Fender Now Has To Fight Yamaha and Thomann

Summary

Know Your Gear Podcast – Episode Summary

Episode: Fender Now Has To Fight Yamaha and Thomann
Host: Phillip McKnight
Date: July 28, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this engaging episode of the "Know Your Gear Podcast," Phillip McKnight discusses the rapidly escalating legal battles between Fender, Yamaha, and European retail giant Thomann. He provides updates on cease-and-desist actions, legal strategies, and their ramifications for the guitar gear market. The show also features Phillip’s advice on making gear purchases as the guitar market softens, personal anecdotes, audience Q&A, and his signature mix of candor and humor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Fender’s Expanding Legal Campaign

• Cease-and-Desist Letters:
  • Fender has served multiple companies (Yamaha, Friedman, Suhr, PRS, LSL, Schecter) with cease-and-desist letters regarding guitar design copyrights, especially those selling through Thomann.
  • No company has been served unless they distribute via Thomann. ([04:10])
• International Versus US Legalities:
  • “As you know, they are public domain in the United States... but in Germany, that changed.” ([10:45])
• Fender’s Lawsuit Against Thomann:
  • Fender is now countersuing Thomann, targeting them and Harley Benton for copyright violations. ([12:58])

2. Strategic (Mis)Steps and Industry Reactions

• Broad Attack Strategy:
  • Phillip criticizes Fender’s decision to hit all companies at once:
    • “That’s definitely a mistake learned in WWII: maybe not hit everyone at the same time, you know? But what do I know? I’m not a lawyer.” ([08:10])
• Impact on Smaller Builders:
  • “The real winners here are the smaller builders... I think you’ve sold more Yamaha Pacificas and Silver Skies in the last month than in the last year.” ([19:16])
  • Recommends consumers consider supporting small or independent brands during corporate legal wars.
• Used Market Uptick:
  • Phillip notes an increase in used gear sales and recommends peer-to-peer buying to support individuals and smaller businesses. ([24:22])

3. The Soft Guitar Market

• Demand Shift:

  • The market is “definitely a weaker market,” with buyers more hesitant and deals more prevalent.
  • “Right now, it’s a luxury market—if money isn’t flowing easy, it gets scrutinized really heavy, really fast.” ([29:15])

• Deal Mindset:

  • As disposable income decreases, consumers are keener on waiting out deals.
  • Highlights Phillip’s experience with a fluctuating EVH guitar price, showing how market values can change rapidly. ([35:20])

4. Blackstock Pickups Launch and E-commerce Woes

• New Pickup Line:

  • Phillip updates listeners on the relaunch of his Blackstock “Northern Lights” pickups via DiMarzio, with lowered pricing and shipping details.
  • “No, we didn’t sell out—we hit 85% through. And GoDaddy crashed all weekend...” ([43:10])

• E-Commerce Frustrations:

  • "GoDaddy, if you see this, you suck."
  • Technical and banking issues with the website during the launch, but praise for his wife Shawna’s one-day, error-free shipping and customer service. ([47:22])

5. Listener Q&A Highlights

• Jazzmaster Alternatives:
  • Recommends Squier J Mascis, used gear, and supporting small shops. ([53:10])
• Used Market and Relics:
  • Addresses navigating a market flooded with deals and the pros/cons of DIY relic work. ([58:30]; [2:48:50])
• Traveling with Headless Guitars:
  • Practical advice for flying with a Keisel: “Just be assertive and nice... I’ve never had a problem...” and thoughts on airline policies. ([1:29:00])
• Magnets for Pickups:
  • MojoTone and Philadelphia Luthier Tools & Supply recommended. ([1:43:51])
• Sweetwater Visit Tips:
  • Advice for first-timers: stay close to the store, meet your sales rep, use the touch screens to demo gear, enjoy the cafeteria—“it’s like Disneyland meets In-N-Out Burger meets Chick-fil-A.” ([2:29:35])
• Motivation Slumps in Playing:
  • Encourages stepping away for a break, seeking new inspiration, and not defaulting to “gear as a cure.” ([2:55:30])

6. Guitar of the Week: PRS Custom 24 “Blackout”

• Anecdote:
  • Phillip accidentally orders a 2014 PRS Custom 24 Ariza Verde (green) after mixing muscle relaxers and a drink on July 4th; has no memory of the purchase until the guitar arrives. ([1:56:30])
  • "The most embarrassing story I’m gonna tell on this channel. And I’ve told some stupid, embarrassing stories." ([1:56:40])
  • Describes guitar specs, great setup, satisfaction with the accidental acquisition, and the logic (or lack thereof) behind the purchase.
• Demo Segment:
  • Details on pickups, action, hardware patina, and overall playability. ([2:06:10])

7. This or That: Fuzz Pedal Face-off

• Big Muff Nano vs. Big Muff + Bluesbreaker Overdrive
  • Live demo conducted, audience preference polled.
  • Overdrive smoothed out fuzz for Phillip’s taste; audience leaned toward pure Fuzz. ([2:49:00])
  • “I actually prefer my fuzz through an overdrive pedal… it takes some of the fizz off, makes it sound really huge.” ([2:52:30])

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “If you were smart, and I know you are watching this show, I wouldn’t give any of these assholes any money anymore. I’d start buying from smaller builders.” ([18:30])
• “Every company I talk to right now is doing as good as they were last year or slightly better, or it's just raining cats and dogs and it's hell out there.” ([30:55])
• “All the battling comes from, my point is always going to be on these two points, and that’s it: One, I’m not confused. I don’t see an LSL and think it’s a Fender. I learned to read.” ([15:00])
• On website issues: “The water’s pouring in the room and you guys are like, ‘Hey, there’s water in the room,’ and I’m like, ‘I know. I’m working with the wrench right now.’” ([49:30])
• On accidental guitar purchase: “Apparently during this blackout period of time, I messaged a slightly lower offer. I don't remember sending him that. That’s kind of funny.” ([2:00:10])
• Guitar of the Week punchline: “First of all, don’t do drugs, kids. So bad. And also tell your wife everything that’s important…” ([2:03:50])
• “I’ve never had a problem flying with my Kiesel headless… just be assertive and nice because they will try to just tell you, you know…” ([1:29:00])

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Episode Timestamps (Key Segments)

| Segment | Timestamp | |-------------------------------------------|-------------------| | Fender legal saga details | 00:10 – 21:30 | | Impact on small builders and market | 19:16 – 28:55 | | Soft used gear market & pricing | 29:00 – 38:30 | | Pickup launch & e-commerce headaches | 43:00 – 52:30 | | Jazzmaster alternative & used market talk | 53:10 – 58:30 | | Listener travel/flying with gear tips | 1:29:00 – 1:38:00 | | PRS accidental purchase (funny story) | 1:56:30 – 2:15:50 | | Sweetwater visit advice | 2:29:35 – 2:39:05 | | Gear enthusiasm & playing motivation | 2:55:30 – 2:57:10 | | “This or That” fuzz demo | 2:49:00 – 2:54:00 |

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Style, Tone & Final Thoughts

Phil maintains a laid-back, irreverent, and authentic tone—with plenty of industry insight, practical advice, and memorable, self-effacing stories. The mix of hard-hitting commentary on major brands, sincere encouragement for small builders, and deep interaction with the audience underscores why the Know Your Gear Podcast is so popular among guitarists.

Recommended Actions:

• Watch the recent Taylor Guitars Factory Tour (as referenced near the end)
• Explore buying used or from small builders during ongoing corporate feuds
• For more in-depth Q&A, check out the full episode or join the Patreon community for clinics and personal advice ([2:50:30])

Closing Remark:
“Thank you for your time. Till the next time, Know Your Gear.”

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(Prepared as an engaging, detailed guide for listeners and non-listeners alike, with all key segments and quotes carefully attributed and timestamped.)

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. Welcome to the Know youw gear podcast for July 17th. Just double checking that three o'. Clock. I hope everybody had a fantastic week. You'd think I could remember something as easy as today's date, but it's. It's actually very difficult. So I have to have a cheater up there to tell me. All right, so we have a lot to talk about, a lot of updates, a lot of cool things. Let's get into topics. What do I got first? Of course, the first one we're going to talk about is Fender. It's never going to end, guys. This is like back when Gibson used to be the topic all the time. I'm going to keep it short because I got a lot of things not to say and say, if that makes any sense. The first thing I want to tell you guys is that there was some articles. There was a Reuters article that, that I think I got asked to do an interview for. I can't remember, but I just. I just can't anymore, guys. So anyways, I. When it came out, I did not read it. Doesn't really matter. All I care about is what was taken from it that actually made the news, which was that Fender has served a cease and desist to Yamaha. Well, if you guys were listening to me on the very first episode back in May, I kind of told you that as secretly as I could. Uh, so back then I told you that basically it was six companies that I knew of, of the original date and that I said to you at that time that I believe. And when I said I believe, I mean I strongly believe and that it was companies that were selling through Toman. So so far to date, Yamaha has been served and Friedman has been served. Sir. Has been served. Fender. Fender. Fender hasn't been served. Well, technically, Fender's been served too. PRS has been served. LSL has been served. And the important part is not in my mind who has been served. Which is why I've been talking about this. It's who has not been served. And I can tell you I know for a fact I can name five companies right now who have not been served by Fender. And what they have in common is not one of those five companies sell it Toman. So if that's a coincidence, it's just a coincidence. But there hasn't been a company served yet publicly or to my knowing that isn't public yet that, oh, by the way, Schecter's has been served. So, so it's a Thoman. So it's everybody who is at Thoman. So that's what I got. So the reason why I tell you that is is because I saw a lot of titles like now yeah, Maha. Well, that was three months ago or whatever May was that. So it's not now. It's just what happens is I'm going to. And I told you guys, the lawyers tell these guys to be quiet. So what happens is, is as reporters are getting out and reading all the stuff that we're talking about, they're going out there and doing reporting. They reach out to these companies for an official statement. And large companies give generic statements like, yes, we have received a letter and yes, we do not agree with their thing. And that's it. So that's where you guys go, oh, now they've been served. It's just so for instance, there's another article coming soon. I know this because again, I was asked if I was interested in maybe talking to them about it. And it's another big, you know, newspaper and I'm sure in that article comes out in a week or so, it's going to drop another bomb. Like it's been. It's Surgitars or Schecter. They've been served too. Or maybe Schmaebenaz. I'm not saying Ibanez. So anyways, and you'll be like, now them. It's always been all those companies, which is why I was so critical at the beginning about vendors tactic to hit everyone at once at all times. Definitely a mistake learned in World War II. Maybe not hit everyone at the same time, you know, but okay, what do I know? I'm not a lawyer. So. So anyways, then there is another update as of, as of late, as you guys know, Fender has announced that they're suing Toman. They're like, we're suing you back, Toman. Thoman's basically asked for a judgment. They said they want this to be adjudicated or whatever. Again, not a lawyer. And you know, hey, can somebody make an official actual answer to this problem? You know, is are we in violation? Who's in violation of this copyright? And now finder's like, hey, Toman and Harley Benton especially you are actually violating our copyright. And so they've, they double down, you know, look, here's what I'm gonna say. A lot of people have a lot of feelings about this. I told you guys my feelings about Fender when they were hitting the small companies. Why I think that was a strategic mistake and very upsetting for the small companies because again, they're, they're doing what they think is legally correct because as you know, they are public domain in the United States. So they're just making a guitar. If you don't agree that LSL should make a Strat copy, I totally understand. But guess what? Fucking legal. So I don't know what to tell you. You can disagree with it. I'm not. I've never even stated publicly if I agree or disagree with it at all. I just said that it's legal to do so. And Fender getting a. The. The. Whatever. They got the judgment in Germany doesn't change that in us. However, it does change it, unfortunately, or kind of changes it for Germany. So that's where all the battling comes from. My point is always going to be on these two points, and that's it. One, I'm not confused. I don't see an lsl and I don't see Offender when I see it. I don't see a Fender when I see a Sir, I don't see Offender when I see a Harley Benton. I don't know why. I think it's because I learned to read. When I see Harley Benton, I don't think that's Fender. When I say Fender, I don't think that's Harley Benton. If that. Now that. That's a different argument than whether or not, you know, you think it's right or wrong that a company copies into the design or is, well, let's call it unoriginal. Hey, look, we copied the Fender design because everybody wants it. And it's, you know, and that's. There's some arguments there. We could definitely have that podcast if you want. Although I'd like to have other people on it besides me, because I could only give one side of this, of that argument. But my point would always be whether you agree with it or not agree with it, it is legal. And they're just doing business in a legal way. And now that finder's saying, hey, it's not legal in Europe, that's fine. Now big companies will fight it out. And this is kind of what I was hoping for from the get go, which is a bunch of companies with a bunch of money will just pound on each other. And if you were smart, and I know you are watching this show, I wouldn't give any of these assholes any money anymore. I'd start buying from smaller builders. This is a good reminder that the big corporations are really focused on money and money only. And there's nothing wrong with money. But I mean, man, can every. All these big companies just Go away and, and fight it out. And we'll buy, you know, we'll buy used products or we'll buy, you know, small builders who care. I think this is a good reminder. I think that's by the way, I've talked to a ton of friends in the industry including friends at Guitar center, friends at the other big chains, friends at the smaller stores. And the information I've been getting echoed out over and over again is that Fender's really not seeing any loss of sales in any meaningful way. And that makes sense to me considering that most offender sales are going to be in the entry level, especially with Squire and Fender amplifiers and Fender acoustics. So imagine newcomers to guitar aren't really walking in a store. They don't know any of this stuff and they may not even care. You know, evil corporations aren't a new thing by any means. And we all as consumers support some kind of evil corporation every day. Knowingly or unknowingly. Knowingly. Anyways. So I guess my point is, is what I think's happening to Fender is they're seeing almost no financial hit from this. When I say no, I said almost no. Could it be millions? Yeah, but a size like that, maybe it's not enough. But I will tell you who's winning from this. It's all of the smaller builders. I think they're absolutely winning. I don't even think it's just guitar builders. I think amp builders, I think a lot of, I think Fender is just helping. In fact I would say and if anyone Fenders is this, which they're not, I think you've sold more Yamaha, Pacificas and Silver Skies in the last month than those companies have in the last year. That's my thoughts on this. So that's my point. With small builders. If you're a small builder and you're out there and you're making quality products or a mid sized builder, this is your time to shine. You know, you don't have to slam on Fender. I'd highly recommend you don't. But I would make take every opportunity to highlight your product to the consumer. Because I think this makes people hesitate for a second when you're getting that high end Fender product right now, or I hate to say it, even high end Gibson product, it's the reminder that they are the big corporations and that maybe for that kind of money, the high end dollars or even the mid price dollars, maybe there's some other better opportunities out there for your money. So, so that's all I'm saying. That's that's again, I think it's all a bummer. But I, you know, we have to recap it unfortunately, because otherwise you guys will just introdate me in the comment sections. Any thoughts from you guys besides being whatever? Let's see, somebody says what's the best jazz master alternative? I used to like the Doheny from G and L, but that's gone now. Jazz master. Now keep in mind if, if, if it's just you're so upset you can't have a Fender logo or something on your headstock. I understand that, but I have Fenders. I have Fenders behind me. I'm not going to stop playing my Fenders because, you know, whatever's going on now will I like I said, will I scrutinize my purchases with Fender fmic? Yeah, of course I'll scrutinize them. But keep in mind like I've said before, you can buy used. I think jazz masters are great guitars still. I think the Squire J. Mascus is one of the best jazz masters out there for the money. Especially used and used. This is a good time to buy used. Look, simultaneously you have the used market sagging really heavy right now. There's a ton of reasons for that. We can go into that later if you guys want me to recap that. But the main thing right now is think about this. At the same time you have big corporations fighting illegally and paying all your hard end money that you're giving them for guitarist to lawyers and whoever else knows what else you can be giving it to small builders or other us. Give it to your friends. Us, your other your people in this community. They're selling their own stuff on Craigslist, on Reaver, on gear exchange, on ebay, whatever platforms, person to person, peer to peer sales where you can take your money and hand it to another person who can benefit them in their life and get a great product. Offender. Just not helping fm. I see. Now if your concern is that But Phil, if I buy a Fender I will then be promoting the company with the logo. Guess there's the logo right now. I don't know what to tell you again. Just like I said, if I don't think a Harley Benton is a Fender and I don't think Offender is a Harley Benton, I don't think because you bought Offender you're supporting the corporation right this minute and I probably wouldn't put any thought into it. So it's up to you guys like I said. So my suggestion is to you guys, this is a good time to buy you save yourself some money, go peer to peer. Also, you can buy from your small mom pops. It's a good time to support them. This is always a good time when the market's slower to support those stores because they're going to give you deals and better treatment anyways. And, and on top of all of that, you know it bucks those big companies. That's just my thoughts on that. I'm sure I'll end up on the Reddit being destroyed somewhere. See thinker, Thinker Bell Guitar says there are some deals on used guitars lately, but I haven't, but I haven't gone for anything yet. Yeah, it's tough. So, so sagging market. We have a sagging used market right now. Because keep in mind what happens is there's a saying that I don't like and people say it all the time. They said it last recession. Nobody has any money. You'll hear it a lot. People go, no one's buying a guitars, they don't have any money. That's dumb. Well, if nobody had any money, there'd be breadlines. It's less people have money, less people have disposable income. Remember, we're in a luxury business. If you're hanging out on a Friday, watching me talk, you have more money and time than you really appreciate, apparently. Because there's more important things to think about than whatever the hell I'm talking about or what we're talking about. The point is this is a luxury to have this ability to play music and buy guitars and talk about music and stuff. So what happens is, is that because it's a luxury, the second money isn't flowing easy, it gets scrutinized really heavy, really fast. And so right now in this current market, you have less people with disposable income for sure. And the people who have disposable income usually aren't stupid. Right? In other words, if you got some money and you see five things on sale, you're thinking, well, I'm not in a hurry now, maybe I should wait and see where the best deal. So I've seen this before. I told you guys this last recession when I had the store, what I learned was is that a deal would not make it work during the recession. I could discount, discount, discount and it wouldn't matter because if you didn't want it, you wouldn't buy it. And so what happens is you have to have something somebody wants and then when you have something somebody wants, you're probably gonna have to make a little bit of a deal or give some kind of added service to get that sale right now, be a little bit more aggressive or be more willing to make deals. Oh, and when I say deals, not only just discounts, just, you know, take care of customers. Maybe you're gonna have to set up a guitar. Maybe you're just gonna have to be a little nicer. Being nicer wins too. You know, when you're a little slower to respond, a little bit ruder, maybe they're like, hey, you know what? I got other choices. Because they do the same thing. When all the, when the, all the industry was in the boom market and it was whatever you can get, don't throw a fit to the consumers. It goes the other way now when the market slows down. So the other thing that's going to happen in this market is excitement, sales. So if it's a new product, it's exciting, it's quality, then you're going to buy. A perfect example is, you know, on the same breath, somebody goes, no one wants a blah, blah, blah, and no one's buying them. Then a company releases a new pedal or a guitar or an amp in the last 30 days, and it sells out in five seconds. The reason both those things can be true is if you're doing a quality product or something exciting, hopefully both, or you're giving a deal, then you're going to get people to free up that wallet. But right now, they're going to scrutinize how fast. And they open the wallet. I have, I have. And here's what happened. So, you know, this is what happened to me. A week ago. I was looking at a guitar and I thought it was a good price, but I didn't really think I needed it. And as you know, I. To get one, I got to get rid of one. And I'm not sure what I'm going to get rid of. And I was thinking about it and thinking about it, and then I got an offer. And then I was like, oh, well, I was willing to pay the higher price, but now that they're going a lower price, my thought process isn't like, now I'll take the lower price. Now I'm like, maybe I should wait. See, again, instead of having fear of missing out, I have the opposite of that. I feel like I'm gonna mess up if I buy this. Right? So you wait to see if it goes lower. It turns. The guitar market keeps like, everything else gets turned in the stock market. You, you know, it's like, I gotta wait until the price Goes lower. So anyways, yeah, the market is definitely a softer market, and everybody's gonna have to try harder for it. What I love is, is when I'm talking to companies that I appreciate and I talk to them and they recognize that right now they're out there and they're like, you know what? We're working harder, but we're doing good. Every company I talk to right now is falling into two categories. Either they're doing as good as they were last year or slightly better. And it's always slightly. No one's actually banging it out way better than last year. Not anybody I've talked to. Everybody's like, either last year numbers or slightly better. And that takes into account that first quarter was pretty strong. And so now it's weakening a little bit. Or you get people that are like, it's just, you know, it's just. It's raining cats and dogs, and it's pretty hell out there. And unfortunately, as much as I can say, all of the people I've talked to are my friends or people I like, I'm never shocked with the ones that are like, it's really not doing great out there. And I'm like, yeah, well, you kind of haven't really done the things you need to do, which is again, maybe lower your. Adjust your. Lower your pricing, maybe improve the quality a little bit. Get out there in people's faces a little bit. Get a little excitement. Get out there. So it's a. It's a little tough, but definitely a weaker market. And think about how funny this is. Last week I Talked about the EVH guitar I bought for $800 with a case, and it's still a good deal. But get this. Last Friday for sure, when you. If you would have googled it, gone and reverb and looked, they were floating for 1,000 to $1,400. Guitar center has a half a dozen of them for 14, 13 to $1400. I would say the strongest market price right now would be at the time last Friday, I would say they were sitting between 900 to 1200 on average. Is the price for the guitar in a good condition? Maybe without that case, and sometimes with the case, but not that case. So making the $800 very enticing because the case is a 250 case. Looking at it the other day, I would say absolutely. 800 is the going rate. Now immediately I see $800 for that guitar. Now 900 to 1000 seems to be on the push, and again, without the case. So I feel Like I still got a good deal, but it wasn't the crazy deal I thought it was. That's how fast the market can change in a week. So. Interesting. And keep in mind the deal wasn't really what drove me for that guitar. I. I wanted the guitar in the first place. And the price was more. More susceptible what I want to pay, especially considering it's $1,500 new and I'm just not going to pay $1,500 for it new. So what else do we got? Ken says. I'm gonna say Ken. Ken says. Speaking of selling through, I'm assuming all your pickups are sold. I tried to buy some last Sunday and never. And I'll. I'll never change. I've never changed pickups. Will they fit in an eart headless? It depends on which ert headless you have. I have a deep dive on that. You need to look at that video because it could be more difficult to put them in that y the yard. Oh no, I'm thinking of something else. Something on hills. I'm sorry. Yeah, it'll fit in the yard. Yard. Headless. Okay. So we announced last Friday that the Blackstock pickups, my brand of pickups that I've been making for the last almost six years, five years, is now. Is all shelved currently. And now the current builder of them is DeMarzio Pickup. So if you want to set a northern lights and the northern lights plus they are now made through DiMarzio and that's how you. That's where you get them. And the price was lowered. Some confusion about that. I'll clear that up too. Some people kept saying they thought they were like they were comparing them to dimarji was thinking they were priced higher. The way dimarjo's pricing tier works is they have like the base tier. So like a black bobbin sets like $99. An artists are specialties here. So a black bobbin set would be 119. I don't think they have anything more expensive than that than the black bobbin set. They might have something that's a little bit more. Mine is 119. So again I'm. My priced pickups were priced exactly at DiMarzio's pricing. So I just got to let you know there was no bump. In fact what happened was because we're buying them and selling them to you, we don't have to charge sales tax unless you're in Arizona because that's how our website set up. You have to. I think you'd have to look it up. You can probably Google it. There's a certain dollar amount you have to hit, and then all of a sudden, you have to start tracking all the sales tax each date. We're not at that level. The other thing is we ate the shipping, so we. So you. We don't charge you shipping. So the shipping cost is coming out of the pickups, and the shipping's been averaging, costing us about $16 a. An order. So you can imagine we're deducting $16. So we're actually. Actually technically selling them for less. Because if you buy them straight from DiMarcio, they don't charge sales tax either, but they charge shipping. You buy them from Sweetwater, something like that, you're gonna have. You don't get shipping, but you get sales tax. So we were the cheapest option by far. So just. I just want to be clear on that. Although it doesn't seem to matter because you guys. Bottom. Pretty rap Ravison. You bought a lot. Ravishness. I don't know what I'm trying to say. Anyways, let's. Let's talk about this. So a couple things happened last weekend on the pickups. We did not sell out on the pickups. We hit. I told you we'd sell about 75% through. We sold 85% through. So I was off by 10%. That happens. Keep in mind, the reason is. What we did encounter, though, is the website kept crashing. I use GoDaddy, and GoDaddy sucks. They suck. I've been. I just. They suck. GoDaddy. If you see this, you suck. Here's what they did to us. It was great. So let me just tell you all the things that that GoDaddy did to us. First of all, the website just kept crashing, and you can only talk to AI now. So every time, all weekend, I'm on AI while Sean is boxing up pickups, and AI is just telling me everything's fine, while literally, I'm telling it like, no, it comes up and then it goes down. And so I'd have to relaunch the site. Then on top of that, what was happening is GoDaddy was. What happens is you guys pay through credit card. If you pay through credit card. If you did through PayPal, it went right to us. If you went to GoDaddy, what happened was they took. They take. They do. They do the transaction. They take the credit card information, and then they give it to us. Well, on Friday, they were like, here's your money. Cool. And then they go on, and then they go, we can't pay you, so there's a problem. You can't. Your bank doesn't take money. By the way, whatever they were saying, Sean was probably better at this information. The important part is this ended with all of a sudden, GoDaddy going, hey, we need to talk to you about your business and get some insight and see what your chargebacks have been like for the last, like, 90 days. I'm like, chargebacks? You guys take all my credit card payments. You're the company who. Who am I gonna. They're like, can you send us bake statements? I'm like, bank statements. You're the company I like. I know what you guys are thinking. Well, you're probably new to GoDaddy. Nope. Been with them for years. Sold tons of their stands, tons of blackstock pickups. Hell, we did a soft launch where we sold a hundred sets of pickups on the soft launch to the patrons. Did all that through GoDaddy. So that was the headache we were dealing with all weekend. So that's why sometimes you would go and the website was crashed. I couldn't respond to a lot of people who are having issues because. Because I was trying to fix it. That's what happened. Keep in mind, the water's pouring in the room. And you guys are like, hey, there's water in the room. And I'm like, I know. I'm working with the wrench right now, so we got it. I gotta tell you, the thing that I'm most impressed with and the only thing that really matters besides I'm gonna talk about you guys in a second, is my wife Shawna got every single pickup out in one business day. Now, when I say business day, we sold on Friday. So everybody's pickups got out by Monday. Most cases, they got out in 24 hours, but all pickups get on Monday. There are only four exceptions to that out of all those pickups, and they were the four pickups that are being shipped outside the United States. If you're one of those four people, first of all, two of you had your pickup shipped now, so that's good. And two of you, one, she's waiting for response. So if you're from Canada and you bought a set, you haven't heard anything from us, she's actually emailing you, so please let her know she's trying to talk to you so she can figure out the actual shipping. And I think somebody in the UK she's figuring out actual shipping, so that's the only ones that didn't get out. She's working each one of those case by case so we can get that done for you. So. But she got it all out, shipped, notified, done all that stuff and that's pretty impressive. I gotta tell her tell you that I, I did help a lot. So if you got a package and it looked like a 12 year old packed it, that was me. But. But if you got a package that looks great, well then you've experienced what my, My wife's shipping ability. She's much better at it. I did stick all the your fragile labels on there though, so that was good. I got that one skilled at down. But so we got them all out. So is there some. I said they didn't sell it. They didn't. Are they available? They are available. If you go to the website now, it'll probably crash again. But I can tell you right now, if you go to the know you gear website, you go to the home page, you go to the homepage and you go to right here. Mine says more, but yours won't say more. Yours will just say store. You just hit store and there they go, There they are. So there's some sets there available. So if you're interested in buying a set of the black or the satin nickels. There you go. They're right there. You can check them out. I don't have any currently on Reverb. We did list some on Reverb for those that wanted to buy through Reverb. I just haven't had time to do it yet. So they are there. There are still available. These are not limited edition. In fact, I put in the order on Monday for the order that's coming in next. It's even bigger than this order. So we're hoping that this order will fulfill us all the way through the end of the year. It's a much bigger order. And same, same as far as I know. Same pricing, same everything. And what else? That's it. And when will that order be here? It's speculated to be here by mid September. So not quite two months. Eight weeks. And by the way, DiMargio to their credit has been nailing it every time in about eight weeks. From my order time to when they they we receive them. We do not pre sell the pickups. So if you see them for sale, we have them. Shawna will get them out the door. That's just the way I like to do business. That's the way I've always done it. It's just I don't want to, I don't need to be talking to anybody on the phone, giving you excuses why, you know, if. If it's in my. What's in my control is when you put an order in, what's in my control is getting that order to you. When I'm waiting for an order, can you pre ordered it? I don't have any control. I'm just waiting for somebody else. And I just don't do that. It's just part of the business I don't like. So that's the way I do things. So if you're interested in a set of Northern Lights and plus, there you go, the next order. A couple things to note that will be interesting about the next order. Next order. You can buy them in sets or individually. So if that's something that matters to you, you can wait. Because again, they're not limited edition. They're just, you know, just. We ordered them, we ordered. We've been ordering whatever DiMargio can fulfill for us. And so that's what we're doing. And luckily for us, I'll tell you also on a side note there, we weren't supposed to actually launch them last Friday. I launched them really fast without really. I told Shawna, but she only got like 2 hours notice on the show. And the reason I launched them last Friday was the pirate ship that we use for shipping that told us they were going to raise the rates on Monday. So we were trying to beat the rates. So. Because like I told you guys, we the shipping on this, it's essentially part of your discount because, you know, I. I weed the shipping. So obviously if you. I can tell you right now, I guess if we waited till Monday to ship, we'd pay more or whatever. So I was like, well, let's, let's get them out now. And. And you know, so I want. Now the set. Last part. Thank you all for who, who, who? Everyone who's single one who bought a set of pickups. I totally appreciate you. That was pretty crazy, I gotta tell you that. I was off. I thought we would sell about 75%. Selling 85% was powerful. But so, you know, deep down I was accepting the fact that we might sell five. I have no idea. I never know how this is gonna go. So you just never know. Like I told you, right? We're talking it's definitely a soft market, but yet we sold hundreds and hundreds of sets of pickups. So again, what is the market? If it's legit, if it's a good deal, if it's a good product, if it's presented correctly. I think, you know, the reason I talk like this is cause a lot of industry people like to watch this show. Cause it's, you know, we talk about the industry stuff. If you're out there right now and every time somebody it's. I understand. I've been with where you're at. You've been. Every time somebody talks about a market slowdown, it scares you to death. Cause you're like, you know, what do you mean? I got to get rid of stuff. I got to sell product. Guitars, amps, pedals, stuff. What I will tell you is this. It's not there when people tell you that no one's buying guitars. Just excuse, take the no. 1 and put less people are buying guitars. Less people are buying. And that sounds scary, but if you have the right attitude, it's not. It's not as scary. It's still scary. It's not as scary. You can always do better. You know, if you're a content creator and you're getting less numbers, less people are watching gear reviews, less people. Right. And there's more product. Yeah. Then work harder outwork somebody. Try that. And then if it doesn't work, then I'll hit listen to you, bitch. How about that? But try working harder first. That goes on to our next thing and we'll get to questions too, because I know it's on here. I got a little board. And you guys are bringing up the stuff faster than I can read this board. Shawna's eye. What happened with Shauna's eye? So if you guys don't know, Shawna fosters kittens and animals, and one of the kittens scratched her cornea and literally didn't. So, you know, I said it incorrectly. The kitten did not scratch her cornea. It sliced her cornea like a scalpel. And because she had. She had Lasik 20 years ago, the flap came off and they had a number I and put the flap back. And then they've been checking her eyes. So here's what happened. The first visit to the doctor, after all the medicine and stuff, she was back to 2060. The second visit with the doctor, she's at 2030. That's where she's currently at. She has what's called ghosting, where she sees doubles of stuff. And she has light sensitivity. So she has wear eye patch, which I think makes her a cool. We need to get her a cool sign on. Like a GI Joe sign on. Like, you know, like, I don't know, like red scarlet or something like that. Right. I guess Scarlet means red, so that's redundant. But you get the idea. You know, she needs cool silent because she's got a cool eye patch. So her, they hoping her vision will get back to 2025. Her vision was 2020 and. And then from there they can figure it out. But mostly right now they're worried about the healing. But she's healing good because your corny, I guess, heals really well and she's still young enough and strong enough to where it's doing its job. And the irony of this that I cannot wait to share with you guys is I told this to the patrons. I is that she. I asked her if she, if she like is mad at the kitten or upset with the kitten or begrudges the kitten or anything like that, which I knew the answer was gonna be no. Not only was the answer no, she's adopted the kitty kitten. And I've been making the joke that they're trauma bonded and that's why she adopted the kitten. So now the kitten is ours. So they are. Is like say they're trauma bondage. I shouldn't laugh. This is so not funny. I just want you to know her eyes doing great. If I, if it wasn't, wasn't doing much better, I would not be making jokes. But it's still got a little ways to go. They want to see her another two weeks. But. But just to remind you guys that these kittens are animals, are predators, right? When they said that it didn't scratch her eye, it literally sliced her eye. That's how sharp its claw was. They were like the doctor's like, I'm not kidding, man. That's like scalpel slice. So. And Brian says, is the kitten's name pirate? No, the kitten's name is not Pirate. I'll tell you what the kitten's name is. The kitten's name is Ebony. The reason is we name the cats after Woods. So we have a cat named Maple. We don't have a cat named Rosewood. Not yet. Sure. Or maybe we'll have a dog named Rose, but I don't know. Rose will. We'll go on Rose, obviously, right? Or her Rose. But yeah, so. So yeah. Yeah. Okay. We need to get into guitar topics, otherwise this show won't make any sense. Okay, let's grab. Let's see what Amanda's been actually doing. Work. While I've been talking about nothing, Amanda sent me this. It says, hey, Phil, do you think the NAM Tone 3000 captures would take over eventually due to its open source nature? Should we buy The Dark Glass and Anagram guitar essentials, then. So, you know, I've had a lot of hot takes on the namm. I upset some people when I was saying the basically free stuff like that. Because it's still free, right? I think you can do stuff free. I don't believe anything stays free. That's my experience with everything. Everything is either given to you for free or it's given to you at reduced cost. I was just telling the patrons this week that I have a app that's called Picart that I've been using to create my thumbnails on my channel since day one, which is why they look so great and professional. That's a sarcasm. I actually wouldn't tell you because I'd feel ashamed to, like, promote pic art because I'm sure they'd be like, please don't tell us. Tell anyone that you're. Anyways, it's a app on your phone. I've been using this app so long, I think I paid $2.99 for it 10 years ago. And it was like a forever license. I think I paid one time. One time. That's what it said. One time. 299. And then eventually they were like, nope. And then now I had. Now you have to pay for it by the year. And then they raised that. And so in my experience, this NAMM thing. Look, keep mine. I don't. This is where I got in trouble last time. Talking about. Because I'll say this as a precursor, I don't know much about it. And then everybody's like, why do you talk about it? I'm not talking about it. I'm talking about stuff like this. I think it's great. If you want to use it, it's cool. I just always tell people this idea of, you know, if you're in the gaming world, which I'm not. I'm very aware of the fact that there's a lot of drama in the gaming world right now about people losing. You know, they. They had paid for movies. I actually looked at my Amazon thing because I have Amazon where I buy movies and it downloads. And I looked because of all this stuff in the gaming world. And it says on Amazon that I don't actually own the movies, even though I bought them. It says I bought them, but it says you bought them until we decide you don't have them. That's. Here's what's actually crazier. Just so you know, I took the contract. I took the Amazon contract from my movies, and I threw in A chatgpt and I said explain to me what this says in three sentences or better. And chatgpt basically said it says that they have the. You own the movies but they have the right to basically stop giving you permission to them. But there may not do that ever. And I'm like right, that's my whole point. So to answer your question, I don't know much about it. It's mostly because it's something I don't need. I already have tons of gear. It's not. I think it's great if you, if you want to spend the time to figure it out. But I would go in it with open eyes. I guess that's the best way I would explain this stuff. Anytime somebody's trying to give you something for a really good deal or free, I would go into with it open eyes and realistic, realistic expectations and hope for the best. It's possible but it's. I've been, I've been disappointed many times before. I hear good things. I have not checked it out. It's just something I haven't had time to spend time into. Maybe I will. Maybe I need to learn more about it. So this one also came from Anna says hey, do you think PRs should create a lesson plan like Fender Play for newly purchased guitar? Do you think that's a value add that is costing pre customers in the sub 1000 space? I think if they did it they should give it away for free because you know, Fender turned it into a revenue stream and you know, and not that there's anything wrong with revenue again, I don't want to be like I'm anti money. I'm totally for it. I mean it's like, you know, make money. I try to make my money. However. However it's always strange to me when a company like Fender is like hey, we'll sell you the guitar but also we'll sell you online lessons. You're like okay, you know, okay. It's a subscription system. So if PRS did it, should they do it? I mean I would be. I would, I would. My first thought is that PRS doesn't really sell a whole lot of guitars to absolute beginners. So the and someone who had and did that for over a decade, you know, have the store and a lesson academy. I can tell you that if you came in and bought a 500 guitar to a thousand dollar guitar as your first guitar first, good for you. Second, you're probably not looking for any kind of budget lessons. You're probably going to pay for the Real thing, you're probably going to pay for one on one lessons. You're going to pay the premium for the best lesson program that you can get. If, if you're going to do that. But most likely you are because again, you have more free, you know, your free expendable income to do that. Uh, where I think a lot of times Fenders Logic was kind of like if you're buying a Squire and you're trying to stay budget conscious, then you can buy this lesson program online and it's not super expensive and get access to it. So I don't know if PRs would have a whole lot of market for that to create that. Um, I would say if PRs might better off trying to partner with a lesson program that already exists, partner with it and then try to offer it for free included or give it some massive discount that makes it super, super appealing to the, to the consumer and maybe do something like that. But no, I don't know. But that's a great question. It's a great topic. I don't know. It's a, it's a funny thing about this. I've been told many times, as you know, I've been approached many times about doing lesson programs and I really love the idea of doing it and. But you know, I'm also doing all this other stuff too. So it's tough. And that's another, again, another discussion for another day. What else? This one came from Mort, by the way. Amanda grabbed this too. Thank you. Amanda says. Hey, Phil, I have an epiphone. Lifeson. Alex lifeson. I'm assuming ES335 on order from Sweetwater. I've heard they are arriving with bad neck angles. Should I be worried? No, not from Sweetwater. Sweetwater, your return policy is 30 days. I think it's 30. It might be 45. Guitar center is 45. So I think Sweetwater is 30. It's 30 days. And if it's defective or if there's something wrong, then it's no question, you know, no questions asked. I shouldn't say that. That's kind of the downfall of Sweetwater. They ask questions. Guitar center is no question to ask Guitar Center. You just walk in handed on the counter and they just take it. But Sweetwater, you got to talk to them for a minute. But just for a minute, they'll make sure you know that it's, it's an actual problem. Which is probably kind of good because they're not trying to scrutinize your, your, you know, your return. They're trying to make sure they take it. Doing the best for you. They actually helped me once with a return of a technology device where I was having trouble with it. And through this discussion, we discovered that there was a way to fix my issue with it, and we fixed it. So I've had them do that, but no. Is there a downside that. No. Hopefully, if there's an issue, Sweetwater will catch it. There's a good chance, I would say, that they catch it. I don't know the percentage. I would say 70% chance that Sweetwater catches the issue. Definitely not 100, but definitely not 50, because there's otherwise half their guitars would come back. And if they don't catch it and you get it and you find the issue, then you can return it. So, I mean, you're essentially what you're putting at risk is for a small period of time, for a month, your money's trapped up and your time's trapped up. If you want the guitar, go with it. If not, I would say wait. Maybe waiting to play one in person until you see one in person, but. But yeah, that's it. Tumbleweed Rancher. Cool name. Like it says. Hey, Phil, does Dean Markley still exist? I don't know. GC and Sweetwater don't have any of their. On their website. Says everything is sold out. Any news? I don't know. This is the time I told you guys. This is the last two years is when we're going to see companies pop off and disappear. But I have not heard anything about Dean Markley. I will take a look at what I. Who I know might know and see what I can find out. I haven't. Haven't bought a Dean Markley set of strings in forever. Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. So long. I don't even know if any of my kids were alive when I bought Dean Markley strings last, so. Hmm. Okay, I'm looking in the comment section right now. If you're talking to me, put a question mark first. Or you can do the thing where you, you know, you put my name and it puts my name in yellow. I can see that too, but it's up to you. Whichever is easiest. Steven wants to know where can I buy a good quality magnet for a pickup. I want to put an A5 in my 5909. I like two places, obviously. Mojo Tone is great for that. And then also Philadelphia Luthery. Is that what it's called? Philadelphia something? Philadelphia. Come on. Come just. Yeah, it's gonna say Philadelphia. Philadelphia Luthery Tools and supply. Luthier tools. Not Luthery, just Luther Tools and supplies. Here it is. Blah, blah, blah. Look at that. You can, for an order over 50, get free shipping. They're a good source and so is Mojo Tone. I would. I like both for pickups. You can go there are for magnets for pickups. Magnets for pickups. I would go there. So I don't know why that's so hard to say. Fire. Fire. Medic says, hey, if they're going to do that. He's talking about PRs. He's talking about PRs. He's saying if they're going to do that, something like that, like a lesson program, they should partner with one of the many online creators and teachers. I agree. It's kind of like, you know, the best way I see things too. Maybe do something with Tim Pierce. Something like that would be really, really cool. I think that's a smart way to do it. Why invent a whole thing that you don't need to do? That's how kind of how I looked at Fender. It's like, okay, why invent a whole lesson program? Do all this stuff. I know you have the resources stuff. It's kind of like how I feel about, you know, Gabe and the Guitar center thing. Why make a whole guitar line? Why do all that when you can just order from other companies that make great guitars? But, you know, he explained his side of it. He hasn't changed my mind. Never once did I actually say I changed my mind. However, I'm not scrutinizing him as hard because I see in his. I see his logic and why he wants to do it. And he has the. I don't want to say the right to do it, but if he wants to do it, he should do it right. He wants to make a line of guitars. I will tell you that you're going to get an announcement probably in September about the Mitchell guitars and some changes. And all I will tell you is what I'm saying now. I saw it because they had me come to California and look at the new Mitchell stuff. And when I say this, I just want to be very clear. The Mitchell business plan, the new Mitchell plan is really, really good. It's really, really good. In fact, the best plan they could have come up with, in my opinion, by far. And what you'll notice is notice I'm saying business plan. Not like I'm. I'm not saying, guys, when you see these Mitchell guitars, they're the best guitars ever. I'm not talking about the guitars at all. The guitars are irrelevant to this, to this business model plan idea the Guitar center has. It's a smart move. I'm curious to see how many of you will agree with me. Keep in mind that I try to be very open minded about things. But I'll tell you in this case, if you agree with me, it's because you know. And if you don't agree with me, you just don't know you. And I'll at the time when it happens, I actually asked Mitchell to send me one of the guitars and they should be here in September. Not so much to talk about the guitar, but to talk about the new idea, which is a smart idea. A new business plan. A business plan that I think makes more sense to the consumers. Won't mean a whole lot to us, but it'll mean a whole lot to Guitar center and to entry level customers. That's funny. Okay. Yes. Brian says. Brian2k2 says. Any recommendations for flying with a headless guitar? I'm picking up a Keisel Kyber in a couple months, but I'm scared to get it messed up on a flight. I have never ever, ever, ever, ever once not been able to take my Kezel guitar on a flight. As you guys know, I missed a flight to Sweetwater once because of my Warwick. Because I was not going to check that base on the plane. Here is how I get on every flight. This is how I do it. I cannot guarantee it'll work for you. I'm just telling you. I'm going to tell you verbatim how I do it. Because how I do it is. In other words, if you don't do what I do, maybe you won't want to get the same result. Here is how I go to the airport. First of all, when I go to the airport, I go and check in my luggage. If I'm checking luggage, I check my luggage in and then I tell the person at the desk, not that it matters that I'm gate checking this guitar. I have the headless Kiesel Delos with the mini gig bag that is foam padded and it's bulletproof. So I tell them I gate check that. If you don't know what gate checking is, gate checking is like if you have a wheelchair or a stroller, obviously you need your wheelchair to get to the plane and you need your stroller to get your kid to the plane. You don't check them, then sometimes you will take them all the way to the gate and then when you get to the gate you Say I want to gate check this. They take this, they put a tag on it, and they put it underneath the plane, and then they pull it off the plane first so that when you get off the plane, they have your stroller and your chair. Now, I never gate check my guitar, but I tell them that. Why? I just don't want to deal with anything they got to say. I just tell them gate check, and I find that they don't even question it. Then once I get to the plane, this gets a little bit tougher. If you're late boarding. In other words, if you're, you know, boarding on. In. In the last part of the plane. But I usually make sure that I get boarded in. I'm never in the. The. Well, first of all, never first class or business, but always in, like, I never in whatever A, you know, whatever. B, I'm using C, so I'm usually in the middle somewhere. Somewhere towards the wings. That helps. When I go on the plane, I usually. No one ever says anything to me. Okay. If they've ever tried to stop me, like, hey, you're gonna have to gate check that. I go, let me see if I can get on the plane. If I can't, we can gate check it, you know? Right. Just. I'm not letting them. I'm not letting them take the guitar. What I do unapologetically, is when I get on the plane, here's what I do. I get on the plane and I go to wherever my seats are, wherever I see the best opportunity, where there's the least amount of luggage. I either pull people's luggage out of the thing, and I stick the guitar in the back of the. The overhead, put it vertically. So in other words, like. So you can actually see the Keisel logo. Right? But I put the guitar, the guitar, vertically. The Keisel gig bag, that hard gig bag, will go vertical in the back of those luggage things. And it's so thin because it's about two and a half inches that you can put everybody's luggage back, and everybody's luggage goes in front of it. If. If I can find it, which most of the time I can. You see one that's half full, I just pull everybody's luggage forward a couple inches, slide it in back of theirs, and put all the luggage back. And so, you know, when I carry that on, I also want to point out I always have a backpack with me, too. So I'll. I'll have my backpack, and if I'm not checking any luggage, I'll actually have my Carry on. So I'll put my carry on in there. I'll put my guitar in there, and I shut it. And I've never had a problem, not once, on all the airlines. I've taken it to Hawaii. I've taken it to Indonesia. I've taken it to Florida. I've taken it to Indiana, whatever. You got to take it California. That's how I do it. And. But you gotta be assertive and nice because I. They will try to just tell you, you know, And. And the fact that the law says that they can't make us do this as musicians doesn't seem to matter to the airlines. The airlines don't seem to care about anything. So, yeah, this is what Glenn says. Did you know by law, they can't make you do that? Here's the problem. And Glenn, you're absolutely right. Thank you for pointing it out, as I just said. But it's. The important part is this. They can't make you. Except for they can if you do. If they can just kick you off the plane. They could. They can't. Think of this. We live in a time where, yeah, they can't legally make us check our guitar, but they can legally pull us off a plane when it's oversold. So it's like It's a catch 22. What do you do? Right? And I don't want to fight with them. I've just learned to evade them. Just go through the system. Just be. You know, just don't get their attention is what I'm trying to say. Just, you know, just let them know up front what you're doing, what you're doing won't be weird. Be. Play. Be pleasant. Be nice. I'm always overly nice to the. To the staff on the airlines for two reasons. One, because most people are crappy to them, so it's probably just a nice way to make their day a little better. And two, there ain't no argument I'm gonna win with them, so I might as well just be nice to him anyways. Yeah. Glenn says, yeah, but they can treat you like crap. Yep, yep. It's. It's nice. Okay, where are we at? We're not time for Guitar of the Week. Let's do. Let's do another one of these. Okay. All right. Here's one from Pump. Plump weasel with a plump weasel. Plump weasel says, hey, Phil, I received my Northern Lights pickups that I'm going to put in my HHS Charvel that I bought used. What do you recommend for a place in the Single coil, which is in the middle position. They work well with pretty much any middle mids like output Single coils like the True Velvet by Fender or by DiMargio works well. The H SSL one by Seymour Duncan works really well. The Fender pickups work really well. Is they. They do well with. With most single coil pickups. You don't have to have the pickups be extra aggressive if you're going to put it in the middle position. So I. I've had no issues with that. So I've used all the. All the single coils that I can think of. And the problem is with the Northern Lights. The Northern Lights pickup works well with pickups, all single coils, pretty much no problem. The Northern Lights plus, because it's got a little bit more of an aggressive hit to it for the bridge. And it's not super aggressive. It's not high gain by any means, but it's a little aggressive. It has a drop sometimes. So you don't want to go too crazy, you know, with the pickup. But any of those pickups work fine. I have a Northern Lights in a guitar with some True velvets from. From DiMarzio and I have it in a guitar with the actual Fender stock pickups. Whatever they put in the American professional twos and it sounds fantastic. Oh, that's funny. Just petite says you mentioned in an old video about prsse gig bags with the hanger you can hang in a closet. You can. So if all PRs gig bags have a little hanger that comes in this pouch in the back and you can hang it in your closet or behind a door, it says they said but you wouldn't because it. Continue on with what I said. I said you can do that. It's true. But you wouldn't do it with a guitar in it. Why not? Ah, just because I'm trying to be, you know, Internet safe and not trying to be in trouble for telling you guys stuff, you know. So that was my. Sometimes it's like kind of like when I say, hey, when you saw her wear goggles, you know, make sure you wear eye protection. I'm just being cautious. Hanging the guitar in the gig bag per se, doesn't hurt the guitar. But what happens if you hang in your closet? I don't know what you're hanging it on. What if you got a cheap, you know, thin little dowel and it breaks and your guitar falls so. And I so that. So and it's just. And unfortunately, when you're making videos, you know, if you get too long in the. In the description of, you know, I don't want to say descriptions. If I take too long doing disclaimers, the video loses momentum. That's what people don't understand. Say, you know, you can't go too far into every disclaimer. So that was really. When I said, you can hang it in your closet but not with your guitar in. It was a fast way of a disclaimer saying, you know, it's not recommended because it could be dangerous for your. Your closet. Right. I don't know. Again, but if you feel like your closet's robust and strong and, you know, it's fine. I don't. The gig bags. It's not like the gig bag can't hold the weight of the guitar. Guitar is at max nine pounds, maybe ten. That's on the high end. The gig bag is going to be strong enough for that. But again, just trying to be safe. Oh, okay. Let's go ahead. And now it's time for Guitar of the Week. All right, you guys are in for a treat, I hope, for Guitar of the Week this week, because I would have never told you this story in a million years. This. I always say you guys need to thank the moderators and the patrons. Boy, you have no idea this week how. I don't even know why I'm doing this story. This is the most embarrassing story I'm gonna tell on this channel. And I've told some stupid, embarrassing stories. This one's really bad. So I told this story to the patrons, and they absolutely said it was amazing and I should share it. And then I got a heartfelt email saying, man, you should really share it. And I'm like, okay, so I'm gonna share the story. I have a new guitar, and I don't know why I have it at all. I think I have a theory of why I have it. Let me explain why I have it. We'll get into that. Let me tell you what happened. So I been. I hurt myself. It happens. I'm getting old and you hurt yourself. I twisted my ankle, what, a year ago? No, earlier this year. Was it earlier this year? Twisted my ankle earlier this year. Better now. Happens. Fell down. Walking, you know, going for a walk in the dark. Fell down. So I hurt myself again, as you do. I hurt my side. It's. It's. It's better now. It's much better now. I got to tell you, it was really cool. So hurt my side and go. And long story short, I get a shot, they stick it in my butt. I didn't tell anybody this part, but I don't even know if my wife knows this story because she left the room when they gave me the shot. They stick the shot. And then I don't know if I fell for it, but the nurse was like, you're gonna have to pull your pants down. I'm like, what? She goes just a little bit on the right side. And then she made me lift up one of my legs. And I'm like, what? She's like, yeah, don't put pressure on. And she stuck me with a shot. I was like, oh, that was a weird experience. Anyways, it was for inflammation. At least that's what I felt for. Hey, my insurance paid for it, I guess. Anyways, so on the 4th of July. What happened was on the 4th of July, I hurt myself, we think at the gym. It happens, you know, right on the side. Stay off of it instead of staying off of it. My son needed a shelf, book cabinet, if you will, for his apartment. Who lives on the third story from Ikea? I volunteer. I tell Shauna, let's go to Ikea. We'll get the shelf. I go and get the shelf, which was a bad idea. I decided since he's getting the shelf, we should empty the. The what's left of his books. Which we couldn't even consider doing that. He has a ton of books, boxes and boxes of books in the guest room. So I took it to his apartment. I carried him up the three stories of the. Of the stairs. I brought the bookcase up. I did all this stuff. The next day, I was in excruciating pain. It was just horrible. I couldn't move. I couldn't do anything. So I got what's I got. And I'm not really good at this, so please don't understand. I got some kind of painkiller. Not painkiller, like a. What do you call it? Like a muscle relaxer. They gave me something like a muscle relaxer. Okay, Now I am not. I don't. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just like, this is Saturday. This is fourth of July. Here's what's going to happen on Fourth of July. As you know, I've been dieting. I've been good, trying to be good. It's been over a year. And I decided on 4th of July, I'm going to have hot dogs. So I went and got hot dogs, all beef ones or whatever that were 100 calories each. I was very excited about this with 200 calorie buns. That means two hot dogs is going to be 400 calories. All in with mustard and relish. I don't do sweet relish. That'll be like the gravy thing. So I. I do just regular pickles, chopped up. And I'm excited for this. This is gonna be a big deal. Then around 2 o' clock in the afternoon, 3 o', clock, I take this muscle, relax or whatever, it's fine. Then around 5 o', clock, when it's time to enjoy 4th of July time. And by the way, it's just me and Shawna, we're just chilling. My kids are at work. Things are happening. Shawna makes me a drink. She goes, you would you like a drink? Sure. She makes me, like this really cool drink. It was like some kind of lime spirits with cherry juice in it. And like, you know, it's kind of like if you go to a resort, you get this cool thing. I didn't get an umbrella, but that's okay. And of course, there's vodka in it. I'm not thinking, hey, I took a pill earlier and I'm not telling her because I'm not thinking about it. So, by the way, this is definitely a don't do drugs and alcohol kids thing. So this, I'm not advocating either. This was all bad choices. The bad choices. I know you think this is gonna go where you think it's gonna go. It's not. So anyway, so I drink this drink, which, by the way, tasted lovely. After finishing the drink, I woke up in my chair and it was like 2 o' clock in the morning. I just woke up like, I mean, literally, like in a movie, you're just in the chair, like, this is nice. When's the fireworks coming? And then I wake up, like, it's over. The whole night's over. And I go, wow, two o' clock in the morning. And I could tell Sean went to bed because all the lights in the house are turned down, you know, Right. So there's less lights. And so I go upstairs and I go, wow, at least I'm gonna lose an extra pound today because I didn't eat anything. Which is probably another problem. I've had, like a protein drink, which is 150 calories earlier in the day. At least I didn't eat my hot dogs. So I go to bed, I wake up the next morning, I get up and I go downstairs and I make myself coffee. When I make myself coffee, I look over the stove and I notice there's a pan. And on the OR Four char marks that look like the size char marks you'd see on hot dogs. And I think, huh, Shawna must have made hot dogs after I went to bed. Well, good for her, because it's not fair to her that I fell asleep and she didn't get to eat. And then I drink my coffee, and Shauna comes down, and then she's like, you okay? And I said, yeah, I'm fine. Why? And she goes, well, it was a little different last night. And I said, what do you mean? Oh, because I went to sleep. I said, did you have hot dogs? She goes, no, you made hot dogs. I go, I didn't make hot dogs. She goes, phil, you went to the stove and started making hot dogs. And I said, are you okay? And you said, oh, you're fine. And then you made hot dogs. And I go. And she goes, and coleslaw? You make and got coleslaw and hot dogs? And I go, what? And she goes. And I go, did I eat them? She's like, yeah, you ate your hot dogs. Now I'm like, okay, now she's messing with me. Have you guys been married for a long time? I've been married for a long time. I've been married so long that I know. Okay, look, this is like, she's just gonna let. This is something she's gonna let happen play out. She's gonna make me think this happened because to teach me a lesson that maybe I shouldn't do a fruity drink and, you know, alcohol drink and maybe take a muscle, relax. Whatever the deal is, whatever I did wrong, it's like, okay and pass out. So that's fine until my phone chimes. My phone chimes, and it's my buddy Tyler. My buddy Tyler, who's. Who just got recently married, and he's in his 30s, early 30s. Him and his wife were mentioning to me when they were over a couple weeks earlier that they had never seen the movie Tremors. And I was like, what? Tremors is like a classic. You need to see Tremors. You live in Arizona even. You know, it's like, come on. It's basically Jaws in the dirt. It's the best movie ever. Anyways, apparently, he responds to me like, that sounds like fun. We should do that. And I'm like, what sounds like fun? And I open up, and apparently I texted him, hey, man, you should come over sometime. And we all watch Tremors together. And I'm thinking, I don't remember sending him that. That's kind of funny. And I go, okay, now, maybe there's more to this story Sean is talking about where I'm like, I made hot dogs, apparently. And. And she's saying that happened. I'm like, I don't think that happened. And then I look and it goes bing. My phone goes bing. This is probably about 20 minutes later. And I go, what's this? A tracking number. What did I get a tracking number for? Apparently, I bought a guitar. And I'm like, I didn't buy a guitar. Did I buy a guitar? So I tell Shawna, I go, shauna, okay, help me again explain the night to me again. What happened? She goes, oh, okay, you got a drink. And I go, okay. And you were drinking your drink, and then you put on music on the tv, huh? And you watched it binge sevenfold. And then you started crying and tearing up because the rev died. I'm like, well, that checks, because, you know, it's sad that he died. She's like, which was a little intense for you, okay? And then you made hot dogs, and then you passed out. You ate and you passed out. I'm like, oh, okay. So here's the thing about the guitar. So guitar of the week. So I bought this guitar. Apparently, now, I believe I bought this guitar because it showed up. In fact, here's where it gets funnier. I actually found where I actually sent the person who sold his guitar an offer. The person had a guitar. We're talking about the soft market. The person had this guitar on Reverb. I had had it watched on Reverb for a period of a week or so a while. They had lowered the price, and apparently they lowered it again so low that I thought that was really good price. Now, apparently during this blackout period of time, I texted or not texted, I messaged through Reverb a slightly lower offer. Hey, would you take this price? The funnier thing about this is I'd never seen this before and didn't know this was a thing on Reverb. And so you guys are going to learn a thing like me, which is on Reverb. If you send an offer, I know they can accept your offer. They can decline their offer and you can counter the offer. They countered my offer, but I'd never seen this before, especially when I was don't remember even happening that night. They didn't counter with a different price. They countered with the offer with they accepted my price. But instead of accepting it and say accepted, they countered the countered with instructions. So you guys know, going forward, if you ever sell anything on Reverb, did you know that you can. If somebody sends you an offer, you can counter even if you're accepting their price, but give instructions. Like, let me give example. Like, if I said, hey, would you take $500 for this guitar? You could say, yes, but hit counter $500. And then in the notes put, yes, but only if you pay within two hours or whatever, you can put in special instructions. And then if they agree to that, they hit accept, and then they do it. This person said yes as long as the guitar of the week. So I'm assuming they might know who. They might know who this channel is. So anyways, so if you're watching this and you're the one sold me the guitar. Thank you. Thank you for the guitar. Okay, so what and why this is even worse is is this whole story is the guitar I bought is a guitar I literally just told you guys I wouldn't buy. I just said it a couple weeks ago. I know it. So what's the guitar of the week? Well, guitar of the week is a 2014 Paul Reed Smith Custom 24 and Erize Verde. Ooh. Which is green. That's fancy for, by the way. Arise Verde. If you don't know, is Matt named after Matt Ariza? Matt Ariza is a finish. Is it does finish work at prs. And he came up with this color. And so Verde is green, I think in Spanish, right? Okay, so it's Matt Ariza is his name. So they called it Arize Verde. There you go. That's where the name comes from. I used to have an Arize Verde. If you watch my old, old videos, you'll see a guitar look just like this. In fact, when I got it and I showed it Sean, and she goes, didn't you just have that guitar? And I go, well, I did years ago. I got rid of it. Actually sold this guitar to pay for some videos during. So I. I guess I was soppy thinking about how poor Rev died and revenge sevenfold and how I missed the green Arise Verde guitar. I even have a picture with Matt Ariza in me so I could show that I had the reserve Verde green. So apparently I learned a couple things. First of all, don't do drugs kids so bad. And also tell your wife everything that's important that day that's happening. Maybe not Forget information. All this could have been avoided if I've just given Insana any updates throughout the day. So anyways, so this is a custom 24, so core tintop in perfect condition. He listed it with a case. He threw in a strap, which Was nice. And it's a beautiful instrument. Let's play it. I've been enjoying it. What? Why? I said a week ago I said I wouldn't get a custom 24 anymore because I have the SC was because I. I apparently I don't know. I mean, I know why I said that. I have no idea why I bought it other than I can tell you that I'm happy about it. And you know, a guitar will go now. So I'm gonna get rid of one of my Paul R.E. smith Hollow Body Guitars. I have two of them and I don't know why I have two of them. It was something during COVID So this will make more sense. Let's switch the other camera right here. Here we are with this guitar. Beautiful instrument. Let me turn on the mics for the amplifier. I'm running through my Morgan PR12 head into the a Marshall 1936212 and I'm running a echoplex delay pedal and a Flint Stryman reverb. Got the neck pickup. I'm going to go to the neck. I'm going to go a single coil neck because I really like that. And I have my mic on too. This has the 5909 pickups because like I said, this is a 2014. So this predates when they had the lacquer finish. If you don't know. Paul Rid Smith guitars post June of 2020 all have nitrocellulous lacquer. This has their old finish which is fine with me. This has the birds that are outlined. It's really hard to see, but you see, can see they have a. An outline on them and then there's abalone in the center which I always thought was cool. This always reminded me of like Ireland. Like you know, golf courses or something. I always feel like like a putting green. Just sounds great. And I love the tremolo. And the person sold to me. Your setup was great. If you did this fantastic, you had it done good for them. Nut slots were definitely cut or changed from stock factory. At least it looks like to me like they were set a little deeper in which. Which is really good because this is a dangerous thing to do when you do this because you can all sudden get fret out really bad on the first fret or open and beautifully done. I did not measure this action, but if I was going to guess, I would say 1 millimeter with that. There you go a little. So great, great condition, great condition. Like I said, no chips, no dings, no no dents. The hardware has got a little bit of, of aging on it. And that's probably because they live in a wetter climate than me, which I actually love it. The patina on this is more satin looking now because of that. So. Beautiful instrument. If you have any questions about it. There you go. So that's the guitar of the week. Yeah. I told the patrons this story because I was like, yeah, I don't know. So I, here's how it ends. It ends with me getting a beautiful guitar. And, and you know what's great too, is I, I think I wouldn't definitely not have gotten it because I knew I'd have to get rid of something to get it. And I didn't really have anything I think I would get rid of, but I ended up loving it enough to where, like I said, a hollow body can go. Let's do the thumbnail. Let's move this mic. Here we go. Thumbnail. And we'll do that. Okay. There's my picture. One more time. So beautifully done. Look at that. Okay, any questions about the guitar? Let me mute the thumbnail. More meds. Yeah, funny, funny thing. Luckily for me, look, I'm sure it was. Mixing the two things was a bad idea, but I wasn't 100% sure, so I, I, I ended up. Now I'm just taking aleve and ibuprofen. But luckily for me, my, my side is much better. So I wouldn't say 100 healed, but it's much, much better. What fixed it was ibuprofen and staying off of it or not using my side for, you know, lifting and twisting for at least two, three days, which worked. It does not smell like hot dogs. Somebody says, what model again? It's the Paul Reesmith Custom 24, but it's a 10 top. So this one's a label 10 top. So you can tell because on the, there will be a 10 right there. They write it with a sharpie at the top. 10 top means that it costs more, that's all. And you don't get that money back. In fact, it's the. I think it's one of the biggest wastes you can do with your money. If you, if you buy a new guitar with a 10 top, you can almost guarantee you're never going to get that money back because they never seem to. No one ever wants to give you anything for a ten top. The thing about tin tops, what does it really mean? They have some internals. You know, PRs will say that, you know, 100 or 90 or 80. They have some Number they're like some percentage of the grain touches from the center to the side, on each side, all that stuff. Here's what I will tell you. I've told you this analogy before. I'll stick with it. Whether property guitars agrees with it or not, this is the way I look at it. 10 tops are. Somebody goes through and picks out the better tops and then those tops are picked up from the best tops they have at that time. Which is why I say that is because sometimes people get upset because they pay for a 10 top and they get it and they go, it doesn't look that great. Or sometimes people pay for. They don't pay for a tin top and they think it looks amazing. Perfect example is I have. You know what? Let's let me show you. Hold on. For reference. This guitar is not a tin top. So explaining a world. While that top, this maple cap is not a 10 top, this is not a 10, not labeled 10. I bought this new. I did not have to pay for it to be a 10 because it wasn't a 10. So like I said, 10 tops are luck of the draw. I don't, I don't necessarily. I think if you got the money to throw at it and you want to guarantee when you're ordering one that's going to be a nice top, maybe throw the money at it. But when I sold PR for years at the store, I would always tell my customers, you know, if you pay for tintop, I. There's no guarantee. It's not at 10 top is not a guarantee. So. So Jeremy says, who the hell would buy a tintop without seeing a person? I can tell you who, who's done it in the past. Customers who were a little nervous to spend. Look, you know the saying, in for a penny, in for a pound. If you were going to buy a $4,000 guitar, in theory, right, we're throwing that number out and you don't know what the top's going to look like because you're not buying it from like Sweetwater or a dealer or you're not walking the store and seeing it in person. You want to custom order it, but it's, let's say 600 more and it's going to be a 10 top, which means it's going to be a nice top. Some people go, well, if you're going to pay $4,000 and who knows what you're going to get, but 46 gives you more likelihood to be guaranteed. And some dealers are not as ethical or up front. I don't want to say ethical. I want to say up front. You know, some dealers are like, if you get a tin top, you know, it's PRs. They're always going to look great. My experience, they don't always look great. There are tin tops that I think look almost, like, embarrassingly bad. Not a lot, but there are some. And there are more guitars that are not tin tops that look like tin tops. So I would just tell people, look, if you spend the money, it improves your chances. But again, all you're doing, you're playing the lottery to. Jeremy's question is at the core of it. Why would somebody order something they can't see or know what it is? And. And it's because. Usually because there's no availability at the time for what they want, or they want a specific color, because that's. Again, think about this way. You got the money, you got the. You know, you want to get yourself a guitar, like, let's say a prs, right? And you're, you know, you want the color you want, you want the guitar you want, so you order it. I always find it's a scary thing to order wood, like stained wood. You know, it gets a little. It's something I'm not interested in, if you notice. I have never personally. Okay, that's not true. One time. I've never. One time. So only once have I ever ordered a keisel with a wood top. And that was my Vader base. Every keisel I order is painted. And it's because I kind of want to order it. I want to know what I'm getting. And I know if I get the painted one, it's going to look like paint. But anytime you've ever seen me with a beautiful Kiesel wood guitar, aside from my Vader, they picked it out like that was a guitar they sent me a picture of, and they go, what do you think of that for doing a video? And I go, that sounds. That looks great. So I've done that, or they've sent, like, something that was a pretty top, you know, for a video. But I. Again, because I just can't. I can't mentally, you know, I can't order something without seeing it or knowing. Be able to, like, get a cool idea of what it's going to look like ahead of time. So. Let's see. St. Strickland says you should give the guitar a catchy name that commemorates the story of how you came onto it. Margarita? Yeah, I mean, I. I think so. You know, I really don't name guitars it's something I, I, I try, I want to do. It feels like such a cool thing to name guitars. Name your guitar. I've named very few guitars and I think it's because I go oh. Every time I think of the great idea to name a guitar, it's because the name was pretty easy. And then when I can't think of a name it feels impossible. So I just don't do it. Let's see. Let's go on to the next subject and if anyone still has any questions of guitar of the week, let me name. Haha. Somebody says just name it Blackout. That might be a good name. Okay. Okay. So this one, Amanda grab. Thank you for this man. It says, hey Phil, I have an Ltd Teacher 254 with a terrible factory relic. It looks so cheap. Have you had any luck enhancing the fake relic to look with rocks and keys? No, I tried to relic a couple guitars, me personally and I just don't have the artistic thing for it. That's how I know there's a skill to it because I, you know, I've seen enough bad relics to know that you have to have a little bit of an eye for it. What to look for and how to do it. I've had better luck with. When you find sometimes you have a local luthier that does relicing on like their own guitars and they'll do a relic job for you. It's really tough because there is something to the finish. If you want to do a relic, the finish needs to be very thin or it needs to be like nitro or very thin and nitro to get the relic to look right and to patina correctly. And my experience, if you take your car keys or a rock, even a special rock, like even if you could get your hands on the Novo special rock and start smacking your LTD around, I don't know if it's gonna work. I can tell you you can give it a try. But here's what sucks. When you relic a guitar that comes pre relic, you would think it's no biggie, right? But what I can tell you for a fact is you are going to depreciate the guitar. If you decide you don't like what you did and you try to sell it, people who are gonna buy it are gonna know what the factory relic looks like and what your relic add on is and they can smell that and they won't give you as much. So you're almost better if you don't like it just to move it along or Just learn to deal with it or maybe take it to somebody and hope that they can actually do something better. So that's just my advice. And all from experiences in every angle of that. And so let's see. I just wanted this one real quick. Michael says, hey, have you tried the kj G, KGD brand of guitars? I have not. I'm just saying that so I can know it for later when I can take a look at it. Anyways. Oh, this is. Came from Todd. Amanda Graham. This too. Todd says, hey. Hey. How have you dealt with low motivation with playing? I feel like I in a rut, Gas won't fix it. I find gas rarely fixes it. It's more accidental. Every time you buy a new piece of gear and you're not thinking about it, sometimes that inspires you to play a little bit more, but mostly intentionally, like you're going to buy a piece of gear to play. Doesn't really get the juices going. I find that when you're. When you're burnt out, that's the good time to step away. It's okay. So you just step away. If I can tell you from experience now, it's tougher for me. I could, you know, think about this. Ten years ago, somebody would ask me this on this channel and I'd be like, well, you know, it's not. It's no big deal. Just step away. It's tougher for me. Now I understand it, like as an artist. Well, I understand it and the idea that I am in a rut and I don't feel like playing and I have a video I have to make and I can feel the pressure all of a sudden, and the pressure makes everything worse. And then I don't want to play and it gets really, really bad. So what I can tell you is I've learned to just take. Take some time, step away, enjoy some music, try to get some inspiration sometimes be around other friends that play music if you're so lucky. If not, that's when it's time to break out some new albums, find some new music, or just maybe do the opposite. Do everything not music. Stay away from it. I find it doesn't take me very long. I. I feel like if I'm away from music for a week, I start feeling the etch to get back to it. There's nothing wrong with that. To feel like it's just a little. I've had. I've had days so bad, which is really sad with a room like this where I've played and felt so Unemotionally connected to what I was playing or what I felt that I was like, why do I even have this stuff? Like I don't even know what I'm doing here. And that's definitely a moment where you like step back and. And yeah. And I found that no gear that you can buy. And I find shopping online and stuff doesn't help that either. Like maybe if I buy a new pedal, like just go and do something opposite, you know. And I find that works better for me. Let's see. I want to make sure what this is Lefty Classic rocker says having never replaced pickups, do I first need to see if I have two or three wire humbucker pickup? Only if you want to do coil split so you don't have to have a. So so if it would be two PRs is a three wires pickups or three wires. Some other brands, but mostly PRs or three wires. And then most pickups are going to be five wires. We call it four conductor because essentially two of the wires are duplicate. They're grounds. Okay. But it's five wires. You'll have a bear, a green, a white, a black and a red. That'll be pretty stereotypical for most companies. What won't be the same is some companies the red means something different. For instance, Seymour Duncan the black wire is the hot wire. And you would tie off red and white together and green and bare together. On DiMarjio, Red is Hot and you'll do black and white together and green and bare. Most likely green and bare wires are going to be the two to come together for ground. And so do you need to. If you. If you have a guitar with two wires, can you put four wires in there? Sure. You'll get no added features of those four wires, but it totally fits. If you have a guitar with coil splits or you know, phase inversion on that stuff. That's happens with four wires and you put two wire in there. You'll lose all those features if you have them. So it's really important. If you have a guitar with four wires and you want to keep the features to get four wires. If you. And. And so. And if you have a four wire and you want to put two wire and you don't mind losing the features, you can do that too. It doesn't. You don't have to worry about it too much. Glenn says two conductor wire pickup wires. Two conductor pickups are a pain to work with compared to four. Yeah. A lot of people don't like the metal braiding. I Did this on a clinic for the. The guys. And I showed them how I do the metal braiding. What's great about the clinics is the clinics are about taking some time and talking and showing and stuff. Eventually those end up being videos that will release out to the public. Not clips of the clinic, but like standalone videos. There's a video coming soon that is a setup video that was 100% because of the clinics. So that's where it's another way I like to kind of work the channel is like, give the people who support the channel financially. This is my more of my time, and help them with their personal issues that are. Don't make sense on a video. Right. You can't. You got a video, you want to make it for a broader audience. But then when I come across something that's in a specific issue for one person that maybe be a broader topic, put that on the channel. So I think there's a win win there. But yeah, two conductor wires are kind of a pain. This was from K. Durin. It says, hey, Phil, love the channel. Planning to do a trip to Sweetwater? Any tips for the first timer? I'm sure I will be overwhelmed there. Sure. First thing is, the closer you stay to Sweetwater, the safer, the nicer the neighborhood will be. So you want to be very. Where Sweetwater is, which is very rural. It's in the middle of nowhere. Basically, if you stay in town, I can tell you that it's like, weirdly, it's told the story for. We stayed both times in nice hotels. And then a block over, I was like, oh, I don't know if I should be here at dark. Wasn't that bad, you know, but it was close enough to where it's like, not where I felt safest. So definitely pick your hotel accordingly. Don't even focus on the price. I know price matters, but I mean, focus on that information. You might even be able to call the Sweetwater and maybe talk to your sales rep and ask them for suggestions. Don't be afraid to do that. In fact, you can even ask if you can meet your sales rep. Call your sales rep. Look, keep in mind, they have a job to do and they get paid, like basically commission. Right. So they need to be working to get paid. But in my experience, 70, 80% of the time, at least the. The sales reps will come down and meet you while you're there. You just tell them when you're gonna be there. And there's a desk when you walk in. The way Sweetwater works, it's really kind of weird. You walk in and there's a store that you can just walk into. And then there's a whole building that seems like it should be off, off limits, but yet they let you walk around in it. There's a cafeteria, you can go to the cafeteria. There's a coffee shop, you can go there, you can walk around some areas. Some areas they're going to shoo you away from. Obviously you're not going to see the warehouse. They don't like people to go in the warehouse. Every time I've been to the warehouse or some YouTuber been to the warehouse, there's a little bit of a process to it. First of all, it's like I think you have to take all your personal belongings off. You go through a metal detector and somebody has to escort you for safety purposes. You understand? You can get really hurt. One of those forklifts run over you or there's all these areas. You're only allowed to walk within the lines that you're walking and stuff. So they usually have somebody with you. So they're not going to let you do that because this is. Just do it. But you can enjoy the store. I tell everybody this and just remind you when you're at Sweetwater, you there are touch screens that look like 52 inch TVs vertical. And you can pick anything from the warehouse and they'll bring it to you. Like they bring it in a golf cart. They bring it right there. They open out of the box and they hand it to you and let you play. Check out whatever you want. If you want to amp a guitar, they will not care. They is the night. It's like Disneyland meets in and out, burger meets chick fil A. Like there's just. It's that service, it's that. Sure, I can get that for you, no problem. What do you want a Marshall? Full stack, of course. Wait, I mean, just. You just ask them. So if you really, if you walk in there, Some people have told me they went in there and there wasn't something, you know. Oh, they didn't have what I wanted to check out. They'll go get it, they'll bring it out, they'll hand it, they'll bring it to you and they'll let you just have at it. So have at it. Talk to them. They're nice people. I've been there many times. They are. Let me put it this way. I live in the desert and the last thing I would ever do is live in the snow. And there's like, twice. I thought, maybe I'll move to Indiana because I'm like, I'll live where Sweetwater is. Because they're so nice there. Everybody there was so nice at that. At Sweetwater, somebody asked me to sell cameras. They absolutely sell cameras. I think they're like one of the largest, top five largest sellers of cameras in the United States now. They. Even in the music store, they have a camera section, so. So. And you can eat dinner there in the cafeteria. It's pretty reasonable. So basically, what I'm trying to tell you is you can go there and just spend the whole day. That's. I wouldn't spend multiple days at Sweetwater. It's not that big. It's. It's a big physical size. But for you, you go there, get there. You know, when you feel like it, get up, have the day. You pace your day the way you want. Trust me, don't. You don't need to be there when it opens. Go there, go to the muse store, have some fun. Go have lunch in the cafeteria, and then after the cafeteria, go back to the MEW store and have some more fun. And then call it a day when you're done and walk around and check a couple things. I would. I would recommend it. It's nice. It's a nice experience. There's also other music stores in town that are fantastic. I have never been to any of them. Somebody keeps asking me, have you ever been to them? I have not. It's because, like, when I go Kay Duran, it's different than you. Sweetwater has me coming to do work, and so I do work. And you gotta understand, they have. So if I've been invited out, it's usually they want me to do something like, for instance, like do a podcast with the CEO. However, there's stuff I want to do, and if I want to do the stuff I want to do, I have to smash it all in in the timeframe I'm there. And so there's never been enough time. I've always been there. It's just been work, work, work, work, work, work, and go home and pass out. So maybe one time I will go and spend. Like, I'll probably. Next time I go there, I will come a day early and spend the day early checking out the music stores local and then go to Sweetwater. But the last time I went, which was last year, I just couldn't because as soon as I came back, a little fun fact, as soon as I came back from Sweetwater, actually was out of town at a factory. Doing something. Came back, was here a day, flew to Sweetwater, was there all day, flew back, had one day, and then flew to Indonesia. So it was not a whole lot of, like, there was not a whole lot of time to. To. To have. And that maybe that's a good segue. If you guys didn't see, I posted the video of the Taylor Guitars Factory. If you guys haven't watched it, I highly recommend if you wouldn't mind giving it a shot. It's doing very well. Last I saw, it had like 150,000 views. Let's take a look. Where's it at? It's at 149,600 views. So 150,000 views, so. Which is very good. I'm very excited about this. I think it was one of the most unique experiences to share with you guys in the industry. And I think in a time like now, with Fender and all the drama going on, man, nothing feels better than whatever the hell I just saw there and shared with you guys. And it's really cool, like I said. And what's great about it is the thing that happened. Well, one thing's happened already that I was shocked is I've had a couple friends in the industry who own guitar companies or guitar like businesses call me today and say, I watched the Taylor video. Wow, right? And I was like, yeah. And they go, yeah, I think I'm going to do some changes. I think you could tell it inspired them to do a little bit more. And I think that's what we need right now. A little bit more. A little bit more for the employees, a little bit more for the customers, a little bit more for the industry. A little bit more of, you know, look, it's music. Music doesn't work if it's. If you don't do it together. So I know it doesn't sound so cheesy when I talk like this, but this was great about this. You go have an experience like that. And by the way, that was in April. I did that. It. So it's been a video I've been stressing to that I wanted out. I wanted this video out. I wanted it out bad. It's a video that I really wanted. And I think I put in. I put a disclaimer so you guys know in the notes, but are in the comments. But I'll tell you guys, now we want our tailored guitars. Did not sponsor that video. That was just so you guys know Guitar center. When they. I said, hey, can I meet with the CEO again to do one year later they said, yeah, that's a great idea. We're thinking the same thing. Let's do that. Let's cinch up our schedules. We cinched up a day, which was a Thursday. They asked me if I would come Wednesday. They asked me and Shawna if we would come Wednesday and meet with the Mitchell guys to see their new business plan, to kind of see what we think of it. I look at it like, punch holes in it. They wanted to present this idea to us to see what we thought. And I said, no. I'm just, again, just being very frank with you guys. I told them no, I wasn't interested in doing that. So they told the Mitchell guys and then they came back to me and said, the Mitchell guys would really like to talk to you and just. Just run some stuff by you guys. All of this will be explained in September. You'll see. It will be a little bit shocking. No one's gonna predict what they're doing. And again, don't think about it like radical guitar shakes. Don't think of it like cool. Think of as a business model changing philosophy. And so I said, yes, I'll do it, but I want to go see the Taylor Factory. Can you help me get in the Taylor Factory? So the people at Sweet Guitar Center. I'm sorry, I keep saying that the people at Guitar center made the phone call that made Taylor Guitars happen, which is they called Taylor Guitars and said, Film Ignite would like to come see the factory. And so Taylor Guitars opened the doors to us, which is nice. So that was really cool. It helps when one of the biggest buyers of your guitars in the world says, hey, we'd like this guy to come and, and, and do a video in your factory. So I, I gotta give them credit for, for making that happen. And, and to show you guys how dumb I am sometimes to go, hey, will you come for a day? Sure. You can pay me or you can just help me make. Make more work for myself. Okay. I'm sorry to make myself laugh. Okay. All right. And again, if you're talking to me, put a question mark at the front so I know. And ah, somebody says Phil using his leverage. You know, I. One thing about this, this YouTube gig I could not figure out for the life of me is I used to believe, you know, you tit for tat, favor for favor company. Reach out and say, hey, could you do a video on this product? We can loan it to you. Do a video. And I'd be like, sure, I'll do that. Thinking, oh, one day I will call you and I will have a favor, right? And so a company would send a product that would do a video. This is years and years ago. And then maybe a year later, maybe a month later, sometime later, I call them back and going, hey, I have an idea for a video and it would be really cool if I could use one of your things. Could you, Can I borrow it? And no. And actually when I say no, keep in mind, most of the time it wasn't. They just wouldn't respond to my email. They were answering my call. And I learned real fast, like when you do somebody a favor in this industry, doesn't always mean they're going to do you a favor back. And I just thought that's a great way to do trade and business in this, in this environment, hey, I'll work with you, you work with me. And so now what I've learned and what I mean now, I mean, years ago, I learned that when a company asks you for a favor, you should ask your favor right then that's probably the best way to do it if there's a favor to ask. And if there's not, sometimes it's tough, but it's, it just works. And favors, I think are a. To me, I could have said give me money because money is nice. But I've been having trouble getting into certain factories. As you know, there's, there's. So just to give you a reference, I've talked to five factories this year about doing a factory video and all five have declined. So it's really tough. And I had this conversation again with the patrons and somebody said we were talking about more person at which factory and they even mentioned, but that factory does public tours. I go, yes, but I don't want to do a public tour. I want to do like what I did with Taylor or what I did with Cortech or where I did with Kiesel Guitars, where I did the entire video as one continuous shot with no edits in it. So 100 of what I saw in that 40 minutes is exactly what you saw with no edits, no tricks, no angles, no nothing. And that's a unique perspective. I've never done it before and I've never done it since Cortech. You know, I, you know, I want to show Taylor guitars. I want to show you something, hopefully that if you did the tour and you get this pre loaded thing, maybe it's better than that. And also I need to be able to film everything. And a lot of times we really realize or not, you Go do those preloaded tours. And they don't either let you film or if they do, you can only film the area in which they're letting you have, you know, a little access. And I, I don't think I would have figured out the thing about knives or I would have figured out the dust, or I wouldn't have figured out the blocks or all the other little things that happened. I definitely wouldn't have found. Talked about the ESOP program if it, like, it was almost like a mystery, like uncovering, like, okay, why do you guys do this? This is really strange. Oh, because of this. Oh, okay, well, why do you do this? And it was layered up. It was really nice. There's more. There'll probably be another video, which is cool. I didn't know how much of the video I could, you know, which would be interesting. But I think I have another whole other 20 minute video that will be interesting. Let's see. Mullet, the guitar guru, he's to me, he says, when you visit Sweetwater, will you have time to visit with people for a minute? Well, I have no plans to visit Sweetwater anytime soon. Like there's. I'm not going there this year. But yes, maybe, you know, I would love to do a meetup. I've kind of done them every time I've been at Sweetwater because some of you guys knew I was there and we just met up and talked and stuff. And so I've done them unofficially. But yeah, I'll let you. Let me put it this way. If I go to Sweetwater again, I'll let you guys know. Okay. Hold on. Says, I'm a little surprised. Five major factories left that Phil hasn't already visit. Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot. Especially since some have done so. You know, I've done factory tours and then gone back and done better ones. So the best for me, the way the best works for me is we do the tour and we see everything and then we go back again. That's what made Cortek and Taylor work. We actually went through them twice. Multiple times, actually. Cortek was. Multiple times. I went through multiple times through the buildings. Because as I'm going through. You know, think of this. When you're making a movie, which I've never met made, but I mean, I've seen documentary stuff. You notice how they have people like scout out the. Hey, we scouted out the places where we're going to film. That's essentially what I have to do in real time. I have to go there and make the video. And then when I'm making the video in real time, go, okay, I need to come back to there. Okay. That's actually more interesting than what they were showing me is interesting. And so you got to go back and film again and get different sections to figure out what's most interesting, so. Because ultimately, what everybody finds is interesting, and then we'll dump this topic. Every factory finds what they find interesting is their machines. They think their machines are interesting. Everybody thinks that I should be filming. All these people should just be filming hours and hours of CNZ machines going, look at this. This is where we make necks. I. I warned Shauna. Shawna has been to the PRS factory with me. She was at the Kiesel factory with me, and she's at the Taylor factory. So those are the factory she's been to. So quite a bit. However, I told her. I said. She laughed a little bit when I told her. I said, they're gonna tell you. I was giving her, I can't give you the secret sauce. But I tell her, like, this is what we have to do. Don't do this. Do this. We're gonna do this. We're gonna do this. And one of the things they said is they're gonna tell you all the time to set up your tripod and point it at something and never do that. We don't use any tripods when we do the factory tours. We use monopods so your arms don't get tired, so you can lift up and walk. Okay. And what's funny was, is I won't tell you what factory, but it was one of those three. Somebody says, hey, Shawna, if you want to set up your tripod here, you can put an angle at the machine. It was the CNC machine, and that way, you guys can get some footage of the CN machine, and we can go in front of that and talk. And Shauna laughed, and I was laughing, too, because I told her they were going to do this to you. I'm like, they're going to. They want you to film, like, 20 minutes of this CNC machine just cutting necks. I don't understand why they think that's the content people are interested in. It's not really interesting. Plus, there's hours of it already on the Internet. Okay. Patrick says, have you been to the Corona factory? I've been to the Corona factory multiple times, and I've been to the Ensenada factory. Yes. In fact, I had the most. I told this story. I won't tell it again now because too. But I will if you want, I'll tell it again sometime. I. In fact, I'll tell you what I'll do for you if you ever want to hear the crazy Corona story. I've told bits and pieces, but I'll tell the whole thing and I'll actually queue up all the photos from it because I actually found all the photos. I. I told you guys that I took physical pictures, but I. But here's what happened. I was forgot we had scanned them and I. I have them now. So I'll tell you the story about how we got the tour that we were never supposed to have. I have. I took a tour of Fender. That Fender. No. No one should have ever been able to see. And it was awesome. And I don't mean in a good way. I mean in like the employee. The. The employee who did it was not happy to have to do the tour. So they just. It was fun. Okay. Hen dog. This was sent by Amanda says Hey Phil, is there another company besides Stumac that makes a good vise to hold guitar safe or repainting or whatever, you know, I don't know. I've seen one on social media lately. There's some kind of vice that I'd never seen before and it was not the Stu Mac one. So I'll take. I'm gonna try to do some research and figure out what it is and see if I get my hands on it. I was really interested in it. Be really cool. Oh, nobody. 92, 42 1. By the way, grab by Amanda. Thank you. I have a Fender atomic humbucker pickup with one slug pole piece dead. How is this possible? Well, technically I don't know how that pickup is made. So in theory there's two. There's multiple ways to make a humbucker, so. And by the way, you said hb, so I'm assuming the atomic HB is humbucker pickup. Okay. So the way the humbucker would make is you would have work was you would have a long bar or a bar magnet. Shouldn't call a long bar. You have a bar magnet at the bottom and you're going to have six screws and six slugs teaching touching each sides and they're each sides. And therefore the magnet is magnetizing the screws and the slugs. That is not the case in all humbucker pickups. There are humbucker pickups where there is a bar magnet and it is only touching the six screws and then the six slugs are actual magnets. Right. So they'll be all Nico, two or five magnets. If that is the case, it is very possible that one of those slugs has become demagnetized or was never magnetized to begin with. And that happens all the time. It is a relatively easy, easy fix. I would recommend you take it to someone. Here's why. To fix it, you're going to need two magnets. If you have magnets that can charge them, I use. Besides, I have a machine that does it. I have really strong ones that you get that are just really like neodymium magnets and you hover them over their discs. But usually a good repair shop will have an ability to magnetize a magnet again. And that's what you need. You need them. They'll pull the slug out. It would probably take me all of a sudden. Look, here's what you would need to do it. If you were coming to me, this is what I would tell you to do. Take your strings off, because I don't want to do it because I'm going to charge you for my time. Take your strings off. I will pull your. I'll put a. Probably put a towel over your guitar. I'll pull your. Your pickup out. I'll take the base plate off your pickup. I'll use something to push the slug that's bad through. First, I'll confirm that the. That the slug is not touching a magnet. And therefore it is a. It's supposed to be a magnet itself. I push the slug through. I magnetize the slug, making sure the polarity is in the right direction. I'd put it right back and then I would expect everything to be fine. Now, if I pulled that base plate off and I saw that there was a bar magnet and those slugs are steel and they're not magnets, then I might know something's wrong with either that bar magnet or that they're not touching and they are not close enough. Sometimes things happen. I don't know and I've go about fixing that, but there are. Because of the fact I'm not familiar with that pickup. Makes me wonder that if it has six slugs. Because there are pickups, humbuckers that have six slugs. And look, there's a. Thousands of ways to make pickups. This, you know, they. Everybody tries a different thing and there's goods and bad. So that's. That's what I would imagine. One thing I can tell you though, that you. I don't say you can't do, but shouldn't do is you shouldn't magnetize the slug while it's still sitting in the bobbin. So I would just do it, pull it out and do it. You can do all that yourself, you know, with a very little to expertise and with very little damage to the guitar other than potentially scratching the guitar or, you know, but everything should be pretty good. Like I said use something. I use a little. I said towel, but I use like a rag, you know, cotton rag, I throw over. And just something that stops the. The pickup from scratching the finish. Then. Brian wants to know. Brian Gregston wants to know. Hey, Phil, do you know if the demarzio Northern Lights will swap out easily with Kiesel pickups? Any routing necessary? No, you won't have to modify the guitar. You might have to modify the pickup. So here's what I mean by that. There is a good chance that the pickup will mount in directly. Direct mount. First of all, with Kiesel, most of Kezel is going to be direct mount pickups. Some are going to have pickup frames. So there's no. If they have pickup frames, you're going to have no problems at all. It's going to be quick swap, you're happy, you're good. So if you're looking at a Delos with a pick guard, anything with a pick guard, anything with a pickup frame, just think, awesome. The reason is because Kiesel uses short legs on their mag on their pickups. And the DiMarcios, the newer lights are short legs too. So we're good. In most cases. If you're direct mounted, your. Your Northern Lights pickup is going to drop in. No problem. As long as it's. As long as it's got enough room for the. For the COVID If you have a cover, okay, but it'll drop in. The difference, though, is that Keisel uses the two screws on the base side and one screw on the trouble side. So you're gonna have to drill a new hole for your center. The scent, you know, just because your. Your DiMarzio has one hole and it's in the center. If that doesn't make sense to you, don't worry about it. When you look at it, totally makes sense. Oh, you see what he's saying? One screw in the center, not on each side. So you have to drill a hole. You want to make sure you don't go too far in the depth because you can go through the back of the guitar and you'll be bummed out. And the. So that's how you do it. However, one modification may have to happen sometimes you will have to take and make. Grind a little bit of the tabs of the. The Dimario pickup. If it's too long, it's probably not going to happen. But. But I don't know every scenario. So it's. Sometimes it happens. It's a very easy thing to do. You don't have to have, like. It's brass. It's super soft. Okay. So you can do it with. Probably if you got sandpaper on a bench, you could just do it with sandpaper if you got about five minutes in some elbow grease. Otherwise you can just use something to grind it off, like a Dremel or something. And. And that's if you have to do it, which I have not. But I don't know every route pattern, and I don't know how shallow they make that. Because you gotta understand, the way to think about it is Giesel uses like a big. Like an oval. And the DiMarzio is going to look more like a V. So there might be a little bit of that tip. You know, that's just too far. But okay, you know, it's time for. Do I have a button for this? Yeah, I do. And now it's time for this or that. So last week we skipped this for that because we did the pickups today. We're going to do this, this, or that. I don't know how good this or that's going to be this week. This is something I wanted to do for weeks, and I just wanted to do it. So let me start that. Nope. Okay, ready? This or that? So today's a fun one because hopefully you guys agree with me. Otherwise it won't make sense. But that's okay. I can't make that happen. We're going to use the PRS guitar again. We're using the same rig we did before, so we're using the Morgan PR12. Same cabinet. I'm gonna turn on the microphones for the cabinet, and I got a little delay. I'm gonna go with the neck pickup and. And switch cams. Let's switch to the case. Look at that. This or that? We're gonna start with that. Now, I'm gonna warn you, some of you gonna not like the sound of this, but that's okay. Let's roll with it. This will all make sense, I promise. We're starting with that. First, the clean tone. Okay, so I'm running delay. I know I got reverb. It all makes sense, I promise. Let's start with that. Here's that. I'll turn off My mic and we'll give you a little play. Okay, let's switch to this, Sam. Okay, so what's fun about this is I'm gonna do this two ways. We're gonna go back to that. I'm gonna add. This is something I looped earlier. This is the guitar. The same guitar. That's the clean tone. Looped. Now I'm gonna play that one more time. Okay, now we're gonna go to this. Here we go, Sam. Okay, let's turn the loop off. Now the whole point of this switch cameras. The whole point of this is that is to have some fun and talk about stuff. So today, let's see, let's take a look at the poll. If I can click on it, I always like that before I can see it, it says end it. Okay, so right now we got this at 40%, that at 47%. So 48%. So I'm definitely going to say that is the winner, which is funny. Okay, so here's what it is. What did you guys pick? Oh, it's changing. That's 49%. Okay, now we're still good. Okay, we're at. We're gonna go to 200 votes. We're almost there. 200 votes. And I'm gonna say that wins by 50%. Here is. I'm gonna call it. So what do we have for totals? We have that got 49%, which means that one. Ta da. We'll move the pic to that. This got 40%. None. Like 11%. What did we do? Well, today was interesting because we didn't actually use two different pedals. They were pedals. We used one pedal or two pedals. So let me explain. So let me open it up and show you what we have. We have the big muff. Big muff mini, right? Nano Nano. This was that. In other words. So when I was playing that, I was playing just the fuzz pedal. When I was playing this, I was playing the fuzz pedal into the Blues Breaker overdrive. I picked this because I actually prefer my fuzz through an overdrive pedal. I think it takes some of the fizz off of it and it makes it sound really, really huge in the notes sustain. For a long time I thought this would be really fun because this is something that came up in a conversation I had with some patrons again about fuzz versus overdrive and when to use them. And I somebody asked me if I use a fuzz pedal and I'm like, no, not traditionally, but when I do, I use it a lot like Slash or Eric Johnson where I'll use it in front of my amp. Now I could have run that fuz amp and it probably wouldn't great except for today I was using the Morgan, which doesn't really have an overdrive, so I use the Blues Breaker. So this is my preferred way. So like I said, I picked this. So we disagreed today, which happens to me. I was always curious to see how would you guys hear too I. In. To me, the Big Muff sounds great, but it's just fizzy. It's a lot of fuzz. And then to me with the Blues Breaker, it's just a little smoother. So. And this is something I thought no matter how this ends because again, this is great about this. There's. It's not really designed so that there's a winner or a loser. It's more so again, what we see and what we hear and then a conversation. I know a lot of you don't really maybe experiment with this. I think a lot of you should try to experiment with fuzz pedals with overdrives or fuzz pedals with overdriven amps. I think it's a. It's a really. It's a lot of fun. So that was fun. That was fun. Let's. Let's do. Kevin says I prefer distortion. What's funny, I absolutely prefer distortion. I would definitely not call myself a fuzz person, but that it was. It's. It's funny story was I tried this a couple times to do this is this or that. And both. Both times, I guess a couple times. Both times it wasn't translating to you guys because that's one of the problems I have to deal with when I do this is sometimes what I hear isn't what is being sent to you guys. You know, by the time it's thrown through this mixer into a live feed, which is heavily compressed in the live. Whether you realize it or not, audio is even more compressed on YouTube when it's alive, is my understanding. So. But it's still fun. All right, let's do one last question in the show. What do we got? I'm going to grab. Okay, hold on. See, I say that and then I didn't do it. Here it is. This. Nope. Why did I have. Okay, see, I thought I had one queued up. Maybe I don't. Let's try here. I thought I had one queued up. I guess I didn't. I thought I grabbed one. Okay, let's do a live one again because I had one from earlier. Oh, okay. Matt Wants to know, have I ever gone back and listened through YouTube? Maybe we hear it differently. Sure. So I do two. So here's what I do. I gotta do a couple things when I do these. I, you know, set up my rig. I listen to it in the room. I kind of make a decision, then just off what's in the room. I think that's the most honest way to do it. I'm here. I should give you the decision that's here. And then I have a way to record with this rig without streaming it live. And I'll listen to the recorded rig. And then I try to assess how much I believe the recorded sound sounded like the real sound. I try to adjust them, you know, and sometimes what I have to adjust is some of the controls on the pedals. Just something just to make sure that it translates really well. Because, again, I'm not trying to do anything other than give you an honest representation of what I did. And then sometimes I'll stream it real fast on unlisted, because I can stream live unlisted through. And then I'll stream it, and then I'll listen to the unlisted. Sometimes I do that, but if I feel like it's. It's close enough with the. The recorded side and this, I'll just leave it alone. However, every time I do the show, I get to hear about. Because I hear. I watch this whole show because I have to timestamp everything so I get to see what you guys hear. And if I think there's enough of a. It's too dramatically different, obviously, I'd probably say something to you guys, so. But yeah. All right. On that note, I think we'll call it. That was a fun show. I hope you guys all had fun. I had fun. If you guys did. How do. I was gonna say, how are we doing? We're doing great. Let me refresh this and. Oh, cool. So we still have Northern Lights left. I'm just going to let you know right now. Shows the quantity still in stock. It's not on stock. So if you want to get a set of Northern Lights pickups, you can just let you know. And then, like I said, if you don't want to get them right now, they'll be in stock in less. I'd say less than two months. We'll have them in stock again. And then we. I wouldn't say we're not going to run out, but like I said, when we run out, we'll just order more. But we're trying to order more and more source so we don't run out of stock. So again, no, no fomo. You don't have to freak out and worry that you're not going to get us that. All right, on that note, I want to thank you guys all for your time. I want to thank the moderators for making the show awesome. And I want to thank the channel members and the patrons for supporting the channel. And I want to thank all of you for watching it and supporting the channel by watching, liking, subscribing. And if you haven't, you can check out two things. You can check out the the Taylor Guitars Factory tour video that I highly recommend on this channel. And on our second channel, there's a link. You can watch me and Andy Powers, the CEO of Taylor Guitars, talk about why they decided to do what they did with their employees and do what they did with the. You know, just all of their efforts and what they're up to. I definitely. I definitely recommend both as it was a really interesting experience and I love sharing it with you guys. On that note, thank you for your time. Till the next time, Know youw Gear. The Know youw Gear podcast. Okay, I gotta stop. Just to say, I never end the show perfectly and professional like that. That was pretty. I think I nailed it. All right, bye, guys. Have a great weekend.