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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 Guitar podcast, episode number 443. So we'll finally get it right one day. The intro right one day. It's never gonna happen. All right. Anyways, I hope everybody had a fantastic week. We have a lot to cover. I have so many things already queued up. Froggy's day out. He says, hey, Phil. What, What? What do you get a guitarist for Christmas who has everything? They have everything. Well, if they have everything, they don't need anything. No. So some good advice. Christmas presents for guitar players. Here's my advice for what it's worth to me. You categorize gift giving in two categories, Shared bank account and not shared bank account. First of all, let's just start there. So if you have a guitarist in your life and you share a bank account with them, I usually tell you to buy them exciting things because it's coming out of the same account. So this is my way of looking at it. It's like somebody buys me socks and underwear. I'm like. And it comes out of my own bank account. I'm like, yeah, I need those things. I hate buying them. And you did it for me. But it's not exciting. If you don't share a bank account, go practical. Buy them guitar cables, guitar picks, guitar strings. Buy them tuners. Buy them the things that they hate to buy because then they don't have to buy it. It's fun. So what do you get? A guitar player has everything. Backups. You can always use another guitar. Cable. You can always use some strings. Always. Look, string. Even if you have everything, strings are consum. So get strings. Get them the strings they like, do a little research, and then get them some strings you think they might want to try. And if you're a little scared of that, one thing you might want to not do is play with gauges so much. So if they like 9 gauge strings, maybe get them 9 gauge but in a different type of string material. Maybe like a nickel, pure nickel string. Maybe like NYXLs, maybe just a different. Maybe different brand. Something to try a little different. I wouldn't buy them for five or six or a case of them. I'd buy them their normal stuff and then I would buy them a couple exotic packs to try for sure. And remember, different string materials produce a lot different string results. And, you know, it's fun. I have A funny story about my hat and hats on live shows. I was watching Michael Nielsen's live stream the other day and he was doing what I was doing. He was having trouble doing the hat and I wanted. I didn't watch it live. I watched it afterwards. And I wanted to tell him it's not your hat's off, it's the camera angle is off. So that's when you're fixing your hat. You don't fix your hat to the correct. To your hat is correct. You, you fix it so that the angle of the camera is hitting your face correctly. That's what 443 episodes teaches you. You're. You adjust to the camera, not to normal. What looks normal? A lot of things here. Optically, if you came in the room, you'd be like, this looks weird. It's weird. It's the cameras. The cameras see different things than we do. Somebody's suggestions. People are giving his biomet Burst Les Paul or a dumble. Sure, why not? That's a good gift. Why not do that? What do I like to get for gifts at Christmas time? For guitar related stuff, Tuners. Clip on Tuners. I hate buying them. And I'm always. I always need more. I think I've told you this. I have a, I have a theory. I can't prove it. I don't know if it's true. I feel like no matter what tuner you get, no matter how good it gets, clip on. We're talking about clip on. They get about three to five drops. And after that I find they're just not as accurate. And I've asked every tuner company, not everyone, but a lot of them, they go, that has nothing to do with anything. And I'm like, why do I feel that way, though? I feel like you drop it and then you pick it up and you play it. And over the years you drop it a few times, all of a sudden it's just not as accurate as it was. I just kind of feel that way. But I would say, I would say, like I said, stick to that advice. If you share an account, buy exciting things, buy them something fun. Go to a music store. You know, some of the best gifts you'll ever get anybody is not online. It's in a music store. Go to your local mom and pop. Even a guitar center. Physically walk in, touch some stuff. You know, just touch guitar straps. Kind of look at the accessories and, and see it. That's a great way to do. Oh, you know what else is nice? Polishing kits, cleaning kits. And tools. So, you know, one of the gifts I gave this year, I gave one of my closest, dearest friends. I gave him an accessory cleaning kit. And it was some of my favorite tools. But more importantly, it was guitar polish, guitar, guitar cleaning spray, all the cleaning stuff, fretboard conditioner, all that stuff. And he was a little shocked. And I was like, I told him, I go, I hate buying that stuff. Don't you hate buying guitar polish? It's like, I hate buying household chemical stuff. You know, much less, you know, household cleaners, much less guitar cleaners. I feel like guitar cleaners are 10 times more expensive house car cleaners, especially if you, if you dare look at the per ounce cost. So that's another cool way to do things. Also, don't forget cool coffee mugs. Look, I have a Fender one. I should be like, get know your gear. Get know your gear merch. Who doesn't like that? Matt says any Music Nomad gear is welcomed, basically. Yeah, I agree. Music Nomad is very expensive, and so it's nice to get a reprieve from that. So that's just my two cents. Guitar humidifiers are, well, again under categories of stuff that I just think that go practical. And like I said, if you're, if you're buying for somebody that's just buying the stuff they don't want to buy, unless of course, you're using their account. And then like I said, maybe try to find something exciting. So somebody said, those $25 plastic PRS tuner knobs, it'll improve the tone. According to PRS, they're tone plastic and they improve sound. It's a fact, because they said it is. Okay. Okay, let's see where is. What's up next? Okay, let's go to the next. I thought there was another early riser question. This one came from Kevzella 100 says, hey, Phil, I'm just going to assume you have a PRS S2 Mira in the house. When can we expect a deep dive? I do not have a PRSS2 mirror in the house. I have a mirror. It's an old one and it's kind of been retired at this point. It's just not in my play routine anymore. So I love the Mira as you know. But I think, just to be honest, my SG is just. I got the SG many years later after the Mira. And the Mira is essentially, I guess that's what I was doing is I was, I was. I had the Mira as if it was my sg. I didn't do that purposely. I didn't buy it thinking like, oh, I'll get this instead of sg. I just got it and I liked it. What I liked about it was the thinner body. Now with the Kyber from Kiesel, the SG from Gibson. I just have a bunch of guitars now that have thin bodies like that. And I find them going to them more really like the Miras. But it's not my go to guitar. My PRs go to guitar. No, I was going to say, is it in. In here? It's not in here. It's in the hallway is my S2 semi hollow single cut. I don't know why I like it. I just do that. Has to get more of my playing time than any PRs I own. And no. No reason why. There's no. I can't tell you that it sounds good. I don't think it actually particularly sounds that great. And I've done everything I can to make it sound as good as I can. And it looks horrible. Even Nathan looked at it and said, you should have just painted over this. I'm like, I know it's a black trans. Black top, but it looks like said to you guys. It looks horrible. It looks like black. And it's one of the S2s. Just like the cores. They had a period of time where this finish was lifting off the edges of the fretboard. Mine lift off and just chipped off. And so I have little chunks missing from it. It's like a disaster of a guitar. But I got it for a song. I paid nothing for it. I bought it new on a blowout as a dealer. So I bought it when I was a dealer and it's. I don't know, just is really good. So. Yeah. All right. So that's my suggestion. Oh, the other thing is that's great suggestions for talking about Christmas stuff. Is anything educational? I think that's always a smart, smart play. You know, anything that improves someone's life is always a good gift. So whether it's health wise or, you know, as education wise, those are always great gifts. I know as a kid, right? Oh, man, those are the most downer gifts. I think as an adult, it's the nothing. Nothing, in my opinion, says I love you or I care about you more than a gift. That's like, hey, I like you to. To learn a little bit more and improve yourself a little bit more. Be a little healthier. I think all those are good gifts. So that's pretty cool. All right, so that's what I think you should do, Franken. Says True Fire. If it works for you, it works for you. The. Okay, let's see. I'm just looking at some of the comments. All right, let's get into some of the other things. We have a lot to talk about. First we're going to talk about the big thing. What's the big thing? Reverb released its 2025 best selling gear of the year. This is the best selling gear. It's in categories. It's first. We have pedals. We're not going to start with pedals. We're going to start with guitars. There was something that shocked me this year, which, you know, I guess isn't a huge surprise, but it was just crazy to me. So these are best selling electric guitars in the new category. And they have many categories. Like mini isn't a lot, not many. Like small. They have small categories too. Let me go ahead and move me over here. Okay, there I am over here now. Okay, so. So let's go. I purposely put this off page for you guys. Okay. Number one, Epiphone Back to the Future guitars. You know what's crazy is about that is I thought they made 1985. So it's one of those things that kind of really hits home for you guys right now. Not all of those 1985 Epiphone Back to the Future Les Pauls were. Sorry, ES335s, whatever guitars. Sorry, I said Les Pauls. Not all those were sold on Reverb. So I mean, even if we were, half were sold on Reverb. That's like, you know, you're talking about a thousand guitars, you know, maybe 1500 guitars, right? I mean, 1985. No, about a thousand guitars. So the fact that it bit. Number one. It's so crazy to think that this is like one of those things that we talk about all the time. Like this. People in this industry, people just think there's so many guitars and something that's interesting. I thought I'd have some. I have some stats to give you as well. I have stats too, Reverb. You're not the only one with stats. I have stats and here are the stats. So I thought it was interesting. We were looking into to see if we could figure out how many guitar players are on YouTube per year. Which of course there's almost no way. We did as much as. As we could as a deep dive on that as possible. We couldn't figure out how many guitar players on the planet Earth, but we were using some numbers that the, that the, that were suggested. Suggested and the suggestion was there could be as many as 700 million guitar players on the planet Earth. That's how many musicians, that's how many could be that. That would be like 10%. We're not going to go with those numbers. I just want to let you know those. But what we learned was, which I thought was interesting was through this weeks of deep dive, we was that on my channel, this main channel, this main channel has 200,000,000 million views with the average viewer watching three videos. Okay. And so when we did some math, we found out that that means that not even 10% of the guitar players that could be on YouTube at any given time throughout the year have seen this channel. So the reason I tell you that is sometimes we think like somebody. When I did the factory tour at Cortech and they were like 1.3 million guitars and they were like, who buys all those guitars? I'm like, well actually think about this. You're not even doing the math correctly. If you're going okay, that facility makes a million guitars. Yeah, if there was a million guitar players, that would be a lot of guitars because that would mean one for every guitar player. And then there's the rest of world making guitars too. But if there's tens of millions of guitar players and their whole habitual guitar buyers, not all of them, but too many of them should point to myself in the back wall. You can see we really haven't really touched the, the, the, I guess the complete, you know, the complete amount of guitars that we can get to. But back to that, I want to go back to this. Okay, so we're talking about them. So epiphone Back to the future number one, number two, Fender Standard Telecaster. So I'm giving away some information, some stuff because we have our urine wrap into wrap up too. I just want to tell you a jump ahead to more importantly to number six. Number six was the Fender's standard Stratocaster. So some interesting things to know is that this year we did the Fender Standard Telecaster video got 210,000 views and the standard Stratocaster got like 130,000. So it's funny to me that this Telecaster outsold the Stratocaster, but the view counts actually align with that. What also aligns with that? We looked at affiliate clicks and what we realized is we sold twice as many Fender standard Telecasters as we did Stratocasters. So what's interesting about that is we. My numbers, whatever reason doesn't really matter. My numbers are aligning With Reverb's numbers that yeah, people bought more tellies in the standard series than Strats. I'll just give it to you guys now. You know those are made in the Cortex factory and they were making a lot when I was there. So it's a lot of. A lot of guitars. So interesting. What was really interesting about that is from what I could tell, they make a lot more of those guitars. To so to say see the epiphone really out outshine them was really crazy. Let's go back to this. So that's number two and of course number six. Let's go to number three. Number three is the PRS SE NF53. That was really shocking to see that because that guitar is almost a thousand dollars nine hundred fifty. So it's crazy to me to think about the price points they're talking about. These guitars are beating out guitars for a lot less money. So to see this guitar be number one even though it's, you know, twice the price or some people were scalping these for 1500, $1600 a piece. These have phone back to the futures. These guitars are 6 to $700. And then this one at 950 currently on sale in the high sevens right now. But still that's not until recent. And then the next one was. The shocking one was number four was the evil instruments. Claudio. I hope I'm saying this right. Claudio Sanchez, the jackhammer guitar. So let's. Let's look at that. That's this guitar. What I. So I'm pretty sure this is Coheed and Cambria's guitar player. If I'm incorrect, I apologize. Let me take a look. I. That's what I thought. Does it even say. It doesn't. Does it. It's got to say, right? What am I missing? It doesn't really why it's not saying. So if somebody knows in the comments, please. In the comments and I'll. I'll go off that. So this evil instruments. This is guitar is made in Korea right here. Little zoom in on that. So it's a made in Korea instrument. Dunnable. So it's a. It's a collaboration with Dunnable Guitars and made in Korea. Seventeen hundred dollars. And yeah, look at that. So go back. That was number four. I kind of feel like. Kind of feel like when I was reading this, I'm like is re messing with us? This is the way gonna like these idiots will believe this. And we tell them. It's kind of funny because the guitar just. I mean it's just not a guitar I would think I would see in a top 10 cells report. And keep in mind, Reverb isn't all the sales, but it's a. It's a huge, huge platform. Thank you, Stephen. He's saying, yes, it is Cohen Cambria. I like said, that's what I remembered. I thought he was in Cohen Cambria. So thank you for. For stating that. Let's go back. What do we got next? We got. Then after that we got the Fender Player 2 modified Telecaster. That makes sense. Then of course, like I said, number six. Number seven is the PRS SE custom 2408 Poplar Burl LE. Number eight was one of my favorite guitars of the year. I did this video, Ibanez AZ24S 1F standard. That was probably one of the best guitars. Funny thing was when I reviewed it in February, January this year was 550, and now it's 5.99. It jumped up 50 bucks. Fender Player 2 modified Stratocaster. So again, you see the trend here. Telecasters outselling Stratocasters. Very interesting. The PRSS SE special hollow body, semi holo. Again, another guitar I did, really crazy to see. And you know, and I looked at view numbers and view numbers were matching this. What I mean by that is generally speaking, you have to look at your channel somewhat as like a talk show, like Johnny Carson. The guest is gonna drive views as much as, if not more than you. So if you have the right guest, you're gonna get a lot more views. So usually if it's something people are interested in, they're watching the videos. It does happen sometimes backwards. Like you make a video and then Josh Scott makes a video and everybody wants to go out and buy something. But in my experience, it's not happening the way you guys think. Like, I'm not making a video and then everybody runs out and buys it. They were out there buying it or interested in it, and then I made a video and then they watched. Okay, so let's go to this next thing. Number 11 was the Fender Player 2 modified Telecaster. And then again after that, Defender Standard Stratocaster HSS. So interesting. The Ibanez RG565 Genesis Collection. I only laugh because I bought three of them. So. So I'm like, yeah, well, yeah, I bought three. For some reason I kept one. But I was cycling through them to try to find the. The Precious. Then the Jackson Pro Series Lee signature guitar. I don't know how to say the last name, so I don't want to mess it, butcher it. And then of course, the Ibanez AZ22 S1F standard. The Gibson Les Paul standard 50s faded. The Gibson Les Paul standard 60s double trouble. The Fender Player 2 modified Stratocaster HSS Epiphone, inspired by Gibson custom and the Squire classic vibe. You know, the takeaway from this is if you take out the big players, which we know is Fender, Squire. So Fender, Squire, Gibson, Epiphone, okay? Ibanez. Jackson's under Fender. So let's just call that Fender, okay? You take them out. In fact, think of this whole side of this report right here. You're looking at. It's Epiphone, okay? Gibson, same. You got Jackson, you got Fender, same. You got Squire, same. And then of course Ibanez. And of course Ibanez is not as big as Fender Gibson, but it's up there. Then you go to this main page and you're seeing the same thing now. You're seeing PRs, okay, another big player. PRs again. PRs again. And then back to Epiphone, Fender, this Evil Instruments, Claudio Sanchez. The only thing, it's the only non mainstream huge brand that poked through the clouds. And why I think that's funny is I would really like to know. I'll probably check it out now. I'm really curious what it is about that. Was it just highly anticipated? Is it? Or was it a thing? Like no one thought they'd ever make a signature as a his. Was there, you know, something cool? Was it limited edition? What got it on this report? Because to me it's. It's kind of sad that essentially when given. And that's what I'm going to say when given. You know, we used to live in a world where you lived in a place, a town, a city, wherever you lived and you went to your local music stores and whatever those store owners basically decided to stock. That was your universe. So, you know, you would go to a store and they would have a few brands. And a lot of stores, especially back in the day, tend to hook onto three or four brands. Accounts, we'll call them accounts. So what I mean by that is one account would be fmic. So that would give you Fender, Squire, Jackson, Charvel, Gretsch, evh, you know, you know, to name a few, right? And then back in the day, maybe Guild and Tacoma and SWR and you know, all those. Another account could be Gibson, which would be Gibson, Steinberger, Tobias Kramer, you know, Epone. Another account could be like St. Louis music back in the day, which was at that time it's different now because Yamaha has Ampeg, but it would be Ampeg and Crate and Audiocentron and you would get like Series 10 and West Tone. So basically what I'm trying to say is you would go in and you'd feel like you were looking at, you know, 30 different brands, but essentially you could be only looking at three accounts. Okay, this is really common, but it was under their control. So if you went into your town, especially if you're from a mid sized town, you'd maybe have two or three music stores if you were lucky, and you go in and they would be slightly different. But again, you wouldn't see the whole universe of products. Then when you got Guitar center, you go in and you'd see like, wow, look at all these products. But again, what looks like, you know, a hundred different brands is now just 10 different accounts. Right? My point is now we have the Internet. You go on there and it's an infinity of brands, okay? As many brands as you can think of. More brands than you could even realize. Like I said to this day, I've been on this YouTube channel now for a gazillion and a half years. A thousand videos, 400 podcasts, and every single solitary day somebody tells me a guitar brand or a pedal brand I never heard of. Every single day. I'm being a little exaggerating, but only a little bit. And to think we have all of that at our fingertips and we buy exactly what Guitar center has. This is exactly. Aside from this evil instruments. If you walked into a Guitar center, this is what would be on the walls. Epiphone, Fender, Ibanez, Squire, prs. That's it. And that's what we. And so given we can get anything we want. Apparently the majority just went, yeah, I'm just gonna go, I'm gonna complain the Guitar center selection sucks. Go on the Internet and buy ex Guitar center has it. If you ever need proof, the Guitar center knows exactly what they're doing. Apparently this sales report does not insinuate they don't. So just an observation, and I could argue some of these guitars aren't physically at Guitar center, but you get the idea. It's just really crazy to think, you know, when given the opportunity to have whatever you want, you just like, uh huh. You just pick the standards. We're gonna go, let's do, let's go to. I want to go to the next category. Let's go the next category. Actually, you know what, let's take a second, let me get rid of these so many screens, otherwise I'll get lost. Let me get out of this and see what you guys. Any feedback you guys have on this. I'm curious what you guys say. Anyone got anything to say about. Max said that's probably why Guitar center carries those. Absolutely. Well, it's funny is a lot of times they carry those because of the accounts. Like I said, it's an account. You gotta understand it's a one stop shop. Not only is FMIC have a lot of brands, but it's one account so it's really easy to control. When I had the store, one of the things is Shauna would handle all accounting and bookkeeping and stuff and she would take care of all the vendors. And one of the things we did is as we would add different accounts, it increased her workload to where she could come in for hours every single day and just be paying on accounts or taking care of accounts, you know, trans receivables and, and, and you name it. Just going both back and direct. So. So it's really nice when it's like oh you have one, you know you had. I bought let's say 100 different guitars and four different brands. But it's to Hertz. One check to cut and one check to send was a lot, you know, a lot easier. So it's crazy, it's crazy to see this as staff. K says hey, it's because we want those iconic shapes and sounds from our heroes in childhood. Sure, why not? I'll give that to you. I would say that's, I mean we could come up with thousand things like that. Sure, that's all going to be that way. But also keep in mind those styles and, and shapes are you know, also really covered a lot by a lot of brands too. Joseph Clark says, hey, you just named the brands that I absolutely won't buy. Yeah, well Joseph, you would now would be called a unicorn in this scenario because that's not what the. You're not going with the flow, man. You're gonna have to, you have to change otherwise. So I think Fender, Gibson and Guybit is. And PR is gonna knock on your door one day and be like hey man, get with it. Let's see. Average buyer, not keyboard warriors probably want to try before they buy. So they won't try what it is in store. Okay, I think Chris. This is Chris. A bunch of numbers by the way, great name. I'm taking that is what you're saying is that basically these are the safe purchases online. So maybe that's why they're There maybe it's a little harder. That makes sense because one of the biggest things like with Keisel is that a lot of people are not familiar with their neck shapes. And it's really hard to throw down a lot of money on a guitar. You're like, what's the neck shape like? And it's like, oh, it's like a Keisel. And you're like, that doesn't tell me anything. So I'm almost, you know, it's a great point that you're making because I'm really excited in a video, even though I shouldn't be when I do a deep dive. And a guitar neck is very similar to a Gibson style neck or Fender because that's the. I feel like, man, they just took all the hard work out of my. Have to explain it to you guys. I go, yeah, it's like a Fender C, you know, 1990s Fender Strat. Oh, this is like a Gibson 60s flat, thin neck. That is so much easier to explain to you than just this is how thick it is. And this is the. The shoulders are softer and it's more like a U than a D. I mean, that's stuff. It's, it's, it's a lot easier. So. Yeah. Yes. So let's see. Okay. Yeah, somebody was talking. Some of the stuff is great stuff. It's just not really on the topic. So maybe I'll come back to it. So let's move over, move on, move over. We'll come back if we have to. Let's go to amplifiers. Best amplifiers selling amplifiers in 2025. Well, first number one, neural DSP quad cortex. I believe that was number one last year. I don't recall. But boy, a neural DSP. Still have not bought a neural DSP quad cortex. Have an interesting bonus podcast. Not about them, totally different brand, but we were talking about the Neural DSP Quad Cortex and how it's changing how guitar players do business. And that's kind of the way, you know, how they have to conduct their, their lives. Next number one was the line six Helix floor unit, which of course is now with the stadium out, these are going to be dropping like, like flies and price points. The line 6 catalyst 100. As you guys know, I like the catalyst 50. It's a great amp. So interesting to see that. It really popped up over the katana. However, I don't know if I should tell you this, but I'm gonna tell you anyways. I have a friend. I have a couple friends. I have a couple friends. That way you won't know who it is. I have a couple friends and they work at Guitar center, and I do. So this is. I'm not tricking you guys. Well, I am, but I'm just not. I'm not lying. And they told me, man, if they see one more katana coming used, they're gonna, like, they're gonna stab their eyes out of their head. They said it's like every day somebody's walking in with a katana and you trade this in because there's just so many used katanas out there. And so, yeah, I can see what line six is, is hitting that. Interesting, though, it's the 100 over the 50. But I also think line six was blowing these out. Remember, for most of the year, you could get these for a song. So, you know, some things you have to factor in is price points. One of the things that I think makes the Quad Cortex pop is because at 17.99, it's a little cheaper than maybe like, you know. Well, obviously the AX Effects, but I mean, Axe Effects wouldn't be new on Reverb. They sell direct. So then the positive grid Spark, which is crazy to see that still popping. So good for the positive grid, guys. Line six, Helix lt. That's. I had an LT for a long time. Orange micro dark head, which is another interesting one to see here. Mustang LT combo, the Fender Rumble V3. So again, interesting a bass amp in here. So that's interesting. Positive grip. Spark Go. I like the Spark Go. And the Spark. Is it the Micro Micro Spark and the Go. I always forget which one's which. I now got to look it up because Spark Go. Because I want to make sure it's the one I. Yeah, so Spark Mini and Spark Go. Spark Go is this one. This is my favorite. So I, I, I don't own. Oh, shall I go back? I don't own any Spark products anymore, except for this. This is the product I ended up keeping. I just like it. Everyone, when I got this and I did a video, every single person, everyone, like the whole world, just what it felt like. Said, oh, man. If you like that, you like the Spark Mini, right? So the Spark Mini is this one. They go, it sounds way better. The Sparko sounds horrible. Get the Spark Mini. Literally, I got death threats. People are like, I will kill you if you don't get. I'm just kidding. But it was like, they were. People were like, they were intense, man. They were like, gotta get this. This is it. The Spark Mini. The Spark Mini is so much better. It's so much better. It's so much better. So I bought one. I broke down, I bought one. And guess what? It is better. It sounds way better. It's battery powered. It's great. And I never used it. You know why? Because I have better sounding amps in the bedroom to use in this. And when I went somewhere, you know, the Spark Go can fit in my pant pocket. So I just, I don't have to worry about. Was so tiny. It's like. It's not, it's. This was always a decision like, oh, we're only gonna go for a day. Do I really need to bring an amp with me? Oh, yeah. I just have my Spark Go because it's my Bluetooth speaker. So I just take it as my little Bluetooth speaker. And if I need it for a guitar amp, I have it for guitar amp. So that's why I did with that, by the way. You know, can I just say one thing about Spark that really sucks and I just want to say it over and over again. Spark, positive grid. Can you just pick a fucking price? Every time I see a price this, it just enrages me. Like 249 down to 199. Then it's back to 249. Then they're 129. Then they're 109. Then there's. I think I told you this. I bought. I'll just tell you an excuse. Excuse my tirade for a second, okay? But I just gotta share this with you guys. Let me go back one. I bought the Sparkgo and I told you guys this when I bought the Sparkgo. I bought the Sparkgo for 109. Okay? So it was 149. Then it went to 119. Then it went to 109. I bought it for 109. The week after I bought it, it dropped to $99. I was like $99. So I called Sweetwater and they price matched it. That was very nice to them. I was like, hey, in fact, I think it's them that dropped it. So I just, I think I. I just texted or I emailed the rep and said, hey, I bought this like 10 two weeks ago. You know, can you price match this? And he sent me a refund for whatever the 10, $20. 10 bucks. Then they dropped to like $89. Then they went right back to 149. Then they were one. It's like Spark. It thinks they're in the stock market. Like you just. I feel bad for everyone who buys them when they're high. And I know it's the end of the year, but this has been a constant thing all year. Spark Positive grid. Pick a price. You know what I think, I honestly feel this way. If you would just pick the best price instead of trying to figure out whatever it is you're trying to figure out. It almost comes across to me like every time your sales are down, you're just going to drop prices so you can keep the sales up. And maybe that's. That's a good strategy for you. But as a consumer, it's just annoying to see it annoying. So, yeah, okay, so that's my tirade on that. Okay, I'm better now. I got it out of my system. I just don't understand this. Pick a price and like I said, pick a fair price and stick with it. And then I don't know, to me, it really devalues your product, in my opinion. Okay, so then we have what we say, Sparko, which I like. Then we have the boss Katana 50 Gen 3. I have one of those. I really like it. So you guys know I have. I've been using The Spark boss Katana 50 Gen 3 in most of the videos of affordable guitars. Really like it. Awesome. Um, but I really think I prefer just slightly. And it's just slightly. I prefer The Black Star ID 50. Just slightly. Uh, it's not like it blows the Katana away or even the Catalyst away out of the three. I just find myself with the Black Star playing that the absolute most. That's what's found its way into my bedroom. And that's what I'm playing. Practice. I practice right before I go to bed. Sometimes. It's calming to me to just play a little bit and relax. Number 11, we have the Kemper Profiler stage. That's pretty cool. Fractal audio FM3. So obviously they must sell some fractal stuff on. On reverb. The Fender Tone Master deluxe reverb Yamaha THR32, I have that as well. That's a great amp. Vox AC15C1. That's a great amp. The Marshall DSL40CR combo. I think that's probably one of the tried and true. More, I don't want to say affordable obtainable combo amps out there. Some people don't like it. They don't like the way they sound. Some people love the way they sound. Some people say they don't hold up. Well, I've had no problems with them over the years. Positive Grip Spark 2 Yamaha THR10, the Orange Pedal Baby 100. That's an interesting thing to see. And then the positive grid Spark Mini. So interesting is as much as I'm complaining about positive grid, they definitely are dominating this. What's interesting about this, this numbers to me, these, these stats, this is the opposite of the guitar world where you have all the major players. So if you think of guitars, if you were going to say who are the four biggest guitar brands in your head? Most, most players are going to say Fender, Gibson, Ibanez, prs. That's definitely four biggies. They I always tell people one thing I kind of determined over the years when people are like well how big are these companies really? And I said well one thing I like to do is when there was a namm, you go to the namm, you can kind of tell by companies booths how big they were by how much the booth and how big and how busy it was. And so you always saw Ivan, his Booth was big. PRS's booth was pretty big obviously Fender and Gibson's were huge. What's interesting about this is when we go back to this list, right, what we're seeing is, I mean come on, who was positive grid Just a few years ago they were nobody. In fact when I did the very first positive grid of amp video they were doing Kickstarter to get those amps going. Fender of course is a major player. Orange is a major player. Line 6 has definitely become a major player so that's cool. But it's just funny to see some non major players. I mean BOSS is a big company but I mean come on forever. They weren't big in the amp market, Roland was kind of big in the amp market but so I mean Vox makes sense. So it's just really interesting to see some other players. A lot of people are probably going to talk about the fact that there's a lot of modelers and profilers versus amplifiers but that's just how it goes. I don't think one thing explains another so much. What I mean by that is I don't really think like oh, the fact that people are buying modelers means everybody's going to modelers Because I really think, here's what I think there's a reason why and I've had a long time, I've had a year since last year. I'm sorry, I'm just trying to get to the main screen. I apologize, I have a, I have had a long time to think about the fact that last year modelers dominated this and I Think a lot of people are going to probably come up with the same thing we came up with last year, which is modelers. Amps are dead. Amps are dead. Instead of thinking like that and looking at stats, I, I actually just watch guitar players throughout the year, all the guitar players, and what I've kind of learned is it's very common now for guitar players with amplifiers to have a modeler as well. That's why they're doing so well. Because there's guitar players who are like, I've given up on amps, I've gone to modeler or profiler, whichever makes you happy. But then there are players like me who are like, I love amps, I'm never going away from amps. But practical wise, there's something really practical about, you know, my, like I have my little here, this, I mean this is easy. I can take this and make a video anywhere with this. I can, I can go and gig with this anywhere, right? And line out and it's good. So my point is, is that a profiler and a modeler are hand in hand with amplifiers. In other words, you would use both. So I think they're. I don't think one negates. That's what I'm trying to say. I don't think one negates the other. I, although there are players out there who are like, I use amps and I won't use modelers and there are people who say I use modelers and I won't use amps, I actually don't think that's the common guitar player. I think the common players learn to use both because they both are just tools that have purposes. Right? And I think of it like this. In my family, in my household with my wife and I, we have two cars and her car gets really great gas mileage, like amazing gas mileage. And my truck has a little bit more like I have a heated and cooled seat and it's a little bit more, you know, a robust size and little, little bigger. Not, you know, it's not a big truck but it's, you know, whatever, a little bit more feature driven vehicle than hers. Although hers has a lot of features. My point is, is that it's not like we go, oh, we only go big cars and we only go small cars. It's like for us we've kind of learned like, hey man, it's really nice to drive, you know, down to Tucson and only pay $40 for gas. And sometimes it's really nice to drive and have, you know, a Little bit more comfort, creature comfort, like a, you know, heated steering wheel and heated seats and stuff. So same thing with tools. I think you can find a use for them. Which way? So I think that's what this tells us is that if you think about it, every electric guitar player essentially has an amplifier. So I mean think about the market size, the modeler guys and I keep saying modeler but you understand, I mean profilers and modelers, they just have to convert a certain percentage of amp users to using those products as well. Not instead of. That's the win win. So that's my theory. That's why they're doing so well and that's why it would be opposite because I think there's less. First of all, it doesn't make sense the other way. There's not like there wasn't thousands of guitar players over the last couple years are hundreds of thousand guitar players only using modelers and now are adopting amps back in. It's the opposite. They all had amps, we all had amps. Everyone starts pretty much with an amp, even if it's a little practice amp. So everybody has amps and then they add in the modelers. And even if they're gonna go all modeler, very, very few times do I have friends or I see people that go, I'm giving up my amps and going to modelers like cold turkey. It's always like I find myself using my modeler all the time for me what I use modelers for besides when I'm, I'm out making mobile videos or I'm, I'm, I'm jamming with friends or something. It's late night practice is just super easy. It's all hooked up to my monitors here. I can record, I can go. So that's my thing. Let's, let's take a. Do you want to take a break from this, the report? Let's, what else is on the report? Okay, let's, let's look at. I know you guys want to look at pedals probably, but I don't want to. So we're going to go to. Okay, I want to look at this. Best selling used guitars. Okay, so these are the used guitars. What was the number one selling used guitar? Fender American Professional 2 Stratocaster. Probably because everyone was selling one to get a new Telecaster. That's what that means. I think number two was the Gibson Les Paul standard 60s. Yeah. I would say I've always thought the 60s was more popular than the 50s. I think more people want a Thinner neck than chunky neck. PRS SE Silver Sky. Because everyone of course is buying and flipping one of those. And again, used means it could be as many times. So you understand with used reports different than new, we could have a guitar. One guitar, one serial numbered guitar, sell multiple times. And therefore. So imagine if everyone doesn't love a guitar. Now, here's what's interesting. Do you guys notice a little trend here? Granted that a couple years ago when the Silver sky was dominating the new reports, it was a new product. And now it's not so much new. But notice how they're not selling as many. Didn't even make the top 20 on the new report. But it's making the user report that to me could be churn. In other words, you're seeing everybody kind of got their Silver Sky. They're getting it out of their system now. And now we're seeing people sell them. And used prompts a purchase that doesn't normally exist. In other words, it's an opportunistic buy. So you have people, when it's new, they're like, I'm buying it because I want Silver Sky. It's the greatest guitar ever. Now it's like, well, for that price used, I'll take it. So. So we see that Fender Player Stratocaster, which is obviously makes sense. The Fender gives. Unless. Paul 50s again, I think the 50s always continuously under sales to the 60s. Fender Player Telecaster. Fender American Professional 2 Telecaster. Again, interesting to see. And we can have a theory on that. Here's the theory. Why do you see the opposite of used versus new? In other words, why is Telecasters outselling Stratocasters new, but Stratocasters outselling Telecasters used? And it could be because people are ditching their Stratocasters. Right? And I know what you're thinking. What if they sell one, then someone buys one. But I'm talking about selling it, buying it, selling it, buying it. And it's. It means you're churning them. People are falling out of love with the Strat so much. The PR Silver Sky, John Mayer signature, by the way. This is just. We're all just. I'm just talking water cooler talk. I don't. So for those of you like, I don't agree with you, that's fine. That's the whole point. I'm talking so you can kind of come up with your own theories. Fender American Standard Stratocaster 06 to 2000s. Okay, so the original Fender Stratocaster, interesting. So Gibson SG Standard 19 to present. So again, Gibson, right? Interesting to see that it's the high end dollar guitars. Think of this. This report is mostly high end dollar guitars. It's Gibsons, it's real Fenders, not Squires, not Epiphones. So people churn in more of these high end guitars. This could be a trend or people realizing that some of these inexpensive guitars are really good and they don't need all these high end guitars. You know, that's, that's what happens. That's what happened to me. I love my high end guitars, they're amazing. But I told you guys, once you get them, you're kind of stuck in them. And you realize like I could have stopped two stages down and I'll hop over to your comments in a second. Gibson SG Standard 61, Gibson Les Paul Studio 98 to 2011 is what I'm seeing. Gibson Les Paul Classic, Fender American Stratocaster. Again, these are all high end guitars. They're Gibsons, Fender Americans, Fender Les Paul custom PRSSE custom 24, they produce a lot of those. So I can see that why that's churning. Fender American Vintage 261 Stratocaster, Fender American Ultra Telecaster. By the way, the Ice Cream Man's coming. For those that had listening headphones, you'll be able to hear it. Fender American Ultra Telecaster, Gibson SG Standard and the Fender Player 2 Telecaster. So that is the most interesting takeaway I have from that, which I'll talk to you guys right now about, is that all the used stuff was high end stuff and again all big brands, which of course the big brands have the majority of the guitars. But really interesting because again, this is sales. All right, let's see what you guys have to say about the user report. What do you guys think? Stop the Ice Cream man when he's passing by? Yeah, the, the, the Trey 50:27. Great, great comment. This cannot be true. The standard Mexican Strat has to be best selling used so far. This is why these reports are really strange to me because they're not anything close to what you think. I would agree with you 100%. I would think that you have Mexican, Standard Mexican Player series by far dominating just by, just by volume of sales. But again, you have to understand this is not in the world. This is not in the Internet. This is not in stores. This is on Reverb. So reverb lives in its own, you know, atmosphere too, you know. So what I mean by that is again, there could be trends on Reverb, but they're not Necessarily trends in music stores are trends on other sites that we're seeing. So more 10 guitar. More 10 guitar says buyer's remorse. I agree. Look, I have to tell you, I have a. I have a bunch of Fenders that I'm going to get rid of. American ones, like five, four of them. Four of them. And like two, three Gibson USA guitars. And I would have sold them this year, but the prices are tanking. So usually my logic is I case them. I just put them in the case. If I'm not going to keep them, they'll like, I told you guys this before, I really believe this. It's really hard if you don't want to lose money on a Gibson. Fenders still are a little tricky. You can still lose money on Fenders, Gibsons, you just wait. Whatever you paid for it, new or used, especially if you got it used, if it's not worth what you paid. If you just wait, you'll get the price. You'll just. Eventually, they, they, they, they ebb and flow to some point. Will the future be the same? Who knows? But it's been that way forever. Some of you guys are basically saying people get Gibsons and find out they don't stay in tune and get rid of them. It's possible. It is very possible. Blair8181 says maybe median age of guitars. In other words, he's saying guitars are getting older. That's why all the tellies. The older guitar players like telly. Sure. I think that's true. The older I get, the more I like guitars that I did not like 30 years ago when I started playing guitar. This wall is a weird representation of guitars for me. First you have the guitars that could have been for me. So when I think of my universe that I'm pointing at right now, this Jason Becker and that Joe Satirani guitar, these to me were 90s or late 80s. Remember I started playing guitar in late 80s, late 80s, early 90s era. Obviously the, the I, I think the Joseph Ronnie came out in the 90s, early 90s, I don't think it was out actually before 89 as this model as we know it, the universe. Also, this came out in like 91 and the Jason Becker, although it was probably an earlier iteration. I still kind of remember it from the guitar worlds. I know. And obviously I have a Nuno in four. So there you go. There's four guitars. Like Pornography is Again, a 90s album for the most part is at least how I remember it. Early 90s, these guitars were the Thing when I picked up my first guitar. So when I got my first guitar and I got a little amp and I, I had a fart sounding amp and my little crappy JB player guitar. The guitar teachers, the guitar players, they played stuff like this. They looked like people who do that, you know, they played, you know, this stuff. This was the music. By the time I could play guitar, this was all a joke and gone. Like nobody had that. Like that was just gone. The grunge movement had fully taken control, taken over. And then it was all retro stuff. Then if you look at the other guitars here, like a PRS, I've told you guys many times, I didn't like PRS's until my 30s because I thought they were old people guitars. I, I just, that's what I thought. Same with Les Paul's. I thought other than Slash, I thought they're old people guitars. But for the record I have, I. I'd have to google how old Slash is right now. When I saw Slash for the first time, I thought he was like 50. Then I thought they were old bikers. That's what I thought. Guns Roses. When I saw Sweet Child of Mine, that album or that video on mtv, they look like old bikers to me. Where I grew up in Tucson, there's biker bars and that's what all the bikers look like. So my parents had friends that were bikers. So they just knew some bikers and that's what they look like, old, gruff old dudes. You know, they were all just really tough old Vietnam War era guys who had a buck knife on their hip and a gun like hidden. And so he says slashes every now. Well, that makes sense. So yeah, so think of this. So I thought of Les Paul's and I thought Offenders Again is old jazz master Strats. This was all old people stuff. So it was. That's where I land in this mess is I was like, the 80s guitars were cool, but not when I started to play music. And the old guitars I thought were old. So it's a very strange time. And so. Yeah, but the older I get, the more I find myself liking more traditional guitar Strats, hollow bodies, Gibson, Les Paul's. Just how it works. So yeah, so. So. Matt says, same when I started playing in 94, no one would be caught dead with a Floyd Rose. Absolutely, absolutely. The main reason I switched to bass was, you know, I started playing guitar and my guitar teacher was teaching me like, you know, Shredder licks and stuff. And then I go try to Jam with a band, and they didn't want to hear any of that stuff. And I once had a band, and it's not. This is a bad. This is bad because I'm not a great player. But I once had a band tell me I played too clean. Like I was. You know, they wanted something more sloppy in the technique because that was the thing. So I just said, okay. And then what happened was actually a funny story. I don't know if I ever told it, you guys. You know, it's not that exciting. I. I was in a band, and I was playing guitar, and the band was very strange band, you know, a really kind of odd band with a huge, big, big band. 2. Two guitar players, you know, keyboard player, drums, you know, you name it, and bass. And we got into the battle of the bands, which was a big deal in Tucson. Like, every band was in the battle. Bands. It was all years long. And then we went and we played a show and we. We got in, like, I think, second place or whatever. We were the band that beat us. I thought they were amazing. I just thought they were great. And then a couple months later, I saw an ad for them. They needed a bass player. And I go, that's my opportunity. I switched to bass and went and auditioned for him and got the gig, so. And yeah. All right, you know what we need to do? We need to do guitar gear of the week. We're do gear of the week. Okay? So a couple things. So before we start jumping into gear, we'll. We'll touch reverb again and we'll hit more comments. Couple things. I just want to tell you guys that gear of the week, this week was. Wasn't. Is a hot topic. Okay? So that's my disclaimer, right? I'm not gonna shy away from all things. This is a Gear channel for, you know, goodness sakes. I just don't understand where the drama comes from, but the reason why I'll tell you. We're gonna talk stuff, so let's get into it. Let's. Let's just get into it. And now it's time for Gear of the week. All right, so first thing we're gonna look at this week in new gear is the new Kiesel limited edition Jason Becker micro guitar. And this one I'm excited about. Let me tell you why. I got this random text from Jeff Giesel months and months ago saying, hey, man, I think I'm going to make a mini Jason Becker guitar. Do you think I'm crazy? And I said, No, I actually love that idea. You know, Fender made an actual made in Mexico Fender mini guitar in like 2002, 3, 4 era. They're collectible now, they're hard to find. And there is some micro Fender made in Japan guitars that you can get overseas in Japan. And I said most of the micros I get it on mini guitars are going to be Ibanez, Jackson, you know, Squier, and they're affordable. But you know, I think, look, it's a limited edition unit and you know, a part of the, part of the profit goes to Jason Becker's medical expenses. It looks just like the full size. I just said I. Dude, I think it's going to be cool. I'm a big fan. One thing to know is this, I've talked about the mini guitars before and just to recap, they don't cost less to make than full size. Now keep in mind this, I don't know if you're not Familiar, this is $1,400, which is a lot of money, but the full size is about $1,900. So it's about 4 or $500 less than the full size. That sounds like, well, it should be a lot less than that even. It's actually probably. I think it's shocking that it's this low because technically he's just not saving a ton of money building it this way. The big savings for him or Kiesel guitars, I should say is switching from the Floyd to the hardtail. But that's still a full size hardtail. It still has the same three Seymour Duncan's in it, the same volume knob switch, inlays, nut, truss rod cover and tuning keys and gig bag. Obviously it's a smaller gig bag, but same quality gig bag. So you have to see like, you know, from that point of view it's cost materials wise, it's about the same. The body's smaller, but they're not buying a smaller body blank. They're probably just cutting off more of the blank and tossing it. Especially since they have a one piece option for $100 more. And then same with the neck. They're not saving a ton of wood. They are saving some labor time. I'm sure because of the fact that you're going to have less time sanding and stuff. You can get it in colors. So you know, I was looking here like if you want to get crazy and go like neon green, you can do that or you can get a little fun and try to pick one of the colors from the pickups. Like the red. That's cool, right? I don't know if the yellow will work. I don't know if that works. The pink. I think the problem with the pink for me is it contrasts too much with that orange knob. It's a little crazy. There's also metallic colors, but again, that even adds more to the cost. You know, you're talking 400 bucks, but, I mean, look at that. That's pretty. Actually. I wonder if there's a blue, like a. Is there a tropical blue? Oh, Tropic is going to be a little. Oh, maybe the grabber blue. The grabber blue. Sky blue, maybe. So that adds $200 to the cost. So obviously puts it $15.99. So the thing is, this is not an inexpensive guitar. For those of you who always freak out about guitars, just understand two things. This is limited edition, and it's a vaulted instrument, which means once they sell whatever they want to sell, they'll put it. They'll never do it again. They'll never do this version again, just like they never did the headless versions. This is always just a way to build some excitement, to get some excitement and make a little extra cash for the Jason Becker family and. And do something fun. And if you don't want to do it, you don't do it. And if you think it's cool, it's cool. What I will tell you is it's interesting. I think, although you could get a headless for travel, there's just something, you know, fun about this. I don't know. It's pretty cool. I personally almost think, like, you should just get it standard. I don't even think you should get the one piece and upgrade that. I think just keep it back to natural and go to finish. Can I go back? Yeah, and just. I'd keep it just like, I have the full size one right there. So the full size one plays amazing. So that was new this week. A little fun. I thought it was different. For sure. Definitely different. Okay, let's go to the next thing. Okay, so now we have the GP50. So there was a pedal called. Is it only $119? That's. That's why everybody's excited about it. So I had seen the GP5. How much is the GP5? Okay, well, let's get rid of that. Okay, so it's 79 bucks. Okay, this is pretty cool. So this is the GP5 guitar effects pedal. This is not new. This has been out for a little while. 100 quality effects. So let's go back to this, this is the GP50. So you got a two button switch pedal right here. Can we show more? Let's do the, the overview. It's a, it's got the all new dual foot switch foot switch pedal format multi effects processor with IR loader and it says over 100 quality effects. Supports loading third party cabinet, IRS, max of 20 stored. So that, I mean this is essentially like a portable. This is a, this is the, like a tonx in the concept of or like the, the Line 6 HX stomp. Essentially it's a very affordable, take it with you kind of rig. The supporting NAM neural amp modeler. So it's got the neural amp modelers on it with 50 curated files, max of 80 stored. 100 patch slots. 100 patch slots. Comprehensive redesign interface with full functional coverage. I mean USB audio, usb, midi. It's, it's pretty, it's pretty awesome. What I care about on this is does it show the power? I'll tell you a little fun thing that you need to pay attention when you look at things like this. Where is the power? Size, weight, battery capacity? Oh, it's. Is it rechargeable? 9 volt. Oh, 9 volt DC USB ports support battery charging. So this has a battery, is that correct? Okay, so I was going to tell you one of my things about pedals like this and I use a ton of these is I need them to be able to be powered by a lithium battery because I take a mobile battery with me everywhere I go. When you're traveling like that, you don't want to trust anything. You don't need to ask anybody for an extension cord or worry about, you know, where's a plug to plug your, your gear in and all. More importantly, what happens if there's noise in, you know, coming through, whatever the electricity is coming through. So yeah, power requirements is a 9 volt center negative or USB 5 volt, which is great because you could put it on a pedal board or power it off your laptop. Believe it or not, if it's doing USB 5V that should you be able to power with a laptop, even if you don't, you can use like a bird converter, something like that. Current consumption is 500 milliamps. So perfect. Again, why that matters is sometimes these, these pedals with screens, man, they pull a whole amp or more and then it gets a little tricky to power them with like your typical wall warts and stuff. So 500 milliamps is pretty realistic. Plus or if you're using a pedal board sometimes each channel of the power supply only goes up to 500 milliamps, so sometimes. So it gets a little tricky. This is pretty cool, man. $119. I thought it was like 200 bucks. And I thought $200 was cheap. 120 bucks. Really cool. Let me know. Let me know if you think we should buy one and put one on the Know youw Gear channel. That'd be really fun. I checked this out. I'm really curious. Obviously it's one of those things again where if it sounds like crap, none of this is a value. But who knows, man? At this price, it just needs to be better than some of the other offerings out there or just good enough to get it done. I don't. I don't know. I mean, they have to sound pretty bad for me to not realize, you know, not realize the value of 120 bucks. All right, next up we have the MXR FOD drive overdrive distortion effects pedal. This is on blowout. It was 179. It's now currently at Sweetwater for 99. And they even have an open box model for 89 bucks. And hey, you're gonna scuff it anyway, so. So save 10 bucks. That's a pretty good deal. I've tried this pedal. I liked it. You know, it's one of those things. I can't say it's the best pedal I've ever played, but I really liked it. It does a high gain channel. It does a crunch channel, you know. Right. But more importantly, you know, with deals right now, you have to go look at what's going on in the used market. Because a lot of the pedals that are just dropping in price, especially pedals more so than probably anything else, amps, guitars, whatever. But all of them, check all of them pedals, man. If you're seeing that deal like, wow, it's 50% off, it's 40% off. Go look at used and see what the used market's doing because you'll be shocked sometimes. In this case, these are sold listings. So 100, 106, 109. Let's just check for the sake of checking how long ago this was. And this shows. When did this occur? This happened two months ago. Okay, so two months ago people were paying 109 for a pedal. Used. 100 bucks used. 100 bucks used. A hundred bucks used. So, you know, so my point. Wow, consistent. Hundred dollars right there. So 100 bucks. 100 bucks. 100 bucks. So I mean, obviously, let's go back to it. So $99 it's basically buying a new pedal for a used price. Will the used prices come down? My guess is maybe. But the ways that I say maybe is one of two things have to occur. This has to be the new current price for the used market to come down because ultimately people won't, you know, obviously they're not going to pay $99 used if it's new. But if this is just for a limited time until they either discontinue it, which is even better for you. So you know, if they discontinue it, then the prices will slowly come back out because now there won't be a backlog of inventory coming to the market. But more importantly if it's just a short sale for a time period again. So I, I guess the main takeaway, what I want to say is that open box buy is a pretty good deal. One difference though is that this is $99 and no shipping. So no shipping, free freight and you can return it if you don't like it. So really cool. Okay. Other announcement this week was the new Harley Benton St. Modern plus HSS sunblast. Sunblast meaning it was a sand blasted ash body with a roasted maple neck. A lot of fans of Harley Benton. Look, we got the Clueson style locking keys and I noticed something cool about the bridge. Did they give you a shot of that? They give you up close on that? I thought it was a cool bridge with nice roller style saddles but I don't see a close up of that price down. Where do these price out at? These price out in stock. Check Toman for current pricing. We're gonna do that right now. $439 US. I don't know if that's a good deal. Is that a good deal now for Harley, Ben? I mean I'm assuming. Let's see, is it stainless steel frets, compound radius fretboard. Keep going, keep going. Oh, It's a Babix 2 point tremolo, so. Oh, that's cool man. So it looks like they're going legit, putting some real gear on there. Those tuners look legit. So 439, that looks good. I like that. Now double acting truss rod 22 medium jumbo stainless steel frets. Yeah, I mean come on. Harley Benton seems to always kind of have it when it comes to the quality cool looking. So for those that want a sandblasted style Strat for a reasonable price. I thought that was fun. So you have to look to see availability on that this week. Also dropped. Let me move myself Real quick, I'm in the way. Let me come up here. All right, here I am, the batter monkey. Now, what's funny about this is I didn't know this was a new release because I saw Ryan from 60s like, well, hum, talk about this, I guess, months ago. I feel like maybe in the summertime. So I don't know, maybe. I think this is what he was talking about. He released something or shown something he wasn't supposed to show or something. I don't remember, you know, I don't know. $149. It's Digitech. You know, it's one of those things, like everything lines up. And what I mean by that is, you know, I'm friends with the DoD DigiTech guys. I like these pedals. I love the graphics and the. I don't know how I feel about the barrel knob. It's a wood barrel knob. It's a little over the top. I like the pedal. $149 is not cheap, but it's not, you know, not 200 for a pedal. I don't know, curious. It's one of those things, like, if I get my hands on one, you know, if I'm in a store and I try one or somewhere, maybe I'll give it a, you know, a shot. If I saw it. I guess I want to try to say if I saw it, I would grab one and try it, just to be out of curiosity, but I'm not actively looking for something. I think the problem is, is that I don't know what it is. I know that the bad monkey became all of a sudden expensive because Josh got. Said it was like a clone. And then I was like, it's a clan. And I don't know what the hell that means anymore. So this is. I guess we'll have to wait to. Josh got to grab one and explain it. Okay, so this isn't a piece of gear. This is my buddy Michael Nielsen's album, came out this week, and I'm excited about it for two reasons. One, I've had it now. I've had the actual physical CD of his for a year. And every couple months, I'm like, when are you gonna put this out? When are you gonna put this out? And I absolutely love it. And he finally said, Saturday. He's like, hey, I'm putting it out. I said, cool. Can you. If you give me a 10% code, I'd love to share that with the audience. He gave me a 20% code for you guys. Just so you know, it's a $20, you get 20% off. You get the physical CD, you get the full downloaded album, you get the full backing tracks, the album and PDFs of the table. But you're to play along. And here's why I'm excited about it. You know, I love guitar. I love guitar playing. Obviously, there's, you know, my guitar artist that I love, but Michael, not only. Dude, dude, people think he's just this guy on YouTube. He's got a great resume, but more important, tons of humility. If you knew. Exactly. That's not even the point. The point is, you know what it is. It's an instrumental album, and I couldn't figure out what it is that I liked about it so much, you know, And I finally figured it out. It's not that it's a copy of an album or anything like that. It's just got the Steve Lukather vibe. It's got a lot of vibe in it and a lot of. It's not technical prowess all the time. It's not just like, oh, look how fast I can go up and down the neck. There's just so much going on. I'm going to play a little bit for you. And just, just so you guys know, I might get a copyright strike for this. And that's how much I want to share with you guys. So let me share this with you. Here we go. See how amazing that is? And this is what I was saying about the technical prowess. Here you go. And then one more and we go. I. I have been enjoying this for a year. I'm happy you guys get to enjoy it now. I. I'm happy he made it reasonably priced. I. I love that. Like I said, when I say Steve Lukathur, what I mean is like a chameleon. He could do so many different styles, but it's got tasty chops, tasty tone, fantastic. So check it out. I'll put the link down below if you're so inclined. So I just wanted to share that. Let's. Let's go back to some gear. Let's check out another piece of gear or a deal. Let's see. Okay, so last up on gear of the week, we have the new Tom Morello arm, the homeless guitar. This guitar has been very controversial. If you guys don't know who he is, I'll fill you in. If you guys know who he is, you probably have a hard stance. I'd like to say one thing, and before I go any further, this, this is where they. They invented the saying, don't Kill the messenger. I'm talking about gear. I'm not afraid to talk about any piece of gear. So I'm talking about it. But there was a lot of stuff I got to tell you. So I don't know if you're aware of this, but some companies, a lot of them actually shut down conversations about this guitar. They're killing the comment sections or their, their shadow banning or whatever you want to call it. I asked that you guys just all be respectful and obviously any there's anyone who's can't act like a normal human being is gonna, you know, be a mess anywhere they go. But let's talk about the guitar because there's a lot of things that I thought was interesting, especially since when I was looking at it, no one was mentioning some of the things that I thought were the most interesting. Do I find it ironic that a, a person who's in a band who's obviously anti capitalist or speaks that he's anti capitalist? Obviously a very political band raging against the machine. Very political, very political, anti capitalist stance person makes his signature high dollar guitar. Do I think that's strange? I do think it's strange. That's why I did some research. This is what I found in my research. I have had right here. Let's pull it up. It's was not hard to obtain. We'll go through it. Okay. All I asked was cause I was curious, right? Why would he do this? Besides, it's a money grab, right? Somebody said, oh, did he finally find capitalism worked for him? Look, he sells albums. I mean he's a capitalist to some degree. I don't care what anybody. But the important part of it is this, this is what I found and I thought was interesting. And we'll go over the specs of guitar too. But this is the first important part. It says a portion of the sales and proceeds from the new Fender arm, the homeless guitar goes to charity. Fender and Tom Morello have pledged that part of the money from sales of the signature model will be donated to organizations that support experiencing homelessness. Specifically, the funds are designated to benefit the following charities. Midnight Mission, Los Angeles based organization helping people facing homelessness. And Covenant House, a charity that supports homeless youth across the U.S. this reflects Morello's top long standing commitment to social causes, connecting the guitar's message with real world support to communities in need. Okay, so I know even saying that he's giving a portion of the the money to charity, somebody gonna say yeah, but it says a portion. What does that mean? We don't know, I did some research and I could find no specific numbers given to what the portions are. I will tell you though, and I'm not speaking for this guitar specifically, but I can tell you, like, artists like Robert Smith from the Cure, he has signature guitar with Schecter. And they gave a portion of the proceeds to charity, to charities just like this. And in that specific case, they would say portion. I actually got to ask them about that once. And it was his portion, so. So the artist gave their portion. So that's what they mean by portion. In this case. It could be a portion offender's profits too. It could be a portion of his. It could be a small percentage. It could be anything. That's the point of using vague language like that. You guys can assume the worst or the best, depending on how you feel. I'm just saying it is typical in the industry when an artist and a company come together to make a signature guitar and they say a portion of the proceeds go to charity, it usually means the artist's proceeds are going to charity. That's the whole point. Because the guitar company's in it to make guitars and sell guitars. And the artist is usually being approached with, hey, let's raise money for charity with this idea. So that's. That's typically how it works. It could be totally. I could be totally wrong because I don't know the situation. But I can tell you that that there's many cases in the past where this happened just like that. Speaking of which, this is a lot of other strange things that were need to be covered. This is a gear channel. We're going to focus on the gear part, which is why the hell is Fender making essentially a guitar that he made from parts the of that were mostly Kramer parts. This is just like Eddie Van Halen made parts. I mean, Eddie's was like Charvel parts and Boogie body parts, but same thing as a parts caster. Why does Fender do it? Well, I think the reason is, we go back is because they do his other signature guitar, okay. Which is a Fender. And so I would assume because they're doing this Fender guitar, they decided to do this guitar. And it makes sense because this guitar is made in Ensenada, which is the Mexico factory for Fender. And of course, because they make EVH there, they can make this guitar. Obviously, Fender body is not hard to do. Floyd Rose work's not hard to do for them because they do that with evh. They do that with Jackson as well and Charvel. This neck is not hard to do. This Banana hockey stick headstock. They can do that because of Jackson specific features I thought were interesting is it has a goto double locking tremolo. It has custom EMGs. I thought that was strange instead of saying 81 85. So I don't know what's custom about them. It says it's a painted maple neck with custom hockey stick headstock, 15 inch radius with 22 frets. It does not say specifically that I saw that the logo is hand painted or if it's a graphic overlay. So I know for a fact that the Ensenada factory can do both. They can do graphic overlays and they can do custom painting to some degree. I would imagine this is applique no matter what. I don't think they're custom painting this. But so interesting enough $1700 which makes it puts it in line with like what the Mike McCready Strat made in Mexico is. I mean that's just what they're getting for these custom artists. Guitars like this have your opinions. Have at it. Enjoy yourself. Like I said, just, just don't throw any hate towards my way for just telling you about the guitar. Thank you guys for helping out, making this section of the podcast even better. If you guys have new deals or new gear, please let me know by sending me an email and we'll continue to do this. Gear of the week. So I thought. I'm looking at comments now and one of the things that caught me, you know, it's like I'm reading and I'm looking at the same time is somebody asked a question. It was. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. There was two that grabbed my eyes and it was somebody asking, wasn't it 10%? So that was Steve O. UK 23. So Steve O. I couldn't find if it was. We're talking about the amount he's giving to homeless. If it's 10%, I just don't know. I think they should obviously be forthcoming with it would really clear up things. But what's interesting is generally speaking, the reason I think it's interesting that you said 10% is because generally speaking, artists usually don't make maybe him at that level. They make a little bit more. But usually artists don't make 10% off of the sale of a product. They usually make about 6%. And again, all kinds of deals can be had. I mean anybody can make a lot more. So it's interesting if it was 10%. So that's why I'm just saying that was interesting. That if you heard 10%, I'd like to know where you heard that from. I just thought it was funny because I kind of feel like when the. When the guitar dropped, I saw all the craziness, and then I was like, oh, okay. You know, I understand he's controversial, but then again, you know, who isn't at this point in the world? But anyways, let's see. The other question somebody had was about one of the. The pedals. And I didn't grab it either. Sorry. Okay, so let's jump. Let's jump to another subject. Unless anybody has any questions about the guitars. Yeah, yeah. Michael says you guys are talking about donating guitars. I always thought when Rick Beato did his signature guitar with Gibson, he was. Was donated to charity. I thought that was really cool. So, yeah, interesting. Oh, Steve Wright says the hippos glow in the dark. I didn't know that. So I. I always liked Rage against the Machine when it came out. You know, it's. You know, who doesn't like thumbing it to the man? When you're young, you know, you're. All your beliefs are like, I just hate everybody who's old. But I'm a much bigger fan of Audioslave. When Audioslave came out, I just really liked them. I just like the songs. But I know it's odd for me, and I'm sure I'll lose tons of people and all the things that happen to you, but it's odd for me as someone. I feel like I grew up with musicians and I never thought, cared or put any time into what they. Who they were as people, what they believe, what they didn't believe. I just. If I like their music and I like their guitar, that's just kind of how I thought about it. And as you get older, you know, there's so much more stuff. Social media has introduced more issues into all that, but the takeaway for me is always like, I'm. I don't know. You know, I just don't know what to think anymore. Let's. Let's jump onto this one. It says, this one came from antique rocker who says, hey, I grew up in the. The 60s and the 70s when bands were trying to find their sound. Now we spend money buying gear, trying to sound like those bands. Is it a gain versus are we lost? I don't know. You know, I think that's a. That's a common thing that everybody always says, like how we're just trying to get the sounds from yesteryear, you know, and that's the argument with the younger generation, which is they won't want to collect these old Gibsons and they won't collect these old Fenders or whatever, and this stuff will all die with the older generation and all that's possible. Who the hell knows? What I always think about is this. I don't really chase anybody's sound from the 60s or 70s because, again, just antique rocker, to put in perspective. And I'm not a young person, so think about that. I'm not a young person, but I grew up with. You know, they weren't. You know, they weren't. It was trying not to sound like the 50s, 60s and 70s was kind of trying to sound more modern. And then all of a sudden, it was about sounding modern. It was about sounding heav. You know, when I play guitar now, I. I could say, and this is horrible to say. It's all horrible to say, like, when I. I should be seeking to sound more like Hendrix or more like Beck or Clapton, but really, I kind of seek something was probably now considered more generic. Like, I listen to John Mayer sound and I go, wow, that sounds really good. Or I like. Like I said, I like Altar Bridge. There's just sounds I like, and I go after them. So who knows? I don't know. I don't know. I will tell you. Antique rocker. A funny thing that I once said and I never got an answer. And it was when I was young enough to be naive to say this. I was talking to Seymour Duncan at the NAMM show. And of course, you know, I got a picture with him. You know, it's like when you meet them. And I said, I was thinking about the fact that basically, you know, Larry DiMargio and Seymour Duncan, these guys kind of innovated. They kind of came out with new pickups. You know, think about the innovations there. You know, you know, the super distortion using a ceramic magnet to push the amp. You know, you have Bill Lawrence, you know, using blades and ceramic magnets. You had. You had Seymour Duncan. You know, he's come up with a lot of ideas that are more modern and, you know, making pickups sound better is the kind of logic they were using. And I said to him, I said, is it funny to you that you spent your whole life trying to make a pickup for the new sound and now everybody just wants the pickup? It all started with. And he didn't even respond. It was kind of like he was. I didn't get that he was offended. I just got that he was like, you know, whatevers. So I don't know. It's kind of funny to me. It is strange that we all just seek the vintage thing, but who knows? Frugal fixer Spike said, did the video this week of the fake Fender the guy bought from the marketplace for 650 bucks waiting on a. Oh, did a video on a brand for it to give your kyg treatment. I have no. What are you talking about? Says, did the video this week on the fake Fender the guy bought from Marketplace for 600 bucks. 50 bucks waiting on a brand for it. Oh, I don't know what that is. Who did a video? Did you do the video? Let's see if I can find it. Give me a reference. I have no idea. Oh, it doesn't let me copy. Oh, does it? Let me go to you, though. Interesting. Fake Fender from Facebook. Don't get scammed buying used guitars. Look, I've talked about this many times, so let me just kind of put it in perspective. There are lots of fake guitars. The reputation of a seller is becoming more important than ever before. And fake guitars are everywhere. You know, it's funny. Somebody sent me this and I just don't have the answer. And I kind of. Let me. Let me share with you. Let me go inbox. Let me pull it up. And I obviously got to pull it up and not share their email. What can you see here? Give me a second here. Can I make it any bigger? Yeah. Will that help? Give me one second here. Give me, like a second. It'll make my life easier because I need two photos here. Okay, we'll go here. There is no. Oh, in the back. Is there a back one? This will only take a second. Oh, nice. Convenient. They didn't take a picture of that. And I can't make that bigger, obviously. Okay, so let's get out of here. Let's minimize this. Delete that, delete that. Move this stuff over here. You notice how I'm just telling you all this stuff because I want. I'm trying to buy time by telling you making. Saying, hey, I'm doing this, doing this. It makes it sound like, you know, makes the time go faster. Okay, let's go ahead and share this. So somebody sent me this, and it was interesting. So let me just tell you the story and then I'll tell you what happened. So somebody sent me an email saying, hey, my family member bought this Paul Reed Smith SE from Guitar Center. And it was obviously fake. So if you look at this, there's a couple things. So first of all, let's switch up around look at the headstock. This is what I can tell you. So let me just tell you the facts of the case. Let me just tell you the facts, and then we'll get into the. Look, you know what we think happened. So the viewer said, hey, a family member bought this guitar. It was listed at Guitar center as a prsse. They bought it online, had it shipped to the store. They got the store and they told the manager. They said, hey, this is the story to tell. They told me. And they told the manager at Guitar center like, hey, this guitar is fake, right? And it's not a real prsse. And they. The Guitar center gave him a full refund. So that's the end of the story, Right? Good. But this is what the. The viewer said. The viewer said. Then they. Guitar center relisted it on their website. Now, here's what I know for a fact. For a fact, it was listed on their website. Now, I don't know if it was relisted like the person said. That's just. I'm telling you what they said in their email. What I do know for a fact is it was listed on guitar center for $699. And I was trying to figure out what is the course of action. I know some people at Guitar Center. Do I reach out to them and say, hey, you're selling a fake Paul Reed Smith guitar. They were listing it as an se, which is where the knobs aren't even in the right spot. Like, this is a. This is a AliExpress special is what this is. In fact, I'm sure. I'm wondering if that sticker. They don't let you zoom in on this. It's funny, right? You can zoom in on everything else but this. And they cut off the headstock. In fact, I have to tell you, you know, sometimes you have to say, like, incompetence is usually, you know, the case, right? There's a saying for that, right? In most cases, the incompetence is more likely than deception. It's possible. But, boy, does this listing seem dodgy as hell from Guitar center because again, it's pictured in a way where you can't see certain things. So what happened was, I thought about it. I thought, like, okay, who do I contact about this to say, hey, you have a guitar store selling, you know, one of the branches selling a fake guitar. And then it was. It disappeared now. So, you know, my screenshot shows that it's sold. I want to be very clear on this. For legal reasons, I don't know that it Sold. I just know that it disappeared when I clicked it. It says this item is no longer available and has sold. So I don't know if if just if they yanked it down on their own so and they figured out it was fake or they were waiting because here's one thing I don't know and here's why it's is important. What I don't know and it's possible has happened is that this story that this viewer said is half true. In other words, not that they're lying, it's just they only have half the story. The half story is yes, somebody they knew bought this guitar. It was fake. They told Guitar Center. Guitar center didn't believe them because they don't. You know, why should they just believe something somebody says posted it back because they already have the pictures and everything. So they can just repost it with a click because it's back in inventory. And then maybe reached out to corporate and had some somebody check it and then they verified that it's fake. I told you guys that when I was at Guitar center corporate they had hundreds if not thousands of fake Gibsons there. So it's possible now if they somebody did buy this guitar and Guitar center sold this fake. This is. Again, this is horrible. And, and before I accuse of anything, I want to say I just. My gut says it's more incompetence than it is deception. It's just in lazy employees that don't give a crap. More so than employees trying to deceive anyone. Because there's no real motivation for them to deceive anyone. It's not like they're going to get a huge commission or they get a benefit if Guitar center sells somebody for $699. My point though is that they're everywhere. Now this was blatantly obvious. Obviously it. First of all, think about this. The description and I have screenshots of everything. So I can share you the original screenshots. Because I took screenshots. The original listing does say use PRS SE Custom 24 Blue Ghost Flames. In fact, just so we can do this, let me go ahead and share this. Just give it a second. It's got to airdrop it to my computer. Okay, so I. Isn't it funny? What a week I have all the time. Okay, so this is it. This is the listing. Right. See. Sorry. We're sorry. The used Pure SSE Custom 24 boast 24 Blue Ghost Flames Solid body electric guitar is no longer available but says item has sold. So again, I don't know which one to believe, but it was described as a used Pure SSE Custom 24 Blue Ghost Flame. Solid body. But as you can see here. Well, one that's not even a thing. But look at this. This headstock. First of all, this headstock's the wrong shape. This is not even a PRS headstock. It may look like it to you guys that don't know anything. This truss rod cover is incorrect. The measurements are incorrect. The tuning key placement is not even correct. And more importantly, it doesn't say SE and it's got the script. And this is the. I don't know if you know this, but Paul Reed Smith at some point, which would be in this time frame, this guitar cleaned up their signature. So Paul Reed Smith's script, that original script is the messy one where you can't read his name correctly. But the new ones, now they, they use some kind of technology to make Paul Reed Smith's signature look so you can read it. So yeah, the head. So the headstock obviously doesn't even say se and it's not an se and it's not even core. So. And I think here's what sucks. I think people are buying it if they're buying it because they think Guitar center is dumb. And this is what I'm telling you. This is how it works. See, you're, you're, it's, it's at night. I don't know why it's at night. I'm just saying that it's at night and you're like looking on your phone because that's what we do now. And you see a listing for a PRSSE for $699 and you go, oh my goodness. Those idiots at Guitar center just listed a PRS private stock as an SE. I'm gonna get a $10,000 guitar for 700 bucks. Bye. Right? And now you're the one, right? And yeah, you get a 40 day return policy and you get all your money back, no problem. So hey, why not take that effort? But that's if you figure it out. What if you don't know any better and you sit on it and then you try one day and you walk into the store and you go, hey, I want to trade in this PRS private stock. You never believe what I paid for it. And they go, I hope it wasn't more than $200 because this is a fake. I don't know. Do we have a PRS chips in. We got Chaibanez chinder chips in tress. What is prs. Does anyone know since. Because somebody. Is there a term for a chips in PRs? Cheapness. Cheapness. Is it cheapness? And this is my point to obviously his comment too about the fake vendor. They're everywhere. So. So, you know, when I bought my Ibanez Universe, I had to have it verified. And I'm. I wouldn't call myself an expert, but I am, I am fanatical about that guitar and even I was a little freaked out. So you have to check it. And here's the sad part. Here's the sad part. I am sure of two things. One, it is a real 1991. I believe it's 91 universe. It might be 92. I have to. I can't remember. I have to look it up. And here's what I think. I know at some point it had some refurbished stuff done to it. I think it was in the hardware, I think. And here's the thing, it looks great and perfect and you would never know that. And the reason we don't know that is, is when you're dealing with old guitars like this, they could have refurbished it 20 years ago. And then therefore the refurbished looks really good because it's aged out a decade or two. So Fake Reed Smith, Jaded Jerome. I love it. That's what we call him now. That's the name, right? Fake Reed Smith. Chips in Chibanez Chinder. Fake Reed Smith. I love that name. So I chawl Reed Smith. That one's good planning, good times. But I, I love Fake Reed Smith. That's funny. So yeah, fakes are everywhere. That's why I have a problem. It's going to get worse and worse and worse and worse as the fakes get better, as people modify them. People. You got to understand fakes now are not only a problematic that they're everywhere, but also then people buy fakes and then they make them look less fake. So. So sometimes you look at a fake and go, oh, it's the wrong bridge. Like I said, wrong this, wrong that, wrong truss rod cover. But then people buy them and to make them more look more real, they buy the real parts and they start putting real parts on them. So. So yeah, it's, it's. I don't know, it's. Hansh Holm 67 says, Phil, you convinced me to never buy another guitar. Thank you. Been trying to kick the habit for years. You know what it's funny is I, I don't want to scare anyone that bad, but you do need to be paying attention. They are out there and they, they fake everything and they're everywhere. And some of them are obvious. I feel like that was a very obvious fake. Like I. He sent it to me and I remember like looking right on my phone. But here's another problem. Right? Here's another problem. And this is why this is a great guitar to fake. Let me, let me just tell you why I think this is a great fake. Because not even though I think to you guys this doesn't look good. Because it doesn't first of all has binding. It's not scraped. Pickup rings are definitely the wrong pickup rings. These are like epiphone rings where they're too long, like the old headphones. So like, I can already tell you, like, if you take these pickup rings off, these holes are going to be too far apart. So the new pickup rings are going to be closer in. But here's the real problem. I've seen some private stock Dragon top guitars. I've never seen this particular one, but I've seen some in person. I've seen them up front, I've touched them, or up close and touched them. I would bet that I don't know how many are here, how many are here? Go here. There is 1379 of you. I would bet that a. I would be surprised if more than two of you have ever seen a Dragon top PRS in person. So how do you know what they look like up close? You know, do they look really good? That's my question. See, a lot of you, there's gonna be somebody, because there's always somebody full of shit. And they're gonna go, oh, I've seen them, Phil. Okay, here's how you know, I've seen them. I was at the factory and they showed them to me. They. They pulled some out. They showed me. Actually, they even told me where the inlay, because the inlays aren't done. The. The inlay work for Dragon tops aren't done at BRS in the building, at least at the time when they showed me. This is years back. And my question to you is, do they look great up close? Are they look. Do they look crappy up close? What if someone. What if someone like that you thought somebody, somebody you thought knew something like me, said, oh, you'd be surprised how horrible they look up close. They don't look nearly as good as, you know. Remember, it's a photo. You know, a photo is not the same thing. This universe does not look the way anybody thinks. If any of you saw this ever, actually, I can tell you right now, first of all, let me just tell you a couple things about the. Because the universe is the only kind of old guitar I have. This universe, which is 30 something years old. They only made 1300 of them. Who knows how many are even existence. Keep in mind that means there's less. They made less of these in the 59. Less, Paul. That's a fact of the swirls. They only made them for a couple years. Like two and a half years. The thing that people don't understand is cameras are funny. Like this camera. Cameras pick up colors differently than real life. This guitar does not look the way you think it does. It looks amazing in the room. Everyone who's come over to see this guitar told me it looks like somebody ate a cheeseburger and threw up. Because it's really yellow. It's like. Yeah, not yellow. Like here, look. Fluorescent yellow. Fluorescent green. I know some of you think it looks gross anyways, but the ones that know 80s looking guitars probably think it looks amazing. This guitar. It does not look great. It's. It's. They call them mustard, ketchup, relish. Because that's really what it looks like. If you took mustard on your countertop and swirled it with some ketchup and some relish, that's what it looks like. It's not. It's fluorescent. It's not bright. It's very subdued. And so you would look at this and probably. Most of you would probably look at this guitar and go, oh, it's fake. If I showed you this real one. So imagine this is what I'm getting at. So if I was gonna fake that guitar and try to kind of con somebody with it, I'd actually make the fake look better. Because the real would set you off. The real one would be like. That doesn't look right. That looks too. The wrong colors because. Because some of them are different colors in this. But this one in particular, people think, when you look at this, people think this is pink. This is like a bright yellow and this is green, and that is absolutely red. So, you know, red yellow, like not quite school bus yellow, but as closer to a school bus yellow than a bright yellow. So this is. My point is now for the record, just so you guys know, the dragons look great up. Up close. The. The detail is really nice. And they. You can see the shell in them. They're really nice. But that's my point. My point is, is that I've seen them do this many times now where they make fakes. And the best fakes are to make guitars fakes. Of guitars that most people have not seen. Even experts have trouble with it because how do they know they haven't seen one. I, I told you guys the, if you guys watch my fake video that fired everybody up and got everybody upset when they faked a mayonnaise. My friend bought it, he got duped, he brought it to me. My first inkling looking at it was this is fake. But what I based it on was not truth. I didn't even know. I just went, oh, this feels like a low price Chinese made guitar. That's what it feels like. Looking at the fit and finish, I see detail finishes, I see things and I go, oh, this is, this is not a good guitar. This is not a 3,4000 dollar guitar. So therefore it has to be fake. But I had never ever held or seen a Minus in person. So it's possible at that time that Minus could have made crappy guitars for three, $4,000. And it's just like this is a real minus. That sounds like, well, who cares? Except for like think of this. Imagine if I burned fake into a real minus $4,000 guitar. So this is what I'm saying that when that video came out, that was my point then, it's my point now, is that that's absolutely. This is how you build a fake guitar. You make a guitar that not many people have seen. You create a situation which unfortunately Guitar center may be actually doing, which is you create a situation where the consumer is not going to take the time to research this. They're not going to go and go, okay, let me go look at all of the dragon PRS is out there. Let me go see the archives to see. They're like, who isn't going to buy this in the next five seconds? As soon as somebody sees a PRS private stock mispriced as an SE for 699, it's sold. They're going to buy it right now. Now this is Guitar Center. You can't, I can't say you can't get screwed at Guitar Center. I'm going to say it's not likely. I got a lot of negative things to say about guitars and over the years. But one of them is not that they won't, you know, that they will openly screw people over. They accidentally screw people over. But that's just big companies and dumb people that work for those companies. It's not in their policy. I always say this all the time. When you grade a company, you can grade the people that work there and then the policies. And I always Tell everybody. In my opinion, you know, if a person does something horrible, that's the person at a company. Doesn't mean the company's not responsible. But that's where kind of I'm focused at. It's the person and I need to get this fixed. But if a. But if it's a policy at a company that's screwing people or it's bad, then that's the company and that's a bigger issue in a hand. So Guitar center does not have a hey, it's yours, you touched it kind of policy. So. Yeah, the other thing is this is a great time to mention this because it. It happened to me. So I'm just sharing with you guys. It happened to me on Guitar Center. I was so used to. Used two Utes. You say Utes? Yeah, Utes. Two Utes. Two Utes. No, I was. I'm so used to Reverb and ebay and those kind of selling platforms where I buy something or even Sweetwater, which is new, but they send me the photos of the guitar I buy. I'm so. I was so used to those platforms when I buy something that all the photos, everything saved as an archive, I have access to it. So like when you get the. Whether it's a pedal or guitar, you get it from Reverb and you, you can click in the original listing and read the listing and look at the pictures. I. I think I told you guys this. I bought a guitar at Guitar center that was in a case. They took the picture of the guitar in the case, said it was in good condition. I bought the guitar even though it was $200 more then I could find it anywhere else. But everywhere else it didn't have the case included. And this is a special case. Okay. So in fact, so you guys know it's what video it is. It's the silver tone guitar. I did of a deep dive of I bought that guitar. And of course it's the case with the amplifier. And it's a vintage case and amplifier. And if you, if you. If I would have had the original pictures, I could show you this. But when I saw the picture, the case, the pictures they took the. The employee took the picture of the case, opened up the guitar laying in the case. It looked fantastic. They had the original logo on the headstock, which is very rare for those they wear off. And I bought the guitar for like $700. Even though you can buy in that guitar all day long for five. And I go Because I got the case and it was in great condition when I got the guitar and I opened it out of the box and I opened the case. Two things. First, when I saw the case, somebody had spray painted silver spray paint all over the back of the case, which was not in the picture. The second thing is when I picked up the guitar, there was a giant hole as big as my face. Like, like literally from the Shining. Like here's Philly. Like it just smashed. Like somebody smashed a hole through the bottom of the case. And of course you know those cases are, are like fiber. So fiber like board, fiber board. So they broke, right? And so what happened was that was smashed. But again in the pictures the guitar was covering that up. I took it back to Guitar center and I said, hey, you know, I got this guitar, I'm willing to keep it, but this is not the right price. And I, I was like, I'm screwed. Because here's why I'm trying to tell you this. When I soon as I clicked Buy from Guitar center which is why you all need to do this, the pictures go away, the listing goes away. And when they send you the email saying hey, we're gonna ship you, they don't send you the pictures you have. No, but here's what happened to me, which is good and this is good to know. So you know, if in case this happened to you. When I went to the store and I told the employee, they went and got the manager. The manager went into the computer system and he can look at the original listing and he confirmed that two things that the spray paint on the back of the case and the hole was not in the pictures. Now here's why this is funny because this is why, you know, it's Guitar center not being deceptive, but being incompetent. And I don't mean for a fact, nothing's for a fact, but here's why I believe that I could have done that. Remember, they have no pictures of it either. Cuz their pictures are like. Said they didn't have the back of the case at the bottom of the case. I could have got the guitar spray painted silver paint on the back of the case, put my knee through the case and brought it to him and said this is not as described. They couldn't prove it either. So. But in K. But so you know, they said, they said, you know, obviously yeah, it's not as list as not as described and they, they replaced it. But you have to take care of yourself. For instance, I'll tell you another one Real quick, that just happened to me at Guitar center is. So Michael Nielsen did a video on feel cabinets and I was like, ah. And he. It's great video. You should guys watch it. He's talking about how amazing thel cabinets are and with the JBL speakers. And I was like, you know, I always wanted a Thiel cabinet with a JBL speaker. You know, if you guys know Theo cabinets like the. Especially the Mesa Boogie ones, they're real punchy. They sound huge. They're supposed to sound like a 412, but they're small. The j. The JBL speakers are very expensive. They sound really great. I go to guitarcenter.com I'm looking because I looked at reverb. They don't have anything. Go to guitar center.com used they have a Thiel cabinet. It's obviously it's 599 plus shipping, plus tax. So 700 bucks for this cabinet. You could buy a used one all day long for four. But it's got the JBL. So you guys know that JBL is probably $375. So I, I did exactly what I said. I took screenshots of everything. I click buy. Great. The cabinet shows up a couple of days later, really fast. I was really proud of Guitar Center. As soon as I get the package, the box, I pick up the box and I'm like, that's not. It's not right. You know how I know that speaker is heavy? Man? That speaker in that cabinet should be like £70 and feel like 100. So I. Oh, sorry. Sax. Saxby8 says it's EVs, not JBLs. You are correct. So sorry about that. So anyways, so now keep in mind I've never tried the speaker before. I know that Zach Wilde uses them. And I, I just like. I've heard the mysteries of this, you know, powerful speaker. So. So anyways, I get the cabinet, I pull the cabinet out of the box. Right on the back of the cabinet, which is not in the pictures. It says, it says on the back of these movie it says Celestian equipped. I'm like, okay. So I take off the back plates and of course what's in there is a black shadow speaker in there. So I'm like, okay. So what's funny is, is this. We take the cabinet back to Guitar center and I tell them, hey, I got this cabinet. And it says it has the JBL in it. And it doesn't. It's just a standard black shadow. And of course they priced it $200 more, because the employee probably looked at a comparable pricing and priced it $200 more. And they gave me a full refund minus the $90 in shipping, which I didn't notice. So, you know, so I get home, I look at the receipt, and I go, huh? They didn't refund my shipping. So luckily I was. Luckily for me, Shauna took care of it. I was busy. Shauna goes back to Guitar center, and she tells him. She gets the receipt in, and luckily for me, you know, we use her name more than my name to buy stuff. And she said, she told him. She goes, hey, you didn't refund the shipping? And they're like, yeah, well, you know, that's because you got to pay the shipping because it was. You bought it used. She's like, yeah, but it was not as described. And he's like, oh, let me get it. Look at it. And long story short, they gave her back the $90. The point is, is that this is what I'm saying. Take pictures. Even with Guitar center, no matter what you do, this is what I'm trying to tell you. We're past the world of you can trust certains and not trust other people. You really need to do your due diligence out there. Fraud is at epic highs. Fake stuff is at epic highs. If this is bumming you out, I. I apologize for this. But you know what? I'd rather be a few people be a little bummed out for a few minutes about gear than anyone. Lose hundreds, if not thousands of dollars of hardened money. You know, this is your joy. You know, and I'm not saying it's. It's any better if it's not a joyful thing you're trying to do. But it's a little. It's a little when you're trying to do something that you love, you're passionate about, and then you get robbed or conned or cheated. I'm not saying it hurts any much worse, but, man, it's just what a. What a way to kill it for you. So just run Riot says, don't trust anyone, not even yourself. Exactly. So I told you guys before my. With phones today, you should always be. Especially anything used. You shouldn't be unboxing your stuff while filming. If you don't own a inexpensive phone holder, tripod thing, just get one. They're $10. You put a phone, you turn, you push record, unbox it. You'll have proof of that. And that's not even proof, but that's better than not having anything. So all right, are we done? Are we buttoned up? Let me check one thing real quick before we go. I say that, and then, of course, I can't get to the screen I need. Not even close. Oh, there it is. Let me refresh this. And let's. Let's do this. Jasper wants to know. Jasper wants to know. I love the name, by the way. That's my middle name. Jasper. So he goes. Anyways, Jasper wants to know. Phil, new live listener here. Thoughts on the Big Muff 2. So if I recall, we didn't cover it in, obviously, gear of the week. My understanding is that they came out with the Big Muff 2. And it's red. Is it red? Big Muff 2. Was there not a Big Muff 2 before? Was it. Am I missing it? Yeah, Big Muff 2. Okay, click here. All right, click. By the way, every time I click screens, I just want you guys to know something funny, because the way these screens work, like, I can move myself around and stuff, I see a grid. I know this is dumb, and I know it's taken away from the show right now, but just so you know, you see me looking at screens, you see me doing stuff, but really there's grids and stuff that align everything, and it just throws me off for a second until I get used to it. So back to this. Big Muff 2. 122. There's a full size one too, right? I have no idea what this is. I know nothing about it. So my thoughts on it from the 70s vault. I have a big muff pie, too. I have. I have a big muff pie, right? That's what I have. Let me see. I have this big muff pie. Nano big muff pie. Distortion fuzz. That's what I have. I don't know what's different about them. Maybe I need to look into that. Is that. Maybe it's something I need. Maybe you're. Maybe you're. You're going to. I'll tell you what I'll do. I will look into this and see if I need this pedal, but I don't know. Okay, so thank you for the suggestion. We were gonna do gear. I was gonna talk about it for gear of the week, but I try to do some research of the gear of the week before we go. You know, not a whole lot because I want the reaction of it, but. Yeah. All right. On that note, I want to thank you all for hanging out. I hope you guys had a good time. I had a good time. I hope everybody has a fantastic weekend. Doesn't buy any fake gear, has a good time, buys the guitar they want and buys the or has enjoys the guitar they want, plays the guitar they want, do all the things. My year in review video will be out next. That'll be the next video you see on the channel and I'm really excited about this one. I it's my favorite one. I've done one every year since the channel started but this one, I put more time in it. I did it like a best of kind of thing too. I put clips of the videos in. I'd never done that before. It was a lot of fun. A little fun for me. So on that note, I want to thank you for your time to the next time, know your gear. If you're learning something or having a good time, don't forget you can subscribe for free and help this channel or for $10 a month you can join me on Patreon for live clinics where you can ask questions.