Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:01]
A
The Know youw Gear Podcast. The Know youw Gear Podcast is brought to you by Patreon members, Channel members and viewers who like and subscribe. Thank you for making this possible. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Know youw gear podcast episode. March 13th. Friday the 13th. It's Friday 13th, and it's March 2026. If you guys didn't know the year, that's the year too. Hope everybody had a fantastic week. I have prompts on my screen and sometimes I'm like, they're ready and I'm reading them. And sometimes I'm like, oh, yeah, that wasn't the right screen to start with. Okay, so anyways, let's get into it. Let's get into the main topic, because it's gonna be the main topic for sure. So barrage emails I got this week, you could imagine everybody's like, hey, hey, did you see the news? Did you see the news? So the big news this week, if you haven't figured out, is that I was gonna make a joke. I don't even have a joke. Let's just go right to it. Okay, here's what it is. So let's go off the Guitar World article, shall we? The Guitar World article says, Fender wins lawsuit in Germany. And it says, reinforces the value of originality. By the way, Guitar center, our Guitar world. Sorry, Guitar World. I know you their sponsor, but come on. Reinforces the value of originality. All right, Fender secures legal ruling to protect the Stratocaster body design I liked. Look, I'm. I'm. I'm clickbaited like everybody else, right? I like. I like a. A good title sometimes to get you, you know, to click on it so I don't die on the vine, so to speak, on YouTube. But, man, the clickbait in this week was pretty epic. So what does this all mean? Look, first of all, we're gonna start with this. I'm not only not an attorney, I don't really know law that much. So even I've probably seen a court drama. And so if you're taking any legal advice from me, you're on the wrong channel. Don't take legal advice from guitar techs. Don't take. No, yeah, yeah. Don't take legal advice from guitar techs. Don't take guitar advice from lawyers, maybe. So anyways, here's the deal. Please hear me out. What has happened? So essentially, I'm going to give you a really dumbed down breakdown, because I don't have to worry about anything else. The dumbed down breakdown is there's a Chinese company in China who's importing guitars that look like Fenders. Like everyone else except for the Fender headstock as well. They weren't putting Fender. This isn't a, this isn't a fake or so to speak, a. What do you call it? A. I'll just say a fake. Right. But anyways, what happens is, is that Fender sued them in the, in the German courts and they didn't show up. That's my understanding. They didn't even show up. So by default they got the judgment or they won the case or whatever you call that. Whatever the legal ease is that the attorneys are going to put in the comments, that's technically not the right thing. But the important part is, is that Fender wins this thing. Okay? And what happens is the, the argument was essentially that the body shape, as we know Fender lost its, its legal battle in the US Many years ago. It was fighting that essentially the Fender Strat body shape, the Tele body shape and the P base body shape were trademarked and protected. And what was ruled was essentially they're not. They're public domain now. So in the United States, the Fender tele. This is important that, you know, it's just these three. The Tele body shape, the Stratocaster body shape, and the P base body shape are considered public domain. The. That's why anybody can make them. Now, the Fender headstock is trademarked and protected, okay? And if you don't know the difference between copyrights, trademarks and patents, I suggest a quick little, you know, a Google search to get your. Get your census. Because they're different and they get conflated as being each other. Okay? So that is different than what happened in Germany. In Germany, they decided that essentially the body shape, the Strat body shape is copyrighted. Now, now, not trademarked. Copyrighted. A little different. Okay? Now why does that matter? Well, according to everybody, it means the end of all guitars into Europe that are not Fenders, which is, I don't think is accurate. But more importantly, let's just give you. I'm going to give you some opinions. You're probably not going to like some of them. That's okay. You know what? You'll live, I promise. Right? Get yourself a cool beverage and get through it. First of all, I find this utterly stupid. I. I really think the German courts really, which is funny because I always think of the European Union as being way more consumer advocate than the United States. There's way more laws protecting consumers in Europe, in my opinion, than in the United States, in the most part, at least in my experiences. And this ruling really is not good for the consumer. It's only good for Fender. Let me hear my argument before I go on because I know I'm going to get comments about this. The reason is, is that the Fender Strat has been around for 60 years and the copies of the strat at least 40. 40 years, right? Okay. So you gotta understand, there's 40 years of finder Strat copies in Europe right now. They're already there. You can't stop them. So let's be very clear. Again, not an attorney, but certain things I'm gonna tell you, you can own a Strat in Europe, okay? A Strat copy, you can own it, you can sell it. If it's your personal property, right? You didn't build it, you're just selling it. You can buy it, you can own it. It's, it's, it's, it's. You cannot build one in Europe according to this, which we'll get into that in a second. And you can't ship one into Europe. But we're not the manufacturers, we're the consumers, right? So as a consumer, if you currently own a Silver sky, and we'll get to that, or a Fender Strat like guitar, you can still own it. No one can stop you. You can sell it to your friend, no one can stop you. You can buy it from a friend or a stranger, no one can stop you. So you understand, this isn't like, you know, they protected Fenders body shape and now Fenders protected. This has been going on for 40, 50 years, which means now there's 40, 50 years of guitars in Europe that are there, that are legal. But now going forward, they wouldn't be legal in theory. Okay? The other thing that's interesting about this is copyright laws are a little stranger than trademark laws. I own some copyrights, I own some trademarks. I know very little other than what I've had to go through to get them. And one of the things about copyrights is, to me, it's a little weird that it's a copyright. Because this is like they're basically encapsulating the idea that it's art. You know, they're saying the Strat body shape is art. I saw a bunch of channels say anything that looks like a Strat is now protected. I would argue one no, because essentially, I think what they really secured was just the Fender Strat shape, the original, like what's behind me here, that Strat shape. And look, I did not see Anything I didn't read, anything that would make me think that if I was making like a Sir Modern or something like that, that I'm stopped from sitting it in. What's interesting about this is just like a copyright. You all know what copyrights are because you've all seen them as musicians. Because usually when you see copyright fights, they're in. The biggest aren we see is music. So like somebody uses a song or this music and it sounds like somebody else's copywritten song. And we know like as raw musicians that like the chords GCD are used in almost every song. So no one can copyright GCD and say, hey, anyone who uses these chords can't make a song. That's not how it works, it's how close it gets to the original art, the original song, right? And sometimes like a lot of us, again, we're not attorneys, but we could be jurors. So a lot of times you heard a song and you go, wow, that sounds exactly like this other song, right? Case in point was Vanilla Ice is a song that basically sounded like Queen, right? Famously Vanilla Ice says, no, it's different because mine goes ding ding ding ding, a ding ding. Right? So that was the argument there. The point is that when it comes to copyright, if it's slightly different, sometimes it's different and they can fight it out in court. So what I read, I don't really see where Fender, Fender is still going to have to fight anybody who's sitting in guitars. So like my first thing that somebody asked me, a friend asked me who says, does that mean they can't ship Silver Skies to Europe? I said I'd be very doubtful if that is the case. Okay? So I'm pretty sure PRS is still going to be sending Silver Skies to Europe. However, I'd like to play a little game if we could. Let's pretend they couldn't. Let's pretend that Fender could lock down the Fender body shape from all manufacturers. This is why they'd be screwing the consumers in Europe and the government there would be helping them do it. First of all, first of all, they're already there. There's like I said, 50, 60 years of fake Fender esque guitars in Europe so people can still get them. What will happen is those prices would skyrocket. If you had a Silver sky in Europe or in Germany today and you know, you can't get any more into your, into the country or into the union. Well then you wouldn't sell yours cheaper, would you? We'd raise the price and then Fender having no competition, they're going to raise the price. Why do I think that? Because Fender's raised its price anytime it could. So if you give somebody a monopoly on the shape, especially shape that's been around for 60 years, they're going to take advantage of it, especially a corporation. So I just don't like this ruling. I don't like the idea of it, sadly enough. I think it'll get challenged or fought out with other companies, but I don't even know if it's going to have to. Because I think that as long as enough companies are slightly enough different, I think Fender's not going to go after them. Because I think that's what's really got to happen, right? Fender's got to go after these companies. But in the case of a friend who's in Europe who said, hey, should I buy a Silver sky before it's too late, I said, well, if you want a Silver sky, you should probably get it anyways because they're not going to get cheaper, right? They're going to get more expensive. And that's not factoring this in. But factoring this in, you might have a hiccup. I will tell you. I can't tell you officially who because I got to keep it off the record, but I did talk to a couple companies this week that actually make Fender type guitars. And all of them said. I said, can this. Does this affect you? And all of them said exactly the same thing. I don't know. I don't think so. I don't know. So they're going to reach out to their attorneys and find out if there's any issues before they ship guitars into Europe. So I think it's a horrible idea. And I understand. Look, and I'm not against Fender trying to protect itself. I just think the idea that somebody's going to lock down, you know, the whole design of a guitar, the shape that's been around forever and used by so many is a. Is a dumb argument. I've said this before. You know, then every acoustic guitar is a Martin, basically, right? Every pickup truck's a Ford pickup truck. You know, I made the joke to my wife the other day. I said, you know how I know the difference between a Dodge pickup truck and a Ford pickup truck? One says Dodge and one says Ford. In fact, I like to push this argument just to be funny, but it's kind of. It made me laugh. I said, you know how I know the difference between a Squire and a Fender? One says Squire and one says Fender. Even Fender understands that. Otherwise why would it say different names? Why does Fender put Squier on a guitar if every guitar that looks like a. Like let's just argue Strats. Why is Fender putting Squire on a Fender Stratocaster if every Stratocaster is a Fender? Because they're not. Some Stratocaster shaped guitars are Squires. I don't know why I'm pointing that way. Some are Fenders, some are Sirs, some are knockoffs from other brands. Some are Delos's from Kiesel. Some are, you know, insert here Schecters. A lot of people have been making Squire shapes or Strat shapes. Oh, sorry, Strat shapes for a long time. But that's just my two cents. I saw a lot of the. The problem is, is that a lot of comments, a lot of videos seem to be around the idea of what if this is the future and we lose all this? I personally am like, I like Fenders so I'll still buy Fenders. However, I don't, I don't fear that I'm not going to be able to get a better quality instrument or another different brand that is a shape that I like, like a Fender Stratocaster. I'm not, I have no fear of it. Not just because I'm not in the. Are you in the USA and not in Europe? I don't think this is going to be a huge win for them. Keep in mind, there's another option too. Just like with Fender headstocks, that one of the things, back to the why I think this is bad for consumers in Europe is Fender could. This could easily work itself out as if, let's say Fender could lock down the Fender Stratocaster shape in Europe. They could license it. They probably would, I would imagine because it'd be a lot cheaper than fighting everybody. Because keep in mind they fought one Chinese company who didn't show to court. It'd be a lot different. Like when they, when they were fighting a lawsuit in the U.S. they fought that lawsuit that they lost against. It was Schecter. It was, I think it was Lakeland. It was Warmoth. Right. It was a bunch of companies that came together. I would imagine in Europe the same thing could happen. You could have. Sir, you could have PRs. You could have a bunch of companies come together and fight Fender in the courts there. However, I would imagine, I would imagine that if Fender was smart, they wouldn't want to fight that. What they could do is use this, this court win or whatever you want to call it this ruling as a licensing deal. Like, hey, if you're going to make a thing that looks like my, the Fender Strat, you need to designate that with license by Fender and also pay us a royalty. Again, bad for the consumer because now the consumer has to pay more for anything that's not a Fender. And again, I could argue a totally different argument if this was a brand new product. And this is where I want to put a little caveat or a disclaimer every time I talk about stuff like this, whether it's a Gibson or whatever. Somebody, usually a small pedal builder, not picking on pedal builders, just it's usually what you are. But, but sometimes others and builders, small builders and sometimes medium large builders reach out to me with emails and tell me how wrong I am that really, you know, if you, you know, they explain their side, which is, if I made this product, I need to protect it. No one should be able to copy it. I'm not gonna read your email, so don't send it. The reason is, is cause I always approach this from one angle and one angle only, which is consumer protection. Why? Not because I'm a consumer, but because I have been in business long enough to know that the only thing that really matters is customers. I don't care what anybody says. Ask G and L how they feel about having a great guitar design. And no customers right now. That's what I've learned. And the reason I know that is because when you have, you know, I mean, there's a thousand of you watch right now, when you have a group of people that, you know, watch my content, when I talk about a product, they sell lots of it. That's the marketing, the concept, right? You know, it's in people's eyes and ears. So the point I'm trying to make is, is that customers are what really matter. And if they don't feel safe buying from you, if they don't like your product, if they, if it's too expensive for the wrong reasons, they don't buy. And then you don't sell. And no law, no court is going to save you from the death of having no customers. So I'm always going to advocate for, hey, it's not only I think it's better to have consumer protection laws and laws that are more focused to protect consumers, but also I think as long as customers are out there buying, you're better off. I'd rather, you know, a perfect example of that is this. I'll say it, I say it so many times. I sold It. I said it. I sold it. I said it to the CEO of Sweetwater, to his face, Mike Klim. And I watched a bunch of employees that work for Sweetwater butts pucker a little bit. Little fear in their faces. I said to his face, Guitar center pays me three times more for every affiliate click than you do. And I said, but all of my viewers buy Sweetwater by a huge margin. In fact, by the math, three times. If only, you know, if three times have you bought from Sweetwater that would probably equalize out. You even buy at a higher rate than that. The point is, is that Sweetwater gives me the lowest amount of, I guess, commission off an affiliate click than any affiliate that I have. By. By. Not even by half by, like I said, sometimes a quarter. But because they have the customer base, I don't send you to Sweetwater. I've told you guys this before. You were already going there. It just so happens you like this channel and you like Sweetwater. Then somehow you, you click the links and we get a little something for that. My point is exactly this. The customers rule the roost. You, they're in charge. So. So that's my 2 cents on the subject. Anyone else got any sense on? Seemed to be a lot of big headlines this week. I really think it's nothing. So, you know, I don't think it's going to affect anything other than I kind of like the idea that they kind of put the knockoff, you know, import Kai's a little bit in their place. But keep in mind, you know, I have opinions about that that are. Like I said, as long as counterfeit is the word I was looking for, as long as a product is not counterfeit, I'm usually okay with it being copied. Me personally, that's how I look at things. Like I said, as long as I or a normal person can determine what I am buying, then I really don't care because I know I like Fender over. Let's just pick two brands that I like. I like Schecter guitars, but I prefer. I prefer the Fender Strat over what Schecter makes as a Strat. That's just my personal preference. It's not a quality preference, it's just a preference. If F. Schechter put Fender on their headstock and made it look like exactly a Fender and then I bought one and found out it was a Schecter, I would be a little upset. See, but I don't because it says Schecter on it. It's kind of the first tell. It's kind of like when I'm looking at Gibson's and I says, you know, any brand but Gibson on headstock, I go, maybe this is not a Gibson. So. And yeah. All right. Yes. Ellen says the government does not care about the holder of the mark. Trademarks are intended only for protection of consumers. I believe the same thing. Keep in mind, Ellen, just to be clear, this is why it gets confusing today. They didn't win a trademark case, they won a copyright case, which is really odd that it's usually. That's not something we talk about. When we talk about headstocks and body shapes. We usually talk about trademark. Like I said, designs. You're going to talk about patents or, you know. Right. You know, like, you know, when they create it from, you know, like a design. Right. Trademarks are sometimes names, sometimes a shape, you know, or a logo. Right. That's usually trademarked. And then copyrights are like, considered, like usually art. Art. Okay. And again, these are very vague, you know, kind of brushovers, but just keep it at that way. But, yeah, I don't. The big thing I took away was, I think a lot of people saw a lot of videos and, you know, clutched their pearls and freaked out, so to speak. And I just want you guys to know one thing. If you're in the United States, nothing's changed for you at all. And if you're in Europe, well, there are lots of used and still not sold new products that are Fender shaped that you can get your hands on. No, no problem. So if they are successful at locking you guys out, I would boycott Fender. So I can tell you exactly what I would do if Fender won a law, a lawsuit here in the United States that stopped all manufacturers from making anything that looks like a Fender shape. I would purposely never buy Fender again. As a consumer, not because I don't understand the desire to want to protect the thing that they created. But at this point, like I said, it's a little too late in the game. You know, we're not, you know, we're not going to wait 60 years later and lock everything down. So what is my. What is it? We were making jokes the other night. I said, we were talking about trademarks and confusion. And I said, no one's ever walked into Chuck E. Cheese think it's Disneyland. And no one's ever walked into Disneyland thinking it's Chuck E. Cheese. That's my opinion on that. Okay, Let's see. I want to say chained. Chained. I'm going to. I'm sorry. Chained. Whatever says Phil Any ideas why so many Floyd Rose parts are out of stock on their website, as well as Sweetwaters for months? A lot of Floyd Rose issues. You know, as you know, Floyd Rose Germany shut down. Then they moved it to Floyd Rose usa. And so that's. If you're looking for German parts, they're gone. And then they got to make the new USA parts. And they've been in a backlog because you got to understand they have corporate accounts and then they have regular accounts. You know, they sell to us like the average guitar players. So. So Floyd Rose sells to us, and then these corporate accounts, you understand, some of these guitar companies, they get. They. They weren't getting parts for a while, so they got scarce. And then they need parts, so they have to backfill that. That's part of it. Some of the import parts. Look, we've had every problem. So parts are an issue for a lot of reasons. Because even though, you know, we said, hey, the market slowed down, keep in mind, look at all the things going on. If it's not a tariff, it's a war. If it's not a war, it's a Covid. If it's not a Covid, it's, you know, you name it. Tsunami. I don't know at this point, I mean, it's like every. Every. It's just one thing after another. So there's always supply chain issues. So that's part. Part of the problem right there. So I haven't noticed it myself, but I've noticed some other problems. Like I have problems getting certain parts, you know, certain bridge parts and certain things for other manufacturers and same thing. It's just you got to go where you got to go. Like Sweetwater's out of stock. However, I'll tell you, Sweetwater sells so much volume, you think they'd always have in stock. And I find sometimes that's why they're always out of stock. Is their volume so high? So a lot of times, if I can't find a Sweetwater, that's my first inkling is to go find smaller dealers right away because somebody's sitting on a part. Because, you know, again, marketing, everyone knows to go to Sweetwater. So we go there first, and we don't think to go to, like, Dave's guitar shop in Minnesota because he's sitting on, you know, all the parts you need. So you do got to hunt and peck around a little bit sometimes. If you keep refining your Google searches, it helps you a little bit too, you know, just find it in stock. You Know, just tell the Internet what you need, right? That's usually the way I like to search things, is tell it exactly what I want. Not a. Not a. Not a. Not like Floyd Rose part, right? Or whammy, you know, Bar, I put like, I need a Floyd Rose black tremolo arm for cell, you know, And I type out the whole sentence. And sometimes that helps the search refine a little bit. Funky pose. I said, man, Dave. Dave has everything. You know, it's funny is I think I always go to the Dave's shop. I always make up that name. And it's funny because I know there's a bunch of actual Dave's guitar shops and Dave's music stores. So it's kind of funny that I make it up, but it's real. Let's see. Okay, hold on a second. Let me grab. By the way, if anyone has any feedback on my thoughts on Fender, let me know. I love to. Love to hear why I'm wrong. Okay. Grandmaster Pash. This is a grand for a grab from by Amanda says, hey, Phil, I want to match my vintage PAF with a modern reproduction. What do you recommend? I mean, I think when you're thinking about the. The best replica paf, it's throwback pickups. You're going to pay through the nose through them. They're like eight, nine hundred dollars a set. I mean, you can buy an individual one, but in my experience, if like you said, a vintage. If you were a vintage collector who collects, you know, real PAF pickups, I'm not saying that's your case, but I'm just saying and you wanted that you wanted something that was die hard, close as you're going to get it is two things I can tell you. One, I don't think you can get any closer than throwback pickups. Two, I believe everything they're saying. So the I. There are some pickup manufacturers out there that I think make great PF pickups. In fact, tons of them. In fact, if the question is as simple as who makes a great PAF Pickup, Seymour, Duncan, DiMargio, bare knuckles, just to name a few. And we're not even going to the small ones yet. We haven't even got to like, you know, all the small builders that I can highlight. However, re reproduction the best reproduction. No one does better than the guys at throwback. And. And here's why. So you know, I'm a nerd for guitar. And so I. I obsess about everything guitar. But there are different levels of nerd and some nerds Only focus on one thing. So like guitar is a broad spectrum of things. I'm into guitar, so I, I'm pretty knowledgeable about the electronics in a guitar, the woods about the guitar, the woods in the guitar, you know, the fret material, the construction concepts, you know, the shapes, the names, the branding, the history. I'm into all of it and I kind of look. But you gotta understand, while I'm doing all of that, someone like me who's learning a little bit of everything. So I kind of learn as much as I can. Somebody like Jonath is they're focused on one thing, guitar pickup. But not making a great guitar pickup. Making an exact copy of the original, using the machines, doing the research to find out not only what the right wire was, but the right machine, the right shapes, and then not only reverse engineering it, but then paying the people that are not cheap to recreate those things. So that's, that's what I would say is what I would, I would, I'd say, I'd go so far as this. There are, there are people. So I don't want to like throw shade, right? There are people that make $800 sets of pickups besides throwback. I've turned down free pickups from them because after my research, I could not figure out what they were doing different than anyone like me or, you know, anyone else that's making pickups can do. Where throwback is a different level. Right? That's a different level of scrutiny to master one thing, which is these, these original pickups. So that's why I say that the price though is, is brutal. And, and I, and I've said this before, so you guys know I have a set in this guitar. They, they did give me that set. So, you know, but I did, I did not buy another set, but I bought a guitar with, with them that had an option to not have them. I could have had Lindy Frailens in that guitar. Lindy Frill makes great pickups. Another pickup company I highly recommend if you want a great, you know, PAF style pickup, Lindy Frailen, way more affordable. But if you're looking for the most accurate, something that's going to feel, you know, and look and be and sound like the original in every way. Even though those details only push it a little bit over the edge. You know, there's no, and I say this like there's no way for me to go, oh man, you think, you know, if you've spent $300, you spent, you know, once you go to eight, you're really there the difference is going to be a small gap in what you're going to perceive as, you know, the difference of quality. But there's a little bit of fun knowing that they obsessed about it to that, to that scrutiny. And so that's why. And that's why I did it on my guitar. I said, you know what? I like Lindy Frailens, but I'm gonna pay the extra for the throwback. So I did. So. But yeah. So, yeah, Wiz Dog says the trick this rollback is they have a sale once a year. Last year was the SLE101. It was 20% off. Yeah, they do 20% off only on Black Friday. I saw that last year. So. And I was gonna get something, I thought about it and then I decided instead, let's just get the guitar with the pickups in it. And then I, I did the DiMarjio sale. I bought a bunch of DiMarzio pickups, which apparently you guys did too, because my pickups did not show up until last month. So maybe I'll tell you the story. I just, I just told the story to Larry DiMargio, so I can probably tell you guys now. I was telling him about how the pickups I bought in on Black Friday, you know, it takes about eight weeks to get pickups. Well, it was like February and I still hadn't got the pickups. So I was like, I think I'll reach out. So I called, I'll just tell the story. So I called DiMarzio pickups. And I'm a little. I was a little nervous. Here's why. In my years in retail, there were two places on the planet I did not enjoy calling New New York. And I'm not really super familiar, but whatever part of Canada is Canadians. I know they're all Canadians. Whatever part of Canada is the French Canadians. I say this like, go down. So I'm going to say go, Dan. I'm a western person, so apparently like you can tell. I'm like, hey, what's up? Let's have some fun people in New York, a little, they're a little abrupt, little curt, little right. And they get up, not mad, they don't get throw fits. It's just, you can feel this. You can hear and feel the displeasing ness in their tone. And same with the French Canadians. Like I would call Godin. So, you know, at our store, I've said this before, this is absolutely true. At our store we used to all play rock, paper, scissors when Godin called the store. To see who would have to answer the phone because it was going to be horrible. No matter what happened, they were always mad about something. And they weren't mad. It was just their tone. We were told all the time, like, no, they're fine. So anyway, so I had to call DiMargio's customer service, and I was like, I should call, because I'm like, what if it got lost? You know? Because I'm thinking, oh, no, what if we get lost in the mail? Because it's been a while and. And I called and. And the lady answered, and I have a horrible New York accent, so I apologize, but it kind of. It's important. She's like, dimaggio, pickups. And I'm like, hi. Hi. My name is Phil McKnight. I ordered some pickups on black Friday, and I was just making sure they didn't get lost in the mail. And then she goes, oh, yeah, look, hon. No, this day we took in so many orders. I know my New York's like Boston, and it's all throw mess anyways. She's like, no, no, let me look up your order. And I go, okay. And she goes, oh, look, yours is gonna be out in a week. I can. I can go down tomorrow and make sure they hurry up. And I'm like, no, no, I'm good. I'm good. She was so nice. And I was like. And then afterwards, I was like. I was like, yeah, Ghostbusters. What do you want? That's what I was waiting for. I thought when I called, it was gonna be like, what do you want? And then I was gonna be like, oh, my pickups. And they're gonna be like, suck it. So I told Larry the story. He laughed. I said, she was super nice. They were great. I said, but it's just a weird thing over the years, you know, sometimes you. You call. Here's. Here's why I should tell you this so you guys don't think I have, like, any kind of weird anti New York or anti French Canadian thing. First of all, the. The Godin people were just really strangely abrupt and short and, like, kind of like it was tough on the phone. But I have had two experiences with two companies in New York as a dealer, and both I thought were gonna physically punch me at one point. And I'm not exaggerating. One. One was pickboy picks. The guy, I think he was the owner. If he was the owner, he was definitely somebody who was not happy with me. I went to the pick boy picks booth. I was a dealer for Pickboy picks. And they had just picked up the line of. Of. Of. But no. What was the baseline? Ken Smith. They were Ken Smith. So Ken Smith came with an import base that looked like a jazz bass. It was just a jazz bass. And then funny enough, another dealer in town who got it, and I noticed it had been sitting there all year and they hadn't sold it. So I went to the pickboy booth, and I was. Obviously, I'm a huge pick boy fan. Pickboy picks fan, by the way, have tons of them. And so I went there and I was talking to the guy and I. He said, oh, by the way, did you see our new Ken Smith bass? And I said, yeah, the one that looks like a jazz bass. And he's like, yeah. And I said, yeah, I don't get it. And he goes, what do you mean you don't get it? And I go, no, I saw it. I go, yeah, we tell Fender. I'm like, I don't really need it right now. And he's like, I don't understand. What do you mean you don't get it? And I go, well, your ad, you know, I. He had the ad right there. And it's just a picture of the base. And I go, it's just a picture of the bass. It really doesn't tell me, like, is it for jazz? Is it for metal? Like, who's the player for this? Like, what's the market? Who's. Who's the buyer? Like. And he's like. And I forget what he says, Nick. But it was something like, look, let me tell you something, right? And that was kind of funny, right? So I was like, oh, no. Okay. Now, the other story, which I'm sorry to tell is, is I. I may have walked into this myself, but I told this story before, so I'll be super brief. I once went to Fedora Bases booth, and they had a. A Victor Wooten ying yang bass. If you guys don't know what that is, just think it's like nine grand. It's super expensive. And they had one sitting there, and I go, whoa, look at that. And I'm staring at it, and I'm looking at it, and I'm. I'm doing the. The Wayne's World. Like, oh, it's so amazing. And this guy, which, by the way, he has a name tag. This is the important part, because the name tag is not the owner of Zaun. Okay? Right. It's just. Damn. He saying Zahn. I mean, Fedora. Fedora. It's not the owner of Fedora. So it's just says employee, and it's got a thing. And he's right. And so I go. I go, yeah, I'm just looking at the bass. It's so beautiful. And he's like, you want to play it? And I go, sure. And I pick it up and I play it. And he goes, that's going. And I go, how much is it? And he goes, that's going to Victor Wooten right after the show. It's not for sale. So I'm like, I just played Victor Wooten's bass before Victor Wooten. That's amazing. So I got out my pocket knife and I went, no, I'm just kidding. So then what happened was. And I told this story before I used to play our coco strings. And I said, hey, I heard this rumor because our cocoa strings had closed down. I said, I heard a rumor that down the road from you guys, Arco strings closed down. And you guys got the machines and the employees, and now you're making our coco strings. Are the fedora strings just relabeled our cocos? Are you making our cocos? And he gets so mad, and he goes, who told you that? That's a lie, right? And I'm like, okay. He goes, I'm the owner. And I'm like, what? He's like, I think he's like, joey Fedora. Joe Fedora. And I'm like, oh. I go, oh, I didn't notice that because you had a different name. He's like, I don't like people that know who I am. I'm like, okay, I'm standing there. Sean is standing there. Sean. Of course she takes a step back because she's like, what's going on? Right? And so I'm sitting there going, what's going on? And he goes, look, our coco had two kinds of quality. Fedora only has one kind of quality. I'm like, okay, I really like our coco. So I thought it was like, I'm like, I think I'm complimenting the guy saying, hey, I like them. I think you do stuff. And anyways, he. So at that point, I was like, okay, don't. Sometimes you got to be a little softer, a little bit backed off with the east coast companies is what I learned. So what I'm trying to say is the demarcia people were super nice. She was. She was super, super nice. Because I was like, this is going to go bad. All right? But anyways. But in all fairness, I got to tell you, and this is props to fedora. Sean and I, that was in 2005 when that happened. So that was 20 years ago, 21 years ago. And to this day, Sean and I say at least once a week, only got one kind of quality, not two kinds, and almost became a mantra for our store and our current business now. So it's kind of funny that I'm telling that story. Kind of like, he was a jerk. But it was also like a story that we made fun of so much that it just became a mantra of ours too. Is like, yeah, we don't have two kinds of quality. We have one kind of quality. Like a good example, I think I said it a week ago on the, on the Novo video. The patron saw the original and she goes, is that going out today? And I go, it's not going out today. It's not right? And she's like, oh, so not today. And I go, we got one kind of quality, Sean, and not two kinds. So the video goes out tomorrow when it's the one kind of quality that's a true story. So we still use it. But anyways, so Tumbleweed Rancher says Phil must be much more confrontational in person. No, you know what it is? You think that. But the way I am in person is exact like this. So you can imagine there's no filtering on things, right? I just say things. So, like, most people probably don't say things. I'm like, for instance, hey, I heard the string company shut down and you bought it and now you're doing it. See, you might think that's not a big deal, but what I've learned is most people don't walk around and either start giving opinions or telling rumors or talking about stuff. See, I immediately engage and start like this, start interacting like, hey, I heard this. Is that true? Is this true? And what I've learned is certain people get upset. Just so you know. It's kind of funny. So for the lefties out there. So, you know, I once asked. I once asked Floyd Rose, how come you don't make a left handed Floyd Rose? And he said, I don't think you understand the machining and the tooling that would be involved in that. And I said, oh, interesting you should mention that. I said, ibanez makes a low pro trim for the band corn, and it has a tremolo arm on both sides. But check this out. They just drill out the other hole and then they put in the mechanism. So they can sometimes make the same bridge and not drill out that hole. So you could put a tremolo arm on each side of the Floyd Rose and then allow the customer to pick the side they want. And I said, even some red handed players might, like Stevie Ray Vaughan might want to have it on the top. And he says, I don't think you understand how hard that is. I said, no, I got a Makita drill. We could do it right now. I can show you. He wasn't happy, but we made friends since then. But he was not happy with me. Was then 10 years later I met him again. He was super nice and he doesn't. I don't think he recalls that conversation. But I definitely going to tell you this. If there was ever a person in my life who gave me the. Get out of here, kid, you're bothering me. It was Floyd Rose. And it was at that moment because he was done with me. He was not rude or mean. He was just done with me. In fact, right around that time, I felt the tug on the shirt that I get from Shawna. Like, let's go, time to go. He's done with you. So yeah, I'm not confrontational, but most people don't say crap like, hey, let's get a Makita drill and just start messing up your stuff. So. All right. But hey, it led to a YouTube channel where I do the stuff on my by my own. Now I just, I'll just take apart the stuff on my own. Okay, let's, let's. What are we gonna do now? Where are we? Time. Oh, we're doing good on time. Let me refresh this screen. I got water. Okay, Dean. What is Dean? He says, hey, I have a warm audio clone and it's way louder than the rest of my pedals. Think Hot Rod Deluxe. Do I change the pot? So, okay, your word says K L O N E. Are you thinking? I'm thinking clone. Are you saying it's like a clone clone pedal and it's way louder? It's way louder than the rest of your pedals. Okay. No, I mean, I understand. By way louder it has a volume control. You're talking about when your volume's at lowest point. I have not tried their version of that pedal. But I don't know if necessarily I'd have you changing out the potentiometer. It could. I mean, it could. Because I don't know which potentiometer they're using, whether it's, you know, it's a linear or not. So maybe that's what's happening and you're just getting all the volume right up front or there's not A taper off until the right at the end. Right. So changing the potentiometer could do that. Keep in mind, I don't know the pedal. I haven't seen it. Don't know what components in there, but I have not experienced that. I actually, here's what I can tell you. I have experienced. I have experienced some pedals are fuller and bigger and louder in amps, but I like that. So when I get one that does that, I immediately start hating all the pedals that don't do it. So. But yeah, that's one option. I. I would imagine you can look the. There's a way you can just put your meter on there and check to see which type of potentiometer it is you need to change. Yeah, like, basically what I'm saying is. And again, you know, this is just my best guess because I'm not a pedal guy, but my best guess is you don't want to change the value. Like, whatever it's. It is you want to change the type of potentiometer it is. That's what I would imagine you would want to do. So. And look, it's a. It's a warm audio pedal, so it's not super expensive. Might be fun to do. Give it a try and. And I don't know. And let me know how it goes. Clan House Cat says, hey, new Lamb of God. New Lamb of God and new Guitar Day. So, yeah, the new. I saw the new Lamb of God album came out. Gibson Mark Morton lp. This thing weighs seven and a half pounds. That's awesome. So comfortable. The Mark Morton pickups sound as good and scream. Yeah, I love it when this Les Paul is seven and a half pounds, which is crazy because that one's a chambered one, which is. I find it's almost too light. I think Les Paul's me, like, eight pounds. Eight and a half is kind of better. But I have a couple light ones and I like it. Plexigo says, hey, Phil, about the Bad Cat era. Thoughts after the honeymoon. Better than the Vox Matchless. It doesn't have reverb. So at this point, I've come to this conclusion for me that when it comes to personal amps and what I keep and don't keep is, is I only really play the amps that have reverb. So I have, like. I love my. I love my Freedman amp, right? I have two Freedman amps. I like them a lot. I have this Marshall GMP that I like and I use them pretty regular, right? But ultimately I'm always On the amp that has. I'm always on the amps that have reverb. It's just where I find. Especially if the amps. I'm using the amp clean because to me, if I. If the thing that draws me into the amp is the clean sound, I need the reverb because I just want to put a light overdrive in front of it and keep it easy. If the amps overdrive is what brings me in, then maybe I might put some delay in the effects loop. So. But it's an amazing amp. You know, out of all the bad cats I've ever owned, the very first one is my favorite one, which was the Cub and It was the 15 watt and I absolutely loved it. It's the one they stopped making and that version or whatever. And sometimes I kind of don't do that anymore now. Now I just put things away. But there was a time when a company, like, if they sent out a product and I used it, and then they would stop making it and make a new product and they send the new product out, I would get rid of the old product because I'm like, well, you can't get it anymore. My logic was it doesn't help the company and it doesn't help you guys. Because when I. You know, when you guys see a product that you guys can't buy, then you have to go to the used market. Once 10 or 15 of you are trying to buy a used one, everybody thinks it's thousands. Trust me. You know, you can swing reverb for months off of just two dozen people. And that's. And I think you'd probably do it off of 12 people. So I would just not do that. But I think if the one that got away, I think that was the very first bad Cat. Cause that was the one I used absolutely the most. I was using it all the time. The amps I use now for YouTube, I use the synergy. It's just practical for me. It just makes my life easy. It's a. It is like when musicians who tour and stuff talk about products they take on tour. It's just functionally, the synergy just does everything for me. So when I'm doing the videos for you guys, it's gonna be probably the synergy for anything that's over. Let's say 5, 600 bucks is a guitar maybe a little bit more. And then anything under that, I'm gonna go to the katana. And those are just very practical, very good. And here's what's important. I need A special mix. I need something that you can relate to. So you guys go, oh, I have an idea what that kind of sounds like. And something that can sound good enough with what I'm doing because I can't be working too hard. You know, when I personally play, I use what I think helps me play the best. And when I play for you guys, I need something like that. But it needs to be more relatable. But amp wise, I always have a flavor of the week or the month for amp and I'm always, that's what I do. I'm not one of these people who rotate. Like I use this amp for clean, this amp for dirty, and I'm a B switching. Or I don't have one of those. That's why I don't have one of those fancy amp switchers with tons of amps and stuff behind me even when I had the RAX amps. In fact, that's why I got rid of the rack amps. Everybody's like, oh, switch between them. Like I don't switch between them. To me it's like this is the amp I like, this is what I'm playing. And then one day, for some reason it doesn't sound the way I want or something. My, my just my mood's different, my style's different, something's off, I go to a different amp, I get another inspiration and I keep going. So yes, let's see. Oh, it's funny, I have no idea how to say your name. I'm doing my best. Gurren boy says I like my back at 5 watt, but it hummed a lot. You know, that's another thing too. My bad cat's in hum. But so, you know, um, another thing I have to think about all the time when I'm using amps for this, this venue, which is the YouTube venue, is the amps that do best for me. The amps that can be close to me and not hum. I'm already around too much stuff. So you gotta understand when I'm doing this or over in the, you know, in the, the shop demoing guitars and stuff. You know, I already have a mixer in there. Digital mixers, digital switchers, digital everything. All this stuff, it just wants to come to the guitar. This. Then you have the amp, then you have the microphone. All that stuff just creates a lot of noise. So I also tend to lean towards amps that are technically, they're just quieter for some reason. And some amps are just quieter, they just don't make the noise, which is ideal. So that's why I said so. The reason I tell you that is because I think I've always said this for years, and I'll keep saying it. There's always going to be some confusion because kind of think of the podcast as more of my normal life. A little bit. A little bit here, like, it's just us talking. You know, you ask me what my favorite guitar is or what my favorite amp is, we're going to kind of have that conversation. But then you have to understand there's a YouTube life, and it's that YouTube life is. There's gear that I need for that. Right. I guess I just want to make a quick analogy. It'd be like asking Phil X what does he use on stage and what does he use in the bedroom. He's going to be like, well, I use this amp in the bedroom because I like it and it works for me and I like it. But on stage, this is what works best. Right? Takes the most abuse or sounds the best in those venues. So same thing. I have amps that perform better in YouTube videos and amps that I just personally like the character of. So I hope that makes sense. I never know sometimes. Okay. Okay, let's do this one. I'm gonna do a little one. Out of order. This is Old Man Fran says, hey, on consumer protection, should signature guitars be sold something like. Inspired by. If it's not the exact guitar the artist plays. Huh. Interesting. That is Billy Corgan's Reverend is the same one he has off the shelf. Mayer does not play an se. Well, Mayor sometimes plays an se. But I think Old Man Fran, again, you know, the way I understand it, and this is what's tough, because I'm a little bit more informed than a normal consumer, just like the majority of you watching right now are more informed than the average consumer. Right. I would imagine if in a music store somebody asks a question, a lot of you, because you hang out here and you talk to each other and you talk, you know, you hear what I have to say. There's a little bit higher level of information in your head than the average consumer. But I. When I look at the SEs, just like when I look at the epiphones and stuff, artists have an epiphone and a Gibson. I think it's implied. This is just the affordable version of what they have. I don't think John Mayer's ever said like, oh, I only play the ses. I think in his. In his. He coined the. In the marketing for. Absolutely coined this. Sometimes when you see me pause, you know, I'm having a moment of like, is that a legal thing? Was I locked from that to talk about? I don't think I am. So when PRS released the SE Silver Sky John Mayer requested, they did not say the word affordable, that they say the word obtainable. I thought that was ingenious, ingenious marketing. So if you watch any of the Silver Sky SE videos, especially the John Mayer ones, they don't say this is the affordable version. They say this is the more obtainable version. And I thought that was smart. And I think the logic that I know for a fact, I think the logic was John Mayer was saying that basically, you know, they're 800 bucks, they're not affordable, that's not an affordable guitar. It's just more obtainable than $2,500. And so I think the way I understood it in his case, it was presented immediately. This is not really what he plays, although he does play an SE from time to time, because I've seen him with se's, but yeah, I don't think he like prefers that over his, his cores or even one of the, you know, they probably built him some private stock stuff. Right. My, my point is, is that I don't think the disclaimer is needed. I think it was implied because he's like making something affordable. And I think that's how it works with most artists. Some artists, as you know, do off the rack. And it gets confusing because my understanding too is Billy Corgan plays off the rack Reverend and that's what I would imagine happens. But so, you know, that is only because I think I remember Billy Corrigan saying that somewhere. I don't want you to confuse this. There are artists who have signature guitars with companies that are only doing import. Okay, Steve I is one example where they have totally different guitars that we can't even get. Not every single Steve I guitar is that. But Steve I does have USA made Ibanez guitars that are made for just the artist. In fact, Ibanez has a USA custom shop that only builds for artists. If you guys don't know that, that's an absolute fact. So you as a normal person cannot get a custom shop Ibanez in the us but an artist can get them all the time. They have them made all the time. So there is things like that. Just so you know. Just like there are some artists, even if the company only makes import models, they have somebody ghost built, you know, a specifically upgraded, you know, instrument just for them. So sometimes they're not even playing the instrument at all that we can get production or not. But I think in the most cases we understand there's a hierarchy to it. I seen this a lot with the Fender guys. A lot of the Fender endorsers, they weren't playing even the American stuff. They were playing custom shop versions. They were always playing something that was more hand built and more hand, you know, done specifically to their needs. So. So that's what basically I'm trying to say is like. I think that's implied a lot of times. Should it actually be disclosed is like a disclaimer. I mean, why not? I mean, I look at it like how PRS says, hey, this guitar is built by Cortech or before that was built by World Manufacturing. And Reverend does the same thing, hey, it's built by World Manufacturing or Mirror, where I think it's Mirror. Right. But the point is, I love that. I think that's exactly how it should be. I don't know if they need to print it on the guitar. I always think about that with the ses. I'm like, I don't know, maybe it's cool that it's printed on the guitar. It just needs to be a label. I don't think more clarification in a world where there's no added real cost to that is a problem, you know, So I don't think it's a problem. I don't think there's anything wrong. Like if I get an ESP LTD Kirk Hammett model, it says that Kirk Hammett may not, may or may not play this particular model that you're buying. You know, he plays a version of it, you know, and you're like, oh, okay. For those that just don't understand, maybe, you know, there's a little bit of like, hey, we don't need to dumb everything down. But stuff like that. I mean, really, what does it hurt? Because you're already printing stuff. Just add it to the, you know, like I said, it's not like the old days where, you know, you know, where they, there's a print shop and they template it out and they paid a fortune. You know, One of my favorite stories was a manufacturer telling me that used to cost $20,000 back in the 80s. $20,000 to have the print shop do the template for their catalogs. And, and then they would print the catalogs and every change had a super expensive expense, you know, because they could, you know, they. It's not like today where it's just all done on A computer, so. But yeah, I think it's an interesting idea. Dav Mar says, hey, Phil, I have a 2011 road worn Casey Jaguar discontinued 2015 that sells for quite a bit on Reverb. I'm having trouble getting fair trade value for it on Marketplace because it's a main Mexico. What do I do? Sell it on Reverb. I'm saying, hey, look, I see the problem with Marketplace, the same thing as problem with Craigslist and all that stuff, is you're a localized buying pool. And guitars that are not super desirable, okay? In other words, the pool of people looking for them, you know, if you go on Reverb, think about this. You're gonna go on Reverb. I don't know how many people go on Reverb a day. Let's just say tens of thousands. Okay? Could be hundreds of thousands. Tens of thousands of guitar players go on Reverb every day. And you potentially have like a hundred people that's interested in your guitar. You go on Facebook. Facebook, Marketplace. Those percentages stay in line. So if 100 people look at your guitar, well, then that's zero, right? Because you're, you're. You have to have. You have to have lots of people to see that guitar before you find that one customer that's interested in that odd guitar. Because Jaguars, I would say, obviously, we know like Strats and Telly is not in particular order. Strats and Tellies are the most desirable jazz masters and Jaguars the least desirable of the Fenders. Still desirable, but we're talking about, again, you know, comparative. So I find all the time, I always laugh. I'll just be honest. I always see guys on, on Craigslist listing stuff that's really cool but very unique, and it sits there and rots. And it's not because they're asking too much for it. It's not because it's not cool. It's just because, again, how many people are in the market for that, you know, that are on crazy Craigslist or Marketplace looking at it? I mean, if you're lucky, if there's one or two, and if they're there, they're very aware they're the only players. So you have to go. You have to go with a bigger pool for a more unique guitar like that. I know it sucks. I hate selling things on Reverb for a ton of reasons. But when, you know, I have a really exotic Telecaster on Reverb right now. Same thing. It's just. It needs a big pool. Cause there's probably only, you know, a half a dozen or a dozen, no exaggeration, guitar players at any given time looking for that particular guitar and that have that kind of money. So it has to go on there. I would love it if I could put it on Facebook or Craigslist. It's just the only way you're gonna sell locals if you give it away. Because that one guy knows that he's. He's it. He's the one. So my suggestion is you have to do it on Reverb. That would be my suggestion. And then just take the money and buy whatever you want. So I tend to. I now do. So you guys know I do Reverb now as a last resort. So if you see me selling something on Reverb, it's because either a, I've already tried to sell it and I can't. That's not as common, though. What's really common is I've just kind of assessed it and that's the only way I'm going to sell it. So a good example is there's something like, let's say if I can trade it to Guitar center, they might have some value or trade it to Zims or sell it to a friend or just sell it to a patron member or a channel member or, you know, put it on Craigslist, whatever. There's tons of ways that I've sold stuff and continue to sell stuff. When I have to get rid of stuff. However, there's certain things I'm like, this is only going to sell. Like, a perfect example is gear exchange. I like gear exchange experience way, way, way more than Reverb. Way more. I just like the people, like the vibe. I like the company. It's just everything about it more than Reverb. But, you know, unless I'm using, unless I got a lot of time and it's a really hot item. So it's just everybody's looking for it. I put it on Reverb. So that's what I would definitely, definitely think about. So Joe's saying, hey, there's sometimes there's more traffic on Facebook groups. You sure? Any of the. Any of the groups that are specifically into those types of guitars, either on Facebook or on the Reddit and all those platforms and all our other places where they have group communities, sometimes those are the best results as well. Um, one of the downfalls, though, of that is sometimes is that when you go to those groups, if you're the outsider and you have something really, you know, expensive, it's a Little tough to sell to them, because that's part of the reason why they. They work so well, is because they all kind of know each other, and when you're new, they don't. They're skeptical of you, so. And. And one of the things that only happens is the only way they'll trust you is if you give them a little bit of a deal, because they're more likely to take a chance. Because one great thing about reverb is you are protected. Perfect example. I'm going to segue to a couple updates. So, you know, I told you guys a story, the story about how I bought the Gibson SG at Guitar Center a week ago, you know, the week of last week's show. And, you know, the customer service was, it's not that great, right? It led to a funny story, and I got a great guitar. So ultimately, I'm gonna say net positive, but also, you're like, this was kind of odd. And then I. I mentioned that I bought a. An amp from Palin Music, and. And the customer service was fantastic. And what's interesting is I also mentioned I didn't love the amp. It's okay. I mean, I like it, but I don't love it. So that doesn't mean I don't want to keep it. It's just, you know, it's good. It's a good amp, and it has a purpose, and it's good. And here's what happened was kind of funny. One of the things that happened with that purchase which ties into all this was the. The amp I bought, they must have used a photo. What do you call a stock photo of the amp? Okay, so it was. So in other words, you guys know what I'm talking about, right? It's just. You think you're looking at the actual picture of the amp, but instead, it's just a stock photo of the product. Okay. Okay. So they use a stock photo. And so when I got the amp, one of the things that happened. I opened it. It had different knobs than it had on the stock photo. And that's only interesting because one. Not all the reasons, but one of the reasons I bought it from them was they had the version. I liked the way it looked. I liked. They go, oh, I like that look, too. I like that look better. And they took great care of me. And like I said, I'm super happy. And I thought about reaching out to them and saying, hey, you know, you guys use a stock photo. Is there any way you could, like, you know, send me the right knobs Cause you used the wrong photo, you know, kind of like, it's not my fault. And I just love the service so much. I just didn't want to do that, you know. Cause hey, look, it's an expense to them. I don't know what those knobs cost. So I decided to, to contact the amp manufacturer directly and say, hey, look, I bought this amp and I like your other knobs. Can I A, buy those knobs from you or B, can you tell me where you source them from and I'll get them? And the amp manufacturer sent me back a message right away saying, absolutely, we'll send you some right now. What's your address? We'll just send them to you. And I mean, I love that. That's fantastic. That's like the service. So think about this good example. One example is not great service, but a product I really want. The other one is great service and a product that I didn't really love. Right? Like, I like it. Again, it's just like said, there's. When I'm saying this, it sounds like I'm not liking it. And just saying I'm not in love. And part of the reason I told you it's very expensive amp. So one of the things is like, ah, you know, do I love it? This much money? That's kind of really actually the real question, right? Anytime anyone spends, I've said this before, anytime, including me, anyone spends on the end of their comfort zone, you scrutinize the purchase a little bit more. So even if it's good, you're like, good for this price. I needed to be blown away. I needed to go, oh, I need to get rid of everything I own and just own this. And that's not the experience I'm having. Although I am loving it a lot. And, and anyways, that customer service, and then that amp service, the amp builders, customer service, those things solidify the purchase. Because I have a return policy, but I don't want to return it. I didn't intend to return it from the get go. I was going to return it anyways, but now I'm like, maybe, maybe I love the Sam now because, you know, it's nice knowing that the dealer was taking care of me and now the manufacturer's taking care of me. And you know, maybe free knobs is not a big deal. And maybe it is a big deal, I don't know. But it's fantastic. And then, hold on, I just gotta, I gotta say this because it's funny. Rodrigo. Rodrigo Dellardo Delardo. Okay, Rodrigo, he says, because you're Phil McKnight. You know what's funny about. Because I'm Phil McKnight. I gotta tell you why this is funny. My wife said it this morning at coffee. We were talking about the YouTuber power. You know YouTuber power? Not really, but we were saying, like, the YouTuber. What do you call it? Like, the. The audience is always like, oh, because you're a YouTuber. And then we were talking about the fact that I have experiences with Guitar center, and they even flow up and down. Isn't that funny? And same with Sweetwater and same with everywhere else. Like, for every time I could say, yeah, I'm a YouTuber and they took care of me, I can tell you a story I have equal from almost everybody, a story where I go, hey, because I'm a YouTuber, they took care of me. Also because they're a YouTuber, they didn't even care. Like, it goes both ways, right? It's. It's kind of an odd thing, this industry. And I just say that to you because I want you to have a real assessment of it. I want you to know that a company who will send you a $2,000 instrument for. For you to do a video and let you keep it and pay you to do the video will also screw up everything and then double charge you. And then. Right. Like, it's weird. It's weird when they care and how they care, because I think what. What you guys don't understand is they. There's no. Being a YouTube channel is not like being a real artist. It's not like a real thing. Right? The. The value is only in this reach that you have, not in. Actually, you. Like, no one's looking at you and going, oh, wow, this guy's, you know, an influencer. We should take care of him. It's always like, what if he tells his audience? Which I don't know. I say that that's actually not true because I'm constantly telling stories on the show, and you think no one even cares. But I'm just saying it's kind of funny. It goes both ways on that. So, yeah, on the customer service thing, it was just crazy to see that. Great customer service. Let's see. Hold on. Oh. See what's funny? The real RD says, you live in Arizona, but you can't pronounce Alejandro. See, I can't read Alejandro in all that mess of letters. So that's. I keep telling you guys, there's no spacer on when a word ends. Like, you Guys, when you're looking at it, you're, you're, you're looking at it while you're not prioritizing the next 10 things I'm about to do. So when I'm looking at your guys, names, like here's a good example, there's somebody who put their name is Ficial Dimes. See, but to me, when I look at that, you gotta understand it's just official Dimes. It's just all a bunch of letters and I have to see where what letter stops. Recognize the word is official, then the word dimes. The same thing with Alejandro. I didn't see that it started with Alejandro. I just see a bunch of letters and then some numbers at the end. And at some point I'm not going to try to dissect it when I can go to the next question. That's really what it is. So you guys know a lot of times people could talk about butchering names. I'm a very fast reader. You can't do what I'm doing every week if you're not. So you guys know there's a reason why most people don't like to come on the show again. They'll tell you that they can't understand how I'm processing all this stuff because I'm also getting stuff from Amanda and from you guys at the same time. And I will tell you, though, but even that the problem is I'm processing too fast. I'm trying to get to. To the question and I'm. And if I can't read it fast, then I just, I blow it off. So sometimes what feels like even more like sarcastic comments like, oh, yeah, I can't read your name. It's really just. I'm not putting any more time into it because I'd rather answer the question than sit here and try to figure out where a name stops and starts and what the letters and numbers mean. Because a lot of you guys use all kinds of. Like I said, it's like a license plate game. Some of you guys use threes or E's. You guys all do kinds, all kinds of funny stuff. So it'd be so much easier if it was just all one word. So speaking of that, let's look at Panaman. Panaman92 says if the bridge pickup on a Strat sounds a little weak, should you raise it? Sure, why not? That's gonna help a little bit. The two things that will help your strat bridge pickup sound a little fuller. Generally speaking, Fender likes to ship them tilted so that the Treble side is higher than the bass side. And if it sounds a little thin, sometimes you might want to raise the bass side. So you might even not have to raise the treble side. That sometimes can help. However, get this in the scenario where your pickup's too close, it could also be making your pick sound weak. Here's why. Because when it gets too close, all you get is this high end frequency. And you don't get any of the low end frequency. So it's not even about rate. So when I say raise it. Yeah, if it's too low, raise it. If it's too high, then lower it. Okay, so there is a sweet spot for a pickup. The way I would always explain it, and I just like the analogy, it works for me, is like, even if you've never done it before, everybody understands that when you put a microphone in front of speaker, that the center of the speaker is treble. Right? The cone, the center cone is all trebly and the outer cone is bassy. Right. It's going to get bassier as it goes. And the further away you get from the speaker, you get a little fuller sounding. The closer you get, a little tighter. Generally speaking, we're kind of getting things general for those sound engineers that are freaking out right now, um, the pickup is not much different. Essentially, think of as the, is the microphone. So it's not about, you know, is it too close or too far? It's, it's got to be in the sweet spot. And that means different things for different types of pickups and different types of strings. So for instance, if you have like stainless steel strings, you know, they're going to be bright, so maybe the pickup needs to be pulled away. They're also, you know, steel strings are going to disrupt the magnetic field easier. Where a pure nickel string is harder, you know, it's a softer disruption of the field. So essentially, you might raise the pickup to get closer to a pure nickel string. And then the thickness of the string changes this. I, I, I, like I said I, I. Only thing I don't like is pickup manufacturers, a whole like to just put out and sort of guitar manufacturers like to put out a measurement because they know that if they don't, you'll get upset. And you're like, because I get it all the time from you guys, too. Hey, Phil, how far do I go from the top of the, or the bottom of the string to the top of the pickup? And I go, well, yeah, you can start with some kind of generalized idea, but these are the factors the Type of pickup, pickup, the type of magnet, how strong the magnet is, right? How, how, how much you know, how, how big the string is physically in diameter, how, what the material the string is made of, all these things affect it. And that's why you want to use your ear and just adjust until you find the spot. And, and I think, and I just have a theory, I don't know if this is true, but I feel like a lot of people who ask that question are a little self conscious or just don't feel confident in their ear to find the right spot. So if they're told they know, you know, like if you just tell me the spot, I'll know it and then I'll know it's right. And I know I kind of want to tell you that, you know, I want the answer to be so easy, but it's really not that easy. Okay, you definitely want to adjust it, so. But yeah, I'm just giving you the way you want to adjust that. Gilmore's Black Strats sold yesterday at auction for 14.5 million. I know I threw out 14.3 and then some asshole sniped it. I didn't understand what happened with that. I was, now I was going to hoping they were going to take an out of state third party check, but, but you know, I think they would. Yeah. So if you guys didn't hear Gilmore, strat sold for 14.5 million. I find this is funny. I'm going to talk about something I always say I don't talk about. I usually don't talk about this stuff. And the reason is, is because I don't think this is guitar talk. This is to me the way I look at the Back to the Future guitars or the this, you know, guitars sold at auction. This is memorabilia. This is so like if you could take and interchange the name that Strat, right. With so many other things and I wouldn't have paid attention. Like, hey, Luke Skywalker's lightsaber sold from the first movie for 14.5 million. I'm like, oh, okay. Well, people are really big Star wars fans, right? That's how I look at it. I wouldn't think like, man, some guy wants to really play swords, right? If somebody said, oh, the Highlander sword from the movie sold for a ton of money, or if somebody said, you know, Boba Fett's helmet, I don't know, I'm going to Star wars race. But I think, I think of Star wars fans as being a little bit more ravenous in their purchasing. But my Point is, is that memorable memorabilia, the, you know, the Gilmore Black Strat, to me, is no different than Michael Jordan's jersey. Same thing. And the reason I don't just say this, you know, for no reason. I think I told you guys a little fun fact. The most expensive guitars we ever sold in the store in 13 years. And the single, single largest ticket, you know, like when you're writing an invoice for purchases, the two highest tickets, which by. Were higher than anything else we've ever done before, were to people who didn't play guitar. Absolute fact. So the most expensive guitars ever sold and the. And the most expensive guitars in one ticket and the second most expensive were to people who did not play guitar. Not at all. So you're like, what did they buy for? One was decorating a pool room and one was decorating his dentist office. Not making that up. He's like a rock and roll dentist, I guess, something like that. And he had a rock and roll themed dentist office. And. And they wanted nice stuff on the walls. You know, they are admirers of guitar players. Like, the person who buys Michael Jordan's jersey probably doesn't put it on and play basketball, right? So the person who buys Gilmore Strat may not necessarily be a guitar player. They might just really like Pink Floyd. And I don't know about you. As passionate as we are from guitars, people, including me, actually, I'm way more passionate about a band than I am a guitar. I love guitars, but I'm really overly passionate. Maybe this way you could piss me off. Dog. In one of my favorite bands. Way more than dogging my favorite guitar. In fact, I don't even know if I'd care. Whatever anyone said about a guitar, somebody goes, oh, I think that guitar feels like crap and sounds like turds. I'd be like, oh, okay. But if you started talking crap about my favorite band, it's not that I get mad. I just feel a need to explain what you don't understand. See, perfect example everyone here can relate to. If somebody says something negative about your favorite band, your first idea is they just haven't heard it, right? You're like, you haven't heard the right album. That's your problem. Have you heard this song? Did you listen to it? Did you listen to it a couple times, right? Like, you're like, you're perplexed almost in there. Like, how could they not know how great this band is, right? If somebody comes to me and says, phil, I think Strats feel clunky and thin and I they poke me. I don't like them. There's nothing about me that wants to change their mind. But again, critique my favorite band. I gotta. I gotta start. We gotta start. I gotta start. I gotta start helping you see the light, because I. In my brain, it's not about you loving the thing I love, and it's not about me being right. It's about you missing out on the greatest thing ever, which is the band I love. How could you miss out? You'll go your whole life and not know how amazing this band is. So I think of those people, music lovers, as being with money. Someone who has spent $14.5 million. And keep in mind, this is. And this is not even known if it went to a museum or something like that. That can always be a thing, right? So my point is, that's what I see when I. It's memorabilia. It's sold for million memorabilia purposes. I know when everybody got up in arms over, was it strange the beast Riches came out and they're like, who's paying $2,000 for an Indonesian crackle Beast rich. And I'm like, people who put on their wall who love stranger things. I go. I go, think about this. I. I mean, have you seen. Look, I'm a. I'm a decent Star wars fan, right? Like, I don't obsess, but I mean, you know, I like it. I've seen all the movies at least 10 times. At least. You know, I know the original Lifesaver was made, like, from, like, one was made from a French grenade, and one's made from, like, a vacuum cleaner part and stuff. See, like, let's argue that for a second. Like, they're made from junk parts and, you know, put together for a movie. And now it has a value because it was in the movie. It's a black Strat. It was on some amazing albums. We know what the value is. The albums were the value. The movie was the value, you know, so think of this. One of my most prized possessions is a. Is a piece of movie memorabilia that a viewer gave to me. I've shared that guy with you guys. And I framed it. I took it down and I framed it and I put it on the wall, and it's right there. I stare at it every day. And when people come over, it's one of the first things I show them. I go, oh, this. The viewer of the channel sent me this piece of a memorabilia from a movie that. One of my favorite movies. So. And so, yeah, it's. And it's. I Think it's a piece of Styrofoam. I don't know what it's made out of, but. So. So that's my take on that. But Josh says if I can't palm you to Strat, it's useless to me. Let's the. It's funny a lot of you guys are dogging some of the bands I like, but I don't think you really understand. I don't get upset. I get the. If I took the bait, you would just have to finish out the rest of the show with me just telling you how great these bands are and why you're not getting it, which is not what anybody wants to see. So Jason says, hey, Phil, are there any mini humbuckers you recommend? What is the difference between Firebird humbuckers and mini humbuckers? What are your thoughts on the process of making each. Okay, so there are differences in the way that they're designed and that. And they're the components that they're done when it comes to. I want to talk about mini humbuckers, because Firebird humbuckers are just this thing that I don't really. I don't. I've never had the inkling or. Nor met anyone that ever wanted to take a Firebird humbucker and stick in anything else. Of course, when I say that, somebody's going to put in the comments, I did great. I think that's a cool idea. But I'm just saying I've never had the inkling and no one has ever asked me to do it either. Mini humbuckers. There are things that I absolutely love about them. I do have a mini humbucker that I use in a guitar, and I like it. It's a. It's a. It's a Gibson one that I got used somewhere and I put it in a guitar and I like it. I really like them in the neck position of a Telecaster. That's where I like them the most. I think they are a beautiful compromise to the neck pickup on a telly, which some people refer to as being kind of thin or weak because of tons of reasons, one being that it's 43 gauge wire instead of 42. So they wrap. You know, it's. It's just a different sound and feel. And then also the metal cover changes the sound a lot. So sometimes that's why some players take the metal covers off the neck pickup of a. Of a Telecaster. And so some people then will put a P90, which I think is great, but it's A little brutish. It's a little too much. You're right. The tele pickup. So the tele bridge to me overpowers the neck pickup. But then when you put the P90, the P90 overpowers the bridge pickup. So a good compromise. Some people like humbuckers in the neck and I think a mini humbucker is the best compromise. So I'll put a mini humbucker in there and I like it. So that's what I would use it for. Other than that, I've tried it in other places. For instance, I put it in the bridge of a Strat and trying the theory of like, well, maybe it'd be closer when I switch between the single coil pickups. And I guess I could say that was a good argument. But the reality is I've just kind of learned that you just pair the humbucker, full size humbucker correctly with the single coils and you always have a great sound and you don't have to worry about the size of the pickups or stuff. You know, this is back to the, you know, the Paul Reesman narrow field argument. You know that the narrowing the field changes the sound. It does. But it's, it's fun to experiment with if you want to do that. It's not necessarily anything. I feel special. One thing I keep telling myself one day maybe I'd like to get a Les Paul with some mini humbuckers in it. But I played one once or twice but never enough to put any kind of real sense of opinion on it. Okay, see? Oh, I did that one. That's funny. Okay. Oh okay, here's a good one. This is a question. They want to know what I think of the. I say Geicker. Geicker hardware. It's G like guy G U I know G Y G U I K E R Geiker. If that's how you say it, great. If there's another phonetic wave to say it, I don't know it. Geikker Hardware. It's everywhere now, especially on Amazon and the prices are fantastic. They've reached out a ton of times asking to sponsor a video. I'm not interested in doing the sponsorship of the video so I said no. But I did buy some of their hardware. I bought some of their locking tuners. They were like 35 bucks and funny being interesting. Not haha. Story was I did not buy them because they were $35. I bought them because I could not find the actual go to ones I needed anywhere. They were just in unavailable Anywhere to get them. So I bought the ger ones and I was having trouble keeping them in tune. And I. I fixed it, but the fix sucks, which is I. I wrapped the strings. Three wraps per string on the high strings, which sometimes you know. Okay, so what was happening with the locking mechanisms? They were slipping. The. They were just not holding tight correctly. I would play the guitar. Actually, I wouldn't play the guitar. I'd hang it up on the wall and pick it up. And every time it was the high E, the B and the G were out of tune because they had slipped, especially the high E. And at one point, the high just pulls it right out of the mechanism. So I went ahead and did a three wraps per on the high strings, restrung it. And I have not seen a huge issue since then. Although I can tell you right now. Hold on a second. Okay, so here's the guitar. This is my Dane electro. And I put these locking geiker key. Yeah. See, Watch. Now let's see what's in and out of tune. Okay, so I'm a full step down for some reason. I did it on purpose, I'm sure. Yep. Okay, so. So b and e this time. Well, and g. Yeah. See? And it's loose. See it. It's loose. This one not so much. This one. This one keeps going loose. So I'm gonna say I'm not excited about this stuff. Maybe their bridges are better. Maybe their other components are better. I don't know why, but I've been had. That issue has been consistent. And like I said, I got three wraps on it now, and it's still the. The locking unit just goes loose. And for those that are paying attention, sometimes, if you have wall hangers, you'll know this. Sometimes when you put a guitar on a wall hanger, especially a locking tuner, the wall hanger rubs the. The wheel on the back and it goes loose and unlocks. I have my hanger set up, so they won't do that. You have to go in and bend them a little bit differently. And that's how I did it. So I have a locking tuners. You have to have a deeper bend in it. So I went ahead and done that. And that's one thing again why I like string swing, because they actually use real steel. So when I put it on my vice on the bench and I bend them, they bend, you know, they don't snap. So. Hmm. So not loving that stuff yet. But. But one purchase, one thing is not all reviews. So if I can find another reason to Buy a couple more components. I will. And test it. And that's why I didn't take a sponsorship deal from them. So because I generally try, if we are doing an actual sponsored content video, to try to be a product that I'm super familiar with and I know it and I like it and if there's any problems, it's going to be minor and then therefore the sum of the video will be good. Right? So sum being the totality of it. So like, yeah, good this, good this, good this, bad that, bad that, good this, good this. And then ultimately, you know, they don't, some of them don't like it that there's some negatives in the video, but at least the video is overall good and it works good. If I feel like this, I don't know what the positives would be other than the price. I go, you know what, let's not do a sponsored content. Let me get familiar with it. So, so that's how it works. So especially if it's something that I can actually, you know, get relatively easy and not have to spend, you know, an insane amount of money on. Scene Queen, I guess his machine says too many people getting sponsored by GEICO everywhere. So it really haven't seen many honest reviews, you know, And I, and I want to say this. There's a, there's two or three steps to honesty when it comes to content creation. And no one is, is no decent person is above this, in my opinion. Honesty is a, Is not always what you perceive it to be. For example, sometimes, you know, like I told you, there's a bias or there's a game in play, right? Some channels I'll see slam stuff and they go, see, I'm honest. And I'll see the comment section, well, I love you. You're honest. I'm like, yeah, they slammed it because that company's notoriously. And I'm not saying this for sure, but I'm saying my theory, when I look at it go, yeah, that company's. Ironically, that company's also notorious for never sponsoring any content. Doesn't work with YouTubers. So maybe that YouTuber doesn't like that. Right? You don't know what the agenda is behind that YouTube video. Sometimes when a company, which is why sometimes I try to stay away from it. When a company's new and they send you new product, when a company send you product, besides the monetary value, like, oh, I got free stuff or I got money or compensation, there is a feeling that I, And I just, I don't know how to get away from it is you feel good that somebody cares about what you do. You know, there are companies that say no. There are companies that actively tell people they don't like you. There's companies who work with everyone but you. There's all kinds of things that you go, okay, I guess, you know, and also when you're smaller, especially when you're smaller, no one's working with you. So the first companies to work with you, you're just like, oh, you know, like, hey, they really care about what you do. And so our reason I say this is, look, I'm at this point, I'm kind of tenured at this point. It's not that my channel does well enough. I've just been through enough of this. Like, today, I didn't get upset, but I did laugh. Somebody sent me an email. It was funny. It said, hey, Phil, we love your channel. Dipped in tone. And he says, we love the way you do videos, and we would like to have it be on your podcast. And I'm like, huh, that's cool. So I looked at Shauna and I said, oh, obviously they. Rhett was either right before me or he's the first one. And they templed the email off of that. And so I don't take it offensively that way. I take it offensively or not offensively. I don't take it offensively like that. I just laugh going, they template out the email. They're sending it probably to 50 people because they're probably trying to see who will take the, you know, the bite. But the point I'm trying to say is I'm experienced enough to know that companies really aren't looking to be your friends. They're not. They don't love your channel. Most of them don't even watch your content. Even after you make it for them, they don't watch it. I used to think that was strange. I totally get it now. Okay? I'm not even shocked anymore or anything. When a company is like, I can't even tell you. I would like to say a dozen times. It's more like three, four dozen times a company's reached out to me saying, hey, I'd really like it if you make that video. And I'm like, I made it three months ago. It got 200,000 views. Go check it out. You know, thanks for. You're not even subscribed to my channel. Like, how funny is that, right? So my point is, is that sometimes when. That's why I try to stay away from stuff like that it's not that. I'm telling you that if you're paid, you're lying. That's always a factor and that's usually the go to for everybody. But I want you to be more informed than that. You should know that there's more going on. Sometimes when I'm watching a creator and they're saying, hey, this company sent this guitar out and I really like it. And your first instinct, Because I'm. And again, my bias is I do it for a living, but also that I've done it for a decade. And as someone who's done it for a decade, I'm telling you, I've been through all the things. I've been through all the ways you can get screwed. I've been through. Well, maybe not all of them, but I've been through a lot of them. I've been all through the ways that I've made out ahead. I've been through all the emotional ups and downs. And I can tell you that when you do this and somebody appreciates you, you go, oh, wow, this company appreciates me. And I'm going to reciprocate. And it's hard. It's like somebody making, hey, I'm going to make you dinner tonight. And you're eating their dinner and you're thinking, I mean, it's good. I wouldn't buy it. Right. But you can't say that they just made you a dinner. You got to go like, no, it's really good. You know, I don't. I don't prepare it this way. So, like I said. So sometimes you want to filter that way too, is what I'm trying to say. So, yeah, I can see why sometimes. Yeah. When a company pops like that. That's why I try to stay. Like I said, I try to. That's why I also try to sit on the equipment for as long as I can before the video comes out so I can go through the emotional part without you guys. So. Because, yeah, you know, like I said, when you unbox something, everything's exciting. When you unbox it, Whoa, look at this thing. And then three weeks later, you're like, I don't know. I guess the thing I already have is just as good. And that's what I want to come out in the video is, whatever that experience is. So a little too much YouTube talk. Let's go back to guitar talk. Let's finish up this show so we can all have a good weekend and play guitar. What do we have? We have. Happy good thing says, hey, Plans on having Sha as an off camera guest. Right. We had her do that twice as a patron thing and then we put it on the second channel. You can watch. They're one of the most watched podcasts. It's funny. She. She's great. I asked her to do it again. She kind of said yes. So I'm sure we can do that again. That's how it will work, by the way. Like last time, it'll go on the. The patron thing and the channel members will get it. And then after so much time goes by, it'll go on the second channel. Just a benefit. And then they also get the first dibs at asking questions because usually it's. They want some kind of inside baseball on me from her, like, you know, like, you know, whatever, some backstory. So I will work on that. So, you know, and she's probably. I don't know if she's watching right now, but she sometimes is. You know, it's in the background of wherever she's at, so. So she's hearing it so she knows you want it. Happy. Good thing. Also said my shredder buddy who keeps his guitars mint, cleans his string after he plays each time. What do you suggest? I think that's an absolutely great idea. Like I said, I have very dry skin because I probably don't drink enough water. No, actually, so I don't want to lie to you guys. I do not drink enough water. I mentioned once that I have carafes all over the place in the house and somebody's like, oh, they were worried about me, like, you might have diabetes. I'm like, no, no, I don't think you understand. Like, I'm seriously dehydrated at all times. I don't drink any water. I'm really bad at it. So, you know, horrible. I notorious for drinking a cup of coffee or maybe two in the morning and then, then nothing all day after that in any way, shape or form. And it's really bad. And the fact that I haven't got kidney stones is a miracle. And I know that. So I force myself to drink lots of water. I have like, this is a water bottle. I have a full water right now and I drink it. And so anyways, I've always got dry skin. So the reason I'm saying that is I don't have that problem. But I can tell you absolutely, you should wipe down your strings, especially if you're sweaty or if you're oily, any of those things. Wipe down your strings every time is a great idea. It'll save you a ton of money in strings. Doesn't hurt anything. I use a microfiber cloth. You can use whatever microfiber cloth you want. You can use cotton or flannel. The reason has nothing to do with the strings. It has to do with anything that string, that those cloths come in contact with your finish. And so 100 cotton flannel, 100 flannel or microfiber should be safe for, you know, your guitar, you know, finish. So if you're rubbing your strings and it rubs the finish or anything, you'll be fine. So, yeah, do that every time. Don't need to put anything on it. It don't lubricate it, don't do anything. Make sure the. The cloth is dry and clean and has no, you know, chemicals on it and you'll be fine. Wiping down your strings every time you play guitar is, is, well, you watch this, think about this. When you watch touring bands, you'll see roadies, when they grab the guitars, they start wiping off the sweat right away. Because again, it's going to help. Not only is it going to help for those guys when they're sweating a lot on stage, not only the strings, that's how they're corroding the bridge out. They're corroding all the pickup, all the metal. Just because your skin's salty, you know, salt and metal, not good friends. Ran Zier says. Hey, Phil, any recommendations on how to care for a solid rosewood guitar neck? Thanks for years of shared wisdom and fun. I use, I use F1 oil that you get from music Nomad. I highly recommend the lizard spit oil as well. And at this point, I mean, it's whatever you want to use. You use linseed oil if you want, you can use lemon oil. I tend to stick with the guitar polish brands. When I do that, sometimes people put in the comments, which is fine, that they buy it, you know, from cheaper vendors and cheaper. And the only reason I do that is because, like I said, I treat everything like an accountability issue. I just want to know. So, like, give example. It's not just guitars. It's just the way my brain works in entirety, 100%. No exceptions of my oil changes are done at one place. No one's ever changed the oil in my vehicle, in any of my vehicles other than one place. It's not fast, it's not good, it's not cheap. I don't even know. It just happened to be the place I picked. The reason I do that is if there's ever A problem. I know who I'm going to tell because they're the only ones that have ever done it. And I learned that lesson from, believe it or not, my dad, who I didn't have a great relationship with. But funny enough, my dad had a Ford F150 that he bought brand new, and he put 200,000 miles on it. And so 180,000, something like that. 180,000 miles. And he always got his oil change and all his services at one place. And he went fishing up in Northern Arizona. And he was driving. You know, it's funny, I don't even talk to my dad. And at this time, my mom and dad were talking again, which is kind of weird. So anyways, I. One day I get a call, it's my mom. And she goes, hey, I'm on the side of the road up. I think I was in Sedona. Wherever she was up north and she needed. They needed a ride. She's like, I'm with your dad. I'm like, oh, my dad, okay. So I go, okay. So I tell. I tell Sean, I go, I gotta get. I gotta go get my mom, right? And my dad, apparently they're broke down on the side of the road. So it was like a two, three hour drive. So I went and got them. What happened was somebody said, what year? Ford, I believe it was a 96. So 96. And it was probably 2003 when this happened. So no, maybe it was a 93 and it was 2003. That would make more sense, I think the truck was like 10 years old. So here's why the story's funny. So what happened was he got his oil changed, I think that day or the day before. And the reason his engine blew and his truck broke down, then no one put the drain plug back in correctly and the oil all leaked out and the truck ran without oil and it broke. And so anyways, I got them and we towed his truck back. I got it put on the trailer and we took it back. And he went to the oil change place and said, you guys didn't do this. And they said, no, you must have done that. And then he's like, he showed them, not exaggerating. Like 15 years of receipts going, I've only taken my cars due to always on the exact same time. And long story short, they bought him a new engine. They bought a new engine and replaced everything. And so it was kind of like, I was shocked, right? Because I'm like, aren't they just going to say, you did that? Later. I mean your car had a lot of oils. What stop you from doing that? And they didn't do it. So the lesson I learned from that story was okay, so same thing if I only use one. So now I use F1 oil. Like I said, I used to use lizard spit for years, but I use F1 oil. It's not because it's. Like I said, it's not because it's the best. I like it because I can use it on maple, I can use it on ebony, rosewood, and if anything ever happens to a fretboard that's kind of weird, I'd like to be able to go, okay, well this is the only stuff I put on it. This is the only cloths I use. See I like said and especially when I was doing customers guitars because again, you know, you want to. That's the way I think. So I'm just giving you the insight of why I do that way. So yeah, Funky boss says keep your receipts. Always keep your receipts, especially now. Now you just take pictures of them. Take pictures of them and put them in a folder. So. Let's see. I don't understand the question. He says Phil admits he's modified every string swing holder. I didn't say everyone, I'm just saying some of them, the ones they put the locking keys on. But yes, I understand. I've done more than modify them. I bend them. I've done horrible things to them. Horrible, horrible things. No, no kindness to any of them. Remember they were in the store for 13 years but recommends the out of box hanger unreservably. Yeah, that's because I should have killed one by now. I've been prepared for 20 something years for one of them to break or crack or, or do something wrong because I've bent them out. I bent them in, I bent them this way. I've done all horrible things to them. You know, I threw them in a box or you know, put them back in a new wall. They just take abuse. So the rubber never had to replace any of the rubber on them. So I mean although I have had a patron was his, his was shredding and it was, I think it's because of one of the thumb wheels on his locky key was shredding the thing. I have never had that problem. But that's because like I said, I bend mine a little bit lower. So. And then Greg says, hey, does F1 oil get out of date or too old? Yes, I've talked about this before, I'll talk about it now. I was buying the big bottles, F1 oil, and that's what happened. It got tacky and thick, and it kind of felt weird. I didn't. I never reached out to them, and I never tried to assess if that's a. If it's bad. Like, if it's gone bad and I should throw it away. I just didn't like it physically anymore. So now I just buy the small F1 oil bottles because the. You know, for, like, you guys, I'm just not going through a lot of stuff. You know, I don't. You know, I have a lot of guitars, but I'm not, like, doing, you know, fret conditioning every day. I'm lucky if I do one or two guitars a month, so that's not a lot. So now I. But, yes, I've had this. I've had the experience with F1 oil where it gets sticky and. And it gets thicker, and maybe it's breaking down. I'm not sure what the issue is. Okay. Yeah. Plump weasel says oil will oxidize over time. Yeah, that makes sense. Or go bad. Yeah. Rancid. I've heard it referred to as being rancid. I'm not sure what the correct terminology is that causes it, but I heard it's funny. I heard somebody say it. I want to say probably about five years ago on the show, hey, I got some F1 oil, and it went bad. And I was like, oh, I haven't experienced that. And then it was. In fact, that's probably what helped me out, because I think a few years later, I grabbed the bottle, and it was weird, right? And it was the same thing. Thick and kind of weird. And I go, oh, the viewer said it happened. I go, that's probably what happened. So that makes sense. You know, not a chemist, so don't understand, you know, what the issue is particularly that's happening. So I think we got those. Let's do one last. What's one last thing? Okay, this question is hard. McShready says, hey, Phil, what are your three favorite medium. Smaller online guitar shops these days, like Chicago Music Exchange size or smaller? Huge fan of your show. So I tend to go to a lot of them. You know, I use Eddie's music, and I've had good luck with a lot of them. Chicago Music Exchange is fine. I would say Chicago for me. Chicago Music Exchange. Well, my only interaction ever with them was not good. That's when I bought a cabinet, and I called him and the employee. I felt like he was lying to me, which is the worst feeling Right. Like he was. But really what it was is in my opinion, he was lazy and he didn't want to help me or answer my question. And so, you know, sometimes they do that, right? In retail, like, oh yeah, it happens all the time. You're fine. I'm like, that's not fine. Right. But other than that, I've never had a problem with them since. And so, you know, I've never had to. I've never talked to anybody there. I just click the online button and I buy it and then it comes. And that's mostly the experiences I have with most retailers. Palin Music was one of the first retailers that I bought online from and they emailed me and messaged me like how Sweetwater does and says, hey, we saw you purchase. Thank you so much for the purchase. If you need anything, let me know. Hey, you know, right. We, you know, and it was just a nice email and it was a follow and a follow up, like how to go. And that was really nice. You know, it's funny to me that when Sweetwater does it, I find it annoying. They're like, how was it? I'm like, leave me alone. I don't wanna talk to anybody. But when a small dealer does it, I'm like, oh, that's really cool. Like, they acknowledged it. And Diablo Guitars is on my want to buy from list. I have a weird, not only obsession with guitars, but I have a weird obsession with music stores. You know, there's, I like to buy from music stores. Like, I like to buy from different music stores. And Diablo is like one of those, like, oh, they have so much cool guitars and maybe one day I'll get one from there. I did have a funny experience. I'll tell you a funny, I won't name the store because it's not the important part, but I will tell you why customer service and all this matters. And so you said three dealers. So I'll just say I still like Eddie's Guitars, which is a larger, medium sized store. Chicago Music stands good. I like Palin Guitars. They're great casino guitars. I like their YouTube channel. I've not bought anything from them yet. So again, and so, you know, not from lack of trying. I went on their website at least three times in the last year looking specifically for a product and they didn't have in stock. And in fact the product I bought from Palin Music was I, I can tell you, I hit Humbucker Music. They didn't have it and I Casino guitars didn't have it. So I Was looking for, you know, the product, you know, in stock. And. And that's why Palin got the. The purchase. They had it. Wildwood and Wild West I bought guitars from. So. So, yep, absolutely. Wild Wildwood I like a lot. I've always had a great experience from them. Wild West I bought from them was so long ago, I don't even remember. But Drum City, Guitar Land, I bought from them and I like them a lot. I will tell you a funny story. This dealer I just bought from, and this is like a weird thing because sometimes I'm bagging on Reverb a lot. And then sometimes I tell you the one thing I like about Reverb. The one thing I like. Look, I could bag on Guitars center all day, but I'm gonna always end every Guitar center story with the best return policy on the planet earth for guitars, right? I mean, just the best. I have never had a problem with guitar sitter. You just take it in. Half the time, they don't even look. I've. I've returned guitars or amps to them in the box, and they didn't even look at the box, make sure that thing was even in there. And I know some of you are like, well, they did to me. No, they did to me too. Sometimes, like I said, I've had it both ways. Like, sometimes they scrutinize it and go, oh. Sometimes they don't even look at it. But either way, I've never gotten guff. They've always took the return and. And it's great. And I tend to exchange, like I said, I like. Because I was a small dealer. It's just ingrained in me that if I've given them money, I try to keep the money there. So I'll. If I can exchange for another product, I'll always do that first. It's. It's got to be because there's absolutely nothing I don't want. For instance, I got those Guitar center gift cards. When I, you know, I bought some stuff or they bought some stuff for me, I was like, give me some gift cards too. Because I was like, I just want to keep some of this money in your store instead of you just paying me all out for gear. So anyways, so that's what I got to say about them. That's great. However, the other thing I can say about Reverb is no matter what all the problems, Reverb, all the fraud that's on there, the fake stuff that's being listed, the hell, the nightmares, the craziness, they always protect you as a. As a customer. And that just feels really good. And so here's why the story's funny. I bought, I pared down, as you guys know, a lot of amps because I was actually, what do you call it, Refining my collection of amps down to just a few amps. And they're just these dream amps that I have at this point. I just want a few dream amps and then I have my workload amps for my YouTube gig. So here's why this is maybe interesting to you. I went. My normal thing is to look for the amp, which I did, and I found a store and they had it in stock. It's in California. And because I'm in Arizona, there's no sales tax to me. So if you guys don't know how sales tax works online is you have to sell a certain amount of product before you have to start charging sales tax. So even though you go to Sweetwater and they have to charge you sales tax, it's because they've sold millions and millions of dollars. So most music stores who have not sold millions and millions of dollars worth of product online, as long as you're not in their state, you don't have. They don't have to collect sales tax. So it's nice. Will save sales tax. So I found this dealer and they had the amp and it said it was brand new, but the picture they showed was in their store, sitting in their store. The amp had been there, in my opinion, two years. Because the amp hasn't, you know, it's. Look at this. They're not. It's a new amp, but they're not even making it anymore. But anyways, it looked like a two, two year old amp. And I saw the price and I was just, I don't know, just weary of it. So I went to Reverb to see if they had any, and they had one and it was that store. Now if I buy it from Reverb, I have to pay 8% tax and they pay, you know, 5 to 10%, you know, fees. And I thought, you know, normally I'd go back to them directly and say, hey, let's save, you know, let me save my 8%. And they can say they're. They're 5 to 10% and maybe we're all better for it, but I just didn't trust it. I don't know why my spider senses were tingling. I just had that feeling like, I don't know, something wrong about these guys. I don't know what it is. Something in the description of the amp, the whole nine yards, just something didn't feel right. So I buy the amp on Reverb. I get a message. Sorry, I'm laughing already because I'm thinking about this out loud, how bad and funny it was. So I get a message from Reverb and it says, hey, your product is shipped. I'm like, oh, cool. As you guys all know, that just means that they created a label. So it says you. They created a label. So then in fact, so you guys know. So I don't have to play the whole, you know, I can't remember. Let me pull this up. Say in the show, it's the last thing we're talking about. Let me. I'll tell you how this went down. This is why story is funny. Let's look at the timeline. Okay. Does it not. So I buy the guitar or buy the amp on the 1st of March. Okay. So that's when I buy it, the 3rd of March. No. So I don't know when. It doesn't show me now because it doesn't let me see the shipping date. I'm trying to say when they. The shipping label was created within like a day or two. So maybe not that same day, but a day or two. Okay, then this is what's funny. What's funny is I don't hear any. The. The shipping label doesn't update. You know how it's like label created. And then you go to look at it next day and it says, we've not received the shipment from the shipper, but they've created a label. I go to the second, third day. We, you know. Right. We've. We've, you know, we've created a label, but we have not received the shipment. And then, so what goes on? Let me go look in the history of this and all. Let me click all. And I messaged them after seven days. So the label has set dormant for seven days. Now, keep in mind a weekend passed and I try not to hold that against them. So it's like five days. But I'm thinking five days since the label created. Something's up, right? Sometimes you guys might know this if you buy a lot of stuff online that when you buy pedals, sometimes they ship them usps and you don't, you know, before, by the time the label updates, it's at your door. But this is an amp. So here's what's really funny. I message them through reverb and I just say something nice like, hey, I just want to check on this and noticing it's not moving if there's any issues. And they respond with. And that's why I'm laughing. Oh, we didn't get the order till just now. And I'm like, I swear, guys, I held it back. I was like, I'm gonna. I go. I go to type back. And I go, don't do it. Because I was gonna type back with, well, you created the label for this order seven days ago. Okay? You just got it. So I go, okay. And the. The amps. The amp shows up, by the way. They ship it like a day or two after that. Okay. So now it's been like nine, ten days. They ship it. It's one state over. So it gets here in like a day or two. I think it was in the next day. Because when they shipped shows up and it's not in the original box. I open up, it's just foam shoved in there. The cable's just thrown in there. There's no manual. There's no nothing. And I'm like, okay. And I get out the amp and I plug it in. It sounds amazing, and I love it, and I'm super happy with it. And what's the point of the story? It's funny to me, even though that's not a bad story. It's just. I think I would have had a much horrible experience if the entire time they were like that. And I didn't know reverb was going to take care of me, because at any time, I could have just. You know, I'm going to escalate this to reverb. If you have to, you can. So that's what I'm saying. That's one thing I can say great about reverb sometimes. And dealers. And some of these dealers, it's. I think I don't mind the slow shipping that happens. Right. I just love the whole, oh, we just got your order just now. And I'm like, I mean, all right, just say, hey, man. Things like, you know, one thing, I think I'm judgy like this because I ran a store for 13 years, and the. And I told you this once before, the best advice I can give every small business, because I had to learn it the hard way. So giving it to you, it's one of the best gifts I can give to any small business. Be okay with asking for forgiveness. It's just. It's. You got to have to ask. Being a small business means you ask for forgiveness often. I'm really sorry. My wife was out sick. That's Half of our staff. I'm really sorry. The attorney called and said if I don't file my taxes by tomorrow morning, I'm going to prison. I'm didn't ship your amp. I'm sorry. The bath. This is. This actually happened to me. The toilet overflowed, and we dealt with that all night. That's what we did instead of your stuff. That's a small business, right? You know, you mop the bathroom floor and then you do the books. So when you have a small business, I don't care what kind it is, always be okay with telling a customer what happened and asking for the forgiveness. I have built the most loyal friends. Not customers. They're my friends. I just had beers with a kid. He's 31, not a kid, but he came to my store when he was 11. He's getting married, so invited me to his wedding. He came over and had a beer with me, and. Which is great because it's my first beer since August because I'm not allowed to have beers because I'm fat. And so. So. So anyways, because. You know why? Because you make friends. Because they understand. They're part of your community now. When you tell them that, they realize that you're not Amazon, you're not Sweetwater. And you'll never be like them. You'll never be as fast as them. You'll never have the massive arm behind them you like they do. You know, Sweetwater has redundancy after redundancy after redundancy. Your engineers how sick? There's a backup. He's out sick, there's a backup. Right? So that's my. My. That's my tirade on that. So that's why I act the way I do when somebody. When a dealer kind of sends me the shining. Like, they try to shine me a little bit. I'm like, you would have. I would have loved you more if you just told me you forgot. I wouldn't got mad. I get it. Dudes who don't understand, they're gonna throw a fit. They're gonna light you up. What do you mean you forgot? You know how much money this cost? I've been waiting for days. You know, great. But let's just say I'm a habitual buyer. I'm the guy you want to make happy because I'm coming back. So that's my tirade for that. On that note, I want to thank you all for hanging out until the end of the show, as always. Hope you guys have a great time. If you guys want to consider becoming a patron. You can check that out. There's a link down below. $5 tier gets you ad free versions of this podcast plus a bonus one which the bonus one is so you guys know because you're in time for everything for this month. This month. Let's do the schedule. Because I have it on my phone schedule right now on the schedule. It looks like the next thing I'm doing is on the Sunday the 15th. I am doing the coffee hang with the top tier patrons. On the 18th. I am doing a. What am I doing on the 18th? On the 18th. I have no idea. Why is this not on my schedule? I think it got changed. Anyways. You know what? I'll go in there now. I have to. Why is it not on my schedule? But it's going to be in this schedule. Let me pull this off. Let me go into the chats just because I want to give it to you guys. Coffee hang is this Sunday morning for the coffee hang from the top tier, the bonus podcast which we do the extra podcast where you can just be part of this just like this. But it's just the patrons and the channel members that is on the March 18th at 4pm California time. And the guitar clinic is on the March 21st at 10am Which I believe is a Saturday. That's also California time. So any of you guys want to sign up for those programs. They're still available for this month and you can join next month if you want or just like and subscribe all the things that help the channel. I want to thank you guys for that and. And look for some. I actually have a cool breakdown video coming teaser for you guys hanging out. I'm not going to tell you what guitar is but a kind of cool teaser. I had a really cool thing happen. I was able to buy a guitar that has never been played. It was bought brand new. Put in a case like 30 years old. Ish. And so we're going to do a deep dive breakdown of a guitar that's that old even though it's. And it's technically it's brand new. So it'll be fun to see how it holds up to the new types of guitars like it. So. And then on that note, I'm going to let you guys go till the next time. Know youw Gear the Know youw Gear Podcast. Sam.