta get it and figure out how to beat them, get more views. Okay, let's. Let's get back to guitar topics. So next guitar topic came. It says, from Edgar says, hey, Phil, happy New Year. Happy New Year. He says, is there a good time of the year to sell your gear to a local store or a gc? I know there are so many factors to this, but it just. In general, you said summers are slow. Summers are slow. It's the slowest part of the music industry. You know, sales is going to be the summertime. So sometimes that's not a good time to sell them gear because obviously they're lower on capital and they're, you know, they don't. They have. They're richer on product, so they don't want to get more product and less money. So if you're selling it to them specifically, trading is different. I think everybody's always in the mood for trades. When it comes to stores. I don't know if there's a good time or bad time for that. I would say selling gear early Christmas would be good. In other words, before Christmas, the closer you get to Christmas, that, you know, they. I'm sure that a lot of them are like, hey, we really don't need stuff two weeks before the end of the year. Because keep in mind, you got to inventory that and you're going to be taxed on that. So it's just inventory they're taking. They're not going to be able to flip before the end of the year. So something to think about that. But ultimately, I think it always comes down to what your gear is then more so than the time. So I could say that there's a good time of year to sell your gear or trade it, but the reality is what you have is really going to dictate that because I could tell you that some are slow, but if you walked in with the right stuff and the right price they're going to buy, I mean, that's the business all these stores are in. The right, right gear at the right price, they're. They're in. So I would say that is the way to go. And just be realistic with your gear. I mean, obviously if you're taking it to the store, like I said, it's taking sand to the beach. You're not going to get a lot for it. It's just about the, the convenience. That's what you're, that's what you're trading. You know, you could double your money. Not quite so, you know, you really can't double your money. You can almost double your money because even if you sold to them for $500 and you sell it, you can sell for a thousand, you, you pretty much can't sell anything anymore without some kind of selling platform. That's gonna take at least, let's say, 10%, you know, between all the fees and time and all this stuff. So 40%, you know, more. But, but the, the, there's no aggravation. There's no like, you know, returns. You don't have to deal with that. They buy it, they own it, they go with it. So the only thing I will tell you is never be afraid to walk away when going to me store and I, you know, get, get an idea for your and a. Because technology, they'll give you prices over the phone. You can call them up and say, hey, generally speaking, I have these items and especially if you're willing to be courteous with their time. In other words, hey, I can, I can send you a list of what I got, you know, with the conditions. Just write down, you know, the conditions, you know. Right. And if you could give me an idea of what you think this stuff is what you would want. How about there? That just would be nice to say, hey, look, could you just tell me what tot to bring to your store and what to bring? That would be nice. And you know, again, give them some time. Don't tell them like, hey, you know, I got five minutes. Can you do it real quick to say, hey, you can call me back in a day or two and that would be nice use of your Time and their time. And you'll know, you know, if they're only willing to take 30% of the stuff you got. And that's the only thing is, like I said, two things. I caution everybody when they trade or sell stuff, it's not. It's not so much what you get for it, although that's important. It's what you're going to get rid of. And I find the big problem is, is a lot of times when you want to get rid of a lot of gear, it's because, you know, you're, you're, you're usually feeling congested. Just have a lot of stuff, right? You've acquired it up and it happens to all of us. You just have too many pedals, too many amps, too many guitars. And then what happens is you want to thin the herd, so to speak. And what happens? Everybody, and I always tell everybody, this is the thing that everybody does and they do it. And I think this is the biggest mistake they make. They just go, okay, I got. I'm gonna get rid of these 10 guitars. And then what happens is somebody cherry picks the five good ones. And then you're like, okay, now I just gotta go to the other five. And I'm always telling you the five that you. The second five, they're the harder ones to get rid of. So it's gonna be harder to get rid of them and you're gonna get a lot less. So a lot of times it's really nice to try to make somebody buy it all and just even, you know, just get test. Just. That's the, that's the benefit in my. I'll take a lot of stuff to Zims. I'll take him a pile here. If he could take more, I would take more to him. And where I live, there's not a whole lot of stores that do used. Most of the stores that here do use dabble in it barely. Where Zims is a smaller store, but at least he's 100% used, so he's interested in use. He just doesn't do high dollar used. So I can take him a bunch of stuff and just say, you know, here, take it or consign it or whatever works best for him. But at least it gets. I. To me, it's never about. I'm gonna say it's never about the money. That's just dumb, right? It's not about money. It's about space. I physically just. I'm tripping over stuff, you know, it's like, I can't Sometimes. I mean, think of this. Sometimes there could be so much gear here for filming, I don't even have room to film. It's just laying, you know, I'll tell you what I'll do. I do outtakes a lot now. I'll do an outtake where I show you guys sometimes. It's funny, there's like 10 guitars in the scene with me just right. Like literally a quarter of an inch out of camera view where I have them leaning everywhere just to film. And you think I'm in a clean, nice room, and instead there's just. It's what's like in this room. There's literally guitars and amps, like right around me right here that are out of this camera frame. Everything's just lined up right here. So. So that's the. That's the suggestion I would have for you. But. And then, of course, you can always try to sell it independently and make more money. So next, what do we got? We got says, Happy. This is from Gray. Harris says, hey, Phil, Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Hopefully. Oh, hopefully. I'm considering a modeling amp like a Tone Master or the EVH Hypersonic. You know, EVH reached out to me. I don't know if they saw the podcast and said, are you interested in the hypersonic for a video? So I responded to them with the, you know, the important stuff. Like, what do you. What do you. What you do? What do you guys want? You know, because sometimes they. Sometimes I don't know, you know, I don't remember what they want, but I. Anyways, I let them know I was interested, so I was letting him know. So if I can get a Hypersonic, I'll do a video of it for you guys. It says, what sort of lifespan would you expect on these amps? Five years. I mean, realistically, the Tone Masters have been out for longer than five years. The Tone Masters came out in 2019. Uh, I don't remember when they actually came out. Came out. I just remember the first one I ever saw was in June of 2019. And when I saw it, it was. Fender had it. And I was told not to share with anybody because it was at Thoman in Germany. And then. Oh, no, it was slightly before that because then I was at the NAMM show. That's that summer, which is a month later too. And then they were at the NAMM show. So about 2019, about. So think of this. The. The Tone Master stuff has been out for five years. So you'll be able to see what the longevity of that stuff is my. The reason I say five years is because I would expect a digital amp like that to last five years. So I'm not saying it's gonna last five years and die. I'm just saying if I bought a tone master of any of these kind of technology products. I bought one five years ago and it's still running. I'm gonna think of every year after the five years as bonus year for me. But, but they could last forever. You know, it's, I mean that's just how it works. As you guys know, the stuff isn't built so cheaply that it's delicate. The problems with technology based stuff is obviously support. So Fender is another notorious company known for making a technology and then no longer supporting it. So in a few years, not that that's a big deal, there's not a whole lot of computer access to those amps, but something like that. But I would say five years and I think it's reasonable. I mean, think of this. They cost the same as a cell phone. So what do you think? I mean, let me ask you a question. How many years do you think you should get out of your cell phone? So I would say realistically five years. So I think that's a technology. You're lucky if you get two years now because of all the stuff. But I'm just saying like you physically could run, you could have a phone for years. I think technology based stuff. Five years. You buy a TV now five years, Five years. So that's what I expect. I, I bought a TV four years ago and I bought a, an expensive tv. I usually don't, I usually always bought the least expensive tv. Well, in the new world, right back in the day, I did buy one expensive tv. But anyways, I anyways this a couple years ago, like three or four years ago, I decided I'm gonna buy an expensive tv. So when you go to Costco, for me that just meant not the base model tv. I bought the, you know, the OLED crazy one and it looks fantastic. It, it sounds, everything was great except for you can tell like the, there's a processor or something in it and when you're switching apps in it, it's just run so slow. And, and I, I was just telling Sean the other day, I'm like, I just refuse to replace this TV because you know, you just, when you're clicking on the apps on it, it's just internally it just feels like they're running slow. But I don't know. But five years, I don't know, that's my thought. I don't know. What are you guys thoughts? How long should a piece of technology last you? And for those that are going to say forever. Well, I'm glad you still live in the 50s. I mean, I understand, but that's not a thing today. So what is realistic? You know, I mean I feel like they're trying to make everything last a year or two years. So like I said, I think five's a minimum now. And that's. And that's for me. So. Any feedback. Thoughts on the Super Delta King Supro? Sorry, not super supro. Delta King 12 versus the Fender Pro Junior. Having trouble deciding. Both are great amps. I prefer Fender over Supro, but Supro sometimes is. It's a features and price thing. So I think if the features has more features and it's less price, I think Subaru is a great way to go. But for same price, same features, I would always pick a Fender. Supros have a great sound, but I mean, I mean I'm a Fender guy through and through. So there's a lot of amps like the Magnetones. I like the Supros, I like the Morgan. I like my car amp. I like, you know, I mean there's a lot of amps I could say like, wow, these are really great amps. But I mean I could be totally happy with any Fender. So I mean there's things I can articulate that I think are better than Fender and things reason why I like them not better. Like I think they're better quality, just better like what I like better about them. But man, Fender is the way to go. So like I said, Supra is great, especially if it's on a deal or anything like that. Go away to go. But you know, you never could go wrong gunning a Fender. Okay, never say never, right? You more like most likely won't go wrong. Sean says predictions for the next Tone master. So the last one was the Fender baseman, right? The 59. And obviously this did the Hyper Sonic, whatever the new evh. I mean it's not a Fender, but we already know that's part of that technology. In fact, here's what's interesting. They were really cool. Defender guys or the EVH guys sent me this stuff. Talking about the reason for the EVH was that basically there's tube shortages. They were very clear. I read the whole email was very nice. Said that hey, we would like to send you one if you're interested. And you know, this is something Fender and EVH are Pursuing this technology because of not only the rising costs of tubes, but the scarcity of tubes. Just, it's a. This is. They got to, they got to secure their future. And basically I'm giving the readers digested version of the email, but it was something to the effect of it's a good investment of time and money for them to try to figure out how to make really good amps or good amps that are not tube. And so that's just reality. Fender wise, what would be the next Tone Master? I don't know because I think like they got this, you know, obviously the Twin, the Super are, the Deluxe, the Super Reverb, the Princeton and of course the 59 baseman. So what's really missing there? I mean they could go obscure, that could be funny, you know, maybe bring the Pro Sonic back, you know, something like that. Try to find some of the obscure ones that were. That could be fun. I don't think there's any reason to do a Hot rod deluxe, but maybe. I don't know why they would do that. I think the whole point is to pick iconic amps that are sought after, more collectible, maybe a champ, that would be a cool one. Maybe you know, a blackface baseman. So. And then put reverb in it, that'd be really cool. Somebody says the Vibrlux, I could see all that stuff. So yeah, I don't know. You know, I never did try a 59 baseman. I just couldn't do it at $1500. I just, I. Like I said, I can still find a baseman for less than that. I just, I'm not ready to buy a. I think the problem with the Tone Master stuff for me is I like the way it sounds and I really like it. So look, the fact that it's light, it's convenient, it's got the attenuator. I just don't think it takes pedals as well as the real thing. And that's usually what I'm using them for. So that's my only complaint about it. It's not that it doesn't take pedals well, it just doesn't take them as well as the real thing. It, the real, real 2amps just make your pedals sound fuller and bigger. And the Tone Master, it just, especially fuzz pedals and certain like that just, just didn't do it for me. But I could be happy with a Tone Master for sure. You know, again it's in a situation where that's all I can have, you know, that somebody said, hey, you have to have a tone master, Nothing else. I could play a tone master. The only reason I got rid of my tone master was because ultimately, I've said this before. I have a 65 deluxe reverb and a tone master deluxe reverb. And the problem is, is I would play the tone master and go, what the hell am I doing? I got the real one sitting right there. Why don't just play the real one? So, but if I only had, you know, if I only had the tone master, I would have played it. And I'm never going to get rid of my 65 Deluxe Reverb because I paid 350 bucks for it. And they're 1700 new now, and that's just ridiculous to me. So I paid 350 for mine with a British greenback selection in it. And apparently I didn't notice when I bought it it had been not modified. It's not modified, but it's been an amp. Tech looked at it and said, yeah, somebody went through it and serviced it and upgraded a bunch of components in it. So I'm like, oh, man, that's why it sounds a little sweeter to me. A little nicer. Okay, let's grab one from Amanda. Amanda sent this one, says, hey, Philip, is now the best time to buy after Black Friday, after Christmas, after New Year? It's got to be a. It's got to be dead. No, Gibson's for 3.99, question mark. I don't know. I saw price increases already. If you guys haven't seen price increases. And what we saw saw a little bit of a price increase from some companies. I told you, a lot of companies said they're going to price increase very small amounts. Some companies said they're going to actually bring prices a little down a little back because again, trying to adjust deals. I don't know. I think there's always deals out there. I tell you guys, all this time, I. There is obviously just blatantly them putting out the deals. I think that's the difference in the mentality of this. If you're waiting for somebody to put out the deals, I think, sure, in times of economic pressure, they're going to do that. You know, there's not customers buying and there's times of, you know, overstock. They're going to do that times a year, like holidays. But I'm never waiting for anyone to post a deal. If they post a deal, it's cool. But like I said, if I usually just whatever I want is what I want. And then if I can save some money getting it. That's kind of the thing. But I've said this before. Somebody asked me a question. This ties in, and this was on the patron side. Somebody was asking a question about. They said that I mentioned that you could go to Guitar center and ask for a deal. And they said they didn't go into the Guitar Center. They called, they asked for a deal piece of used gear, and they said they don't discount used gear. And first of all, again, call is not going in. So you got to go in and talk to somebody. And I know that's tough if you're. If their used piece of gear is not in the state you're in. I understand that for Guitar center, but when you go into Guitar center, it's no different than going into mom and pop in. The idea of what I'm telling you, the. The idea when I talk to a retailer about something I want, first of all, if I'm really serious, then I'm already gonna buy it. That's the best deals I ever get, is because I'm already willing to buy it at the right price. You'll never get a better deal than that because you're willing to buy it. So you can be as, you know, aggressive with what you want to do or not. Because you. You're not worried, you know, you're not just throwing, you know, hey, I'll. If there's a deal, I'll buy it. I'm like, I'm gonna buy it. So let's see if I can save a little money, because why not, right? You know? And so here's what I would suggest. This is how I. This is how I do it. So I'll say something like, hey, I'm interested in this guitar, this acoustic right here. First, I always ask, do you know of any sales or discounts that are coming that I should be aware of? So that lets them know that I'm serious now. But I'm willing to wait if the price is gonna go down. And most of the time, I would say 99% of the time, they go no. Because even if there is, they're just gonna say no because they want you to buy it now at the higher price. But it lets them know where I'm at. Like, I wanna buy it now, but if you know of a sale or anything, I don't wanna buy it and find out in a week it's on, you know, on sale. And so what's great is usually they'll take that opportunity, like, oh, well, we can we can hook you up and give you 10% off, or, you know, if you want. Excuse me. And then there you go. That's an easy way to walk into that. And it's great if they say no, and then they kind of leave it flat like that. I'll follow up with, well, I really want to get it. I'm just looking for any excuse to buy it right now. And hopefully you get a funny salesman. And they say something funny like, you know, like, I'll give you a hug, whatever. And you're like, okay, at least you guys are having fun, right? But sometimes they're like, yeah, there's just no deals on it. I go, okay, okay. I go, well, let me think about it. Because like I said, I want it. Let me think about it. And then again, let them kind of. And then maybe go back and play it, whatever. I kind of sit in the store for a few minutes doing stuff. And sometimes they'll approach you back and go, hey, look, I just talked to the manager. Or, hey, I just looked. And again, I don't think there's anything wrong with asking if there's a discount to be had, okay? If there's not, there's not. And if there is, it's really about. And this is really my argument. It's not that because I need a discount to buy anything. I really. Most time I don't buy anything, or most time I buy, there's no discount. The reason why you ask is because it's. To me, what's not exciting is when you find out that you could have got a discount and you didn't ask for it, and then you kind of feel like, well, you shorted yourself. So especially something like this where I'm always going to be reoccurring customer. There is no, like, I understand. I look. I look at music stores, and this is from, you know, not even from owning one for years. I look at music stores like Vegas. They're going to win with me every time. My addiction is going to let them win, okay? I'm going to always be giving them more and more and more money. It hasn't stopped. It's been going on for years and years and years. There's always another pedal. Cables. I just bought some stuff the other day. I bought tuners and cables, more cables. I was, like, laughing about how I told you guys I hadn't bought cables in years. Now I bought cables twice. So there's always more business to give them. So again, if there's a little bit to be saved on that but that's just my suggestions, if that helps. And I also, Also, because it's funny, because it came up once, somebody said, well, what if they get annoyed with you? Well, then you don't buy from them if they're getting annoyed as long as you're doing it respectfully and honestly. Like I said, I've never put the screws on anyone. I told you, I have a little different sensitivity to it. Because I owned a store, I can tell you what you could do to piss me off in the store. Like, you irritate me. I guess pissed off is not the right term. I would get irritated with customers just like they will get irritated with the customer. So I kind of know the things not to say, I can tell you. And every store is going to be different. So again, just because I got irritated with it doesn't mean that they'll get irritated with it. Something that would trigger me would be like, if you came in and go, hey, man, that Gretch has been here a long time. And I'm like, oh, great. Now it's give me a deal. And the sad truth is, you were right. But you being right doesn't mean emotionally, that changes how I feel about the situation. The situation is, yeah, it has been a long time, and, yeah, I'm going to have to get rid of it. And thanks for pointing that out. And it's almost like the reason I don't like it is you're negotiating from a position of. Of taking advantage of me because of my bad situation. You're like, you know, it's kind of like if you got divorced or if you, you know, you lost your house or something like that, right? It's like somebody's just taking. Just preying on you. I didn't like that feeling. I never did it to anyone, so I didn't want anybody doing it to me. So ultimately, what I like the idea of. Let me tell you what would make me feel good as a store owner. And this is. Again, this is not going to be consistent because most. Most stores are different. I liked knowing that if I had to lose profit, at least I either got a good person that's gonna come back and a good customer, or the person really enjoyed it or they liked it a lot. So, you know, there, you know, we. I've told you stories about what customers are sorry, the crazy customers have had. I can tell you things that goes the other way, too. Like, you know, stores do horrible stuff to people, for sure, and customers do horrible stuff to stores. It happens. It's A two way street. You know, I'll tell you a feeling that you, you happens to you only happens to you once. Well, it happens to you many times, but it only needed once. And here's a good example. Customer came in and they kind of put the screws to me on something. They're like, hey man, oh, you can't sell that Gretch. And it was like, I know. And they're like, you know, make me a deal, make me a deal. And I made them the deal. And then the next day I saw it on Craigslist for $200 more than I sold to them because they were just, they bought it to flip it. And I was like, great, I'm so happy that you could make money off the transaction. And I get it, it's business, so I don't take it personal. And after that I my thoughts over and I went on my way. But even if you're lying to me, at least it feels good. It's like, man, I always want one of those. And yours has been sitting there for a little while. And you're like, yep. You're like, if, man, if I got that, it would make my day. And I'm like, you know, that's something I can live with. I could go home and go, I didn't make any money today, but at least I made a good person happy and a good customer for the future. That's something to have in a small business, you know. I'm not saying you'll have that a Guitar center employee is going to care at that level. They might, they probably won't, but owners will. Store owners will care that way. Not all of them because some of them are not good people too. But I don't know. Mr. Zombie 1974 says, here's one, they walk into your shop wearing their, all their Sweetwater gear. I wanted to wanting a deal. And after the deal, they want some candy too. You know, it's funny is I, I, I never cared about that. You know, people come to your store with a different, you know, different shirt from a different store. Like a Guitar center or a Sweetwater or something like that. That never triggered me. For some reason I really didn't care because I always assumed everyone was like me. You know, people thought I should be embarrassed. I was never embarrassed. When I, people would find me in other music stores, it would happen quite a bit. So we'd walk in a music store and I'm like, I had somebody rat me out. We'll tell a funny story. This happened twice at Once at a guitar center was actually funny. I'll tell the guitar center when. The funniest one. I went into a guitar center once to buy a guitar, and I owned a music store, obviously, at the time. So I had a music store for at least six years at that time. And I'm in the guitar center, and a customer of mine saw me, and they ran and told on me. Like, I'm not kidding. They ran up to, like, the store manager. Like, hey, that's. That's Phil McKnight from the Music store down the road. And they're like, and. And the. The store manager came up to me, and he's like, can I help you? And he had this weird stance. His hands were in his pockets, right? Like, I don't know what he was doing with his hands in his pockets, but it was, like, really weird stance. And I don't know if you've ever had that experience somewhere, but that's. It wasn't the approach, like, how can I help you? For real? It was kind of like, either a, you need to go, or B, you know, something's up. Like, right. Something's up. Like, you know, I'm like, what do you think I'm stealing? What do you think's going on? And he's like, can I help you? And I go, yeah, I'm just looking at this guitar, and I was trying this amp, and I think I'm gonna get that guitar. And he's like, I think you. I'm trying to remember exactly. It was a long time ago, okay? I'm trying to remember exactly what he said, but it was something to the effect of, I think you need to go. And I said, well, I just want to buy that. And he's like, I think you need to go. And I know what you're thinking right now. You're like, well, how did I know that the customer ratted me out? Because the customer stopped me outside to tell me they were sorry. They said they went and told the manager that I owned the music store. And I was trying to explain to the manager. I go, yeah, I threw it out there real fast. I go, hey, so you know, I own MC Guitar company. I go, I'm just getting a guitar. And he's like, yeah, you have to go. He's like, I don't think we can help you today. I'm like, oh, okay. So, you know, I don't know. That was kind of funny. But, yeah. Andrew says, so the shop owner wasn't allowed to shop at guitar center. You know what's funny is I don't know exactly what the details of the situation is. Like, why he was was taking that stance. It could have been he thought I was shopping them, looking for prices. This is kind of. Remember, even though the Internet was still a thing, that that was a thing also. Maybe he thought I was gonna buy something to flip it. Maybe he didn't like that attitude. I. I don't know. So it just. It was just. I don't know. I got the, you know, hey, I got the impression and I did not get the guitar because they were obviously wanted me to go. So I left. I was like, okay, I'll go. But in all fairness, and I'm not just making excuses, it was a unique situation. I've told you guys this before. I did not see very many store owners go to other stores. Like, that was just something I did because I was. I'm a junkie, and that's what I was. Like anybody who had guitars, like I always said, I said, I've said this to everybody. I'll say it for a million years. I'd buy a guitar at a gas station if that's. If the guitar I wanted was there. It's like, I don't really think that way. I think about like, oh, that's a guitar. It's seems cool. I want it. This is where it's at. So. But who knows? So that's funny. Oh, see, Offbeat says, sent Ralph to buy it two hours later. No, unfortunately, no. Ralph wouldn't do stuff like that. If I called Ralph and said, hey, go to the store. Go pick this up. He'd grumble at me for like an hour. And he wouldn't do it. So, yeah, okay, let's do Guitar of the Week. Now it's time for Guitar of the Week. Okay, Guitar of the Week. So this ties into a couple things. I thought this would be fun. I'm gonna share because somebody asked me for an update on this so that I would give an update on this. So let me pull this up because that will probably help the absolute most for Guitar of the week is if I have the actual information. So this is a story that happened. You guys will be familiar with. I'm sure some of you will be familiar with. And I'll give you the update because again, everybody asked what happened with that. Whatever happened. So. So I have this Heritage Custom Shop, H150 with a clip on tuner on the end. So, okay. And if you guys remember the story, Heritage reached out and said, hey, we'd like to send you a guitar for a video. And I say, that's great. And they sent the guitar, and I just didn't like the guitar. And at the time, because I wasn't as versed with Heritage as someone who's only played a few heritage over the years, maybe half a dozen would, which sounds like a good amount. But comparatively speaking, not. I mean, I've played a thousand Gibsons for sure and worked on a thousand Gibsons in heritage, as I probably worked on three. And I'm just rounding up by probably two. So I just wasn't familiar with the guitar. And one of the things I did not like was the frets were super flat, and I didn't like that. I kind of like the whole time, my fingers were just rubbing on the fretboard. Now, some of you guys have pointed out since then that, hey, I looked up the specs, Phil, and those frets are the same specs as a Gibson Les Paul. But here's what I think, and I don't know this for sure. And I did ask Heritage, and they brushed me off twice, so. And again, I have a good relationship with them and I like them a lot. So when I say brush me off, I don't mean, like, they were upset with me. I just don't think it's something they're interested in. I mentioned that I would like to go and do a factory tour. Now, this is where somebody's going to say in the comments, hey, Phil, I went to their factory, and they just let you in. They let you guys in. Okay, you gotta understand, and I mean this not only respectfully to most of you that are watching, and then even some other. The YouTube channels that get into these factories. At this point, I've established some concerns for factories. I'm not just a spectator anymore. Okay? I walk in, and at this point, I can really be a damaging person to a brand if you let me in the factory and I see something that's maybe not right. Obviously, I share that. I have a platform to share that. I also have the knowledge to know what looks wrong at this point. I've been to so many factories, I can almost tell you just as soon as I look at videos, I was looking at a video. Somebody, another YouTuber, did a video. Maybe I'll talk about that. Another YouTuber did a video factory a week or two ago. I showed it to Shauna and I explained to her how horrible this factory is and how every product in there. In fact, if I was a paid consultant for that company, I would tell Them pull that video down, pay that YouTuber, whatever it takes, get that video off the Internet. That is horrible, what you're seeing. Which, again, I went to the comments. Not one person called him on it. What I was seeing was unfortunately not violations because the factory was overseas and they don't have violations like we do, like the OSHA violations, like. But it was just a horrific. It was like watching a crime scene how bad. It was okay, not only for the employees, but for the guitars. So my point is, Heritage wasn't really interested in, Let me see. At the factory right now. So we'll see how that goes. They use a Plek machine. And here's my theory. My theory is that they're plucking the guitars in a. In a way that's just grinding the frets flat. The Plek machines do a great job. As you guys know. I've talked about Plek machines a lot. But remember, there's a user that can use a Plek machine, and you can jack up a Plek machine. You can jack up a Plek job just as easy as you can jack up any fret job. So in my. My opinion, the original Heritage they sent me, even though the guitar played great and sounded great, in fact, I thought it played and sounded a little better in this one and looked a little nicer than this one. But this one does look gorgeous and plays nice. The frets were just grinded down flat. If I could have gone back in time, I should have just kept the guitar and refreaded it. My concern was they sent this extremely expensive guitar. And then in the video, I would explain that I refretted it and you guys would all grab your pitchforks and torches for Heritage. And I felt pretty bad for Heritage because, you know, they don't need that kind of drama just to give me a guitar. It just doesn't make sense. So I sent it back. Long story short, they said, let's make a second one. So they made a second one, and they put the jumbo frets on this one. So this has jumbo frets, and it's weight relieved. It's chambered just like. And now they have a new weight relieved, and they have a 60s neck version. Although I didn't want the 60s neck. I like this version. This, to me, this is their 50s neck. And their 50s neck feels the closest I felt in thickness to a real 1959 Les Paul. I've held about four, maybe five 1959 Les Paul's trying to do in my math right now. Let's just say four. I've held four real 1959 Les Paul's and I was able to play them. That's one of the benefits of again the YouTuber channel. You walk into some of these vintage stores or I have a friend who has one that helps too. And. And you play them and every one of them. I'll tell you two things. My first, everybody always talks about the amazing tone. I will just tell you this about the 59 Les Paul's arrow all played that they had two things in common. All of them had a smaller neck like this. Not chunky, really C shaped but not chunky. And all of them were light. All of them were definitely like eight pounds, eight and a half pounds max or lighter. So. So not as heavy as we thought. But anyways. So Heritage was kind enough to make this new one and send it to me. And so the question I was getting is do I still like it to have it? I do still like it. I do still have it. I did make one change to it which is I replaced their tuning keys with lockers. So I have locking tuning keys right here. These are no name locking tuning keys. I don't know where I got them. They were in a drawer. I have so many damn parts from repairing guitars for almost two, two decades that I just have parts and parts and parts for probably the rest of my life because. And so I grabbed a set that fit and I put them in and now I have locking keys in it. So very cool. So this guitar, let's go over some of the cool features that it has. This has a 50 style neck, 12 inch radius, 22 frets, 24 1/4 scale length. The nut is 43 millimeters. Jessica Medium Jumbo frets. Oh, medium jumbos. No, these are Jesscar jumbos. I have Jumbos Finish. Finish is vintage gloss. So it's got a gloss but there's a little bit of an age look to it. It's not relicked in any way. So there's no relicing on this finish. Solid mahogany body with a maple cap, mahogany neck. The Heritage Custom Shop tuners were removed for these. It's got Heritage custom shop classic 225 classic humbuckers which I think sound really, really good on the guitar tune. Matic bridge and a bone nut which is a nice change from the nylon nut that Gibson uses, which I like both. But this kind of just feels good. Right now I'm running this. Turn this on. Whoops. This one. I'm running this through my tone King Imperial Preamp. And of course, you can hear my mic. Oops. If I mute my mic and don't mute before I finish the sentence, It's buttery. Let's switch cameras for a second. Okay, go here. Here we go. Here's a camera here with the microphone as way. So I'm gonna move the microphone, if you guys don't mind, a little bit here. Let's do this. I thought we had worked this out last week, but I guess I didn't, so I will do that. So. Okay, so. And I thought I would share something fun besides the guitar. I mean, obviously, the guitar looks gorgeous. The. This one is super light. Uh, I think the weight on this one is like 7.9, so about 8 pounds on the. Just about 8 pounds. So super light. Um, funny enough, not my lightest Les Paul. I have a Gibson Les Paul. It's lighter. It's seven and a half pounds. So my Gibson RO is seven and a half. So even lighter. But very chambered. That one's very chambered. Um, so anyways, I thought I would share a couple things, and one of the things I want to share with you guys is I was talking about the Tim Pierce course earlier, and a lot of people keep saying, like, oh, you're playing improved ever since you talked about that. And it. And I go back to the chorus all the time. And the. The reason I like the Tim Pierce course and why it kind of ties in this guitar today is this one thing. And I. And to you guys, maybe I'm gonna screw everything up. And a lot of you won't sign up for his course because I'm gonna ruin this forever for. But I want to show you one thing I learned from Tim Pierce that changed the way I play guitar and the way that you guys have been hearing me play guitar for the last couple years. And I think it's because I always equated everything to practicing scales or practice. You know, just more practice. And I feel like I play a lot. And so I didn't feel like my problem was hand strength. I mean, obviously speed. I'm not a fast player, so. And it's not something I'm interested in. I'm not interested in playing really fast. So the thing that I thought was interesting was this one lick. It's a pentatonic lick, and it goes. Okay. Basic pentatonic. You've all heard it. And the problem I had was my feel is bad. And I'm going to switch here, and there's going to be a microphone in my face. What I mean, by that was I. What I learned from the Tim Pierce class masterclass was the technique was as important as the skill. In other words, the way. The way I did it. Okay. And so what happened was my bend was mechanical. It's not very emotional. It doesn't have a sexiness to it. So let me go back here. And again, Mike will be slightly in the way, so I apologize for that. I will fix that for next week. Okay. All right, so let me show you. So this. When I play a lick, I can't help but do this bend. And it's just that. And it's not a strength thing. I just don't have, like, a very sexy finesse of the bend. And something that clicked for me in his courses was not only just ways, you know, techniques, but this philosophy of, like a studio musician trying to get the result. And it's not something specifically he said in the technique, but if you watch me playing, and a lot of people haven't caught this, and some people did, is that when you see me play a lick now where I'm like, you'll notice now, instead of bending, sometimes I slide. And all of a sudden, even though that's not the same bend, because right if I bent this note, I find that sliding is just a little bit more desirable for me. So that lick, I'll play it now, like, to me, it just smooths it out. That. And I can slow it down. So. Where before. That bend was almost. It's. You see how I stop for a second, I kind of go into it, and it's not. The slide is better than the bend. It's not the bend is better than the slide. It's kind of like the thought process I learned was kind of like the analogy I love so much, like a guitar player being like a chef. It's like I'm trying to present to you the audience, better tasting food, better sound. And so before I would pay attention to the. The actual mechanics of it, what I'm supposed to play. And for him, not only was the licks that I learned good and the techniques good, but some of those philosophies of, like, yeah, what it calls for. And to me, that just that simple trade off the same thing. I slide in. Let me do that. Just that one. As I'm messing it all up. And to me, I know it sounds silly, but it's a little sexier just that. And it works with lead, too. Let me switch over to lead on the tone King. And here's what's funny about that The. It's kind of like if you ever, you ever had a. They talk about the difference between like attitude, right. Versus education. Like the attitude. Something can change instantly, you know, instantly. Like, you know, you can teach somebody, but takes time. But their attitude, they can change instantly. Instantly. I felt like there was some things in this course that, yes, I'm going to work on that and I practice it. And then there were certain things like I hit like attitude. Like, oh, I don't have to, I don't have to play it that way. There's another way to approach this that really makes people feel like that's more bluesy or more finesse or more feel. So I just thought that was cool. Plus, I get to me, I like the win. Win. It's an update on the Les Paul, which is the heritage. We shouldn't call it les Paul, right? H1 50, is that the worst name? They should call it the Morpol. That's a dad joke. We should keep a dad joke counter. Still love the heritage, by the way. Absolutely love it. It's a beautiful guitar. And love the neck, love the weight, love the feel, love the, the, the, the frets and everything sounds great through that tone. King Imperial Preamp, by the way. So, but, but anyways, so that's update on the thing. And then I thought that was also cool to give you guys some insight on this thing and a story I promised to tell everybody. I promised Shauna to tell the story, by the way. She didn't want me to tell it. I just promised her I would. I'm good. I'm going to do it. You know, it's funny was when, when Tim first approached me, you know, a couple of years back. Okay, if you want to promote my lesson program, I'll give you some, some of the. A piece of the pie. And by the way, I want to tell you that's not unique. Fender, tons of YouTubers are my friends. There's tons of people who will give you a piece of your course if you promote their course for them. Because again, it's a no cost push to them. I promote it, you click on it. If you buy, they get a new customer that's outside of their normal, you know, realm and they send you a kickback, an affiliate click. Right? But I gotta tell you, and I can't tell you specifics because it's just not good etiquette in business. But I gotta tell you, Tim is way too gracious, way too gracious with how he treats us from this, you know, and that's not the reason why I pick it, because, again, some people, like Fender, have a really good payout too. But I just. I'm not a fan of the Fender Lesson course. First of all, I didn't like the fact that they wouldn't show it to me before they offered to. To have me promote it. And then I had to buy one and check it out and, like, investigate it, you know, on my own. And it was fine. But I. I prefer temps. But what I liked about. What I like about Tim, that's what I liked about this. And Tim is. This is a story that involves Shauna. So I have another friend that's in the industry, and he said something to me once. He said, I've never. I've never paid an endorser or an artist to play one of my instruments. And I was like, oh, okay. And he says, yeah, I would never pay anybody to play my instruments. He goes, hey. He goes, they all gotta buy one. He's like, I've only given away two instruments. Instruments ever. And one was because an artist who had bought so many, he gave him, like, an extra bonus free one. Some of you guys might know the story, so you might know who I'm talking about, but I'm not going to say the name. And the other. The other free one he gave was to the same artist, you know, for some other reason. Right? Okay, maybe they got a Grammy or something. And he goes, I don't give free instruments to. To musicians or to especially, you know, to. What do you call it? Uh, influencers, you know? Right, you YouTubers and Instagrammers. And Shauna's response, which I thought was great. And it made me think of this with Tim and the way Tim thinks, which is, you know, he knows I like his course, so he's like, hey, let's work together. Promote it. And Shauna's response to that person saying, oh, I don't give influencers or artists anything, I was thinking, oh, that's okay. Yeah, it makes sense. And then Shawna goes, do you advertise? Do you advertise in magazines? You advertise places? And he said, yes. And she goes, so you give strangers money to promote your products, but not the people who actually love them? Wouldn't it make sense to just help the people who already love your products work with them? And then his response was, well, I don't work for free. You know? He goes, try to get your plumber to work for free. He's like, I don't work for free with them. She goes, yeah, but you Want them to work for free for you. And I thought it was funny. It was not like she was saying anything. She was not by the way. She was not arguing with him. She was pushing back mentally like hey, let's, let's walk your theory through here. And so I thought it was interesting and I, when, when this Tim approached me, I thought, oh, this is pretty cool because again I'm already, I'm already drinking the Kool Aid, might as well talk about it. So I thought it was fun and I thought it was a funny insight to it. The fake Gravy loving Phil McKnight is a great name by the way. That's awesome. You, you definitely take the prize for a funny name. The fake Gravy loving Phil McKnight said, I saw Tim lead a session at NAMM. I did one see all one of his lamb shows clinics. I saw his PRs claim too and it was so nice. Yeah, he's got, he's got a, a presence about him. Not only because he's in a good mood, but he's just got a way of kind of sharing insight with you about things and, and the non magical on, you know, way, which is like some musicians, you know, they talk to you, they talk to you like you just can't understand them. They're so, you know, high level thinkers and there's, there's truth to that. But Tim just talks to you like a sane, you know, like a sane normal human being. And I love it. So. All right, so Guitar of the Week. There you go. Heritage Guitar of the week. H150 custom. Still love it. I will, because of this, I will reach out to Heritage probably next week and see if maybe we can get another, another shot of that factory tour. So I think it'd be cool to see the factory and see what it looks like now. Sean says, hey, was it the guy that ran it GNL that? No. If it was, I tell you that because there would be no downside. Now he doesn't have a company to have any drama over. But no. Okay, let's, let's let me do two things. First of all, why is it oh, I'm like, why is my screen missing? It's because when I went to show you guys how to do logins, I jump screens. Clan Housecast says, hey, does Cortek make Sterling guitars? Yes. Yeah. The answer is yes. Which factory? Different factories. So this is the whole point of, you know, clown has cats. You are the closest to asking me a great question. I'm going to call it A good question. It's not a great question though. Here was what I thought was interesting. I got a lot of good questions. No, I got a lot of questions. Clan Housecats. One of the first good ones about the Cortex visit. So let me tell you the Cortec factory, one of the things I showed you in that video is that there's different buildings and there's different hierarchy right to the quality. Right. Different components, different woods, different skill sets and different price points. The one, one of the questions anyone asks and, and Clan is asking it, which is great. So does, does that factory mean. So when I said in the video, hey, this is their, let's call it their mid tier factory. The mid tier factory makes guitars between 500 and let's say a thousand dollars. What wasn't. I didn't say because it wasn't really my place to say yet. But we do have another Cortex factory tour video coming probably in February. So you guys know, and it's a little bit different than that one because that one was just, let's, let's crack the egg open and let's see what's inside the egg. Now that we've seen inside the egg, let's give you some of the yolk. This is the weirdest analogy I've ever given. Maybe I'm just in the mood for eggs. So anyways, so my point is, does. This is the point when he's asking, he says the sterling, other good sterlings made there. Yes. Are they made in the nice factory? Well, that's the key to this. There's a little bit of something going on that no one asked. Does a guitar that sells for a thousand dollars made at Cortec, is it necessarily built in the nicer building? No. See, no one asked. I was waiting. So I was like, okay, well we'll address it. So what does that mean? So let's say a guitar is made in the, the entry level factory. And that guitar usually they'll price for two hundred and three hundred dollars. Okay, four hundred dollars. Okay, cool. I showed you guys that. But a brand doesn't have to do that. There's no rule. That's just the quality set that that factory can make. There's nothing stopping a brand from going and saying we want you to make a guitar at this price point, which is like $200 cost, $150 cost. And we're gonna price it for a thousand dollars because we got a good brand and we're just gonna do that. They absolutely can do that. So that because you bought A guitar that's a thousand dollars. Did you get a guitar made out of the top tier or mid tier building of the Cortex factory? No, there's no guarantee of that. That's what those factories make. Did they make yours? Well, this is the whole point of the, know your gear deep dives, right? And the geeky stuff is to kind of go through and see what people have done and why they've done it. No, you can absolutely take a lower price point instrument because again, Cortec is just the oem. They're just doing what they're told. So if a manufacturer says, hey, we want a certain level of quality and we want it to be this good. And Cortex says, okay, this is what's going to cost to make it. And we're going to make it in our premium building. And they go, okay, we'll make it in the premium building. Or they're going to make it in the master building. And the, and the manufacturer is okay, but a mother manufacturer might go, hmm, I don't like that margin. I would like way more margin. Okay. And so cortex, like, okay, well then we can make it like this. At this point, price point, Cortec doesn't really see the end result. They just build the guitar that they were commissioned to build. So to answer your question about Sterling made different, different buildings. I saw them in multiple buildings. I saw a lot of different brands in multiple buildings. Some of the videos you kind of see in the background, some of it was obviously, I had to remove it. But no, there was no, like, guaranteed. So I can tell you who's guaranteed, okay, if you have a prs. Okay. And this is because, again, let's give PRS credit. They were. Not only did PRS let me see their building, they flew out Jack Higginbotham to make sure that I was. That I would see the building and he could walk me through it. PRS wanted me to see the building. Why? Because when you do, when you have a clean kitchen, I'm going to stick with food analogies. Guys, I think I'm hungry. When you have a clean kitchen, you want the customers to see it. You, you're not afraid of the customer, not afraid of health inspector. You don't want everybody to see it. Here's the irony of the PRS building. It makes the $2,000 Herman Lee and it makes the 499 Satin 24 in the same building. Same workers built both. Now, there's different skill set workers in that building, of course, but same workers, same machines, same materials, right? Same wood supply, same part supply. That's how they do it. One level of quality, different price points based on feature sets. And, and that's really a lot of it. Some of it's not necessarily cost. Some of it's just feature sets. Right. They want to make a, they want to make a guitar that's 500. So jacking about them told me a story. He said that his first guitar was a Sears. He. He said he watched my Sears Deep Dive video where I did the Sears guitar. He said his mom worked at Sears and was able to get him a guitar at Sears at employee cost. And still they had to put it like on layaway. Right. Or maybe it was on a payment plan. He said it was a horrible guitar. You know, like a lot of us that start with horrible guitars, how the hell we're still playing guitar. How I think of it all the time. My first guitar was so bad it wouldn't even really stay in tune. But for some reason I just plowed through that and I'm glad I did. And you know, I'm sure in a, in a world where we all talk about, you know, the entire history talks about 9 out of 10 people don't succeed at guitar. Well, I'm sure that number is partially just people aren't, you know, aren't dedicated to it. They don't find love for it the way all of us do. But I'm sure some of those guitars were helping people quit. And he told me that the whole point of the 499 PRS guitar was with a gig bag was he just wanted to someone to have their first guitar be better than what he had. And for those of you that are going to say 500 a lot of money Jack is 100. Right. Which is. I said in my video the Sears guitar he bought when he was a kid at the. The Silvertone with inflation is 500 in today's market. So with inflation, that's, you know what it. You know. Anyways, so back to the story. So that's. We know PRS does it that way. Do all the others do that way? No, that's not how it works. Not to what I saw. Everybody makes their guitars in different buildings like I said, even though there's dedicated buildings. For instance, maybe it was an accidental leak. I don't know if I accidentally leaked it. I'm not saying I did. But if you watch my year end review, you might see a little clip of somebody saying there's some Fender guitars being made in another building than the Fender Building, maybe that was out there. I don't know. You guys are gonna have to be your own little investigators. I told you I was a little restrained when it comes to Ibanez, Fender and Squire. That was the big restraint for me is what, you know, Cortek had no permission to give me, to let me show any of that stuff. And because those companies didn't give us permission. So. So my point is, is that. No, yeah, you can have guitars made in different buildings and have different qualities and that doesn't dictate the price. It's not a guarantee. What I was saying in the video, and I just want to be very clear as what I said was these buildings, these buildings make that kind of quality and those kind of quality goes for these kind of prices. But what I didn't say, because again, I wasn't really allowed to. I want to say allowed to. It wasn't something that I wasn't actively allowed to say was that doesn't guarantee it. So if a guitar is a thousand dollars, it does not. And it's made by Cortech, that does not guarantee it was made in their most premium building. It could have been made in a. In one of the lower tier buildings, if you want to call it that. So there you go. That's the. So. So that's why brand value matters. That's why brands matter. That's why how companies treat us matters. That's what, how they charge us matters. You know, not taking advantage, not trying to milk us for every penny, not trying to make the lowest quality product for the highest possible price to get the most amount of profit out of us. You know, the one thing that you can, you hope for in this industry, in the guitar industry, is that you have this unsensation, unsuccessiable, insatiable. Is that a word? Since making up words today you have a consumer who is habitual, who wants more guitars, who most of the time kind of sticks to a brand and just keeps buying that same brand even, right? And if you know that you should reward that customer with good quality and good service and good pricing. And so they keep coming back and they get loyal. Cause they get loyal like products that you've never seen before. And so basically what I'm trying to say is, you know, when the companies that try to take make a record profit off of one sale off of us, it's going to be. It's going to be their downfall. And I think a lot of companies we're seeing now are starting to feel the pain of that not all of them, but some. So. But yeah, that's a great, good question. That's actually. You know what? I'll give you. You know what? Today it's, it's. It's a great question. Thank you for asking a clan. And again, again I prom. I promise we'll have some more cortech and more video content like that coming soon. A little bit more detailed about stuff and just, you know, we'll get it through. Okay. So. Okay, I'm trying to remember this correctly. It says the subscription creep. Subscription creep into software and now high tech hardware is the new version of plan obsolescence. Yeah, I mean I think that's kind of my, my thought process too, right. Is, you know, I, I don't want technology in things that don't need technology. It's not, I'm not anti technology. You know, I always, I always. Because, because when they made on my second channel they made a video that did really well and it was me old man screaming at the cloud about apps and how I don't like apps and you guys hear me from rant about apps. And I always think it's funny because my attitude about apps is that I just don't want them where they don't need to be. Just because the technology exists doesn't mean any shoved into everything. It doesn't need to exist in a place, you know, it's not always a good idea. Right. And that's my point because I always laugh when somebody goes, oh, I know you hate apps. And I go, well, I don't hate them. I just don't hate apps that I don't. That are not useful, that don't help me as a cons as a, as a person. I don't even as a customer as a person I want to. I want products that are usable and helpful. I want to enjoy things in life. I don't want to be annoyed or frustrated because a company's figured out how to milk an extra 30 cents out of me. It's just not. There's just no win there for me mentally. So I don't want to do that. Like I said, I've literally made a living off of an app off of a phone. I have one app that I can almost say this one app built it built my YouTube channel. And so how crazy is that? So I have a lot of love for a lot of apps, but I have a lot of hatred for stupid apps. So. Okay, let's go, let's see. It says curious if non players think relict relict or real beat up guitars are worth less or more. The relic thing is definitely a connoisseur thing. In other words, you have to be in the guitar universe to understand the quality of it. This is why I say this. When I've had people come over my house that are non guitar players usually have guitar players come over. We're going to come hang out in the office for a little bit. There's a lot of candy in this room you can imagine, and that's what you see. But of course there's a closet full of guitars and then there's another closet. This room has essentially two closets. And just so you know, because it's kind of funny because Ralph was like, he was shaking his head at me. He was asking about petals and he. And I said, yeah, I keep them in the shop. And he's like, oh. And I go, why do I have pedals in the room? And he's like, oh, yeah, where? And I said, they're in totes in my bathtub. So then my office has the bathroom. So I have a bathroom as well. But I don't use the shower and the bathtub in here because obviously I don't need to because I have in my master bedroom down the hallway. So in my bathtub I have totes in there, plastic totes. And that's where I keep my pedals and stored in the bathtub. And he, he went in there and he took a picture and he's like, of course you do. Of course that's where you put your pedals. And I'm like, why do you need storage space? And that's where went in there. So anyways, so my point is that guitar players come over, definitely come in this room. But non guitar players. Shauna will bring her friends up and be like, here's Phil's crap. She's like, this is why we don't live a good life. She doesn't say that. But you know. And so here's what I think's funny. I always do it to everybody. I did it. I do it to my. I did it to my daughter. I do it. Everybody go, hey, what do you think? The nicest guitar in here. And they always pick something that you can imagine, right? They'll pick like maybe the framus or they'll pick, you know, maybe this. They'll probably pick the sapir hollow body, something that's pretty, right? Most people will go with that. And then I'll go, hey, what do you think's the most expensive guitar in here? And I always laugh because they never pick the right one, as you can imagine. They always pick like, you know, a schecter or solar or something like that. And then I go, what do you think is cheapest guitar? And it's always like my relic Strat. Like I. Because it's not relic. It's just a not relic. But you know, it's whatever, it's aged. Whatever age guitar I have, they always think that's the cheapest one. So. And, and it's funny because I'm like always like that's one of the more expensive ones. So yeah, I think non players don't get the whole relic thing. And there's a, a lot of opinions about relic. I'll stick with the opinion I've had since day one, which is relic is a look. And it's. If you like the way it looks, you like the way it looks to me, to argue it. I don't argue its tone properties because I just don't think it's a thing that I give a crap about that way for electric. But when somebody goes, you know, to me liking a fluorescent pink guitar, liking a black guitar, liking a shiny guitar, a satin guitar, liking a relic guitar or an aged guitar, those are all just looks. I don't know why it's so divisive for people. I love when people are like, I hate fluorescent guitars. Oh, I hate relic guitars. I'm like, well, okay, I, I get it. You get it. I, I, you don't like them. I don't know. You shouldn't be upset by them though. I see people actually get outwardly upset. Like anyone who buys a relic guitar, I'm like, really? Well, okay, that's just the look they like. I, I don't know, I think it's, you know, I, I have, I understand it to this level. There are two things that I just can't get past and I don't dislike them. I just can't get mentally past them. Okay. When I bought my truck, I bought it in white pearl. I was very excited that it came in Pearl vs. White because I was like, oh, that's, you know, fancy looking. I go, okay, but white. I got a white pickup truck. It came in that gray, you know, I'm talking about that looks like primer gray, but it's gloss. It's like a real popular color right now, this, this gray. And it's on like a lot of Toyota's on a lot of cars now. Okay, Gray. To me, it looks like primer gray. Sean and I, we grew up in Tucson together. So we know. When I see that car, although I know it's trendy and it's cool and I believe it or not, there was a first second I looked at that, my truck in that cut gray color and I thought, well, it does kind of look nice. But to me mentally, I can't get past the fact that when I was a kid, all my friends had fixer upper cars that were primer gray. Either the whole thing was primer gray or our panels are with primer gray. And if it wasn't primer gray, it was that rust color primer. Everybody was working on a car. Everybody's car was primer gray. And everybody, everybody would start every sentence with hey, I'm going to paint it. Everybody was going to paint their car. I don't know anyone who ever did. All my friends never. No one ever painted their guitar. No one had the money to paint their guitar, their car. So when I see that color, it does that for me. Just like the auto turn off thing. You know, the cars now that auto shut off when you're like, you stop and they turn off. It gives me like PTSD when I was poor and my car would just break down in the intersection. I can't even tell you how many times I've had to help, have, have somebody help me push my car out of an intersection when I was younger. So when a car stops in the intersection, I almost have a mental collapse. Even though I know it's going to do it. Even though I know it's going to stop. The car just stops when you brake too hard. It just makes me nuts. So the idea of buying a brand new car that's in primer gray, that auto turns off is just something that just. I get it. It turns me off, but I don't hate it. It just turns me off. So I get it. So what I'm trying to say is I get why some people don't like certain things. I just don't get why they get upset about it. Let's see, Gerald wants to know recommendations for, for online luthier courses. You know, I don't know. I've had some people approach me and I gotta tell you, the online losery courses. So we do the clinics here. So that's how. So you guys know we have a clinic tomorrow. So if you guys don't know if you become a patron for $10 and above or you pay for a hundred dollars for the year, okay, so you can pay for the Europe, just pay for a month. It doesn't matter. We do a clinic every month. Tomorrow is called Everything Strat. We're going to go over Strats. But the clinics go off the rails just like this. Because it's just like this except for it's in the studio room, it's in the workshop. So there's nine cameras and all the tools are there. And I literally, instead of here, where I'm like here, like this, this, I literally will pull out the equipment and we'll, we'll go through it and there's a crap ton less people. So like today there's 1400 people is what the counter showing me. A good clinic for us would be like 40 people on an average, you know, actively live. So you get your question and it's going to get answered and then also you get to preload your questions and then we, we have a whole thing on Patreon. You get to load your questions and once I do the thing and as we go through and we actually check off all the questions were asked and we delete them out and then the remainders get to the next, the next clinic. So we do have that and it's a great way to get a question answered for that specific thing. And like I said, you could just do it for $10, pay $10 if you want to do that. So I'm just letting you know. And then, and then for the $5 tier, you get that bonus podcast and you get ad free ones. And then at the highest tier, the 25 tier, we do, you get all that stuff. And then you also, we do a once a month, sometimes twice a month, depending on my month. Hang on Zoom. And you just get to hang in Zoom. You can do their present with a, you know, video or not and you can ask me anything. And we don't record that because it's again, it's more like behind the scenes stuff. So I can talk them a little more freely about stuff that I'm embargoed on and stuff. But anyways, my point is I told you guys I've been approached about doing some loser courses and I did film some. And so we're gonna, we're gonna see how that goes. You know where that goes with this. But my point is I've had some people reach out to me, not recently. And they do the same thing. They say, hey look, we want, you know, I have a lesson course for luthery or repair and would you want to promote it? And I think if I promoted it, it would do very well. But the problem is, is I Have to vet it, which means it's a lot of time. Okay. And that's what I'm trying to say about, like, you know, back to the Tim Pierce thing. He had no problem with me vetting the course. He understands that it's a lot of time. And then I don't need to do that, right? I don't need to watch hours and hours and hours and consume hours and hours of education so I can just promote it. I. It's. It's a. It's essentially a. It's a job. So, you know, when we would talk to them about, like, hey, can we work out something where we get supported for the time, they were all just really like, no. And I'm like, yeah, it's really not great. It's not like I'm telling you you have to pay me. I'm just saying I got to get, you know, I got to vet you out. So basically I'm trying to say is I haven't got there. So the good news is I'll probably just do it myself. So I was hoping to not have to do it because I could just promote somebody's as good, but maybe somebody will see me talk like this and maybe reach out again. But keep in mind, if you reach out to me, you have to understand what you're asking me. You're asking for not. Not four hours on an afternoon, somebody like me, you're going to. I'm going to put in, I don't know, 50, 60, 70 hours minimum, because I'm going to consume every inch of it. And I might even have suggestions or feedback for you. Not that I think you have to take it, but I'm just going to. I'm going to have input. So in the meantime. And so, you know, at this point, because of the way I'm going, it's probably going to be a lot faster just to complete the one I have. So let's go to Steve. Steve says, hey, Happy New Year. Not picking up any. I'm not. Not picking up a repaired guitar you worked hard on is. Okay. I have no. Not picking up a repair guitar. Okay. Could you say happy birthday to my friend Chris? He's a big fan. Happy birthday, Chris. I don't know what not picking up a repair guitar is. So. Okay, I don't know what that means, but not picking up a guitar. Trying to run through one more time not picking up a guitar that you worked hard on. Are you talking about when people don't pick up repaired guitars? I know that was a question last Week we got somebody says, you know, not picking up repair guitars. Somebody's talking about having people pay up front. I don't know. I would say, I don't know. Back in back when we would do repairs, we would have tons of guitars never get claimed quickly. So it is we. We would send letters. I wish I could ask. I wish I could ask Sean. Right now, I think it was three months, but she might have been 30 days or send letters. So usually if no one picked up a guitar, claimed it, we would then after we called, we would send a letter and then she would. Then I think she sent a certified letter. And then we would still sit on it. But we never, we never kept them. I know that's a thing you can do because you could put a lien on it, like a mechanics lien. And I think so. You know, I think it was in our verbiage we could do that, but we never did it. The closest we ever got to that was, I've told you before, is people would drop off like really cheap classical guitars for restrings. It was always class. Like I'm talking about student little, you know, little crappy, like $79 new classicals. But they got it like for $10 at a pawn shop or not pawn shop at like a yard sale or Amazon. And then they would have us restring and they never, never come get it. We would eventually turn those into loaners after a year or two in the, you know, to the kids. So if a kid came because the little kids would forget their guitars all the time and go, we have loaners. So this one is from Frugal Fixer. Spike says, hey, I was looking at my birth year guitars this week. My only hope is to build one or go ghost gender. I don't know what you guys typos are getting crazy today. 1958 may be the highest price year with the most new models. Do you know of any year higher? Okay, so you're talking about the highest price years. I don't know. Remember, I'm not a real big birthday guitar guy. It's not a thing. I. I did have a birthday bass, but I didn't set out that way. I had a bass and it was just happened to be my birthday year. I find that that is this thing that for some reason grabs a lot of us, you know, like, hey, I need to get my birth year guitar. And what ends up always happening more than not. You spend a fortune for something that's not that great. Because to find a guitar that you're Saying your birth year that you love, that's perfect. And it's not expensive. I mean, I don't know. But when it comes to getting vintage gear, I'm not a huge vintage gear guy. So every time I even dabble in what's considered vintage gear now, which is again, because, you know, 80s 90s stuff, most of the time I'm just not super pleased with what I found or paid for. It's always like, yeah, I could buy something a little better new. If you happen to find something really nice that's vintage, I think that's great. But when you set out for it, I feel like you're. You're setting yourself up for failure more times than not. Jeremy says, hey, I'm checking out the FGN and I have a circle fretting system, curved frets. Okay. If you have. If I have to do any fret work, will my straight files and tools work on them? Circle fretting system, curved frets. I don't know what that is. It's not something I've worked on, so I don't know anything about it. Let's. Let's take it. Take a look. First of all, let me just see. Because first I got to look to see if it's real or it's just some kind of marketing crap. So. Uses subtly, subtly curve frets on the fretboards. Fingerboard technology by FGM guitars and basses to improve intonation, pitch and clarity by ensuring each string crosses the fret at the precise 90 degree angle for minimum contact. This is just whatever this is. No, I don't know. I'd have to look at it. I've never seen this in person. This isn't something I've seen. I'm reading real quick. 90 degree angle. The curvature guides the fret to sit at a perfect right angle to the string. I don't know, not having any reference of it all. It just already doesn't sound like anything that makes anything that. That matters to me does it make sense? Like I'm not, not interested in it. I wouldn't actively go and make a video of one. Stuff like that introduces, I think sometimes more problems than it solves. But again, I'm very, very not versed in it. And my first impression is just that it's the first impression. My first impression is sounds like it's complicating a thing that does that already works fine. There's no issues. So I really have to know. It's kind of like how I told you. What I like to do is Experience things, and then I can share that. Like, you know, true temperament. I go, okay, here's where I go. This is where I think it's good, and here's where I don't think it's that great, you know, evertune same thing. I'm like, I want to. I want to. I want to try it, figure it out, and see what it does that's different than anything else. So far, I don't think I've ever felt between fan frets and true temperament frets and, you know, the buzzfeed nut and, you know, Irvana, the. You know, all that stuff, nothing has really ever struck me as like, this is so good that I have you. You just can't own regular stuff anymore. And it's not that that stuff's bad. I'm just telling you, like, I have not. I've not found anything that makes me go, oh, wow, this is so good that I got a. All my guitars have to have this or every guitar has to have that. So I don't know. I'll have to look into it a little bit more. Somebody's asking me, what are my favorite candies and what are your and Shawna's favorites? If Ralph has a favorite too. I don't know what Ralph. You know what's funny is I don't know what Ralph's favorite candy is. I don't think he likes candy. I think he's. I mean, I would imagine he likes candy. He likes sweets. I have no idea what his favorite candy is. Maybe caramel, which is kind of. Oh, you know what? It is, caramel. And I remember now why I remember it's caramel. I don't know if I'm allowed to tell this story why it's caramel. I'm gonna do it. Why not? It's into the show. Let's. Okay, so let me make it easy. Sean is real simple when it comes to sweetwater candy. I have mine blocked. So I don't get sweetwater candy. I'm not a big candy guy. You think I'd be, like, into candy? It's not really my thing. I've stipulate this. I like chocolate a little bit dark chocolate now. The older I get, the less I like sweets. I don't know what that is, why that is, but it just is. But anyways, candy. Shauna's candy. She likes. She likes on the sweetwater candy because. Because she get the. The little flavored tootsie Rolls. She likes tootsie Rolls in those flavored Tootsie Rolls, that's her thing. So when. When Sweetwater sends products for review or for videos and. Or she buys because we. Sometimes I buy under her account and then I have a third account that I. So if I don't want them to know who's buying it, those come with candy. But my personal. If I'm buying it, it always has hold candy on mine. So I don't get candy. So Shauna likes it when she orders stuff because then there's candy. So she likes that. And so, yeah, I don't need any of that stuff. Ralph, his favorite is caramel. Now, why I know that is Ralph. And Ralph's funny because I've known Ralph now probably more than I've known anybody in my life besides my Shauna. Shauna. And, you know, my family. Right? Okay, so this is why this is funny. So Ralph is Thai. So this is why this is a good story. Because some people don't know this. Ralph is Ty. His mom is Thai and his dad is a very big white guy. Like, I mean, white. Like, no tan white. Like, you know, Don Hugh like white hair. His not like his dad old has white hair. His dad was like white hair when he was like, young. So his dad's like 6, 5, white guy, white hair and his mom's tie. Now, when. Why that's funny is most people think Ralph's Hispanic. In fact, most Hispanics think Ralph's Hispanic. Everywhere he goes, they think he's Hispanic. It's been that way our whole life since I've known him, you know, forever, right? Since teenagers, everybody thinks he's Hispanic. And over the years, I've seen, you know, people be a little racist to Ralph sometimes. A lot of racist to Ralph, but every once in a while he gets odd. Racist stuff. But the biggest thing that's funny because this shouldn't be funny, but I'm going to be honest, this. This is kind of funny because he's not Hispanic. He's Thai. The racism is always wrong. So it always leads to funny stories with Ralph because he gets a racist response to him that happens to be the inaccurate racist response because again, he's like when he had to get his fingerprint card, you know, because we had a store, they were like, Hispanic and he's like Pacific Islander. And, you know, right? Like, they always just get. The lady at the window is just randomly guessing. She's like, oh, Hispanic. And he's like, Pacific Islander. She's like, oh. You know. But anyways, here's why. Why one, this is the odd racism is with him is funny and also why I know he likes caramel. So one day I was at Starbucks with him. This is probably about 17 years ago, so quite a while ago. Doing some math right here in my head, 10 years ago would be 2015. So yeah, 2000. About 17. 18 years ago, right. So think of this. I already been friends with him that long. So think about in a long time. We had a Starbucks. We both ordered a espresso frappuccino. So it's a blended drink, right? Get blended drink. And. And no whipped cream. So no whipped cream. Blended drink. And he orders the two drinks. I'm standing next to him, he pays and, and anyways, he gets his drink and he takes a sip. I take my sip. He takes a sip and he goes, this is a caramel frappuccino. And the girl who's like, you know, 19. 19 year old girl behind the counter is like, yeah. He goes, no, I didn't want a caramel. I want espresso. She goes, oh, that is espresso. Espresso. And he goes, what tastes like caramel? She's like, yeah, I put caramel in it. He goes, why'd you put caramel in it? She goes, you people love caramel. And he's like, what do you mean you people? And she goes, mexicans like caramel. And he goes, I'm Thai. And then this is why the story's funny. He goes, and I love caramel. This is good. Thanks. That's how I remember. I'm like, oh, yeah, he likes caramel because he does like caramel. And. But so you know, he was really mad at that chick for a couple days and he loves caramel. I know right now I can picture him in my head telling. Telling me, tell him, make sure they know I do like caramel. He wasn't mad at the caramel, he was just mad at the odd racism. So that's the story of why I know Ralph likes caramel and that no one knows he's Thai. So which is good. Anyways, okay, did we. Did we answer everything? Did we talk about all the guitar stuff? I think we still have. Nope, we got everything. Did I want to try one more? We got like a minute. Oh, you know, it's a question I can't answer, but I want to answer. Read it because I'll. I'm going to check. The question is. Hey, Phil, are the new rounded PRS SE pickup rings the same size as the old ones? I don't know. But what I will do is I will make a Note right now. On the deep dive to compare. Okay, Mark, so the deep dive for the hollow body. This. These pickup rings are. I'll. Ollie will verify. I'll take them out and verify that that's something I can do and I wouldn't have done if you didn't ask because it's not something I would have thought of. But I can see why you were curious, so I will make sure I do that. That was a good question. All right, guys, I wanna say goodbye, but now there's. I don't have a screen to say goodbye to guys today. I don't know what's going on. 20, 26. I guess the computer's like nap. That's the end. Okay. All right. Okay, so. Hold on. Okay. I'm just reading stuff. Just make sure I've seen anything else I can grab. All right, guys, if you're on the patreon level and $10 and above and you want to join me for the clinic tomorrow, you can see that it's already listed and linked and you can tell the time on that. And then also, if you guys want to sign up for the 10 Pierce course, I will tell you this. If you sign up for the 10 Pierce course and you do it, we plan to do something a little fun in probably March that will involve that. So if you sign up, I'll probably announce that mid month we'll be doing the 10 Pierce course for a couple weeks because it gives them time to get people sign up. Because again, I know when you drop stuff on people, it's nice. If it crosses a couple paydays, that helps as well. And then on that note, look forward to. Look for. Look forward to it. Yeah, look forward to it. Look for next week, the deep dives on this channel. Also, if you guys don't watch the know your channel today, we dropped the I built a 1980s rack amp and there's two other cool videos dropping this week on that channel as well. So look for that. And on that note, I want to thank you guys all for your time. Until the next time, know your gear. If you're learning something or having a good time, don't forget, you can subscribe.