Phil McKnight (0:00)

The Know youw Gear Podcast. Today's episode of the Know youw Gear Podcast is brought to you by Patreon members. Thank you for making this possible. Hey, everyone. How's it going? Welcome to the Know youw year podcast. Episode 410 says. Hey, Phil. I got a notification from Sweetwater Gear Exchange about reporting my 2025 transactions and received a W9. What gives? Isn't it supposed to be for 2026 and a 1099? Also, thoughts on Best amp that can do Fender Cleans and Marshall Distortion. Okay, those two different questions will handle them. Totally different. So. So on the gear exchange, I believe this is the hard part. So let me go back when I did a video for Gear exchange. So how that video happened was Sweetwater reached out and said they would like me to check out their gear exchange. And then at the time, someone I knew who was a VP at Fender and then went to Korg and I think. I think line six, no Korg. Then ebay used Gear and then to Sweetwater. I went, had coffee with him. We talked about gear exchange. And at that time, they weren't doing the 1099. But I don't think they have a way around it now. So if. My understanding is, if Reverb sent us. Well, I know I got 1099 for reverb for. For this year, for last year, for 2024. So I would imagine. I didn't do any gear exchange sales last year, so I didn't get a 1099 from them. But, yeah, I would imagine the. The question I have, if you don't mind, if you could. Maybe I can see it T size. Let me keep the chat up. T size. Um, if you don't mind, you don't have to tell me how much you sold. Just let me know if it was over $5,000, because I thought. So this is what I think happened last year. Again, I'm not a tax preparer, but I thought this is what I understood for the 2024 year, which is the taxes we're paying this year for last year, is that it was gonna be 1099 for anything over $600. And then they suspended that. That's my understanding. So previously, for like, Reverb, which I think obviously Gear Exchange would follow the same rules. If you. If you did over. It used to be over $20,000 or like 300 transactions, you would get a 1099. Then they changed it to $600, period. So. And then at the last minute, I thought it was suspended and changed to $5,000. So let me know if you. If you sold over $5,000, because that's why I think you. You might have got one if it was over $5,000. Michael says, I thought Gear exchange was giving Sweetwater credit to avoid the 1099. Well, that's if you took the credit. And then the. The question is, do they 1099 you for the credit? I don't know. You know, the sad thing is, there's a. I have one belief. That's it, guys. Is that they will tax you every. They will find a way to tax you. They tax you on the money you don't make. They tax you on the money you make. They tax you on the money you thought about making once. They tax you on the money you gave away. And then t side says, Nope, it was $2,650. But their words were anything over 2,500. Okay, so, see, that's what I'm saying. I didn't know. I thought I heard it was 5,000. So it was over 2,500. And I'll tell you this. Like, my wife once got a pen, like a writing pen, you know, like a writing utensil. And from her. This is back in corporate days from her corporate job as a gift for, like, manager of the year. You know, I know there's memes about like, hey, we made a billion dollars and we got a pizza party. This is not exaggeration. My wife got, like, manager of the year or something like that, and they gave her a really nice pin. Now, it was a really nice pen. It was like a. I think it was like a hundred dollars or sixty dollars, whatever it was, right? I don't know. Now I feel weird, because I think it was a $60 pen and saying really nice. It seemed really nice to us and actually had the name of the company, like, etched, like, in the. In the wood. In fact, I think it was pretty much exactly like this pen I'm holding up. Now, this pen right here was my mom's pen. And this has her name on it, right? Oh, no, this is not my. Yeah. Oh, it is my mom's pen, but it's from Pima Air Museum, so it's a wood pen. So she got a nice pen like this for 60 bucks. And then. And I might be saying this wrong, so, you know. And you know the numbers, but the. The account is correct. I just don't know the exact numbers. It was a long time ago. And then on her next paycheck, they deducted the amount. They gave the value of the pen, they deducted in taxes out of her check. And then she even said, because I think it was like, I don't know, $15 in taxes. It wasn't something, you know, crazy. But my wife was like, I'd rather have $15 than this pen. So, yeah, I mean, I know it sucks, but, yeah, they're gonna. They're gonna hit you. Which is why I. I talk about so heavily the reverb, the guitar center, the gear exchange, all this stuff. I really think, you know, we have lived in a world where first, for the longest time, okay, for the longest time, for decades, there was no sales tax when we were selling used stuff to each other. You know, there still isn't, I guess, on Craigslist, but, you know, on ebay or Reverb, and then there was sales tax and, okay, okay, that's tough. And then now there's 1099s, you know, and now you have to have, you know, your accountant come in and help you, you know, for basically just selling some guitars you don't want anymore on online. And. And it is tough. I understand that it sucks. And I don't have anything to tell you other than it's why. It's why I do the videos I do about, like, trading. And then when my experiences on Reverb, anything, I'm having experiences again to share this stuff, this communication we're having now, because I guess, you know, my biggest fear is that a lot of you are going to be shocked by this. In other words, you're going to sell your stuff and then you're going to get this tax return. You're like, what's going on? And so, you know, because again, I'm not an accountant and I'm not a cpa and I'm not going to give tax advice because I just. I'm just not going to do that. But I mean, I've heard people, viewers sent me emails, many of you sent me emails saying, when you did your taxes this year, you said, okay, this is what I paid for the gear and this is what I sold. And then some of your accountants are saying, no, you can't even do what they're saying, which is say, hey, no, I didn't make this $3,000 or $2,500, because I actually spent $4,000. I lost $1,500. They're saying, yeah, well, if you're not an LLC, our business, you can't do that again. I don't know, you need to talk to your own tax professionals for that. But what I do want you to hear is you do need to think about that. Now. This is a part of your everyday life. If this is not going, this upsets you, if you don't like it, well then you're going to have to choose to not do it. But the point is at least you know to do it or not do it. So yeah, if you're selling on reverb, ebay, gear exchange, wherever you're selling anything, here's the. Here's. I guess I should have said, I should have taken this back. I said I believe no matter what, there's more taxes. There's not only more taxes, there's also going to be another way to track you for your taxes. And that's just the reality of things. So just be prepared for it. I'm sorry. T size. I know that sucks. You know, I am, this is the one area where I am fortunate because I get. I'm self employed and I've been self employed for 20 years. So 1099 are just part of the game for me. But I know it's really upsetting when you know, especially if you know, you know, you just have a job. You don't really have, you know, deductions and stuff outside of, you know, for like business and stuff. Stuff you're just again just trying to recoup some of the money you've spent. But yeah, it sucks. But on the other side, let's talk about the thing. I probably can't help you. A good amp for Fender cleans and Marshall plus distortion. I mean there's a, there's a couple amps out there, you know, specifically Marshall tone like distortion. I couldn't really say for sure. And of course, of course there's going to be super expensive amps like the ample phonics and gain by Amplify Nation has definitely got like the Fender clean kind of thing going with the Marshall eplexy kind of thing going on. But you know, that's crazy money. I personally for that kind of sound there's a couple amps I can recommend. But really what I like is I'll give you my preference and maybe this will help you. For me, if given the choice, I would always prefer a good Fender amp, a clean amp with a good Marshall distortion over anything else. Because like I said, I can always add distortion. I can always make an amp more distorted. I could always add something to it. I don't necessarily have to have you know, like ooh, true five tubes, you know, gain stage distortion. It's the real deal. I Find, you know, it's never a preference for me. I find that it's really hard to get a good. To me, a good clean. When I say good clean, not the amp doesn't break up, but just a good clean where it feels like the right amount of compression. When I play chords or notes, I feel like the notes are dynamic and the cords don't sound sterile. Like there's some life and energy happening there. But a specific amp like I'm thinking about all the amps I currently own is. Most of my amps I own are like. My Friedman's are a perfect example. The Friedman small box and the Friedman twin sister and all those, they all have has a good clean channel. I wouldn't call it a Fender clean. In fact, I'd say their, their gains are high gain Marshall. But the cleans are not Fender clean. They're good enough. I mean, clean enough if you want to run a pedal through it or play some clean with a reverb. But to me, if you're saying Fender clean, that's the hard one. Very few amps have like a Fender clean. Oh, you know, actually another one again, but expensive. Synergy. Sure. I mean, if you look at the videos I'm making, the Synergy modules are for sure that. I mean, if you load in the Marshall or the Friedman for the dirty channel and then the Fender tone modules for the clean channel, very, very cool. I've not tried the new Synergy 20. I don't know if the clean on that is any good, so I don't know if I could recommend that. But I mean, I like the idea of it and I like, you know, for a thousand bucks, you know, for the base model of the unit without the module and in lower price amps, I mean, I was always happy with Blackstar amps for the distortion and the dirty, you know, they're a nice amp, I guess, for the price point. I'm always trying to hit all the price points, you know, because, you know, you don't give me a range. The problem is like saying, hey Phil, what's a great guitar? And I'm like, oh, you could get a Murphy Lab for seven grand. That's pretty good. You know, you got to have a range. But I'd say all those are pretty good in the range. What else have I tried? You know, as the, as the modeling thing has taken over and as the, you know, the katanas and the catalysts and stuff have gotten so good. If you notice, like when I do amp reviews, most of my amp reviews are really, really slanted towards expensive boutique amps. Like really expensive, like the Bad Cat Air amps or the Amplified Nation or hand wired amps or, you know, Magnetone or whatever. It's because at this point I've kind of come to me personally, I've kind of come to the realization for me that either the amp has to be truly amazing or I'm just going to play my stomp or the kemper. You know what I mean? I mean, they're fine enough at the volumes I play at home. I can get every sound out of either a pedal or a modeler and I don't really care. And so. And to me it's like the amp has to have this, you know, like, I don't want to say it's amazing. I'm just gonna say it's got this, you know, really analog thing that even modeling can't capture yet. And. But I don't, I don't necessarily miss those kind of amps when I play through the modeling. But I, I do like playing through a nice good amp. Especially clean, where I'm never really satisfied with any modelers or module modelers and stuff is the clean. It's always the thing I'm always least excited about. So Chris says the blue guitar amp one, Murky actually has a. Has a great clean sound. It does. I've did the blue guitar amp one. I really liked that pedal a lot. It's a pedal amp, so you guys know it's amp in one. No real complaints about it at all. In fact, I thought it sounded really good. The clean was definitely good, took pedals well and it has a good overdrive. It's 800, so again, it's pretty pricey, you know, for a small empire, but very good. I really enjoyed that one. Let's see. Let's go to another question. Jeff says. Jeff says, I know this is a difficult question to cover, but who would be a good place to get a set of 61 Strat pickups? I mean, there's a. So to me, the 61 era strap pickups. I mean, first of all, Fender makes a good set and then Lindy Frailan makes a good set and that. And so does. Who else? Who else? I don't know. I'm trying to think of others. I mean, there's a bunch small builders and stuff. This is getting to the point now where it's like, you know, when you, when we talk about these pickups that are out there right now, there's so many good choices for pickups. I Have a set of. Of. I have a set of the fender 50s era pickups and the 60s era pickups, and I really like them. Which ones, though? I don't know which 60s era pickups. I don't know if they're what specifically. They are. I was gonna look it up. Let's see. So I'm a fan of Fender pickups, but there's a lot of builders that. That 60s pickups that make really good pickups. The problem is, it's like I said, for a while I was testing everyone's pickups forever, and then there was just not a lot of. Oh, yeah, that's right. Sumac does a good set. I tried those. Those are pretty good. Oh, the 62 pre wired, the fat 60s. I've tried those from Fender. Those were good. I'm trying to think who else. I recently tried picking pickups from that were good. Like I said, Lindy. I think Lindy Frailens. I think I had a set of those for a while, and they were. Yeah, the true 60s pickups from Lindy. Fran. Those were good. I don't recall trying any 60s. Specifically. Any 60s era pickups from DiMargio or. Or Seymour Duncan. So. So that's some good places to start. Try to start there. Oh, you know what? Somebody mentioned it and now my screen won't move. Oh, there it is. How weird. Why won't it move? Somebody mentioned the pedal board build contest. I should mention that. So if you guys didn't see, I did a live pedal board build this week. We're giving away the pedal board next Friday on the show. You can enter the win. There's a link down below. This is the actual pedal board. Look how tiny it is. But look what happens. Unzip it. Somebody asked me. They didn't show that. I. It all fits in there. It does. So just to give you an idea is. Look at that. Oh, and I throw the power supply down. Okay, let's try this again. There you go. Oh, and just to give you an idea. See, like, there's the cable. See how stuff. Everything is in there. It's in the board intact, ready to go. So it all fit. Every single thing. All the cables, everything in the power supply which just fell out. Everything fit in this bag. I have to give mono props for that. I was really shocked. We were like, looking at how we're gonna box this up. And I put everything in that gig bag. Every single thing fit. So it all fits. And then it was a really impressive. So I want to thank all the companies that Sent product. You know, I think sometimes, you know, you hear that a lot on YouTube. You know, like, thanks the sponsors for the products and stuff. You know, I don't know. I don't know how to say it in either way. I contacted 23 companies to sponsor that video, and four responded. Now, by the way, I want to point out, the other 19 didn't say no. They just didn't respond. And I'd also like to point out, just for fun, I didn't cold call anyone. Every single One of those 23 companies had asked me for a video in the past for something or asked me for, you know, asked me. It's like, hey, would you do a video? And I responded to all these companies because I said, hey, I have a great idea, if you're interested, to send a pedal, and I'm gonna do a build and give it away. And 19 companies didn't respond, and I gave. It was over a month to respond, actually. Well over a month. And, yeah, so I want to thank the companies that sponsored, because that was pretty cool. They all responded, and they all said. And no one. And so, you know, there was no limit to my ask. It was like, whatever you want. And I was like, that was really cool of you guys. So I want to thank you for that, because, like I said, it makes videos like that so much fun. I got to tell you, I had so much fun doing that. I mean, like I said, somebody says you should do it again. You know what? If companies want to keep sending me free pedals and pedal boards, I'll build a pedal board again. I mean, it was kind of fun. I just sat there for an hour building a pedal board, you know, kind of working on my idea, and then I just give it away. It's kind of cool, man. It's like, it sounds like a fun thing to do, so. So, yeah, so I just want to say thank you to guys and thank you to guys who supported by watching the video and also who sign up. Okay, let's. Let's refresh my screen because it's not moving, so it seems like it's locked up, which is why I went. Perfect time for a segue. Oh, Ben Coombs. Ah, this is funny. So if you guys don't mind, indulge. Let me indulge on. Off. Off the thing. Not guitar talk. YouTube talk. Ben Coombs says for the first time in years, I can see the numbers of likes actually changing during a live stream while watching. That's because YouTube's faking everybody out now. That's fake. It's smart. It's a smart thing. So YouTube's doing this thing now where it. It's making you and making look where every time you look at a video now, they speed it up from what it actually is. Like, they're not faking likes, they're just like, they're making it. And I'm not 100% sure how they're doing it. I just know what they're doing. Like, for instance, let's say this video has 200 likes. When you click into the video, it's going to show you that it only has like 190 and then it's going to let it roll up to 200. So you're like, wow. And I think they're doing that to get you to go, wow, I'm missing out on not liking this guy. Um, yeah, I started noticing it and then I sent out a message to the person that I know at YouTube and they're like, yeah, that's. That's the new feature. And I'm like, oh, it's fake. So, Ben, I just don't want you to think, like, you know, somehow it's like, it's the power of the film ignite ness getting those likes. It's just a. It's tricking you. They're doing it with views too, by the way. If you look at views, you can almost see the view counter rolling now. Like, wow. Everybody's watching this video, but it is a. It's a percentage, whatever it is. So obviously, if you're getting 100 views, it's gonna. It's gonna show like, you know, roll it up like a few numbers. If you're getting a thousand, it's gonna show it up a little bit more. So it's a little bit more dramatic. I watched a channel with big numbers, like, really big numbers, where they get like, you know, thousands of likes and hundreds of thousands of views in hours. And it was like. It was like the stock market ticker or except for maybe going this way. So there you go. Somebody says, travel board. Yeah, that's basically what that pedal board is. It's a. It's what I would use in a gigging situation or in a, you know, most situations kind of board. And then Susan says, there are very. Some very nice pedals on the board. There is some very nice pedals on the board. Thank you for saying that. The wannabe says, did you contact Taco Bell or Austin Martin for a sponsor? You might want to look into doing that next time. Yeah, no, you know, I don't know. It doesn't work that way. I know you, I know you're going for the joke, but I'm just saying with sponsors it's like the channel just doesn't, still doesn't rate for like real sponsors. That's not entirely true. You know, some of the sponsors, like I said, like TEMU and Better Health and all that stuff, they reach out pretty on the regular, but I'm. I'm just not interested. And what's the other one? All the ones you see all the time. Right? Hu. Whatever the companies are those. I don't get very many of those requests, but when I do, I. We, we tend to not, not be interested. And every once in a while we get lucky. Sean, of course she takes care of that stuff, but she's. And I think, I don't know if I told you this, I'll just tell you guys this. As you guys know, the channel is mostly funded by the YouTube videos. And then the sponsors, the patrons, I'm sorry, the patrons who are the sponsors of the show and the channel. Members. And then affiliates and affiliate clicks and merch and stuff. And then the last category is sponsors. And then just to give you a reference to sponsors, because we do do sponsors, right? That's one thing we do to fund the channel, but like to give you a reference for the year 2024, our all time biggest sponsor last year by far. Oh, you know what? Do I have something to give away? I have a pedal. I will give away. I will give. I have a. I have one or more of Those Dane electro 1966 pedals. Remember we gave away those. A pile of those things. $200 fuzz overdrive pedal. I will give it away because I know no one's gonna get the answer. I will give it away to the first person that gets this answer correctly live. Which is what company in 2024 sponsored by dollars. Now keep in mind I'm not talking about like how many times I mention a company who gave me the most money. In other words, who am I beholden to in theory, right? Because my biggest sponsor. And by the way, what I'm about to tell you when I say my biggest sponsor, 65 to 70%. So that means if I made $100 last year in sponsors, $70 came from one sponsor, one person, one company sponsored this channel last year with dollars. 70% of the dollars I made last year. Can anyone tell me the sponsor? No, it's not Patreon. That was a good guess though, because I'm Talking about a corporation, a company. Oh, Flamma. Interesting. I've never. So this is why I'm curious. Because I'm curious to see what you guys see and think out there. If you guys don't mind indulging a little YouTube banter. LPD. LPD's never paid me a dime, ever. Which is good. He said gear, though. I mean, I know that counts. So, you know, I don't really disseminate the money from the gear. I consider it the same. But physique, I'm talking about physical dollars giving me dollars, not free product. And so, you know, there's no play on words here. I'm not saying like this is the biggest $1, but then there's a one that if I talked about gear would be more. This is by far the most. Whether it was gear or money. Somebody said Stumac. Nope. Stumac has only ever paid me physically to make videos on their channel. So, you know, little fun fact. Flamma. I've never done a video from Flamma. Mackie has never given me a dollar. Ibanez has never given me a dollar, ever. Only fans. I wish, man. Only fans is why I get sad. You know, you want to be sad, become an influencer. And then watching only fans, people make a bazillion dollars. Music Nomad Music Nomad has never given me a penny, ever. Boss has never given me a penny. PRS has. I want to say PRS has never given me a penny, but that's not entirely accurate. One time they did send me a payment to cover shipping costs on a giveaway and they round it up. So. And I'll just tell you, they gave me like 2, 300 bucks. So other than that, PR has never physically given me any money. Evertone. Evertune? Nope. Udemy. Nope. Udemy. I've never done Udemy. New X. I've never. I've done new X, but nope. Guitar center? Nope. Prs Cortech? Nope. Victoria's Secret. Again, I wish somebody said China. I like that. Tom. China. China gave me money. If China gave me money, this channel would be much bigger than it looks. Trust me. Gnl Evertune. I like this Guitar center. Dunlop Pigtronics. I I look, I want to give this pedal away, but I know I only feel horrible because no one's going to get it, so I'm going to have to. Bad Cat has never given me a single dime. Heritage has never given me a single dollar. Nope. Soylent. I don't know what that is. Two Rock. Nope. They've Never even worked with me. Eart is not. JoJo is not. Valiant has never given me a dollar. String Swing has never paid me either. In fact, String Swing. The only reason they even gave me free gear once is I once bought some hangers and then they recognized my name and messaged me and said, no, you don't have to pay. And they sent me a bunch of hangers. So when I say hangers, they sent me like six hangers. So that was my biggest sponsorship with those guys. Temu. No, Timu Temu, though, offered me $10,000 and we said no. Or five. I think five, but they were probably willing to go to 10. I don't know, something like that. YouTube. YouTube, of course, that's where all my money comes from. Vagisil. I mean, if you guys are going to, you know, Telly Driver, I don't mind that you said Vagisil, but were you really trying to get that pedal? FedEx Kiesel guitars has paid me to date, 500 in cash for doing a clinic and was also to comp, you know, to cover my hotel costs and stuff. So that's the most I've ever made for them. Sam Ash, technically, Sam Ash has never given me a dollar. I say technically because Michael Kelly did sponsor a video and they were owned by Sam Ash, but Sam Ash, the company, Sam Ash, the stores never have paid me. Strandberg's never given me any money. Truefire. Truefire was a disaster. True Fire should have gave me money, but it didn't work out. So True Fire, I did a sponsored video with True Fire, but the lady who they hired to orchestrate that did, in my opinion, a poor job of giving me the correct instructions. And I launched the video and another YouTuber got really, really five star, super pissed off at me. Well, upset and went to their president of their company. And so I had to take the sponsorship out of the video and they didn't pay me, so they didn't pay me. So that was the end of that. Which maybe it worked out for the best. I don't know. Amazon. Amazon doesn't pay me. Nope. String Joy. String Joy has never paid me. Stuart McDonald, court Court did pay me to do a video once. Tim Pierce does affiliates, so I do get affiliate marketing from him. But, nope, still not Gibson. Gibson's never paid me or sent me a product ever since I've been on YouTube. Which is only important because I've done exactly one less video than. So think of this. If we think of all the PRS videos done, I've done One less video of Gibson than prs. And Gibson doesn't even work with the channel at all. So. Plymouth Donner. Okay, I think we'll just go. Donner is never. Nope, never. Work with me. Skillshare. Skillshare. Skillshare. We did Skillshare in 2023 and they paid us very, very little and then complained that we didn't do enough. Okay, wait, back up. Because I don't get in trouble for something that's not accurate. The company. Because. Because I don't deal with sometimes like companies like that. We don't deal with the actual. That probably skillshare hired as a marketing company. They said that we didn't send enough skillshare people to them. I guess, whatever, which, whatever that means. Okay, so I give up. It was the Country Music association by far. Cma. CMA paid me the absolute most. They paid me essentially. What if this channel was not a guitar channel would make on YouTube? They pay me like the real rates. Guitar channels make a lot less than normal. You know, like if I was an influencer, right? Like in other words, if you didn't follow me to learn about guitars, but you followed me because you just love like, you know, whatever these influencers are on YouTube and Instagram, TikTok, where they're like, you know, it's a day in the life of their family or whatever, the Kardashians, whatever that stuff is that people consume, where they're. They're like, you just love watching this person's day to day life. Those, those people get massive, huge rates compared to us. And so CMA pays us on that rate. And yeah, so, yes, so 70, basically 70% of last year's money came from Country Music Association. So there you go. No one got that. Oh, cmt. Tom, you know what, you were close. So I'll tell you what. Tom, Tom, just email us at ask know your gear@gmail.com. now keep in mind, Tom, if you're outside the United States, you might be responsible for some of the shipping and stuff. Okay? So what I mean by that is like, you know, the duties, taxes, tariffs, whatever the hell it is, just be aware of that. But otherwise, if you're in the States, just message us@asknowyourgear.com and Tom, let me know that you were the one that guessed cmt. I'll give it to you. Oh, you know what? I see, I already said cmn. I'm still going to give it to you. I know it was my mistake, but I'll give it to you. Thank you guys for playing that game. I'm just always curious because I'm always curious what people think. I always tell you guys honestly on the show every week, anything you guys want to know. It takes a doll super chat to ask me a question if you really want to know. Somebody's like, what's really going on? And I'm like, I'll tell you. I don't care. You don't even have to pay the dollar. You got to get Amanda's attention. Maybe she'll forward me the question. But the point is, you know when people are always trying to figure out what, what it is the YouTubers are shilling and doing, I'm like, I'll tell you, I'll tell you who, who sponsors who pays the most. I told, I tell you guys this all the time. Notice, notice when I was going through those lists and what I was saying, I've tell you guys it for the years. The to me, who pays the most in the gear industry is the, the Amazon esque brands. What I call them is. That's how I call them. It's not Amazon per se. Just when you think of a brand that's heavily sold on Amazon or like that, that's who pays the most in my experience on YouTube, which is why channels like me will do a video from time to time on those even, you know, because like I said, that can. That sponsorship will pay for the next two, like independent videos I want to do. And that's a really cool thing. Plus you guys consume that stuff like crazy. It's like it's not hard to get you guys to watch a video on like a $200 guitar. So I'll make a video that you all seem to want to watch and I get some money to fund the next video. So yeah, that's how I kind of, that's kind of how I do it. But I also watch really closely to make sure that I don't become beholden to any one company. Although cma, they, they were hard to beat. Last year they just came in and kind of gobbled up all the sponsorship. Okay, so this is for. This is from Manus. And this, this is pw. Pw. Oh, it's like phonetic. That's cool. So P E E D U B Y A P W says hey Phil, I bought a 1970s Soviet made guitar called a Barsov for Futurama Borsa. I'm proud I'm butchering, of course Borsa Futurama from Reverb just as something weird to fix. How low should My expectations be about getting something like this playable? I have no idea. I don't think I've ever played like a Russian made or a Soviet era made guitar. I've played a Russian amp. And the guys at Valiant Guitars, when I mentioned in the video, when I did my deep dive and I took things apart, I mentioned I like their capacitors using and they were nice enough to send me like a dozen of them, maybe like 10 of them. And I have them in a bunch of guitars and they were Soviet era era. Yeah, Soviet era components. And the guys at Valiant told me now of course this is pre the war with Ukraine and Russia, but they told me that they used to go and just buy them at like army, that's how I refer to it, army surplus stores. And you could get Soviet era parts, like stuff super cheap. And I was like, oh cool. That sounds so cool. And they sent me a bunch and that was the 2000, 19 or 20. So obviously before the war. But yeah, I don't know. I have no, no, like none. None ever wandered into the shop and I've never really put my hands on them. So I don't know much. But it's always interesting. You know, it's one of those things to me, it's like, it's like I. You just don't think of it. Like I don't think about like I don't think about Russia or Soviet Union making guitars. Like it's just like, oh yeah, I'm sure they do. Why not? I just never seen one so could like I couldn't name a brand that I think is from there. So yeah, you know what, I'd love to see your feedback on that. Let me know some. I'm sorry if I start reading your comments. All right. They're. They're funny. Okay. Ron. This also came from Mana. Ron says. Hey, what's the latest content conventional wisdom about amp sims and the best use cases? Conventional wisdom, I think on amp sims is the same as all the modeling and the, the profiling technology which is they're really, really good. So best they're used for best case recording. You can do them for live, but recording is definitely. Amp sims are really like, you know, plugins and stuff more for recording. But I mean I'm a fan, I'm 100% fan. I literally, you know, I have some complaints about them. But you know what's funny is you lose perspective when you don't keep things like if you don't look at both sides of something. Right. So to me, I'M like, I'll look at a digital modeler and I'll go, yeah, it's good, but it's got a little bit of a digital high end chirp to it that I don't like. Or it's just not as, you know, responsive or whatever it is. I'm critiquing it and I'll go, so it's not perfect, so poo on that. And then I don't take and look to the other side and go, well, But a tube amp is a little noisy and it doesn't really sound really good when I turn the volume down and it doesn't do much less 10 things or 100 things. It only does one or two things. And I go, yeah, I guess I'm not 100% happy with anything. Like, and then it hits me like, yeah, like I keep thinking like, there's this thing to tube amps that make them superior in every way. But the reality is, no, the reason why you own so many tube amps, the reason why you cycle through so many tube amps. And I don't mean you, me, I mean me and you, all of you cycling like through tube amps. I mean, really, in most cases, when it comes to guitar amplifiers, for the most of us, the only, the only thing that slows down the cycle is your pocketbook, right? Otherwise you're just trying another amp or buying another amp. It's because it's not perfect. So then you're like. And then it's weird that I then hold these modelers, profilers, amp sims, you know, plugins to this standard that is like, you're not perfect. So therefore I don't, I don't enjoy you. But yeah, that's such a weird thing. Like I'm like, yeah, why do I think like that? So now I just think in like application, you know, what's the application here? So, for instance, you know, if I, if I want to use a tube amp, I want to use a tube amp. If I want to use a plugin, I use a plugin. I have, I have all the things. Like I use plugins on my computer because it's fast and easy. I'll use the HX Stomp because it's small and portable and I can run on a battery. I like the Kemper because it has power and I can run that and simulate a bunch of different amps that I like. Or I'll run a tube amp with pedals. I mean, I just use it all. Where do I think I'll eventually end? I'LL end with, obviously with less tube amps, you know, and they're going to be just mostly for those moments of like, you know, that. That intimate time when you're just like, I just want to be with an amp and hear it and feel it in the room and stuff. But. But like, you know, for practicality. Well, like I said, for practicality purposes. Even today I'm going to do guitar of the week and I have my Morgan amp again because this is right here and it's set up and I have it mic'd up with the Sennheiser mic. But to be honest with you, it's harder to do it that way because I have to mute all this muting and stuff. If I was just using my Kemper line in, I wouldn't have to mute anything. I wouldn't have to do anything. Life would be easier. This podcast would run smoother. And I'm, by the way, I'm not holding out for any reason. I just don't have the Kemper in this room. So I'm like, oh, well, you know, I'd have to move it in here. So I don't know. See. Let's go to another question. Subject. Maybe this one came from Phil. Phil, you changed, man. Says Phil says. Phil Osborne says. Hey, Phil, any thoughts on the best gig amp between Boss Katana and the line 6 catalyst? 50 or 100 watt? To me, if you're going to take it to a gig, it's not a lot heavier to go with 100 watt. Personally, in the bedroom, I think like 50 watts is more than enough. Why have more wattage? You're not going to use it. But I mean, if you're talking about a gig, take more wattage, more is. Is safer because you never know it. First of all, you know, even if you're using the same drummer all the time, you don't know if he's excited, he's going to hit harder. You don't know how the room's going to react. You know how many people go in the room. You don't how big the room is. You don't know if the room's got an open bay, you don't know if you're going to be outside. So having a louder amp is. Is. Is to me more important. So. Because you never want to be pushing the amp to the fullest of its limits. So 100 watt is safer for the gig. Of the two amps, I prefer, like I said, this I. I think of them almost identical, but I Prefer the line 6 catalyst and only reason is I like some of the distortions better. And when I say distortions, understand that I'm not talking about the high gain stuff. I'm not playing high gain stuff when I'm playing with other musicians. I don't play, you know, Pantera with the, with other, you know, musicians stuff. I do like to play that stuff all the time, but I don't play it, you know, like in a jamming environment. So to me it's all about the, the lighter gains, the mid gains. I really like. I think the line six to me is better at simulating what, you know, a mid range gain tube amplifier really sounds like. Just from my experience with the two. But that's just a. I prefer it. And what I mean by that is I could use either or like both. But I Prefer the line 6. It nudges out the race just a little bit there. That's it. Other than that, there is no clear winner. I think functional wise, function wise, I kind of prefer the Katana. And if I'm running pedals, I'm just gonna grab the Katana because to me the Katana is a fantastic pedal, paddle, pedal platform. In fact, you know, I never done an official video. Not. Because not everything I do is an official video. But I mean, I have took the Katana against, you know, like the old cubes, the roll. I thought, because there was a, there was a. There's a part of me that wants to be, you know, better than the Katana, you know, like, I don't want to take a Katana. I want to be like, oh, what do you got? I got, you know, something cool, right? So I was like, what about the Roland Blues Cube? I thought the Katana sounded better than the Blues Cube, you know. Start to hate emails now. I thought the Katana sounded better than the Roland chorus. Jazz chorus. Start the hate emails right now. I thought it sounded better than the old Rolling Cubes. Start the hate emails right now. When I say better, I mean I just preferred it in most cases. And then it had versatility on top of that. I think it was the best sounding of all the amplifiers. And if I did like an amp maybe more than the Katana, it was just usually the speaker that I was drawn to. And so I thought the, the, the Katana was perfect for a platform amp against like, to me, like a really big contender for the Katana is do you upgrade the Katana to like for a, for a, for a platform, for a pedal platform, like if you're at a gig. To me it's like the katana. And then, okay, I want something a little better than that. Maybe like a Hot Rod Deluxe. I think the Hot Rod Deluxe cuts a little better in the mix. It punches a little bit and the pedals sound a little better, fuller sounding to me through the Hot Rod Deluxe. But then, like I said, you have to factor in, you know, if you're really doing a fight here, you're like. But also, the katana is a lot cheaper, doesn't have tubes to worry about, and it's not as heavy. So, you know, you pick your. You pick your poison. So Michael says, better than the jazz chorus. Typing an angry email as you speak. Look, I knew I was gonna upset people. Look, there's something cool about jazz choruses, but I just. I ab the jazz chorus. I. I did not do the Roland 120. It was probably the 40. Is that it what it is? There's three, right? I think there's three or four. There's a small one. There's a medium one. There's a big one. It's like, right? I did the medium one. I remember, like, because I was like, oh, maybe I want that, because I thought that would be cooler to show up with, right? I was like, you know, there's something about having the thing that people don't know about yet, you know, I was like, oh, what did you bring? I'm like, got the mini jazz chorus. You know, like, you guys don't know how cool this is, or I got this thing that you don't know is cool. And then when you hear it, you go, wow. Because ultimately, when you bring something to jam with other people, right? Yeah. So it was a Jazz 40. Mark says I had to roll in. Jazz 40 was not never impressed. Yeah, I was. It was fine. It was fine. I just. Again, like I said, I like the katana better. But what's funny about bringing some cool piece of gear or a piece of gear, you think that you found that, like, you know, your other friend musicians. Because, remember, I hang out with musician, but I hang out with geeks like me who are, like, into gear just as much. So they're just as impressed with, you know, the gear as they are with the playing and all the other stuff. So. But at the end of it, you could have something cool, but when you plug it in, if it doesn't perform, like, the worst feeling, like, has anyone experienced this experience so much? It really depresses me. Like, a friend will come over and I'll be like, check this out. And I plug in the amp and I hit a cord and I play and I go, what do you think? And I go, mmm, it's all right, man. I'm like, oh, right. Doesn't that sound amazing? And they're like. And then you're like, what's wrong? How did I not get so. Like I said, that's what I was basically saying. I thought the Katana was as good as anything, actually. Actually made me a little sad for Boss for a minute. Like, man, they really have peaked with this thing, haven't they? Because it's really good and really cheap. I would say I almost hate to in today's age because everything changes and I'm stuck to a 20 year old go logic. But I'm like, to me like the Boss Katana is the Toyota Camry, right? It's just like, it's dependable, it does the job, it's good. It's rather, you know, affordable. I think the Camrys aren't affordable anymore, but you get the idea. I'm looking for that analogy. But you understand, it's like the Katana is as legit as it can get as a, as a just a good product. And in fact, like I said, there's a couple things about the Katana. I don't love the way it sounds, but they're fine. And I think the biggest thing that people hate about the katana. Oh, no. 2, let's be fair. I think most people who don't like katanas, for the most part, again, some of you are like, no, I really don't like the way it sounds. But I think for the most part, I think the two biggest critiques against the Boss Katana is it's freaking everywhere. So it's just everywhere. And it's affordable, it's cheap. So, you know, there's no, like, you know, look at what I have. You're not impressing anybody. You're like, you know, your, your friends are going to go, oh, you got the Katana. Yeah, My, my little sister has one. She doesn't even play guitar. She uses it to have her Barbie sit on it. Like, I don't know why that came out of my mouth. I just couldn't help it. I'm sorry. I just think it was funny. Now I want a teacher. This is. You have a Katana? My little sister has one too. All right. I don't know why that's funny to me. I think it's just because I pictured some. By the way, when I say little scissor, I mean like, like a picture in some guy saying like his little, like a little, like a little, you know, eight year old little girl has her boss katana for her Barbies. They use it as a karaoke machine. All right, I'm done. Yes. Chris says she's in the first grade. Right. I don't know why, it just made me laugh. It just did. All right. Anyways, Voodoo guitar says hey, installing a pre slotted tusk nut in my player Strat. Which side do I sand to get it to fit in the nut slot? The side towards the headstock or to the body? Yes. So generally speaking what I would do is always sand the side to the headstock. So here's, here's why. The reason why is because the distance from the end of the nut to the bridge is determined by the. For the intonation. I know it sounds weird because I'm thinking about it now out loud going. I guess you, I guess my logic is you're taking. Anytime somebody sands something, you're taking the chance that it's not going to be perfect level and smooth. So to me the contact point of the string on the nut that is on the side going towards the bridge is more important than the side that's going towards the tuning keys. So if I was going to have you sand or mess with the nut, I'd want it on the side going towards the tuning keys. I believe you'd have less effect. In other words, if, if for some reason. Right. For some reason, if you miss sanded, in other words. Because what I mean by that is you sand it. You sound the nut nut down a little bit and then it fits in the slot. But sometimes you sand it in a spot and it's just a little shallow now and you can fill that in with glue. That would not affect the string and the intonation from the point of the nut to the tuning key. But it would affect it if it was going to the bridge. I hope that makes sense. But, but yeah, he says, Richard says and never sand the top of a nut. Never sand the top of a nut. I mean again you can. I have videos where I made nuts. Like I did one out of a cow femur bone once. And, and I mean I'm going to go with Richard on the. When you're new, there's a lot of things you want to stay away from doing. And so I would say when you're new to doing stuff, try to do as little modifications as possible because you're going to be the one introducing the problems, not the pre fitted component. Does it make Sense. So you want the component to be as original as possible. I understand you have to. Oh, Richard said it was a joke. Okay. So you want to keep it as reasonable as possible, but you understand you have to manipulate it. But you want to keep. Like I said, just think of. User error is going to be the biggest problem for you. So Shane says never attempt comedy on the Internet. I should know way better. We all, all should know. Like all of us making jokes. Yeah. All right. Ellen who's a. Is a channel member. Thank you. Ellen says, Phil, do you think it is going to come down to two camps? Tube v modeling. Like vinyl versus oh, so tube versus modeling versus vinyl versus streaming. Yes. I think what will happen is we'll look at, look at, at this point, look at what already has happened now. So I know some of you are older than me and some of you are younger than me, but I'm going to tap it. I'm going to be tapping on the older side for this, for this comment. If you were to go back to the 60s and maybe the 50s, but definitely the 60s and think about what small practice style amplifiers that you have on the market, you would have a lot of different brands. You would have custom with a K. You would have, you know, music man made a small amp. Fender made a small amp. Right. You had a lot of companies making small solid state amplifiers, a lot of them. Right. Started doing the stuff. Two Manfires too. Maybe the 70s is even a better comparison. 70s. And what I mean by that is, is that you could walk in a store, music store or you know, a place where you bought gear, maybe a pawn shop or whatever and you would see a variety of brands to the point where, you know, maybe at that time there was a few hundred different brands. It probably didn't seem like it because at that time you only saw what you saw. Right? So what you mean is when you saw what you saw in the store, you didn't have the Internet and stuff. So you didn't see the brands. Like somebody saying Silvertone, Pig nose. Right. Somebody says Gibson, Gibson of course, Gorilla Harmony. Right. You had all these things. Now think about not just the guitar center, but think about stores in general. When's the last time you've been in a music store? But just think about it. What really brands are there for the entry level amplifier market? And it's like literally Fender line six. I mean Marshall's there. But keep in mind like it's, it's really all big companies and that's really the takeaway, right? The takeaway isn't that it's. It's not that many companies. They're all huge. Very few small companies in the affordable. Like think about Crate's gone, right? It's gone. Somebody said Crate. Most of those guys are gone. They can't compete. So in the small amplifier market, and that goes up to the Katana. So I'm gonna say $300 in down amplifier market in that, in that price range, essentially they have created the arena that is low margin, right? High volume is the single hardest thing for a new company to get into, especially in our industry. So Spark is probably an interesting thing. Chris Unfreak. Unbelievable. Because they would be to me, one of the few new up and comers. And to give you a reference, Spark had a crowdfund Spark from the beginning, if you guys remember. That's why so many people were upset, right? Because they, you know, they were sending youtubers free amps before they fulfilled orders that paid for amps. Because. And again, I'm not here to defend them. At the time I was pretty harsh about them. And I'm still. I didn't think it was a great idea optically looking. But I understood the reason why they did it, which was they were trying to keep this ball, ball rolling, you know, thinking that get. Keep the energy going because they were gonna, you know, they had a, they were seeing a breaking a ceiling moment. They could literally become a company up there with you know, not boss katana and stuff like that, but you know, up there. So I think now when you think of the small affordable amp market, I think very rarely are we going to see anyone maybe like Spark break that arena. I think it's going to be forever. Fender, maybe line six stays in the game. Obviously. Orange Marshall. You know, I'm looking at pb. They're almost on the way out. It looks like at least how it feels. But you know, maybe they're not. But you get the idea. It's just, it's in a vein like that that's isolated. What I think will happen next is, look, we have tons and tons of boutique amp manufacturers. Tons and tons. So because the barrier to entry to make a tube amp is not as hard as making an affordable guitar amp, trust me, a company like Friedman Amps. Well, he wouldn't want to do it. Obviously he's smart. He doesn't want to make a $99 Friedman. But it's a lot harder for him to even contemplate doing that, you know, making that happen other than just going to a company and doing a licensing deal. So it's, it's a, it's a point where I think into your, to your question, who sustains in 10 years? We're not even talking 20 years. This is two 10 years. In 10 years boutique tube amps will still be around because for anytime one goes out of business one pops up and usually one goes out of business because a couple do pop up and then I think modeling is just going to get better and better and cheaper but mostly cheaper and cheaper. I've said this that I don't think so much that the modeling in 10 years. I don't expect the modeling to be dramatically different sounding than it is now. I just expect it to be a lot cheaper at least technology wise. And so yeah, I think it comes down to those and then the outlier. That's why I'm basically saying this. And then the outlier will be these mass produced low price amps by bigger companies because that's always going to be a need whether it's for new players that just want a little practice amp or for people like us that just want a little practice amp in the room and stuff to run pedals through or just play at late at night. So yeah and let's see. Yeah D Max says Blackstar low price solid state amps are solid. I, I have had such great experiences with Black Star. Almost all the Black Stars ever played I've liked and, and still, still to this day one of my Favorites is the 1 watt black star head HTTP and the HD5. I know they get a lot of grief for a lot of reasons. For sure they get a lot of grief because obviously there's a lot of amp repair channels out there. Multiple ones. So I want to be clear because some of you right now are probably thinking one it was multiple ones that I saw that have said, you know, negative things like hey, they don't share their schematics. It's hard to repair them because they don't. They're not really helpful and which is true. They you know, they're not made very well. This is also true. And not all of them at least and to, to that point I understand but also you know they're also not priced where stuff would be to where you know it would be. Well the one thing that's always missing from the equation with amps and again I'm not an amp repair person so I'm not, I'm not questioning amperson. I'm a guitar repair person so. But isn't but in the guitar guitar amp space I Have a lot of experience selling them, you know, obviously. And that, and that really tells you, because I can tell you what, what an amp tech will say, but I can tell you what a consumer will do. A consumer will not fix. The consumer will not pay 150 bucks to, to fix a 500. Well, a $300amp in most cases, it's just not gonna happen. And keep in mind what I'm saying, you buy an amp for $300 new and you take it to an amp repair and they go, it's $150 to fix it. Most people are going to walk away. Essentially, that's the downfall. So these companies, and I think that's what's always missing in this equation. And I use Fender because I know for a fact, for a fact Fender does this for a fact that they do this, which is they calculate at a price point where people stop buying and then they figure out how to make that work. So what I mean by that is they go, hey look, somebody's looking for a mid priced amp. They're not paying $1,500. So we can't make a fifteen hundred dollar amp. And even though that we could probably make a better quality amp at $1500, we're not going to do that because that's not where they buy it. So they're going to, they're going to make the amp more, more priced accordingly. Yardbird 68 says disposable amps. Basically. Yeah, it's a disposable. Look, it's, it's, it's, it's. And by the way, like, it's always good. Like kill the messenger. I'm not condoning, I'm not saying this is good or bad. I'm just explaining. The reality is, is we were talking about, I made a comment about people older than me and younger than me. I was just talking about this with my patrons the other day. I don't know how old I am in the grand scheme of old in the world, but I could tell you this. I had to go with my mom to the vacuum repair store as a kid. Like that was a thing we did. We went to the vacuum repair store twice in my life. I've been to one vacuum repair store two times. She got her vacuum fixed if my life depended on it. Right now, I couldn't even tell you for sure if there's a vacuum repair store in the city of Phoenix, which is the fifth largest city in the country. I don't even know if there's one. I assume there's one that exists. But if you told me one doesn't exist, I wouldn't be shocked. So it gives you a reference to that. They don't fix vacuum cleaners. So there is a little bit of truth that again, I don't like it because remember, I'm a repair person for a living. I repaired things. And when you repair things you like the idea of something just continues on. That's kind of where I liked. I would love if we were more of a repair culture and maybe we'll return to it. But for right now, realistically, I only can tell you what people do and people will not pay for things. In fact, here's a fun fact I told the patrons when I did the hang last weekend because I, I did a bonus podcast on Sunday and then the coffee hang. I, I think I told them I'd tell you the story, or at least I earmarked it on my notes that I would tell you guys the story is a funny thing. Little fun store fact. You guys seem to like it when I tell store store stories of the store. That one of the biggest things that would happen to us at a store, and it happens stores all the time, is somebody would come in. Just to give you an idea how people like this is how people think people come in and they would have like a guitar, like a classical guitar or maybe a steel string acoustic guitar. But it was usually always an acoustic. It was very rarely electric, but it was acoustic guitar. And they go, how much to restring this guitar? And I've told you guys this many times in the past, but it hasn't come up. I just want to make sure I clear that you guys understand. We used to tell people because we had a bench on wheels and we roll it out and customers, anybody watching that remembers my store knows that we had this. You could put your guitar on the cart and we'd say we point for free. So if you want to buy a pack of strings from us and restring it, we'll restring one. We would do one string, let you watch us do it, and then we would point and manage, watch you do the rest for free. Or it's $25 for us to do it. And, and for the record, I don't know if that's expensive now because it's been a while since we had the shop. But here's what I can tell you. It started out with $5 and we just kept raising it. It had nothing to do with the economy, had nothing to do with labor. It had to do with we were just trying to find a price to make people not want to do it right? And here's what happened. This is the part of the story that maybe you won't, that maybe you predict, but this, I don't know. One of the biggest problems we had at the store was people would bring us these junky acoustics and go, hey, I found this acoustic in my, you know, my. My uncle's closet and I'm going to start playing guitar. Or, hey, I bought this guitar off Amazon. It was always the same story, okay? And they go, how much to restring it? And we go, it's $25 plus the strings, unless you want to do it yourself. And they go, oh, okay. And they just have us do it. And then they'd never come get the guitar. We would always have four, five, six guitars in the back of the store just sitting there. For years. They would just collect, right? And collect and collect and collect. And we'd have their phone number. We'd call them. They didn't answer because they were, you know what happened? Almost every time it's because they were like, eh, it's not even worth paying 25 to go get that guitar back. They would, right? So. And for years I didn't know, actually I should thank somebody because there was a lady and if it wasn't for her, I would have never. We never figured it out. We just thought that, you know, for a while we had negative thoughts. We thought like, maybe people got abducted by some, like, aliens. We're like, I don't know what happens. They came in, they dropped off the guitar. Whatever happened to the Dufresnes? Little joke for you guys. We need to get a search party for the Dufresne. They wanted this guitar. They wanted this guitar restrung and now they never came back, you know? Right. And what's funny was one time a lady dropped a guitar. Wasn't to me. I think it was to Warren. And he took an Ian Prostituten and same thing, 25 bucks. And she leaves. And, you know, he. He put the guitar on the bench. I don't remember. So, you know, I just don't remember if I was gonna do it for him or if he said he'd do it. But whatever happened, it was minutes. Like maybe five, ten minutes, maybe 15. Get the idea? Like not very long. And I don't know, to this day I can't remember if we started restring it or not. I just don't remember. I just remember the phone rang and I picked it up and I'M like, I answered, and it's that lady. And the lady said, hey, I just looked up this guitar on Amazon. I can get this guitar brand new for 30 bucks. Don't. Don't restring it. I'm just gonna get another one. And I was like, all right. I like to say, like, no. I fought and said, no, I'll restring it for free. No reason. I was like, whatever, lady. Right. I got other things to think about today. But what's funny was I got off the phone and I remember having that light bulb moment, like, is that I never thought that's why they don't come back. Because, yeah, the guitar has no value. So that was my long way of telling you that when it comes to repairs, even on amps and stuff, that's what happens. And amps techs have told me the same stories too, that some people, they're almost scared because to work on cheap amps sometimes because people drop them off and then they go, okay, it's $400 to fix it. And then you never see them again. So it's how it works. I don't know. And for those that you're going to say, because you're going to say, why don't you get the money up front? I guess you could. I don't know. I don't. I don't know. So, I mean, usually your thought processes, I have your collateral, so I don't need to ask for your money up front. And you kind of want to. Ideally, in a perfect world, let's be honest, in a perfect world, I'd like people to pay when they're happy with the product that I've provided to them, not before. I mean, that's the perfect world. And so I never had to ask for money up front for guitar repairs, so I kind of never would want to. Never, never make sense to. Lonzo says, like cars, if the bumpers are not the same color as the car, then, you know, it's a cheap one. You know, it's funny. It's funny. Absolutely. My first, My first truck had no. Was. Was a base model truck. So no passenger side mirror because that costs extra, and no back bumper. I was explaining this, my wife and I was explaining this to my daughter a couple weeks ago, maybe a month ago, and she was looking at us like we were stupid. Like, they don't sell cars without parts. We're like, that's how they sold them. You just didn't get a side mirror and you didn't get a bumper. You bought that later if you were lucky. And then my second truck, I got the side view mirror, but I think we didn't get the bumper. I can't remember. So, yeah, and then, and then. Yeah, and then it's like, it took me forever to realize that's how it works with cars. Like, I was a little late to the game, but you start realizing, like, people had cars, and you're like, oh, yeah, that's cool how they painted their mirrors the same color as the car or the bumper or something. You're like, you know, like, oh. And you realize, like, mine's plastic. You're like, oh, because you have to pay more for not having plastic. Derek B. Says seatbelts were extra. Okay, Derek. That is. That is definitely before me, or at least I didn't have that experience. Like, seat belts were definitely mandatory. Like, for me, when I. I mean, I couldn't buy cars back then, you know, obviously. But for me, when. When I started driving and, and getting around cars, like, electric windows were becoming an option. Like, you could get electric windows and power doors. Like, that was a big deal. Like, if you. If you had electric windows or power door. Like, I didn't have any friends that had either one of those. Not a single one. That was. Not a thing anybody had at all. So the. And. And just so you know, every time anyone ever, and I mean ever, like family members or anyone got power windows or power doors or anything, any kind of Creature Comfort, power steering, if they got a creature comfort, trust me, everyone in my family is like, that's just another thing to break that's just gonna break. That's why we don't buy nice stuff, because it just breaks all the good stuff. That's what I learned. That's what I learned from my family. Everything that's good that breaks, so you don't want it because it. So you're not missing out on anything, because everyone who's rich, they're just miserable with broken stuff. Sorry I'm laughing, but I'm like, yeah, it worked. I was. I. I still say that to this day. Somebody's like, oh, anything that. Anything that's automatic. I'm like, this is going to break. And then Susan says, power windows break. Yeah, of course everything breaks. That's the whole point. But all right. And then, okay, I'm gonna go back to guitars, but I gotta do this. Wiz dog says, don't smoke, but miss the door ashtrays. So my grandfather got the Cadillac Barritz. So my grandfather, when I was 1985. So it was 1985, 85, 86. In 1985, 86, my grandfather bought a brand new Cadillac Barritz. And I couldn't name any of the cars my parents had or any of, you know, my family members had. I couldn't even. Couldn't tell you if they drove trucks or semi trucks or spaceships. But I knew everything about my grandfather's car because everyone in the neighborhood talked about my grandfather's Cadillac Brits. It had ready. It had ashtrays. Every ashtray had a cigarette lighter, even in the backseat. So that was the big. I remember them showing us. Everybody in the neighborhood would come to the driveway, and he would open the doors, and they'd all look inside the Cadillac Brits, and they'd be like, look at the ashtrays in the backseat with their own cigarette lighters. And when you would drive, like, he would take you to the bank. You know, he would do things, run errands. You would sit in the backseat and you would just play with the cigarette lighters. And that's what we did with them. And it had Vogue tires, which had white walls and gold. A gold thing had a gold line. And they were called Vogue tires. And this will date everyone, since we're playing the nostalgia game. And then my grandfather had to replace three hood ornaments from being stolen. And then eventually they. To stop the thieves from stealing his hood ornaments because they would wear around their neck. Is that taking you back to a fashion trend? They. They put a, like, semi truck horn in his car. And the Cadillac emblem, you know, for safety purposes, the Cadillac emblem, which is a physical emblem, stuck up just like a Mercedes emblem, was on like a cable on a spring, because in case somebody fell over the hood of your car, they wouldn't impale themselves. So what they did is they hooked that cable to the horn. So then what you would do is, because we were crappy kids, we would wait for kids to walk in front of his car, and you'd run up and hit the hood ornament, and this air raid horn would blast in somebody's face because that was gonna stop people from stealing it. Until one night, I happened to be sleeping on the couch at. Staying at my grandfather's house. And about, I don't know, two in the morning, late at night, I heard the air ride horn go off, and it was gone. And that's how long it took somebody to pull up the thing, snip it, and take his hood ornament. Cadillac emblems. Yep. All right, so that's. That's my. That's my Cadillac story. Okay, I. Let's get back to guitar talk. I'm sorry, guys. We have Michael Nielsen from the Michael Nielsen channel. Or big hairy guitars, although it's the Michael Nielsen channel. He says, hey, when dropping string gauge from 10 to 9, do you need to worry about intonation changes? Okay, so generally speaking, you need to worry about intonation changes all the time. Generally speaking. But we'll get specific. But I'm going to use something that. Give me a second, Michael. I'm going to use this guitar as a prop. And the reason I'm going to use this for you guys that know this is a 2013 Paul Reed Smith Mira. This is, as you guys know, one of my favorite guitars in the world. It's beat to Death. Can't tell is chipped. It is broken. It has been refreaded with stainless steel frets. I put stainless steel frets on it. The reason we use this guitar, Michael, is because I'm very intimately connected to this guitar. In other words, everybody who knows guitar knows that there's. You can have a guitar and then you can have a guitar that is. You're connected to 100. In other words, you've. I've put enough blood, sweat and hours into this thing. I just know this guitar as well as I know my own bones in my body. This has a one piece wraparound bridge right there. And you can see you cannot adjust it for intonation. Okay. There are two set screws on the back, so you can't adjust the distance on this guitar. So let me just explain how. How intonation can work in a good and bad way. This guitar currently has tens. It always has tens. But sometimes I'm like, I put nine to four 46s but tens. So this is 10 to 46. If I was to put nine to 46 on this guitar right now, this guitar, I know this guitar so well. If I put 9 to 46 on this guitar right now, it would be perfectly intonated as well. It would be fine. However, if I was to put 10 to 46 with a round wound G string, the intonation would be out because the saddle is not in the right spot. This is not in the right spot for the wound round string. It's for a plain string. So the reason I tell you that is the same thing with your situation. So the answer is that is very possible. You go from tens of nines, nines and tens, and no intonation change whatsoever. That it would be very common. But it is possible that you would. Does it make sense? And I know that's like a. It sounds like a horrible answer because I'm like, yeah, it could or could not be. But it's like I said, the likelihood of it is not likely, but it is possible. But a lot of things factor in. Like, did the neck adjust? Right. Because that adjusts a few things. The height adjustment will help or hurt the intonation. And, and I only mention this because if you guys haven't seen Michael Nielsen on his channel, he's a player, man, this guy's legit. Like, he's amazing. So I'm talking to him. So you gotta say a little bit different than I would talk to some of you. Some of you. Not saying you guys aren't amazing in other ways. You might have a great personality, I don't know. But I'm just saying I know he's a great player. So he's. His intonation is going to be. He's going to pick it up way more than you guys, than the average one of you guys. Right? Right. This is what, like I said, I did this for, you know, decades, repairing guitars. Your customer base, you kind of learn, like, okay, professionals, they, you got to answer it because they're going to hear the issue. Michael, in your case, I would say it would be more dependent. So in other words, it's dependent on the type of guitar. But I find intonation changes are more dramatic with floating bridges than without within, on hardtails. So in other words, like, so nines of tens or tens of nines on a hardtail bridge, especially a two piece, maybe not. Not a big deal at all. No change. Because ultimately the, the strings that are most notorious for the intonation issue, which is going to be G and D and B, they don't get affected as much as. Because most of the effect for me from the 9 to 42 is the 10 to 46 is really in those two high E strings, low E strings. So it's possible. So the great news is this. If you did it. So if you're asking me if you did it, should you definitely get your intonation done or do your intonation? No, you could do it and feel pretty confident. Unless you're hearing an issue, you're fine. However, if you did it and you hear an issue and you're like, okay, you know, am I paranoid? No, it's possible it did it because like I said, it'd be finite, especially with your ears where you're gonna detect it. So to me, intonation is not a perfect pitch thing. I've heard that before. People with perfect Pitch can hear the intonation out. I find intonation and the sensitivity to it. In other words, how well someone detects it has to do with how much they play physically, not how long they've been playing guitar. Right. I mean, like, you know, me and Michael, we could be playing the guitar the same length, but trust me, he's. He's put more hours into it, obviously, because he plays much better. I mean he could be just magically talented, but in my experience, it's the hours of play right. What he's doing. So. So I would say you might be hearing it because again, you're just. You put in more hours. So you just hear when things are out. Which is why some really talented musicians like yourself and others tend to play with that. If you noticed, like they play with the sourness of the notes sometimes, you know. Right. Certain guitar players and like to me like a perfect person who's. And this is not the greatest analogy, but it's a person I think of all the time. George lynch is really interesting when he plays solos and stuff. There's almost like a sourness sometimes to what he's doing. And he, he makes it sound right. Does it make. I hope that makes sense. Like every once in a while there's this note and it's like, is that the right note? Was that the correct bend? It's. But it worked. It sounds great when he does it, but it doesn't sound so polished to me. And I find that that's because he just plays so much. When you play so much, you just get real comfortable with what sounds good and what works with than you know, your playing style. So. Okay, there, that's answer. And then John says, get a Peterson strobe tuner. I love Peterson tuners. I use them for pretty much everything. So the. All right, Dr. Miebalzich. By the way, Dr. MiebalzICH, you were a. Interesting conversation last weekend. Okay. Dr. Mibalzic says easier to trade in a made in Mexico artist signature strat plus 1995 epiphone rivera plus cash for a Nash T63 and sell the Nash or keep trying to sell the two separately. Okay. In my, in my experience, selling two more affordable items is always easier to sell than one expensive item. That's. So if the, if the concept is to do the trade to, to make it easier to sell. I don't think that's the case. Usually the trading idea is that you have like, obviously a Nash guitar is a very high end guitar. So you have something that's very Sought after as a high end guitar. But like if I was like, you got to think of it like a dealer. Think about when you look at a music store dealer, right? You lower price guitars. Give you an example. I told you, I know some guitar collectors around the world. Guitar, vintage guitar collectors that resellers, right. And one in particular who's very good at this craft as far as I'm concerned, he once called me at the store and he's like, I'm in a store in Utah or something and I'm pouring water while I talk guys. And he goes, and the guy, the dealer has a guitar I want but we can't agree on a price, but he really needs some, some mid price inventory. And he wants 12 Mexican strats. He goes, what do you sell me 12 Mexican strats for? So I pulled up the sheet, you know, my well computer pulled up what I pay for him and I said, oh, what do you want? He says, sort of colors. And I said okay. And I gave him a number. It was like 10% over cost because hey, I'm selling 12 and he's like, I'll take them. So it was easier for him to trade out, you know, to that dealer where they wanted the lower price stuff. So, and that is my experience as a dealer trading is that I'm really more as a dealer. I want you to bring me lots of affordable things to sell and give you one expensive thing, get that out of there. Because it's a lot easier for me to flip. So that's why, if you notice, I flip that logic when I'm the buyer, when I'm me, the person, I'm like, I want to get rid of small things and get one nice thing because I'll come out ahead usually in that trade. So in this particular trade, I don't know the values and I didn't Google it and didn't look it up. So that's again, that's not what I'm talking about. But in this particular idea, if you were asking me if that's a good trade, I would say yeah, it's a good trade because the Nash is a good guitar. And you know, but if you're telling me you want to do that and try to flip that Nash, I, I don't know the values. So if you're telling me that let's say there's, let's play a game called because I don't want to spend too much time looking up each one and figure out the value, I'm going to assume that the two things you want to trade him, the amp and the guitar, are same. Well, they can't be the same value because you can say plus cash for the Nash. I'd say no, I'd say don't do it. That's first of all, as soon. As soon as I read plus cash. No, you shouldn't give cash away. If your goal is to get cash, you're going in the wrong direction. Right. You're trying to get rid of things to get cash. Don't get rid of things in cash to get more cash. That's just. You're going the wrong direction. I would just put those two things up for sale. They're going to be much easier. Easier to sell. If your logic though, is that because you said EPI Rivera. So I'm assuming it's the amp. Right. But it could be an epiphone Rivera guitar. You said 95 EP Rivera. So I'm thinking, is that a guitar? Let's. I think it's guitar. If it was an amp or something, a big amp maybe like getting rid of the big amp for a guitar that's easier to ship to sell online. But in this case, if it's two guitars, no, I'd rather flip two mid price guitars and be done with it. Also, keep in mind, once you have a more expensive guitar and you sell it, you have a higher, more scrutinizing customer. That makes sense. So what happens if you get this Nash and it's not a hundred percent perfect and then you sell it and then somebody's like, hey, it's not that great. So I would say it's not worth it. So that's my suggestion. Okay. James Walsh says Daddario makes good tuners. I use those as well. And I use narcs. Yeah, I think Peterson's are the best quality wise. Like, I think they're just the most accurate. But when I'm tuning up real fast all the time, I don't really focus on that. So I just have tuners everywhere. I've kind of. I like the rechargeable tuners and I kind of put them everywhere I can. I always need a tuner, so you always need a tuner. Okay, let's look at what Amanda's pulled. Jimnd Patton. This is from Amanda says some YouTube channels. Oh, no. Are cutting acoustic guitars in half to determine the quality of the instruments. How can we determine the quality without destroying the guitar? I use a scope. I go in there with a. Well, first of all, who cares? You know what's funny is Jam. Look, Jam and D is gonna get me in super trouble on the Internet. But look, I have an opinion, and it's what it is, okay? So I say that just because I don't know who the hell you're talking about. Okay? So hope to God it's not like Rick Beato and I just get slammed into the planet Earth for. From. For this. But here's the reality. Look, if you told me you're gonna cut car seats apart and show me as a review, I'm gonna be like, good for you. Thank God someone is doing a good service. You know, that's my kid, and it matters more to me than anything in life. And that's the safety. If you're cutting guitars apart to show me what's inside, just. Who the hell cares? Seriously, there's nothing. Look, there's no reason to destroy a musical instrument. A pedal, an amp. There's no reason to destroy anything. I. I told you guys. I did a video once, and I cut a. I took apart a lipstick pickup, and then I put it back together, and I still have those lipstick pickups. There it was in my somnium guitar. Like, I took it apart. But, yeah, I took it apart to figure out what it is, and then I figured. I reversed. I had to put it back because I wanted to figure out how they made it so I could. I thought I was going to make some. Yeah, I put. I made one. The one. I. I realized, like, I don't want to. Want to make something, but I wanted to learn, and I thought, let's film it. Because at that time on my YouTube career, I was like, I. It's content. And so I filmed it. But the point being. No, no, I don't destroy anything. I literally. There's cameras. Put a camera in there, you could put in. You could put an iPhone in a. In a. Inside the guitar. If you want to see the bracing, if that's what it's about. Looking at the bracing. Look, and here's. Here's. Here's the reality. It's your. There's. I'm. I'm of two sides on this. Okay? So I just want to begin. Remember I talked earlier today? Hey, if you can't see both sides, it's their money, okay? I don't want to judge people for what they do with their money. As long as they're not hurting anyone, committing a crime, you know, doing something immoral, Right? Like, you know, once you start judging people how they spend their money, they start judging how you spend yours, and then you Know, that's just not a world I want to live in either. So I'm not judging them, in other words. No, I am judging them. I'm not saying they shouldn't be able to do that. They should totally cut guitars in half. That's what they want to do. If somebody wants to make a channel where they just literally smash guitars like Pete Townsend, and that's the entire channel, then that's good. I'm not interested in that because I don't think I need to tear apart a part of guitar to see what's in it, to figure out what's in it. The I'd like to point out, at this point in my life, I feel like Johnny Carson. Okay. Like, I feel like you could hand me a guitar a thousand videos in, and I'm like, What is mahogany? Two humbucker pickups, probably about 7.9k, right? Like, I would imagine if they're cutting guitars apart to learn about them. That's interesting. Maybe they need. That's how they learn and they process them, trying to defend their logic. If they're a luthier or guitar builder or they're a repair person, I'd say, you know, I guess if it gets some clicks, I don't know, you know, again, I'm not here to judge them, but I. I just don't see the point of destroying a guitar. It doesn't make sense. There's. There's no. There's nothing I would learn from that. If somebody cut. You know, we have this question a lot. Some people, like, cut the guitar apart to see what the wood is. As you guys know, I take guitars apart all the time. I take some sandpaper. I'll sand a spot. Usually anytime there's any con. Shielding paint inside, I'll sand that. I'll show you what the wood looks like, and I paint it right back up. I put it right back the way it was. I return the guitar back to stock. There's sometimes. So you guys know, I have in a deep dive, you're like, you forgot to do this one thing that I do. I didn't forget. I just didn't feel like I could do that and maybe confidently put the guitar back to the original state it was in. And I'm not. I don't want to damage the instrument. It's not. It's not something I want to do because, you know, I don't think it's. I don't think that's valuable to anyone. And I could be wrong. Let me know in the comments. If I'm wrong, like, Phil, totally, you should be cutting all your guitars in half. There was a part where, trust me, it did cross my mind. I sat and I sat for about good 24 hours where I sat there and went, maybe I should cut guitars apart. Maybe I should rip frets out and cut them and see if they're standstill. Maybe I should do these things, and then people would be better informed. And I could almost use the logic, which I tried, which is by destroying one guitar, I'm educating thousands of people about it, and therefore everyone's better for it. But at the end of the day, I thought, you know, here's another thought. If I have to do that, then maybe we shouldn't be buying from that manufacturer to begin with. Like, if I can't trust the main. Like, at this point, if a manufacturer says something, and as you guys seen, I've proven many times, what the manufacturer said was not what it was, okay? And, but in the, in the grand scheme, how much do you guys really care? Like, for instance, for instance, for a fact, the very first Firefly I ever reviewed said it was mahogany. It was not. It was probably basswood. We're not sure what the wood was, but it was not mahogany. It said it was, I think, a maple neck. And it wasn't a maple neck, right? It was something else. Or maybe it says mahogany. It was a maple neck. Whatever. Was not what it said. But it wasn't like asbestos, right? It wasn't. I mean, trust me, I'm all for like, hey, that's not cool, right? Like, if, if the guitar was made of asbestos, I'd be like, yes, I, I, I put on the mask and I checked it for you guys. I don't buy this guitar. But at the end of the video, if you can't say, like, I cut a car seat part and said, this is not safe, don't put your child in it. At the end of the video, I can say, if I can't say, don't buy this guitar under any conditions. I'm not going that far. To me, it's just about understanding what it is you're buying. Like, hey, here's what the guitar really is, what I found it is. And if you still want to buy it for the price they're offering, at least you're better informed for it. But nowhere have I ever seen any guitar that at some point where I'm like, oh, this is a safety issue, or this is of a concern where people should be like, you know, we should, like, let Me, put it this way, I'm not turning anybody into the inter. I've never turned a company into the Attorney General office. I've never had to by like. So JP hints Spice says asbestos guitars are. Have better tone. Yeah. So they probably do. But anyways, and back so that. That's my answer to that. Acoustic guitars, their scope cameras will really see most anything. And I've always. I've kind of learned for me, and again, this is just my personal experience making content. Most of you guys have no idea what the hell I'm looking at anyways when I show it to you. So I've kind of learned tell you what it is and then show you something so that you can connect what I said to what you see. But in most cases, I really don't need to be super detailed about what you see because most you still don't see it. And I know everyone. Like, I can always hear somebody going, no, no, I want to see more because I understand you are the. The minority of this. Right? The majority are like, you're talking too much over their heads. So I guess that's my point. But so, yeah, you know, it's. Somebody said something about PRs, but here's what's funny is PRs is a good story. I did a review, one of their acoustics and their bracing was not what they said it was. I took a camera, a scope camera, and went in there and the bracing was not what PRS said it was. Which is funny because it wasn't built by prs. It was built by another factory. And PRS used my video, I think, to. I think they sent me an email saying, thank for that video. We're going to use that to show the manufacturer because they, you know, because even when they're doing setups, I'm sure they're like, let's go in there and verify. Every single instrument's got the bracing they claim. So, yeah, it's. So, yeah, cameras, I think, are good enough for the most part. Yeah. I don't know. But I could be wrong. I'm always open to new ideas. Maybe in a year from now, I'll be cutting everything in half and then I'll just. I'm going for the joke, guys. Okay. And then we'll set fire to the guitars and I'll give you the burn time. I'll be like, just. You guys know Gibson's perm 10 minutes faster than Fenders. So if there's ever an apocalypse, you know what guitars in your collection to burn first because they'll keep your house warm or long. Like burn your tellies first, guys. The tellies keep the family warm the longest. Then go to the Strats, then the Les Paul's. Once you get to the the low, once you get to the low dollar, import Chinese guitars, they're gonna burn really fast and they're gonna, they're gonna smell like toxic fumes. So burn those last there. That's the burn Times is gonna be the new thing. I hope you guys know that's just me being sarcastic. I couldn't help but go for the joke. And then. Yeah, all right, we need to get through some of these comments. Otherwise we're not gonna end this show on time, which is already too late. The slick N he says, hey, Phil, I know it isn't guitar question, but are your string swing hangers in studs or do use anchors? They are in both. It's. I live in modern construction, which means there is a stud every 16 inches, which means there's a stud randomly never where it says, no, I'm just kidding. So yeah, so some are in studs and some are not in studs. So they're using wall anchors. I use butterfly anchor anchors. So, you know, I do not use the string swing corkscrew anchors. The plastic ones that they provide. That's not what I use. I use the actual butterfly ones. That's what I use. I've never had a problem. Also, keep in mind, if it is something you're concerned about, there is two tricks that work. We did this at the store and I do this here at the house. Whether you realize it or not, which is one thing you can do if you don't have, you know, obviously you're never going to put all your guitars on studs. It's not going to work. So one of the things you can do is you can get boards and run them lengthwise. You see a lot of people doing that, especially you see them in the videos and stuff. They'll run the boards and then they anchor the boards into the studs, then the string swing hangers into the boards. That works. As you can see. I've not done that. The other thing you can do is you can go to your Home Depot or Lowe's and get quarter inch panels. So usually 4ft by 8ft tall. So 8ft tall by 4ft wide quarter inch panels. You can get them with. No, you know. No, no. You can get them with like some look like brick and some look like wood and some look like, you know, Wayne's coating and stuff. But you can get some of that have no finish on them. And then like this is wallpaper. You wallpaper them. And then what you do is you can mount those and you make sure you screw certain sections of those into the studs. And then you can anchor. Use butterfly anchors as well. I would still use the anchors on those when you don't hit studs. And man, those guitars are not coming down. So just let you know. So. And then Beavis Christ says, I would not trust drywall to hold a guitar regardless of an anchor. So I understand that and that's what you're feeling. I'm not here to dissuade you from it because I don't want to be the one that's like, no, no, it's totally fine. Do it. I, I'm not here to. First of all, I don't sell hangers. Let's. Let's talk about this. It's important. I don't sell hangers, I don't sell drywall. I could really care less if any of you hanging your stars on the walls. I'm only going to tell you what I did and what worked for me. I have the. In the retail store, we had string swings up, some were in panels because like I said, we put the wainscot, like the quarter inch panels. Some were in studs, some were on rails, and some were in the drywall with anchors, butterfly anchors. We've never had one come out of the walls. I've never had one come out of the walls here. I have a pretty nice collection of guitars, if I don't say so myself. So obviously I'm very, you know, like, I don't want my guitars to fall either. And this is what I found that works for me. And I don't know if I would personally have trusted these with my personal guitars, you know, but I had the store. So over years, the store, you're just like, okay, we'll try and see what works. And this is what works. So I, that's what I learned, is that the butterfly anchors worked fine. But again, I don't know your house. I don't know your drywall conditions. I don't know your weather conditions. I don't know your situation. You got to figure it out on yourself. I'm just telling you what worked for me and how I've worked. I've had no issues. And like Brian, one of the, one of the moderators will tell you, he. His house, his house flooded and the water came down the walls and the walls, walls dissolved. I believe and then all this guy guitars fell off the wall. I believe if I recall Brian telling me that like five, six years ago, seven years ago. And. But I'm on the second story here, so I don't know, maybe that's not. That's not really my concern is. Is the water coming? But again, everybody do what you will. But yeah, an. An drive. Look, a stud is the safest to do if you can do it. Mike. Mike says, hey, I'm buying a Princeton amp with reverb this weekend. I'm trying to decide if I want the 65 or 68. Sure. So the 65 is a brighter amp. Okay. Than the 68. It's going to be. So if you like the brightness of an amp, the 65 is the way to go. The 65 also has. I want to say it's a more. I don't want to say pleasant, but I'm going to say pleasant reverb. I like the 65 reverb better than the 68. The 68 though, is a little darker. It's not as bright. Very compressed, if you don't know what that means. It's just real, real tight. Like every note feels really thumpy, like it has a compressor on it. That's why we're using the word compressed. Feels like the 68. Feels like if I put a compressor on the 65 and just set it real lightly and then put the 68 and you played them, you'd almost go, oh, yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying. Especially If I eat eq them. You know, the. The Princeton. The 65 can get as dark as 68. The 68 cannot get as bright as the 65. The. Why do I like that? Why do I like the darker, compressed sound of the 68? It's because I. I personally think it. The pedal. A lot of different pedals react to it better. So as a. And so again, you have to, you know, vote your needs kind of logic. Right? You have to make decisions based on your needs. My need is I. You. I'm a YouTuber who tries lots and lots of pedals. So I wanted an amp that just reacted to every kind of pedal in a way that was very, very good, positive. So, like, to me, certain pedals, I plug in the 65 prints and I'm like, oh, that's a little harsh on the distortion top end. I don't like that. So this pedal does not work with that amp, but the 68, everything seems to work with it pleasantly. And in a world where that's What I'm trying to achieve, because I'm trying pedals. So if you're not trying tons and tons of pedals all the time, maybe that won't appeal to you. The other thing to point out is I believe that the 68, you can get the speaker in that a lot of people don't like it. 10 something. 10. I like it. But I can tell you if you take the 65 and you replace that speaker with like a selection type speaker, like maybe a. A cream back with a C, or maybe even the green back with a G, you'll get closer to that 68 kind of sound and something. I don't know. The other thing that's important is at the time, when I bought my 68 Princeton, it was like $300 less than a 65 at the time. And this is an absolute fact I always tell you guys, like, rumor fact. Fender told me I was a Fender dealer. Fender, the company told me that the 68 Princeton at that time cost more to manufacture than the 65. The entire series. The entire 68 series cost more than the 65 series to make. And I said, then why is it less? And they go, because people won't pay more. Because people associate the silver faces to the being the cheap vendors. So in my mind at the time, I'm like, oh, I'm buying the amp that's more expensive to make, that has the mods, and it's cheaper. And as I bought that and I told you, I ripped off the drip edge because that thing was rattling and driving me nuts. And, you know, so that. That. Hopefully that informs you a little bit on which way to go. But I think for the average person out there, if I was gonna, you know, if you were holding me to the fire like, Phil, I'm gonna buy one of these. And wait, and if I don't and I don't love it, I'm gonna hate you forever. I'd be like, 65 is my safe bet. Like, I want to say 68, because that's the one I really like. But like I told you, just because I like it doesn't mean it's better. It just fits my weird needs that I have that are not normal. So I'd say 65. Grumpy Mike guitar. What's up, buddy? He says, I have a family function tonight. Oh, okay. Well, I can't make it. He says I can't stick around. Cheers to all. All right, I. I appreciate that update. And. And if you gave me enough notice, maybe. Maybe next time. Thank you. Buddy, I appreciate it. Says harmless rebel. Says, hey, have a dead pickup. In my 2013 Les Paul, Les Paul Jr. Looking for the 57 sound. Wow. It's almost like they should make a 57 sound. What pickups and pot should I go with for the sound? 57 classics. For the 57. That's. I have 57s. That's what's in my 57 classics. What's in my Esther 39? 57 classics are. What are they in? Well, they were in my Les Paul's, but now I have those. What do I have? I have the throwbacks in my gold top. Oh, I have 57 classics in my. I'm pretty sure I have 57 classics in my Gibson Ro. So I'm gonna say I like the 57 classics. Really? Well, so I would say 57 classics, sadly enough, if you would ask this question. A few weeks ago, I had a used set that I sold. You could have bought them. So I just sold the set of 57 classics that I just pulled out of my gold top. Because of the throwbacks. The throwbacks are better. I like them better. I absolutely do. Obviously, because I took out the 57. I wouldn't have sold the 57s if I didn't think they were going to go back in there one day. The throwbacks are way better. They're just four times more expensive, three times more expensive. So it's up to you, right? It's like it's, you know, it's one of those things. I can't argue they're three times better. I can't argue they're better, though. So, J, no DJB says, in your experience, what's your ideal pickup height and string action height? So that's easy. So string action is probably the easiest one for me to answer in my preference. 1.25 millimeters. Like one. I'll say one millimeter to one and a half. But 1.25 millimeters is where I like it. That's where I like it. I'm happiest. I play better, I feel better. My fingers go a little faster. Everything's just. Ah, yeah. Though most of the guitars you hear me play are about 2 millimeters to 1.75. Because essentially one of the things I do, whether I'm demoing a pedal or an amp or a guitar, is I want to. I want it to sound as good as it's possibly going to sound. And. And so 10 to 2 millimeters, the little higher action makes the notes ring a little better. And more bass response on Each string on each note. This is something that I would have. I learned this the fastest way from a studio musician who used to have me do setups. And he used to make me nuts when I say he's. He. His ear was so good. It made me. I was just. I would just trust me as a person. I loved him as a musician. He was super talented. If you. If I could have, like, if he would have hated me and went to another tech, I'd been like, woohoo. Because he was work. It was a lot of work. And so one of the things he did is he'd have me set up his guitars before they went in the studio. And then when he got out of the studio, go back on the road or playing, he would have me set. Set the guitars back up on the road playing. The action was always low in the studio. The action was always higher. It was just. It's exactly like. And you know, and so that was something I like. Okay, is that really true? And then I started. Like, over time, you start learning and. But I will tell you that I've said this before. You know, it's. It's not my saying, but I stole it. Which is, you know, the. You don't pick the strings. The guitar does. You don't also pick the action. You can. You can set a guitar to whatever action you want. But some guitars, man, their sweet spot, where they sound the best and play really nice. It's not the same. It's not the same. So that's what I like. My action pickup height. Don't even know. I told you, don't measure it. I'm just. What I'm looking for so, you know, is not to tell you what these are. Okay. I'm looking at those and I'm looking at these, this guitar, to see if they're anywhere. They're not even anywhere close. If I was gonna guess, this neck pickup on this music, man is at least 2 millimeters to 3 millimeters from the string. The bridge is 1 1/2 from the string. And then looking at the mirror, mira, it is the exact opposite. This bridge pickup is like right up on the strings, and the neck pickup's a little further back. So I said this before. I know everybody likes those set numbers. Every manufacturer has a set number. There's a ton of texts. I'll be like this. You measure it. Measure this. You know what? I don't like that answer. I'm never going to like that answer as much as I know why you want that answer. Who doesn't I used to want, you know, one of the. When I started having to record videos, you know, I would stress when I make the videos, because I'd make the video. And then I think I talked about this. Like, somebody would put in the comments really early on in my videos, like, oh, the guitar sounds bassy because you put the microphone too close to the edge of the cone. Oh, the guitar sounded bright because you put the microphone in the wrong spot. They were always critiquing where I put the microphone on the amp. And I'm like, oh, my goodness, what the hell's going on here? And so I had the ability, so I took it, which is. I know a lot of these amazing channels on YouTube, like Warren Hewitt, right? Glenn Fricker, the. That they're studio guys. And so I would talk to them. I'd be like, hey, what do I do? And they would say, essentially what I would say to you guys, which is like, well, here's. You can do this as a guideline. But that's like, that's the rookie move. This is how you do it. You find the spot by, you know, and so same thing with pickup height. I think you just. You just kind of set it by ear. What I would always say is this, if you don't know how. Cause I know one of the concerns is like, how do I know, though, Mike? I don't hear it. You do. You may not hear the nuances between too far away and too close, but I can tell you that I would always start with too close and then back it away. That works out. So just keep it easy. But if you want, you can Google, like, what height should I put my pickups? And tons of things will come up, and you can just use any of those, and they're gonna be fine. So I can tell you this. If I. If I get a guitar. Like, if you hand me a guitar and I start playing it, I literally don't even think about pickup height unless something's seriously wrong. Like, I'm like, why is this too. Like, these two pickups are too different sounding, or, you know, this is too weak and it's too strong. Then I start looking at the height. But most time, it's the last thing I'm kind of looking at at first. And it's because the reason why I say this is because all pickups are different. Higher output pickups, you know, lower output pickups, different magnets, softer magnetic gauss, you know, Right. It's like, how. How much pull what type of strings you're using. So like give me give you example. I, I, I might on a, like if I had steel strings, nickel, like nickel plated steel strings. If I had nickel plated steel strings 10 to 46 on a, on like moles Paul and I was take those off and put pure nickels on there. I might raise the pickups just a little bit because just to get the same energy out of the string because you know the, the magnetic pool is gonna, the magnetic energy is going to be different because the string is, is pure nickel now. So that's probably what I would suggest. I never thought to ever try to do a video about that. But with the new rig we can try all kinds of ideas without putting investing tons of time. And if it doesn't work out, I will try. I'll see what I can do. If I can grab four or five my guitars and see where maybe there's something in there that's useful. It's kind of like the pedal board video and stuff like that. Like, let's just sometimes I don't know what the thing it is you're looking to learn or people are learning. And so I think that's why sometimes that content, even though that's not banger, you know, view content, which is fine. It definitely I can tell you right now some of the best comments I ever got on YouTube in the last, well on never in the last year is definitely from the pedal board build by far. I've never, I don't have any video that has so many people saying thank you because they learned something. And I'm like, and I get it now. I'm like, right. Because I was just walking through my thought process of the board and I understand why that's valuable because it's not like oh he, he knows what he's talking about. It's just nice to see somebody do something. So that's why we're going to try and do more of that. So thank you. That might be me. Just maybe I'll take an afternoon. That'll be a nice day for me to relax. I'll take an afternoon and I'll just go and through it just like 5 or 10 of my personal guitars and to share with you what I was doing, why I'm doing this to my guitars. So not so much instructional video but you get to see like the pedal board. Why would I do this? Why do I think that way? Maybe that'd be fun. Robert Chester says thoughts on the GNL tribute fallout guitar. Thoughts on it. I like it. It's a guitar I like all guitars. You know, I say that and I go, is there a guitar I really don't like? There's probably one guitar. Fallout guitar. I. I like it. You know, I have not had a super urge to get one. I'm looking at one right now. Let me share. And I just picked the red one. I don't know. It looks cool. This could be a cool guitar to get. Why don't I try this? I will. Hey, Shawna, you're watching the show, probably. Shauna, if you're watching this, make a note that we need to reach out to the Gino guys and see if we can get one of these on the channel. I would do a deep dive of this. So, Robert, I'll try and do a deep dive. 599g and l made in Indonesia. Everything seems like a winner for me. So if I can get them to send one to do a deep dive, I will absolutely do it. And then we'll find out. Chris Goodwin. What's up, Chris? You know, I. Now I'm having that moment where I'm like, I was supposed to respond to Chris's text about lunch. My answer was gonna be, I can't because it's Friday show. But actually, I was dealing with something crazy this week, so. So anyways. But he's got something else to say. He says, hey, another. Another drive back to Tucson. Another great distraction. Listening to the live stream while driving. Hey, don't super chat and drive, man. I appreciate the super chat. Congratulations on the new guitar, by the way, as well. So, yeah, I know. I told you, next time you come to town, we should have lunch. And then you sent that and I go, oh, cool. And then I saw Friday. I'm like this. So for the record, Chris, I'll make sure I copy Sean on the text back to you because that's. She'll always make sure if I'm not doing. If I don't respond to you guys, she'll take care of it. But more importantly, she'll tell you what she told my other friend this week, which is Phil does nothing on Fridays. I don't do anything that will mess up the show. So it's. It's not about my voice. It's not about anything else. This is literally. I just don't do anything that. Because I. I want to be ready for the, you know, for this clan of house cats. He's the one who said, are they. The one that said it's a 20 decibels boost, which is a crap ton of boost. And the JB13. I had the crap 10 part, but he says DiMaggio Illuminator pickups are great for the 7 string. I. I agree. I really love the guitar. When I. When I got this guitar, because I've had the other ones, I was like, okay, I'll get it. And I just had a theory. I had played one of these before, these seven strings in the silver, the JP13 ones. And I remember thinking the neck felt perfect. And then every time I get one of the ones with no finish on it, the neck just seems a little too thin. And this is thin, so. And let me know. I always say let me know in the comments, but let me know. Guys, I have this idea to do a video. I now. I now have. So I have my dream guitar, which is the universe Steve I Universe. Seven strings. The Holy Grail universe dream guitar. For me, I have my RG7620, which I paid $350 for, right? Three. I actually, I don't know if it was 350. It was 300 to 350. I thought I paid three, but it might be 350. I have this seven string, and I have the toast in a Bossi, and I don't know. And that's. So there's my four seven strings, which is a lot of seven strings, way more than I probably should have. But I was thinking about doing a video about the four guitars and explaining which one I like best. Why. You know, like, just a rundown of them. I don't know if that's an interesting video, because I don't think it's gonna. I don't think I'd say. I don't. I don't think you. I think you guys would be truly shocked with what I have to say about all of them. So what I like about them, what I don't like about them, and if I could only keep one, one when I keep. And why all that stuff. I don't know if that's interesting or not. I only reason I think it's interesting is I think a lot of players like to dabble in seven string. Like I do. And I. For years, I only had one because that's all you really need is 17 string. But, like, I swear, sometimes guitars are like gremlins. They just multiply when you come the next morning, like, is there another Les Paul in here? What the hell happened? But anyways, I. You know, if I could truly go back to one, which one would I keep and why? And then walk you through the logic. We'll see. And then we'll finish up with these two. Oh, three more unknown says. Hi, I am looking for a guitar close to the PRS594 McCarty SE. Next style. Okay, so it's got that like slightly chunkier neck but with a Floyd Rose. Any recommendations? Yeah, maybe a Vola. Vola necks are chunky. So I really upset the Vola guys when I say that for some reason that's a trigger for them. But it's true, their necks are rather chunky. You can look to see which ones are chunkier than others. But Vola makes main Japan sub $1,000. So think of this. If you're looking the PRS594SE. PRS594SE. I want to say they're 7, 800 bucks. Now. 8.99 is what I'm finding one on Sweetwater for. So 900 bucks. I would imagine a Vola. I should tell you guys the Vola story. It's hilarious. I think sometimes in a mic I go, ah, the company doesn't like me. You guys. That. No, this company did not. Does not like me. Okay. So. But I guess I'm going to promote for them now. Right now. Okay, this, this here. All right. Vola. Vola guitars, they have models 7 string. Which one has the Floyd? They have one with a Floyd, right? Yeah. I would imagine you'd have to look and go through one of these. But all these. But I see there's one with a Floyd. So they do have one with a Floyd. I don't know if that one. I know it's not the same vibe as a single cut, but they do have chunky necks and they do have Floyd's. They're the one of the first ones that come up to my mind. So that's something I would think of. And then I. I'm trying to think. Anyone else I've done videos for where it was a Floyd Rose, but also, you know, a Chunk Floyd Rose. You can always add a Floyd rose to an SE 594. I wouldn't recommend it. It's gonna. If you can't do it yourself, the tech's gonna charge you a good amount of money and you won't be able to put it back and it will have never, never have resale value again. I don't know if Epiphone currently makes one with a Floyd that has the 50 style neck, but that's what you're looking for is the 50s chunky neck. So that's when Derek says, please tell the Story. It's not that exciting. Let me tell you the funny story. So. So the story goes like this. I was with some YouTubers one day, and at an event, big event, and we went. And we were going around doing things, and at the. Towards the end of the afternoon, One of the YouTubers goes, hey, are you going to the Vola party or Vola dinner? And I said, no. And they said, you're not. You should go to the Vola dinner. And I said, they hate me. And he goes, why do they hate you? And I go. I said, their necks are chunky on my podcast. And he says, they don't hate you. And I go, they really hate me. I'm laughing because it's so weird, right? Such a weird industry. And he says, well, I get a plus one. Come with me. You'll be my guest. And all the. The other YouTubers like, yeah. And I'm like, all right. So, you know, peer pressure. So I go, and we get an Uber, and we drive there, and guess what? All the other YouTubers ditched the party. They didn't go to the dinner. So it's just me and the other YouTuber. So we go into the restaurant, we walk into the bar, and there's the Vola guys. And they look at me, and I tap my elbow to the other YouTuber, and I go, told you. Like, I didn't do it. That obvious. But I'm like, there. I go. And he goes. And so they. They go. They. They go, you guys want a drink? And we got drinks. And then. What year? What year? 2019. So. So. So right before COVID So. So anyways, now, keep in mind, no one's at the party but, like, us. We're the two YouTubers that are at the party. And then, like, one other person. And then it's a dinner party thing at a restaurant. And then the Vola guys and the Volley guys are on one side of the table. We're on the other side of the table. So we sit down and we're talking, and this is how the conversation starts. So we're buying Phil McKnight dinner. That's what he said. And I'm like, yeah. And he goes, yeah, who would ever thought that? He goes. And then my buddy is hitting me under the table with the elbow, like, oh, my God, you're right. They're pissed. And I'm like, It was. It was awkward. It was an awkward meal, to say the least. It was. I got through it. Yeah. So here's what happened, though. And this is what's funny. And then. So it's telling the story, because I'll tell the whole story. Why not? So the. So they. They. They said more. They said, yeah, you said things about, I don't. I feel bad miss saying what they said. But he said something like, we're buying film ignite dinner. And then that was. Awkward pause. And then he said something to the fact. He's like, yeah, he's like, He. He said, like. I think he said something to the effect of, I've said negative things about their guitars and, you know, publicly or whatever, and now we're buying you dinner. And I'm like, yeah. I go, I just said, your necks are really chunky. I really don't understand it. I go, I said. I said, they. If they feel like the Richie Kotzen next and that. I don't understand that. And then he said, and I swear to God, this is true. He said, well, we modeled the necks of Volas after the Richie Cots and telly. And I'm like, what? He goes, yeah, the guys. All the people at Vola love Richie Katson. And I'm like, well, I love Richie Kaza, too. It doesn't mean I want a giant jumbo neck on a guitar that looks like that. And I go, that was my only thing I said. And so, you know, just to real clear what I said, because you can always find the podcast because it's. I think it's Volas in the title. I said, I tried the. Somebody said, hey, ever tried Volas? I said, yeah, try on the show. The neck's really chunky. And that shocked me because I was like, why would they put really chunky necks on a guitar that looked like that? So anyways, so I ate dinner. Hey, I ate their dinner. I feel bad because that's how I am. So I thought. So we. We left the. The dinner to go to another event and meet up some other YouTubers. So we met. We met up at some, like, rooftop place. And I said, yeah, I kind of feel bad they bought me dinner, considering they hate me. And I said, I think I'll buy a Vola from them tomorrow because there's another day of the event. I said, I'll just buy a Vola. And he's like, yeah, you shouldn't have to buy a Vola. Just tell them to send you one and they'll do a video. And I go, no, I think if I buy a Vola, it will, like, you know, kind of like, smooth the waters over, you know, they obviously didn't like What I had to say, you know, I'll just do a video. And then. And then maybe I'm wrong. Right? Maybe I'm right. Wrong. I don't know. And so the next day, I went up to the Vola guys and I said, hey, I'd like to buy a guitar. I said, do you have any ones with slightly thinner necks? And then they go, oh, yeah, we have a redesigned neck that's thinner. And I said, oh, cool. And they go, I go, I'd like to buy it. And. And so I bought it. And here's what's funny. He says. He goes, I'll sell it to you for cost. And I go, oh, that's great. And my friend who's really involved with Vola goes, oh, that'd be great. And then he tells me the number. And my buddy goes, that's not cost. That's, like, just above. Like, that's just under retail. And I'm like, oh. And I go, well, it's cheaper than what I seen him advertised for. And to give you guys reference, you can buy them now. Cheaper than what I paid that. That for reference. Okay, so it gives you reference. And I. So I bought it. So I bought the guitar. And this. This is more to story. This crazy stories that my life is crazy sometimes. So I was leaving the event with the Vola guitar, and believe it or not, the people at Charvel stopped me, and they say, hey, Phil, we've been trying to find you the whole show to do a video for Charvel. And I go, cool. And they go, what's that? I go, a Vola. And they go, oh, you got a Vola? And I go, oh, I bought a Vola. And they're like, oh. And they go, we wanted to see if you want to do a video of a Charvel, but if you're doing a video Vola, do a video of Ola. And I go, well, I can do multiple videos if there's a Charvel you want me to check out. And they. They go, well, we'll just show them to you. So they showed me the Charvels they pointed out, and I left. I don't know why that story's important. And then I did the video of Vola, and this was why this story's funny. I did the video at Vola, and I compared it to a Vola, to a Nags, to a Kiesel. I bought a Vola. I bought that Nags, and I bought a Kiesel, and I did that video, and I thought it did well. And and then from that I thought the Vola neck was a little chunky. It was not as chunky as the first one I played, but it was chunky. It was fine. Just didn't love it. I love the way it looked though. That Vola is still my favorite looking guitar. I would say that finish I would just. I would have kept it just to stare at it. But you know, I could tell you sometimes the guitar is going to get flipped to pay for another video. And that's. That was my Vola experience. So if they don't hate me, they hate me again now for mentioning their necks are chunky. But so you know, I hear they're not as chunky as they were. So you have to look into yourself. That's Ebola. So that's a Vola. What else? And then we'll save it for later. I have another Vola story that's worse. Later though. It's a much later story. Okay, so let finish up the show though. Matt says, hey, I built a Tom DeLonge parts caster with what I learned from you for 25 the cost. Probably my favorite guitar. Thank you. You know it's. I'm glad you said that because my wife is listening right now and this morning I'm gonna get in trouble if I tell you exactly what the discussion was. But it was a discussion of. She wanted to sit down based on. My wife reads a lot of your guys's comments, you know, is. And in the thing and she gives me the suggestions for ideas for videos and all kinds of other stuff and. And what is going to say. And she's mentioned to me this morning that the parts of caster build concept video seem to be huge thing. You know, doing kit builds, doing parts of casters, all this stuff. So she has taken upon herself to work on those for. For me in other words getting those orchestrated and how we're going to get those together. So to tell you to say first of all say thank you. I want to say thank you for bringing that up because that cements what she was telling me this morning which is this seems to be something you guys really are hyper interested in. And she. It was kind of fun. She this morning she was asking me like if I could do a dream parts build what would it be and if I could do a price friendly parts. But she was literally constructing ideas of videos. Like you could tell she was working out like and if you did this what would you need? And she was right down everything I would. I was telling her like well to do that video, I would need all this. And to this video, I'm doing all that. So I think those are coming down the pike, so to speak. And then. And then what else? And then Beef says, vola sounds like skinned wimps. Look, man, you know what? They. The. The. The only thing I feel I. I gotta tell you is that interaction is not nearly the most horrible interaction I've had with people in the industry, and it won't be the last. And it wasn't even that. It was. Like I said, it was just awkward because the awkwardness was. I knew I shouldn't have been there in the first place. That's really the takeaway from the story, is I knew. I told. I told my friend, I go, look, they don't like me. And I probably shouldn't go. I went. They were. They were as polite as I expected. Well, actually, think of this. They were. They were more polite than I expected to be. Look, they bought me dinner and I made the mistake because I thought. The next morning, I thought they bought me dinner, and if I bought a guitar, then we'd all become friends. And. And then when they gave me the price in the guitar, what really. What really was the downfall was my friend who works with them said, yeah, they're just sticking it to you. And so I bought the guitar, and that's why I sold it. So, you know, I would. I would. I told you I loved it, but I was like, for what? I was. I sold it for a loss. I forgot one of the viewers has it still to this day, because he told me. And whatever I sold to him for, which was less than I paid for it, which was a deal compared to what I paid, is still not. There's. I still think they're cheaper now because they've dropped their price so much. All right, on that note, thank you guys for your time. Till the next time, know your gear. Today's episode of the know your Gear podcast is brought to you by Patreon members. Thank you for making this possible.