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Phil
Today's episode of 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, how's it going? And welcome to the Know youw Gear podcast, episode 398. You know, I'd like to say I was listening to some podcasts this week. I've been doing a lot of work and I was listening to a lot of podcasts and the amount of ads they read in a podcast now is insane. And I know I'm talking right now at the beginning of the show, but I have to say, not only thank you guys, but also I hope you guys thank the patrons and the channel members. Because my Patreon mention at the beginning of the show is like 60 seconds, 30 to 60 seconds, something like that. I was watching like 10 different podcasts this week and on average every 10 minutes they were reading like a two minute, a two minute integration. If you don't know what integration is, that's where you have to read the copy the ad. And I was like, wow, this is so crazy and I don't have to do that. So thank you to patrons and channel members. Let's get into the NAMM stuff, okay? Because there's so much NAMM stuff and I wanna make. This is kind of an announcement, but also a really cool thing. I told you guys that I didn't go to namm, but more importantly, I took the NAMM money and I spent it on the channel and that's what I decided to do with them in NAMM money. And why is that, why is that important you guys? It's important to you guys because every. Whatever I thought was a cool NAMM announcement this year, instead of running to the booths and be like, check out this thing we bought them, they're on their way right now. Literally. I have confirmation shipments from the new Fender Standard series. I bought those guitars, they're coming, we're going to do deep dives of them. I basically the we ordered the new Marshall announced a new JCM900 studio head that goes down to 1 watt now and it's says it's made in England for 12.99. And we bought that, it's on its way so. And there'll be ways for you guys to buy that stuff off us because as you know, once we're done with the videos, we won't need it anymore. It's really cool. So we did that. We're going to talk about some more gear that you are Interested in buying. Andra says, hey Phil, you said Friedman was one amp away from trouble. And a few days later Marshall launched a line of modded amps. Yep. And thank goodness to Marshall, he's still not in trouble. The modded amps were really cool. I looked at the. If you haven't seen what we're talking about, let's go to their website. Let's talk about Marshall's announcement. Because this is my point with Marshall is I even said if they came out with something cool, I would definitely buy it. The modded Marshall amps are not my thing. So just to be clear, it's nothing against Marshall, it's nothing against the amps. I have to accept all their cookies. Okay, here we go. So let's talk about this. What they have is a modified 1959 Marshall for $3,700. It's actually not a bad price. I mean $3,700 for what I think is a hand wired amp. I haven't checked. The JCMA 800 modified is $3,300. So very cool in my opinion. Very cool that they did this stuff. If you haven't seen also Friedman did a modded Marshall and he of course stole the show because he did the Jose mods. And if you guys don't know about that, you should do some research on that. He was kind of the pioneer of doing these mods that people are into. But this is cool. I'm glad Marshall's doing this. I think it was a smart move to do the modded Marshall thing. I'm not even modified. I've already owned all my 100 watt marshalls and they're just not practical for me. I don't want to throw them through attenuators. I just don't want to deal with it anymore. I don't want that weight, I don't want the size. It's not for me, but it's very cool. It's very cool. What I was interested in, which was not as exciting as the mods, but I thought was exciting, was the JCM 900. And the reason is, is because I've tried all the others. Oh, that's the 800. The JC 900. So as you guys know, I did a video on the studio vintage on the, on the jubilee on the 800. But now they did a 900. Where's it at? Right there. And 900, this is also says it's made in England. So it's $1,300. This is interesting because this is a really interesting amp because of the fact that they did this is the modification I think that made more sense. If you remember my complaint about the Studio series is even at 5 watt mode they're just too loud. And this one switches from 20 watts to 5 watt to 1 watt. I watched a lot of reviews on that and see down there and that one watt, I mean it got down to 70 decibels which is pretty quiet. So that's going to be pretty cool. It's pretty interesting. The other thing that's cool about the JCM 900 head is it's two channels and it has reverb and it has a real spring reverb. Actual same spring reverb that the full size 100 watt and 50 watt JC 900 have. Now a lot of you are going to be like, I'm sure they're going to say it. The JCM 900 was not like the heyday of Marshall. Like people really iconically think of the Plexis and of course the 800s after the plexis and stuff and the jtms more so than the 900s. But this is cool. This is a nice in between, between the DSL series that they've been doing in Vietnam that are pretty cool, right? This is something like you still get something made in England. You get something that's a little bit, you know, I don't know, a little bit more like the 800 because the 800 and 900 are very similar. So. And I don't know, I, I think it's, I think it's cool. Sean says did they drop the price on the JTM because of low sales? They dropped the prices on their, all their amps. Remember that's why I was speculating that they would be my moving to Vietnam instead of England. And it looks like they're holding true to the staying in in England and just dropping the prices. However, if you guys did see one thing that did happen was if you saw. And I want to stick on the amp for a second. So like I said, I ordered the amp, it's in order. I bought it from Sweetwater. And we'll see, we'll see when it gets here. It says February so I'll do a video as soon as it gets in here. And amps, speakers, headphones, drums. Why can't I find combo pedals? The other big announcement was the Marshall pedals. Now this one I'm less excited about because I think there's so many great Marshall in a box pedals out there and I'm sure they're cool. There's some weird choices here. Like the jvm, they decided just to give it a tone control because they wanted to add the gate. The noise gate is basically based off of the Joe Satrani noise gate that they had in that jvm that maybe it's cool. And so what I heard of these, some of these sounded pretty good. They have the dsl. This is, again, a weird choice. I don't know how many people want the DSL sound specifically, but. 800, 900. Again, these are very close. It's really interesting. It would make more sense that the JCM900 had the reverb built into the pedal. What's interesting about these pedals is, I mean, think about these. They just reissued these pedals at 189. These pedals are 149. And these pedals are made in Vietnam. So it's again, made in Vietnam for 150. I thought it would be. I mean, I don't know if they should be $99, but I thought 129, 119, you know, I mean, if they can make these for 189 and make these in England and look at the work, look at the craftsmanship on these, you know, these boxes and designs. Compared to this, I mean, this, you know, this is a cool look. Don't get me wrong. I actually prefer this look over that look. But when it comes to labor intensiveness that. I just made up that word intensiveness, the intensity of the labor, I just seem like, you know, the older ones seem a little cooler, but I don't know. And then what else was really interesting if you didn't see. So that's the Marshall buzz. So like I said, the only thing out of the new Marshall stuff that excited me was the JCM 900. Because, again, it's something I can maybe use in the bedroom and something different than what I already have, like a Friedman and stuff. And I have a JMP 2061. And that's my Plexi. It's. It's 18 watts or 20 watts and it sounds amazing. And that's where I landed. So to me, you know, maybe the 900 could be a cool thing. And plus, I think it could be a cool pedal platform as well, if you guys didn't see. Another weird thing that came out was pv. PV also came out with new gear, which is a little on the shocking side, right? PVs, you know, but in typical PV fashion, it was one thing. Basically what he came out with was the. It moved away. They came out with the Go back. There it is. They came out with this, the decade two. This amp is the. From Joshua, homie. Is that how I say his name? I'm going to mess it up. I just know. Hold on. He is from what band? He is from Queens of the Stone Age. So if you guys remember that song that goes right, pick it up, then you put it in the bag. Bump, bump. That song. Anyways, this was the amp he says that he used on that song. And he used this for overdubs. And a lot of people highly covet this amp. In fact, I believe some small builder makes a clone of this in a pedal. Like there's a pedal that looks like a peavey. I remember seeing it one time. Anyone know? Put it in the comments if you could, who that is? But there's a company that makes a clone of this amp in a pedal fashion that looks like a PV amp. And I went to buy one to maybe do a review. I thought it'd be fun. But every time I looked, they were out of stock or there was a waiting list. But anyways, back to this, this, this amp. So this was the big push. They came out with this amp. They also came out with an extension cabinet for it because it's a little practice amp. This one again, a little interesting. I think this one's like $300 for this little practice amp. And when I looked on the back of this, it said designed. Designed in usa, basically. So I think it's also an import product for 300 bucks. But also, if you look here, one other thing they did was instruments. Pro Audio. Accessories. Accessories, maybe. Where do they put this? Cables, adapters. Come on, just pedals. Why don't I just type here? Pedals. Oh, there it goes. Okay, so they came out with pedals. So they did the same thing Marshall did. They're like, hey, all you want, all our amps, the VTM, the Rockmaster, they brought back the. The Session Ltd 400. The Bandit. Look at that. You can get a Bandit. You could get yourself a Bandit. This is a very strange thing because it's one of those things. Like, was this a thing that people wanted? Like, were people looking for, like. I always wanted the PV amp sound, you know, I hate to. I'm not. I'm not bagging on them. I'm just excited. You know, new gear is always exciting no matter what it is. Because out there, somebody is excited if. If you're not excited for it, trust me, somebody out there was like, finally. The only thing that's funny about PB making pedal versions of some of their amps, like the Bandit is. I'm just used to walking to music stores and seeing their amps for, like, a nickel. Like, you can buy them really, really good deals. So I'm like. It's weird to think that, like, they're gonna buy a pedal version of an amp, that you can buy the amp for 150 bucks used all day, but the pedal is $200. But you know what? I also. I like to look. You can't have an opinion if you can't defend the other side of the opinion. Here's the other opinion on that or way of looking in that there are some classic songs that were probably written on pedals like this. And if you're a pedal collector, especially if you're an amp in the box kind of collector, you want the Friedman. You know, you got the EVH pedal, you get the Mesa Boogie pedal. You know, you get the Marshall pedals. Why not the Pee Wees, right? You get your dream 65 fender pedal. Let me go forward one. There it is. You know, it was. It's interesting. They had also done these trace element pedals, but I think this was before. These are bass for bass players. And, you know, we don't want to talk about them anyways. But. So anyone interested? Just so you know, look at that. You can get the Rockmaster. And again. And here's what's funny. I know it. I know for every five YouTube channels, small or big, making fun of this pedal, there's going to be a channel out there that buys it, demos it, and talks about how it's the best amp they ever owned their whole, whole life, and they're gonna have, like, four of them behind them. It's always the same thing. And they love them. And they. They're like. They're glad there's finally a pedal version of it. And that's. It's really interesting. Like I said, really cool. So I don't know if you guys saw it. Sean says, where are the Crate petals? I know, right? Right. Where's Randall? Where's Crate? Where. Where are all the pedals? But interesting. Interesting to say the least. I just thought that was interesting, the amp. Look, there's a buyer for everything. We're gear addicts. You can't be an addict and then not find a way to sell you every little strange little thing they can come up with. Oh, and unfreaking believable. Thank you. Says the pedal you're thinking is from Acorn amps. The solid state. Let's look that up, shall we? Acorn amps, solid state. Because I want to give credit. Because you know what it is? This is kind of like the Marshall thing, right? The. There it is. Look. Here's a used one. Oh, here's a newer one. Is that a new one? Let's do this. Well, let me just go to their website. Here we are. This is it. Like I said, it looks like a PVamp. And this is the. You know, this is it for those that want the PB sound, the solid state. Look at this pedal. I mean, I have to admit, I was intrigued every time I saw it. I was like, huh, look, it's. It's based. Yeah. See, it's based on the guy, this Joshua guy from Queens of the Stone Age. They like. They Acorn or Acorn did it. Oh, look at that. Jay Leonard J right there. He's probably doing a great review of it or video of it. He's an amazing player, so check out that video if you're interested. But what's. See, actually, this looks pretty cool. I think this looks more underground and raw than what Peavey came out with. But. So maybe. Maybe that's what it is, because maybe the Acorn pedal is doing well enough that it's on Peavey's radar. And they're like, we need to do that. But what's weird is if you notice what PB didn't do is they came out with the amp for that player but not a pedal version of that amp, which makes, to me, would make more sense come out with the amp and the pedal and let the players decide. At least I didn't notice there was a pedal version of that. So very, very cool. I'm still interested in getting that Acorn amp because of that reason. I was like, your curiosity, what is it? Is it good? Is it gonna sound good? Yeah. Liam says this or a used bandit. Yeah, I mean, I was just at a store a couple weeks ago, and there was two or three really nice pristine PV amps that I loved. And I think the one was 90, one was 120, and one was like 160 for the amps. The two. The 212 was 160. So I was like, you know? Yeah. I'm like, so it's hard to see. Think that they're gonna get these prices for the pedals, but who knows? I mean, my guess is, again, just my guess, the pedals are made overseas, and there's a huge margin in them at that price or a big enough margin in them. That they don't have to sell a lot of them for it to make sense. That's just my thoughts. But hey, at least they're doing something. PV's like a dead body over there in Mississippi. You're like just sitting there going, okay, are you guys alive? Just to see them release something says that they're still existing. And then the fight to keep going. And I mean no disrespect, I just, I mean, when I think of pb, I think of a slowly dying brand. Not because people aren't interested in this, because, you know, they don't produce very many products. And what they do, you know, they don't. Don't, you know, they don't produce a lot. I guess that's the best way to put it. They don't produce a lot of. You guys are like, PB is going to start going up in value starting now. It's. It's possible there. So I don't know. It's nice. What. Let's look at something. I need to look at something. Somebody just said something and I've had a week. So let me tell you, I did not see. Let me go to my subscription tabs and did I get it? Doesn't show. I got it. Oh, what's this? No, I don't see it. Somebody was saying Michael did a video of the pv. I'm looking on his, his page right now and I'm not seeing it. So I must have read that wrong. All right, I apologize. Okay. What else was new and exciting? Well, of course, now we want to definitely talk about the new Fender Standard series. So let's, let's talk about that. So let's go to Fender or we'll go to Sweetwater. So I bought two. So you know, Fender Standard. So if you've been under a rock, Fender released some new products. So they, they did the Vintage 2 series, which is $2,500 made in USA guitars and very cool stuff as always, but also kind of like, you know, expensive. Let's, let's take a look here. So. But what Fender did release is this new Standard series. So this is what I bought. I bought the Butterscotch Telecaster. What is the big deal? These are made in Indonesia. So 599 does not come with a gig bag made in Indonesia. And a lot of people are saying what I'm basically thinking, which is this a repackaged Squire? Did they just take the Squire line? Look, we know Indonesia makes great guitars. That's not the question there. The question is, you Know you make your Squires in Indonesia. So is it a rebranding of a Squire, or is it something new and something different? And that's the real question. Looking at the specifications. It did not. It did not. It didn't. I didn't have a lot of confidence in it. So obviously, pretty standard stuff. Nine and a half inch radius. Where. Where I'm really interested is the. See right here? It says neck pickup, fender standard tele. Single coil. We'll go through them. I've heard a lot of people say they're ceramic. Magnet pickups are basically what's in the $250 squires. The nut material is micarta. Micarta is essentially plastic. It's a bone. Synthetic bone material. Not like Corian. It's not as hard as Corian, but we'll check it again. And. And then. Oh, it does have medium jumbo frets. That's pretty cool. But they did do some cool things. They glossed the headstock. They sat in the neck. They have very limited colors on these. I ordered this one as well. Let me show you. And this one. And I think mine was 7 pounds, 8 ounces as well. It was exactly like this one. So Strat. Oh, that's not it. What am I doing here? Where'd it go? Hold on. Go back to me and. Okay, that will help. Here we go. Stratocaster. All right. And it's still not coming up. Oh, there it is. Okay, so this is the other one I ordered. That should be here in a couple days. And the videos will be out as fast as possible, obviously. Look, they're probably going to send a ton of these to YouTubers, so I'd like to get my videos out as fast as possible as well. But I got to spend some time with them. So once they get. I'll probably have to spend a full day or two. Not do my typical two weeks to a month with them, but I'll spend hours with them going through them. Back to this. So, again, you know, I mean, just looking at this finish, looking at the stain, this looks. I mean, if you didn't. Tell me. If I didn't see the fender right there. This looks like a squire to me. And so that's what I'm curious about. Like, you guys, look, the idea that they make an Indonesian line of main fenders, actual fenders, in a price point, that's. I mean, it's weird to see. I know that the made in Mexico stuff's like 7.99 now, but remember, I just did A guitar center where they were blowing out made in Mexico's for 4, 5 49. So it's weird like a month ago, a month ago you could buy a made in Mexico for 550 and now for $50 more you're going to made in Indonesia and get less features maybe. So we'll go through those. So that's why, what's nice about that. And again, these are, you know, they're sponsored by you guys videos. So that'll be really cool. We don't have to, you don't have to worry. I know that sometimes people's concern is like well, Fender picture the best ones and send them to you. Whatever. We ordered these so they're on their way. They're literally shipped out yesterday. So like I said, we went through and just ordered as much of the new stuff as possible I thought was interesting. So, and I'm curious because like I, like I said, it's either going to be a cool alternative to someone who wants to own a Fender guitar. It was a big deal for me. So Mark says it's for posers. Everything is for posers. This is all for pose. I understand your point but like I said, you know, it's, it's, it's when it comes to the term poser, Mark and I'm just going to give you some insight, my thinking insight, okay. I've always thought this. Everyone always calls somebody fatter than them fat, right? Like if somebody's 300 pounds, 200 people pound, people call them fat. If they're 200 pounds, 100 people pound pound, people call them fat. If they're thin in shape, people call them fat and they're like a little, little fat around this tummy that's usually the gauge. And I find the same thing with a lot of stuff. Like you know, if somebody buys like this like a Made in Indonesia Fender, they're a poser. And you know, and, but to somebody might have a Eddie Van Halen guitar and that's a poser. So I, I, and you might not even be talking about this particular subject and I just saw your comment but I'm just giving you an idea like yeah, I, I really don't care. What I really care about is this is, is a Fender is adjusting to say hey look, the market does not want a base price 800 Fender guitar. Okay? That's not what the markets, the market is not doing that. And so there's, there's real, really only two ways they can fix that. They can just drop the price of the Main Mexico stuff, which is maybe it's possible, maybe it's not. Or they can come out with a new series and take it offshore. And Indonesia is a really good place to go for a lot of reasons. As you guys know, they make quality stuff. But if they're going to give you something that's like, like the made in Mexico, main Indonesia, you know, comparable quality wise, I'm thinking that's a value there. Save a few hundred bucks maybe. Right, I understand. You gotta understand. You're thinking like guitar guys that hang out on a Friday and you know, you can buy made in Mexico, used for, you know, for five and a half, whatever, and. Or find a deal on one. But we're talking about someone who's like, hey, I always wanted a Fender. The artist I love own a Fender. And so I want to get into Fender. But the fenders are 800. This maybe gets them into it for six. And that's maybe the idea. And you understand and the excitement is what drives this, you know, the idea that you've leveled up. So like I said, I'm not. I'm trying not to go into this pessimistically and thinking like, oh, they just repurposed the midline $250 squire. But, you know, we'll see. We will see, right? We'll see. That's why I bought them. I bought them because we'll know. I'll take them apart, put them under the same. Same test and some new tests. For those interested in the update in the new studio, it's done. It's been a hard two solid weeks of updating the new studio. What ended up happening was the new videos were going to launch this week, a couple probably on Wednesday. It was over. The first one launched and I had a horrible incident happen where it was a technology issue. So what happened was I upgraded the lapel mics and the lapel system to rode. I really love rode. R O D E, if you guys don't know those, is the RODE wireless Go iis. And these wireless units were having an issue. And there was clicking, not popping. Don't think about clipping. Like, clipping. Okay. They were clicking like there was a weird click happening in them. And we had to do firmware updates. We had to check everything. We went through so many, so many, so many tests and two days of testing over and over again. Tech support, you name it, Trying to figure out the issue to finally come to the point where they just don't work. Did I get a defective set? We don't know. Did Just. Is there interference in that studio room that we can't detect? Even though we turned everything else and put, you know, even the cameras. Cameras have to go on wi fi. Our airplane. Airplane mode. And so what happened is once that happened, then we had to recalibrate all the mics that you. So. So now we're done. We're ready for the new studio and the new stuff, and I'm excited about it. So. Yeah. So that's an update for those that are curious. Two weeks of two. Two weeks probably doesn't sound like a long time, but that's just. Just to redo the systems, the computers and the cameras and everything. All right, let's see what Amanda's grabbing for me. Amanda grabbed a question from Captain Grumpus who says, hey, Phil, which. Which way do I turn the truss rod on a Stratogaster. Stratocaster to get it. To get it off a back bow. I see a lot of conflicting info. There's no conflicting info. So there is. Doesn't matter because I don't know which Stratocaster you have. So keep in mind, there's basically, there's going to be a single action or dual action truss rod. And essentially they're going to work the same way except for one major difference on the dual action. So let's start. Single action truss rod. And don't worry about which one you have, because you'll figure it out. From this description, you always. If you're confused, always take the guitar. Okay. And take. Let me grab a guitar. Looky here, we got a Fender. Take the guitar. There's no truss rod on this one because this is a vintage reissue. But we take the guitar like this. See how I'm looking down the headstock towards the bridge? Okay. That's how you look at it. You will go clockwise to tighten the truss rod, which will make the neck straighter and eventually cause a backbone. If you go counterclockwise. Okay. Then it will loosen the truss rod and eventually get to the point where the neck is straight or then gives it over bow. Right. Now, here's the important part. If your truss rod is at the bottom, you just reverse what I just tell you. In other words, face the guitar the other way. If you have a dual action truss rod, what's going to happen is somewhere in between getting too tight and too loose. So in other words, when you go clockwise, keep going clockwise and it's going to be tight. Okay. Then when you go counterclockwise until it goes loose, and then you want to Keep going a little bit. And if it starts getting tight again, that means you have a dual action, which means it can also bow the neck forward is the best way to think of it. There's a ton of videos on that and I've even have videos on that as well. It's not that. Not that hard to do and don't have to worry about it. The biggest thing when adjusting truss rod is really this. Absolutely, without a doubt, make sure that you're using the correct tool that fits into the truss rod. A lot of people talk about breaking truss rods. It's possible, but I mean, you really. I mean, you break a truss rod, it's. I mean, you kind of know it's coming. I broke one. I broke a Washburn base truss rod. One of my bases. This was 25 years ago. And. And how I broke it was exactly what I'm telling you. I was tightening it, it was as tight as it could go. And I was like, it could go a little bit more. I just needed a little bit more. I just needed the neck a little straighter and it just wouldn't go any straighter. And it was like hard. And I was like, I'll just keep going a little bit more. And I got. And it's. I hear a pop. And the top of the truss rod cracked off, right? And that's the only truss rod ever broken. That's the only one I've really ever seen broken. And what. What I can tell you from that is I should have known because it was obvious that it was done turning right. I was being like, I can do it a little bit. But you can't. Because what will happen is if I don't break it, which is probably not likely to happen very much anymore. Now you cannot break them. You'll strip them out because the metal is too soft now. So the bigger issue with truss rod adjustments is not breaking the truss rods, but stripping them with the wrong tool. So make sure you're using the right socket or the right Allen wrench. That is the main thing. And I've shown this before. You can go to Music Nomads website and go under resources. And it's not everything in the world, but it's going to be the most of most of the Allen wrenches and sockets that you need for most guitars. I'll be listed. So if you're confused about what you need, it'll tell you. It'll tell you right there. So that is it. And. And just go, like I said. Just if it feels like. Like if You're a little nervous. If it feels weird, like it's too tight or too, too loose or something, then stop. Then trust me. Because at some point, you know, you should know, you trust yourself to go, yeah, it's, it's gone too much. All right, another. Let's go over here. Oh, look at that. Let me update all this. See all. Okay. Antique rocker says dipped in tone. Did a. How many guitars do you need? Okay, video. Wrong question. That's what he says. It says should be, how many guitars can I justify owning? Also, I believe I won't have too many until I need off site storage. So the ever, the long, ever lasting question, which is how many guitars do you need? Well, the answer is really simple. And I, and I, I kind of please, everybody kind of pay attention. Lean in, come in. Because I really don't want to say it too loud. I don't want anybody to hear it besides you guys. Because I'm going to tell you the secret of exactly how many guitars you need. You need enough guitars that you can either trade them or sell them and get a Jet Ski. And then once you get a Jet Ski, the real question is, how many Jet Skis do you need? And then realize it's such a douchey question. How many guitars do you need? None. The answer, I'm always gonna say this, I'm gonna say this forever. The answer is none. No one needs a guitar. You know, one of the things that I love doing for a living is doing what I do now, making, you know, instructional entertainment videos and doing all this stuff. It's really cool. And before this, obviously working on guitars for many years is really cool. And owning a store and selling guitars to people and having those relationships and teaching all these things have been great fun choices. Before that, life, I used to work in the real world. And then before that I was in the army. And I will tell you one thing that you're very aware of, I'm very aware of. And this is. Not everybody will understand. This is why I want to give you some insight. One thing I'm very aware of every day of my life is how useless my job is in the real problems of the real world. Like, I used to fix equipment in the army. You know, that was a, that was a job that really I think is like, okay, this matters, right? This equipment needs to run. And if it's, if I'm not there. When I worked for a large corporation, I literally was in charge of the entire computer systems being turned on every day because I did all the risk management reporting and stuff. And we did all the telephony and all that stuff. And I felt like at least I could say this matters when it comes to dire needs of people's jobs. So you guys may understand, when I say it matters, it matters. 600 people. If I didn't do what I did, 600 people did not work. And 600 people did not. Didn't make any money and didn't feed their families. And so now if I don't make a video like, oh, you guys don't get entertained. So the. How many guitars you need is none. How. How much guitar entertainment do you need? None. You know, this is not a job of. Of need. This is a job that I do of want and this is entertainment. And I'm glad you guys have the time. And the reality is this, for every one of you watching right now, there's 1200 of you watching and enjoying this. I'm hoping you're enjoying this or hate watching it or whatever people do now, there's someone who's at work working overtime to pay rent, and they would love to sit here and watch some jerk like me talk about guitars they love. And so the reality is that that question is always fun, but it's. The answer is we don't need any of this stuff. And that's why we should be thankful to have any of it. And, and no matter what you have, don't worry about what everybody else has. Enjoy what you. What you have. I. I've thought about this long and hard. I've never been unhappy with the gear I've owned, ever. Not once, not once did I ever. When I had my PV rage amp and my Aria Pro 2, I never thought, oh, and I was miserable. I was so happy to have that. Not because I was like, you know, be happy with what you have. I mean, I just enjoyed making music and I enjoyed it. And then when I got another piece of gear and another piece of gear and what I found is that no matter how many guitars I buy, no matter how many amps I buy, nothing is more joyful. Nothing, but nothing's less joyful. Like, I don't really feel like, oh, man, why do I have 10 guitars? This is too many. I always think, like, when I had two, I was really happy, and when I had 10, I was really happy. And it's just like I said, there's no really. I'm just. I think the only thing I will tell you is that when you build a collection, once it gets to a certain size, every collector knows that you get to a size where all of a sudden you just like it's too big. This is too much for me. So I live in that world pretty often because of the YouTube channel because there's this stuff coming in and there's always something I want to keep and, and, and that's why I told you guys everything now is if something comes in, something goes out kind of thing. And you know, because again, otherwise like you said, I'll have an off site storage shed and I'm not doing that. So the answer to the question for me is always going to say none. You don't need any guitars. Enjoy what you have, whether you have one or 100 and be thankful for what you have. And, and trust me that we, we're all, we all should be so lucky. We're all lucky. Luke says. Hey Phil, would, would love to hear your thoughts on the Marshall being acquired by a Chinese private equity firm and what might mean for the brand. We've already talked about this. Obviously Marshall's new announcement of new product is, is a little exciting because obviously it means they're still putting out product. I know I said I wasn't very excited about the new modded Marshalls, but I'm excited they did the modded Marshalls. I'm just not personally in the market for one. If I was going to buy the modded Marshall, I'm going to buy the Freedman Martin Marshall. They would have. And keep in mind that's without playing any of these. So I wouldn't, you know. But I mean I really like the Friedman amps. I really do. I like Friedman amps so much more than Marshalls as a whole for my, for my needs and my, what I like. But I, I wish Marshall would come out at this point. Things I wish Marshall would do. I, I think the JVM should be a 20 watt studio model model and I would like to see them actually release something new. Even though keep in mind most of the stuff they released new in the last 20 years failed. It's just nice to see them try something new. Just curious. You never know, right? But no, Marshall is. Like I said, my big concern was they were going to shut down the England factory and go to Vietnam. And it doesn't look like they're doing that. It doesn't look that way. Like I said, I had the eerie feeling and I even told you guys that if they do come out with something new made in England, I'll buy it. And I did exactly that. I ordered the Marshall JCM 900. As soon as I heard about it and I bought it, I'm doing a video of it. Will I keep it? Probably not, because like I said, if I keep that Marshall JCM900, something will go. So it's going to replace something. So we'll see. So if you see me keep it, it's because it's replacing something. And if you don't see me keep it. It's just. It's just for you guys. I just want to do the video. So like I said, I just thought instead of walking around the NAMM show, I'll take the money to go to namm. Cost me about three grand. This is the last time I went to namm. Cost me about three grand. So I figured I'll take that money and just buy the gear I'm rounding up. But it's about what it costs. Litvay, what's up, buddy? He says, hey, Phil. Sorry. Why are you sorry? Why would. Don't start anything with sorry. It's like. It's like when somebody goes, hey, Phil, bad news. Okay. What? Okay, so sorry. All right, thoughts on guitar Max's hollow flash signature Harley Benton. What? Harley Benton came out with a holo flash guitar. Wait, what is. Wait, what is going on? Wait, hold on a second. So Harley Bitten made a copy or. Wait, they made a guitar? They made a hollow flash guitar. Like, of what does it look like the Baylands guitar? That would be infuriating if that happened. Did that happen? Is that. Did I miss this? Does anyone know what he's talking about? Harley Benton made a hollow flash guitar. I'm just messing with you guys. All right, so let me go into it. He says, okay, so hollow flash signature, hollow Benton guitar. It does not look as cool as the Badlands did. It has certainly more affordable. All righty then. Let's talk about that, shall we? Let's look at Harley Benton. So if you don't know the Guitar Max channel, he's a really cool guy. I met him once or twice and he was very nice to me. And that's always nice because like I said, some channels are nicer than others. And he was one of the nicer ones. And he's got that great voice, I guess. Told you that. He reminds me. His voice is like Pete Thorne's voice. It's like he's got a voice that just sounds really cool. So let me. Let me share this for real quick. This is it. This is Guitar Max. Guitar Max has a signature model with Harley Benton, which is great. I think that's really cool. And he had a green one and now he's got a purple one. And then they did a one that looks a little familiar. Doesn't this look familiar? Almost like a. Almost like a Badlands. Okay, so let me, let me not mess with you guys and show you what's going on. First of all, let me show you the prototype. I don't even know if Guitar Max has seen this. So if he, if he watches this clip, he'll see it. This is the actual prototype. Oops. Go back. Of the Harley Benton Hollow flash. So let me, let me talk about this and why do I have, why do I have the prototype? Pictures of the Harley Benton Harley flash. A hollow flash. All right, let me explain. So when I was involved with the Badlands guys, one of the discussions we had was getting knocked off. That was a concern for Badlands was obviously, you know, if we set the trend, if there's, you know, we sold, they, we sold 150 basically $3,000 guitars in a very short period of time. That doesn't sound like a lot, but let me tell you, it's a lot. It's enough to get a lot of small builders and even some bigger builders to pay attention because that's a lot of guitars to sell. Anyways, so I had this idea. So I've never told you guys this story. So I'm going to tell you the story just because it came up and you guys can know what's happened. So what happened was I went in a meeting with the Badlands guys. I said, look, they're going to knock us off. It's going to be on AliExpress. People are going to make copies of these Badlands guitars. And our idea was. Their idea was like, well, we'll just get some attorneys and then we'll try to shut them down. I said, you can't stop people from copying the stuff. The Badlands are essentially a copy of Kramer's and Jackson's. It doesn't make any sense. I said, here's a great idea. I said, what if we reach out to somebody and say, hey, why don't you knock us off? And essentially we won't care. Right? And so what happened was they said, okay, well, they were interested in more. So what happened was I reached out to Harley Benton because I figured if Harley Benton knocked off the guitars, they were probably going to do it anyways. That was my logic. Harley Benton was probably going to knock off. They did the Pete Thorne guitar. They were. Harley Benton is very in tune with social media as you guys know known Henning Poly has a signature model Guitar Max has a signature model. AGU Fish has a signature model. So obviously they're going to be aware that, you know, that Badlands exists and they might copy those guitars. So I reached out to Harley Benton and I said, here's my idea. My idea is that we will send you all the information to knock off the Badlands as a Harley Benton with a Harley Benton headstock. You can do whatever you want. We'll give you some of the insight on how the finishes are done and, and you can pay us a royalty, right? And they essentially what they said was, well, why would we pay you? And we're like, well, we can tell you ahead of time, we can tell you what guitars are coming out. And so if you're going to not. Because the idea again is if they're going to knock us off anyways. Well, like they did, they knocked off Pete Thorne, sir. And so I was like, you know, why not? You know, Pete didn't seem too happy about that. But that was just my perception. But my perception was if Harley Benton knocks off the Harley Benton, sorry, Harley Benton knocks off the Badlands Hollow Flash or other finishes, it's going to make it harder for other people on AliExpress to do it. Because why would you buy a $300 AliExpress when you can get a really good quality Harley Benton for $500. So I talked to Harley Benton and believe it or not, after a couple weeks, a few weeks, they liked the idea. They came back and they said they had a couple of stipulations and one of the stipulations was they wanted me to do a video of it. So I would do a video of each time Harley Benton made a kind of a Badlands copy. They would have send one to me and I would just do a comparison against the Badlands, right? And so you guys know that's, you know, it sounds like no big deal, but I mean, that's work for me, right? So it's two, three days of work and I'm like, all right, that's fine, I'll do that. And so then the question became, what does Badlands want for Essentially what Badlands would do is obviously if they're copying the finishes and stuff, you know, what do you want to basically not throw a fit about that and also maybe tell you ahead of time what finishes are coming next? Because it takes, you know, obviously, look how it was. It's a year later, Harley Benton came out with the Hollow Flash, right? If they Had a heads up the Hollow Flash was coming out ahead of time. In other words, whatever the next finish is. My logic was this simple, so you guys know was, look, there's only so many people are going to buy a 2500 guitar, $3000 guitar in a limited qualities of 25 or 50. And then if you made a $500 version, you know, everybody else could get one. And even the people who maybe want a Badlands could have the Harley Bitten version to take to gigs and stuff. Right? And just a lesser version. And they love the idea. What happened was. And again, I, I hate this because I just, I'm transparent, okay? It's just how it goes, guys. Even when I don't want to say what I'm going to say. The Badlands guys wanted way too much money. They. They asked for. I'm not going to disclose the percentage, but what they asked for when they told me Badlands, the, the called the brain trust of Badlands. When they told me what they wanted to go back to Harley Ben, I told them that's three times what anybody would get. Like nobody is going to pay that. Like there's not even that much margin in a Harley Benton. As you guys know, I'm very versed in the Harley Benton business model because he spent time at Toman learning about it. They didn't care. They said tell them the, the, the business model or tell them what we want. So I told Harley Benton what they want and Harley Benton went dark. I don't blame Harley Benton. I literally. If you would have came to me with that offer. In fact, I'm still ashamed of myself for telling him the offer. My first reaction, my first instinct, I shouldn't react was to not say anything to Harley Ben, just. But I kind of put so much work into making this work that I thought it'd be cool. And so here's. Here, let me give you a reference. Let me give you a reference. I think they're gonna sell a thousand of those Hollow Flash Harley Benton guitars. If they give guitar max 10%, he's gonna make $50,000 on that deal. It's possible. It's possible. Selling a thousand is a lot. That would be a 10% margin. That's a lot. All right. The truth is. So you guys don't think Guitar Max is making a fortune? It's possible. They only sell 500. He only gets a 5% right to 6% margin. Right. That changes that number real fast too. Right. But let me tell you, if he could do, I God bless him and Guitar Max, if he can, if he can get that kind of margin or that percentage and get that number, I'm more the power to him. I hope he gets it because that's a lot of money and it's great and it's a cool guitar and I'm glad they did it, but that's why that fell through. So I'm not shocked. Here's why I'm not shocked. One, because I actually brokered that deal, so of course I would assume shortly thereafter. So, you know, it was disclosed to me that they were working on the prototype. Somebody says the finish is not as good. It's because they're doing a solid sheet. I actually have video footage of them testing the sheet. They were using a solid sheet instead of pieces. Again because they're trying to keep in mind it's also $2,000 less and they added stainless steel and a roasted neck. So I mean, you know, it's, it's to get it, it's hard to do the piecing and, and get consistency. So they did it more of a just a solid sheet, which is things fine. To be honest. It's 4.99. I plan to buy one. I. That's just my honesty right there. I'm like, I think it'd be cool to have a holo flash. I like Harley Benton's and, and for $500, I don't think you could go wrong and it'll be fun to have and I'll probably throw in some different pickups in it and call it a day. But. So to answer your question, Litvay, I did see it, but only so you know, just so you know, a viewer like you sent me a thing saying, did you see this? And so I kind of knew it was coming up, so I queued up the, the original prototype picture. So I'm glad Guitar Max took the deal. I'm glad Harley Benton did what they did. And I'm really sad that it could have been a huge, huge, lucrative opportunity for the Badlands guys. But either way, it's going to be huge marketing for them because now people are seeing that Harley Benton one, they're going to go, you know, they're going to. People are going to say it's a copy of Badlands. And people go, what's a Badlands? And now people are going to look up badlands.com and I mean, it's a win. It's like I said somebody said earlier in the comments I saw somebody said it's great marketing ploy. I thought so I Thought it was amazing marketing. I was impressed with myself for coming up with the plan. And maybe after this, maybe Harley, Ben and Badlands will get together and maybe they'll work something out. I mean, obviously they laid out the plan, said all they got to do is follow it. And it seems like an easy plan. And you just heard the numbers, man. I mean, could you imagine? Those are so. You know, those are called royalties. So the royalty deal is the best deal. That's to be funny. I won't say which company told me this, but the owner of a company once who does a big royalty deal, he's a parts manufacturer. He told me, he goes, royalty is the best. I just go to my mailbox every day and get my check. And he's like, I don't build it, I don't ship it, I don't worry about it. I just get my check. The Harley Benton deal is a royalty deal. So it's like, great, right? So you gotta understand, like, that's just somebody's getting a check. You know, Harley Benton ships the guitars, they set up the guitars, they send them to you, you guys, they process the payments, they deal with the returns, they deal with all the issues, and then somebody gets a royalty kick. So that's a good deal. I wish that plan would have worked out and I got that check. How about that? That would have been a nice check. Even split at that time four ways, it still would have been nice. It had been a nice, nice little check. So that's the answer to that. So, okay, that's all I got trying to think other than if I was really smart, which I wasn't just now. I was thinking when this came up, I was gonna order one. And so, you know, and I didn't. I'll probably put an order one after the show. But the sad thing is they'll probably back ordered. I imagine they're gonna sell a lot of them, so. All right. Waka Waka. Waka. Waka. One, one, one. When I say waka, I think of Waka Waka Waka, which is funny because it's waka. 111 says, hey, Phil, keep up the great work. Thank you. I will try. What would you recommend as a Gateway Telecaster? Any brand, no budget. No budget. Okay. Constraints. As long as there's value, no budget, then get whatever you want. I love that. It's like, what do you want to have for dinner? No budget. Well, then we're going to have the best dinner ever, right? What's a great Telecaster to get into Telecasters get yourself an American Standard, American Professional Telecaster. We're talking no budget. Me, I would not go vintage Telecaster reissue. I would not go custom shop. I would not go anything. Think of it like Fender. Is one thing that Fender does really well, that I really like is they have mastered the. The every man and keep this, like, kind of more politically correct, every person's guitar, right? So. Because, you know, so. And when I. But I'm gonna still say every man just because the terminology, I'm used to it because I'm old. But the Everyman's guitar. What I mean by that is Fender kind of knows, like, okay, seven out of 10 players prefer the neck to be a medium thickness and not super thick or super thin. Seven out of ten, like, prefer the vintage look, but the modern feel. Seven out of ten prefer these saddles. And so the American Standard or American Professional or Professional two series and just like the main Mexico series are really Fender's way of taking what the average player likes and giving it to them. And then, and then that's why they're great guitars. If you're getting into Fender to get into those features and, and then, and if you're, you know, if it's a. It's a cost expense, which you said no, cost was no issue. You can get into Squire versions too. But we're talking Fenders. When you get into the deluxe, the ultras, the vintage reissues, the custom shops, now you're. You're diving into the last three of those ten guitar players and they're a little bit more specialized. In other words, some players, they have a preference. They like things to be vintage correct. They like the saddles to be the way they were. They like the neck to be like a little thicker. They like things a little bit different or how it was. And so if you're getting in Defender, literally go for their middle of the line stuff. Not because of the pricing. And my middle line, like, whether it goes main, Mexico, you know, go middle line, USA middle line. It's because it is an accumulation of just features that they find that most players tend to like. Even pickups voiced. They voiced the pickups to be almost think generic, right? It's like just a great way to, like, okay, this is a way to get into the brand and not feel all the strangeness of certain things that they do. So that's my suggestion for that. I need to. I said I'd do that a couple episodes ago and I didn't. I have all the offender training manuals on how to Be you know how to sell their stuff from when I was dealer. And I know that sounds like oh, the sales manuals. But those sales manuals, that's what they would teach you is stuff like I'm telling you right now, we teach you like why they do what they do the process for Fender. And they're like not only. It's not like marketing sales like right. Like, you know, it was. It didn't have any marketing terms or selling terminology. It had more like what. Why they make a certain, you know, what, what customer lines up with what product level. And I thought that was really cool. And that's what I learned when I for that is the standard series, which is why they call it standard. But now it's professional. Johnny did a super chat just said supporting the channel. Thank you, I appreciate that. Let me go over to Amanda's grabbing for me. Amanda sent me Frank. Frank says, hey Phil, can you run a base through an amp in a box pedal, amp in a box base pedal and an frfr? What are the downsides? Well, the only the downside. I don't know what the downside is. I've never done it. So I would assume a FRFR flat response speaker cabinet should be able to handle a bass guitar. But I'm not familiar enough with the speakers to know what kind of low end frequencies it can handle. So I don't know. I'm very aware of the fact that like Kempers and AX effects and stuff like that, there's guitar players and bass players running their rigs through them, but I don't know specifically they run to different cabinets. I just, I don't do that. So I don't know. So sadly enough, so many does, you know, gig and no, I would think that just guessing and this is my guess, just off the hip, I would, I would guess that if I was going to run my bass through some kind of like you said, an amp in a box or a modeler or a profiler into a cabinet, the FRFR would be fine. But except for like the low B or something that turned up really loud, I would imagine turned up loud and running like the lowest, you know, low B string and maybe a little too much bass for the speaker. The issue would be the speaker. The power amp's fine, everything's fine. It's the speaker that would be the issue. But I don't know because. And my guess is if no one's going to give you the answer, if no one has any working knowledge of this, one thing you could check easily is Go look up the FR cabinet you're looking at and look at the frequency response range. Right? Look at the frequency range, what low frequencies it can take, and then compare that Note, that information to a bass amp frequency response speaker, and then that's all you need to know. How much can the. How much. How much low frequency can the speaker take? So that's. That's all I. That's. That's it. Okay, Time to drink water. All right. Wow. There's 1300 people watching. I think that's a record high. That's crazy. I don't know if that's record high feels high. It's nuts. Appreciate you guys. Thank you. And it dropped. So, Steve. Steve. Because Steve said this. Hello, Phil. Can I use an acoustic EQ pedal on my electric guitar? Yes, of course. Yeah. Will it sound good? It depends. I mean, but keep in mind some of those are what's beautiful mistakes, as Bob Ross would say, right. That are gonna. You'll find a sound that's new. My favorite acoustic player to talk about is Monty Montgomery because he plays an acoustic through with electric guitar tones. And I've seen electric players play through acoustic stuff, and you can get really cool tones. And then Sean Brooks says, hey, Phil, why do they even bother labeling stuff designed in the USA on it? That seems like it only draws attention to the fact that it's not made in usa. Do you think that is fooling anyone? I do think it fools people. I think, you know, look, the. The. I don't. I'm pausing because I'm thinking if I want to. Okay, so I'm just going to say it. So my wife. I just hate talking about anything personal, like, because, you know, everybody's going to have an opinion about it. Please don't have an opinion about it because you don't know why. But my wife, she. She's gluten free. She doesn't. Hadn't had gluten in, like, five years. Okay. And so, you know, it was just because everybody has an opinion about everything. Everyone does. She went to the doctor once, she had some issues, and they said, hey, maybe adjust your diet a little bit. And that's one of the adjustments they did. And she's been fine since. So she just doesn't do it. The reason I'm telling you that is because I want to tell you this thing I learned about gluten free is if a product is gluten free, it's like, gluten free is, like, huge, right? Like, she'll hand me Xiaomi a package, and she'll go, hey, can you see if this is gluten free? And I've kind of learned that if I have to look, it's not right every time I look, even though. And then finally, I finally goes, oh, there it is. There's wheat. And I go, okay. And I've kind of learned like, the, like they're proud of it if they make something gluten free, even it's Coca Cola, right? She doesn't drink soda, but you get the idea. It says gluten free, right? This is the same thing for made in usa. I find it's on manufacturing and maybe made in Germany and maybe made Japan and made England. All this stuff made in England as well. It seems like they put that stuff, it's like as prominent as you can get on the product as they can get it, you know, made in usa. So if you're looking for where something. In my experience, if you're looking for where something is made, the odds are it's made in China, Indonesia or Vietnam, India. I mean, again, and I'm not saying anything wrong, you know, I buy products from those, those manufacturers in those countries too. But I'm just saying I've kind of noticed, like, if you have to look for where, you know, if it's. If you're like, hey, is this made in USA or made in Germany, wherever. They're actually the probably best way to say it is instead of where it's made, where it's origin. In other words, like companies founded in USA or companies found in Germany or founded in England or whatever or Japan that if you're looking for the made in thing, the odds are then it's not made in those. Those manufacture, the country of manufacture, the ones that they started because of the factors you're looking for. And so, Sean, what I think what happens is, is I find I'll see proudly made, you know, say proudly designed in the usa, right? And you're like, huh? And I don't fall for it. You're not gonna fall for it. But we're also a bunch of guitar freaks talking on a Friday show about guitars and, you know, truss rod adjustments and, you know, and, you know, trademark disputes and, you know, I mean, so we're a different kind of consumer than the average consumer. Like I said, collector is a informed consumer. That's the whole point. When people collect things, they become very versed in them to the point where they know every detail about them. They're the most informed you can get about a product. A perfect example is, I Could probably take out of the 1300 of you right now, I take half of this group, and if I sent them to go look for a vacuum, they would have no idea, and they'd have to do research. But if I sent you looking for a guitar, you'd almost have to do no research. You know exactly what you're looking for and looking at. So you're just a different kind of informed consumer. So, yeah, Sean, you're not gonna fall for it. I'm not gonna fall for it, but I think people fall for it constantly. And that's why I think they do it, because that's why that print's always in bigger print, and then in smaller print, it says where it's made. And also, also, I have been told I've been pitched by companies not so much as a YouTuber, but more so as a dealer, but as a YouTuber as well. I've been pitched by companies. Why the designed by is important, even though, you know, engineered and designed. Like, I've had companies tell me, like, when a product says, like a perfect example. Let's take Marshall, for example. Like, if a product says designed and engineered in England and manufactured in China, they're telling us what they claim. They're telling us that they just didn't go to a job. Or in other words, a factory in China who is making something. Oh, put our logo on that, right? A good example of that is, like, you know, Harley Benton, right? Harley Benton. Harley Benton, of course, you know, takes all kinds of products that are made overseas and puts a Harley Benton logo on them, right? Essentially, a Kirkland to the Costco is to Harley Benton is to Toman, and then sends out the product, right? So you might see a Harley Benton pedal, but it won't say proudly, engineered and designed in Germany, manufactured in Indonesia. Because in a lot of the cases, not all of them, Harley Benton does design some stuff, but a lot of the cases, they were there, probably, or talking to the manufacturer, and the manufacturer's like, yeah, we make this. We make this pedal. And they're like, you know, I'm using the boss as an example. We make this pedal. Would you like one that says Harley Benton and Harley Ben's like, yeah. And they go, okay, well, if you buy a thousand of them, we'll give you this price. And so it couldn't say, you know, it's. It's. Then it's designed, engineered, and manufactured in Indonesia. So there is supposed to be a reasoning for that. And sadly enough, though, like, everything. I don't think every Company holds that rule. I think some companies is like, you know. But I have noticed though that the terminology does change a little bit as someone will say designed or engineered in the usa. Some will say, they'll say. What's the saying they say? They say based, like the company is based in usa, right? They're like, it's a USA company. And then I'm like, oh, okay. Now they're saying they didn't manufacture it and they didn't design it. But hey, they are in that country. I think that's what that implies too. So, yeah, it sucks. I. This is where. And I don't know because I don't live in Europe, but I, I feel like sometimes when consumer protection laws, you read some of the European ones and you're like, oh, those make a lot more sense than the wild west here that we have where it's kind of like figured out but. But I could be wrong. So, you know, but that's the impression I get is they have less of that goofiness over there. But who knows? I don't live there. I only go off what my friends say. This one is from Ray. Ray says, hey, thoughts on Taylor electric guitars. Why'd they fail? Unlike Gibson. Unlike Gibson was a success in both. Have you played, reviewed them? They do look nice and I wonder why not. So yeah, look, it's, it's a fluke. Fender, Fender being a Fender doing great in amps, basses, guitars, you know, and I mean, just start there. That's a fluke, right? Gibson doing well in acoustics and electrics is a fluke because I mean, even though they don't great do great in basses, I mean they do great basses, they just don't do well in that market. And their amp market never really took off as strong as Fender. It's very rare that a company can do electrics and acoustics. PRS tried, remember PRS tried to do high end acoustics and it didn't really do really well. I remember when the Taylor acoustics came out, it was the first year I was like, okay. The store had really kind of leveled up and I'm like, okay, we added prs. We're gonna be a dealer for prs. I'm gonna add Taylor. And I'm like, okay. We had Gibson, we had Fender and Gretsch and I was like, this is great. We're moving in the right direction. And I went to the NAMM show and I'll never forget this. And I met with Taylor and Taylor's like, oh, here's the buy on it was like, I forgot what it was. It was like eight of these acoustics and eight of these acoustics. Oh, and eight of the electrics. And I was like, I don't want any of your electrics. They just came out, they just showed them on the wall. And I was like, I don't want any of that. And they're like, oh, you gotta be a dealer, you gotta order the electrics. And I'm like, that is not gonna happen. I go, I don't even know. I go, that's an unproven product. I go, I. I mean, people, I mean, I'm supposed to sell a $3,000 Taylor electric guitar. It's hard enough to sell $3,000 PRS guitars. So I didn't do Taylor and I was really bummed out. And then what I remember about it was I had my meeting like at 4 o'clock with PRs and I go with PRs and I meet with Bert, my guy, and we're talking and he's like, oh, Phil. And you're going to have to buy on this. You're going to buy this. And by the way, we've added these new high end acoustics. This is before the import acoustics. And you have to buy three of these crazy expensive 6,000 acoustics. I'm like, no way. I just told Taylor no to electrics. I got to tell. No way am I buying your acoustics. So what happened with PRs is they let me not buy the acoustics, but it lowered my, like I was a, I don't know, showroom dealer. And then it lowered my dealership because I didn't do the thing. And I'm so glad because Taylor acoustics did not do well as a whole for at least for sales wise. If you have one, you like it. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about for sales. And same with Taylor. The electrics didn't do well. Look, everyone wants to be great at everything. The truth is it's very hard to pull off, you know, multiple lines of product. Very few companies can pull it off. Very few companies pull off basses and guitars. Very few companies pull off guitars and amps. You know, it's just not common and there are a few exceptions. You know who's funny is, is a good, a good example is like when you think a Yamaha guitars, you think of Yamaha is like Yamaha basses do well but not super great. Their electric guitars do well but not super great. But acoustics do fantastic, right? And and they probably as a company, they really focus on their pianos. That's like really where they're really mindset is for the most part, they really focus on that more than anything else. But it's, It's. I don't know. So you get the idea. So to me, why. I don't know. I think it's because when I think of Taylor is got one of the biggest customer loyalties of any brand in the guitar industry. I don't know if you know that little fun fact about Taylor. And they're well known for a lot of people I have. I love them, A lot of people love them. But they're really huge in the worship crowd group. And I think the worship crowd also really likes sir and PRs. And I think that's this the way the worship crowd works. Right. Is what my impression of that. So. And the guitars are great, but again, that's not what it's ever about. You know, there's a lot of guitars that are great, they sound great, they play great. But again, you know, it's a little bit of marketing. Maybe the problem with Taylor electric guitars is that there's no real known artists playing it. It's not like you're gonna see. Not like you're seeing John Mayer or somebody, you know, of noteworthy, you know, notoriety playing electric Taylor. Not that I've seen. Who knows have I played them, by the way? That was your second part of question. I have. And they played great and they sounded great. Yeah. Like I said, there was nothing. Nothing other than my only issue with them was I didn't know if I could sell them and I was gonna have to buy them and sell them at that time when I was a dealer and I was like, I just don't want to take the chance. You know, it's like, it's like, you know, you can imagine I'm taking my money and I'm buying product in hopes to sell it and get my money back with some more money. Right. And sometimes you're looking at a situation going, I don't even know how I'm getting my money back. And that's scary. Right? The idea that you cannot make any money and, and, and, and break even is scary. But lose money is always extra scary because you're not in the business. You know, you're in business to make money, not. Not lose it. Mike says, hey, Phil. While traveling to Huntsville, Alabama, I bought a guitar at GC on the 7th, was on police hold till the 10th, paid for shipping. 14 days later, two phone calls no tracking or guitar done with GC. Okay. Did you call them? It says okay. It says two phone calls, no tracking number. Did they, I assume they return your money. I don't know. Because you were traveling. I don't. I don't know. Because I got to ship it. I can tell you. I just recently bought something from Guitar center and it was used and I paid for one day express shipping and they shipped it out and it got here in 24 hours. Like I bought it yesterday. So I was shocked by that. So let me tell you, put it this way, I was more shocked in my experience than I was of yours. The idea that I bought and don't think like, oh, because I'm a YouTuber, they didn't know. There's no time. I literally just bought it on their website on the used section. And it was $24, which I thought was ridiculously cheap to ship it, but it was $60 for one day, one day express. And I was like, one day Express. It's like $80 a ship guitar normally. So I paid 60 bucks. And then a couple hours later I got a notification, it shipped and then it was delivered today. I haven't got it yet, but because it's. It's at the third party location. But I was shocked by that. So I would say I'm shocked. More shocked of my positively crazy experience than your negative experience. But my thing is, as long as you get your money back, I don't know what to tell you. That sucks. And my guess is it's the store, right? I mean, and that could be the situation with mine too. Maybe it was a better store. I didn't, I didn't even notice what store it was that I bought from or what state. Now I think about, it could have been in California. Maybe that's why I got here so fast. I don't know. I didn't look. I was just looking at the product and the price and. And. But yeah, that sucks to hear. Okay, this is Bennett. Bennett says, hey, call me Ben. Ben. Ben says, hey, Phil, longtime viewer here. Thank you. I appreciate that. It's about time I give back a little to the channel. The Gibson SG is growing on me. Oh, good. I love my Gibson sg. I just restrained and cleaned mine up yesterday. But everyone I tried in the store, I found the fret height is too low. So it says. See my next super chat for the question. So let me. Before I get to. Well, let me do the question. It says I started to look at alternatives and realize that most of the companies that are building Gibson shaped guitars don't have an SG model. Yes. Collings, Heritage, Eastman, etc. Any idea why? I don't. Okay, so two things. First of all, my SG, I, this SG that you see behind me, for some reason the frets are perfect. They're like high enough and I love them. If you guys remember, I've owned a couple SGs since then. I've had a bunch of them. I had the green one, I had a green SG that was the same color as this olive colored stratum pointing at kind of. And I've had a couple SGs and they played great, they sounded great. It just, I thought the frets were too low because it's like to me if like all the meat on the bone when it comes to Gibson frets is, you know, I need every little letter, every little bit of it. And so yeah, it's a little hard to find a, a Gibson with the fret height that you want if you like your frets a little taller. But you can always refread it. So that's a good reason to buy a used SG and then have it refread it or refread it yourself. But to your second part, I don't know why no one, I mean only people I know that copy the Gibson SG is LTD and ESP with a Viper. When I talked to Eastman, I said you need to make an sg. When I talked to Heritage, I, I said, you need an SG Heritage. So let me tell you, I don't know why Eastman doesn't do it. I don't know why everybody doesn't do it. I'm assuming some kind of cease and desist stuff. I can tell you with Heritage exactly why they don't do it because the Heritage agreement with Gibson is very specific. So you understand Heritage has a deal with Gibson and it's very specific. They have the right to make the guitars they're making, which essentially is ES335 and the LES Paul. They can make those guitars in that factory and that's it. Like they can't do other things. I mean, I think they have one other guitar, but you get the idea. So when I talk to him, I said, hey, if you do an sg, I would love to promote it and talk about it and get one and show it on the channel and you know, because I would really love to have a heritage sg, like that would be a thing. And they said like in our agreement there's just no way to do it. And so my guess is Gibson's just Got the SG on lockdown. For some reason they couldn't keep the Les Paul locked down, but they got the SG on lockdown from being copied. But I don't know. But like you, I would love to have an SG that's not a Gibson. Just as get have something else. But Mr. S says, Hey, I love your bass playing. Saw your pal Tim Pierce. Oh, oh. Present this morning with Beato. Oh, I saw the picture of that. And Asato at namm gonna see Vernon Reed. Love Vernon Reed. Kenny and Doug Pennock, Stu Ham and more tonight. Yeah, you know, it's so funny. Is one of the hardest things about the NAMM show for me was, well, there was two things. I was invited to two special events and tonight's event was to hang out at the PRS event, open bar, all food paid for with and have like John Mayer's playing. And it's a private little party. It's the 40th anniversary. So not going to Nam. It not going to that. And then I was invited to another party that would be on Saturday night. And like I said, I just did the math. And me and, and we, we went through everything and we're like, you know, let's update the studio. Let's in. Not only we're not improving the video quality so much, we are, but the focus is faster. I can get through videos a little faster now, which is great. And we added features. So that was the focus I was in. You know, I said, do I want to invest my time in a week of being at the NAMM show and walk around and keep in mind, when you go to the NAMM show for a week, you're taking the chance that the week after the NAMM show, you could be sick. So two weeks down and so I was like, two weeks down and all I have is a bunch of videos of me walking through booths or, you know, doing some stupid stuff or pointing at another YouTuber going, hey, guess who's here? This guy. Like, you know, right? And they go, hey, look, that's that guy. And then we all high five. And. And I said, why don't we invest in like two weeks? If we're going to be down basically for two weeks, let's be down and make the channel better. So that's what we focus on. I'm hoping that's results. Like I said, you're supposed to get the results this week. And then I'm not bitter about the road thing, but the road thing, man, I, I'm mad at myself because I knew the road Thing wasn't working and I tried. I, I knew the gear was not working and for some reason my ego was like. My biggest fear was because we were sending the road units back and I was like, my biggest fear is it's going to get back because I bought them from Sweetwater and they were going to go, oh, these are fine. And I'll be like, ah, user error. I'm an idiot. So I had to be sure that it wasn't me. And I. So I did so many. I did so much. I spent two days trying to make sure it was. I should have just flew in my gut. Which was. And which is to, you know, ditch them as soon as they were acting up. Chris Dunn says, hey, Maybach does SG copy, but they won't ship it here in the US or at least that's what they told me. So yes, Maybach makes a great Les Paul on sg. But I've talked about this before. I've talked to them and they wouldn't ship one. Maybe they'll ship one. They'll ship one to you guys if you order it, I'm sure. But they're not gonna ship one to me because it'll be on my chann. And then they don't want the wrath of Gibson. So. And I don't blame them. Right. You know. You know, not every. Not, you know, it's not worth it. It's not worth the hell and the headache. Marcus, thank you for the super chat. I appreciate that. Let me. No more super chats if, if we can do that because I got some other subjects from Amanda and I want to grab a couple of you guys in the chat right now. Let's see. Kent says, hey Phil, I have the new. This came from. Amanda says, I have the new Princeton Tone Master and enjoying it. How do they compare to your Princeton's? Oh, by the way, he's a new patron member. Oh, I appreciate that. Okay, so I finally got to play the Princeton tone Master. I really like it. I have, essentially, I've had three, but now I'm back down to two Princetons, which is the perfect amount of Princetons. So I have my 68 reissue Princeton and I have a 64 Princeton. The 64 is the hand wired one. I bought it used and I love it. It's. I liked it more than the 65, so I just like, that's what I ended up keeping, a 64. Plus it's hand wired. And you know, there's kind of cool vibe to that. Um, I don't know what it is the 64. Like, I'm like, if I'm like, oh, Princeton, you know, like the pure Princeton. Wait, hold on. The pure Princeton. Look at my nose up a little bit. Let me get my nose up at all, you guys. You don't have the hand wide Princeton. Like, I do. So good. No, I'm just kidding. It's. It's cool. But I prefer my 68 still. There's just something about the 68 I keep going to. It's dark. It's darker sounding the 64. I. If I was to ab them, I couldn't imagine a single person picking the 68 over the 64. For the as. Like, as you as the audience listening, you'd be like, oh, the 64. Clearer, crisper, better, better. But as a guitar player, sometimes it's not about the sound it's making. It's the way it makes you feel. And just the darker settings just makes it a little easier for me to play really, really like that. So when I was comparing the 65 reissue tone master, I would say it was like the 65 reissue. I liked it a lot. In fact, I liked it more than the 65 Deluxe Tone Master. I thought it was really cool. But look, it's easy. It's just like why I got murdered on my 65 tone master is because I have a 65 deluxe tube amp. I think if you want a Tone Master, I think they're great. I think they sound great. I really don't care about the weight thing because I don't really think of the Princeton is being heavy, so I know that Tomaster is lighter, but it's like I don't think of the Princeton as being heavy, so I don't really care. But my only complaint about tone master, my only thing, and this is I've had them for so long. And again, mostly the 65 Deluxe, not the. The Princeton, they don't take pedals as well as the real thing. That's the only complaint I have. They take pedals, okay? Certain pedals, like distortions and fuzzes sound good through them, but most don't. They get too fizzy. There's just a little too fizziness sounding there. And so if you're heavy into the pedal thing, I don't like them as much, but when I say they don't take them as well, it's like a. They're just not as good. I'm not saying they're horrible. Some people have flat out said they. They sound horrible with pedals. I had good luck with them. My whole thing is if you have, in my opinion, if you have a tone master and you like it, you're fine. There's no don't, don't upgrade. Don't go to the more expensive 2amp. It's not worth it. You're gonna be fine. However, if you have the tube amp, which is what I had, and you get the tone master, I. You're not gonna play the tone master. That's what happened to me. I thought I would because I had the attenuation. I thought it would be a little easier and a direct out into the. To the. And I, I just found myself plugging in the real deal more. That's what happened to me. So, you know, it's just, it's just how that works. And, and I thought, oh, well, if I go and jam with some friends, I'll take the tone master. And that's not what happened either. I just took the real thing. It's like. So that's the, that's my issue. That's what happened with me. But I like them both and I could be happy with either one. So it's like I'm still thinking about the tone master. Basement 59. I just got a feeling. It's just so much money. And I just. You know what it is? It's just a lot of money to not be happy if I get it and I don't like it. It just seems like a lot of cash to put to fan out and then not be happy with something. Okay. Tea sized, by the way. I get some, Some water. So I have these carafes. I've officially. For those that don't know, I'm an old man. You. You can tell I've. I've officially hit old madness. So for some reason in the last year, two things have happened. I need a tissue because all of a sudden my nose just runs. Just for like a 30 seconds or 10 seconds. Just randomly, once a day. Just all of a sudden my nose is running. I used to think it was weird when old dudes had like a handkerchief or tissue in their pocket. And I'm like, why do you have a tissue? And they always. I'm like, yeah, because all of a sudden I need a tissue or a handkerchief for my nose runs. And the other thing is I constantly need water. So I bought these carafes and I put water in them and they're around the house like a hotel. Like, I have one nightstand, I have one on the table. I have one in here. So I have these crafts full of water. And because I just need water, all of a sudden, I come thirsty. I swear, I went half my life. I don't think I ever drank water, like, ever. We go hiking now. We got, like, backpacks with water. I used to go hiking. I don't even think I took. I don't. I think sometimes I just took a diet Coke with me, so. So, yeah. All right. Okay. So Tsi says, hey, Happy Friday, Phil. I'm looking at buying a couple Keezels this year, one being a headless delos and a light speed. What are your thoughts on the single coil humbucker pickups they offer? I like their pickups. I don't love their pickups, but I like them. So I have keys. I have Kiesel single coil pickups, and I thought they sounded pretty good, and I. I like their humbucker pickups pretty good. What's great is, here's what I can tell you. I mean, I haven't changed any of the keys. I have pickups to anything else. So that. That's the cool thing. And I have a delos with just single coils in it that I've been messing with. And I've been liking them. I'm not 100 sure if I love them compared to my other single coil pickups, but they're pretty cool. My best advice, though, is, is that you can send them pickups you like. You just send them. So how it works is they don't charge you to install the pickups. They just don't deduct the cost of their pickups, which means you just pay the same price, but you send them their pickups. I think that's very fair. So. So if you decide you do want a delos or with some, you know, you can send them whatever pickups you want. Larry Mitchell, my buddy, he got a delos headless maid, and he likes his DiMargio pickups. So he sent them DiMarzio pickups and they installed them for him. That's what they did. And Shane says if you constantly need water, you could be diabetic. Yeah, I'm not diabetic. I don't constantly need water. Just all of a sudden I'm thirsty. Probably because it's 31% humidity in this room right now. That might be the problem. I told you, it's really dry right now. And the. What else? Yeah, but also. Also when I say when I'm hiking, I should also mention it's. It's really hot. Like, not right now, but when we hike, it's hot. I just Used to not have to care about water when it was 110 outside. Now all of a sudden, I'm like, it's 110. I need water. Any. Anyways, back to your keys thing. That's what I recommend is either, you know, do some more research on their pickups, or you can always have them install whatever pickups you want, or you can change them later. But, you know, I like the whole, you can send whatever pickups you want. Let's see. Nope. Somebody asked me about headphones. Every time you guys ask me headphones, I don't have any answers for you. Let's see. All right, Paul says. Phil, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think the action on my Ricky 12 is too low. I think it isn't letting the string ring out enough. Neck is dead straight. Should I raise the bridge? If the neck straight, you can try raising the bridge. That helps a little bit. Especially with the 12 string. Because with the Ricky, the two things that are sometimes, sometimes. I mean, again, I'm not looking at your guitar and what the issues are. Sometimes, you know, just a little, teeny, teeny weeny little bit of relief in the neck is great. But the Ricky with 12 strings and having two truss rods. I don't recommend that. I would rather tell you to raise the action. I would raise the action on the bridge. Don't feel bad. Look, part of the problem with doing YouTube videos is I used to slam my action to silliness just to be like, on the deck, so to speak, and play. And when I make content now, you know, it buzzes so much if you don't have your action set correctly. So sometimes you want to. You want to have the action a little higher to get this. The notes to ring out a little bit. Part of the times when people. A lot of times when people tell me, like, their guitars, they come in and they go, hey, this guitar. The pickup sound horrible, or it sounds horrible, or this guitar sounds thin, or this two guitar is too bright. A lot of times the setup is the cause. Low action will give you not only a brighter sounding guitar, but it'll also give you less sustained debtor notes. It's just a tone killer. And so, you know, I see it all the time when I. When I talk about action. Sometimes I'll say like, you know, a millimeter and a half or 2 millimeters off 12, right? And people are like, that's ridiculous. I can't play anything like that. And I've had players where, like, they have to have everything like 0.75 millimeters off the 12 fret. Something really low, right? Really, really low. And. And it's fine. They run a lot of distortion. They play really fast. Who would notice? But when you play like chords and you're strumming and stuff and sustaining on cleaner sounding or more transparent sounding drive sounding amplifiers, where it's just a light amount of gain, man, those, those chords just sound anemic and thin. And so, yeah, you have to. You know, everybody talks about the gauge of strings being a huge part of the tone, but the action has more effect in my experience than. Than the gauge of the string, for sure. Like give you example, I could take an 11 gauge set of 11 to 49 or 48 and put them on a guitar, right? Slam the action down to as low as the. I mean, super, super low. So there's just a little bit of sizzle off every note, right? It's not dead notes. Just. It's really, really, really low. I could record that for you. And then I could take that same guitar, put nines or even eights on it, raise the action to where they can ring and they're not kissing the frets at all. Play it. And you would all get it wrong. If I said which is which, you would all tell me this is the elevens and these are the eights, and you would be wrong. It's because the. Like I said, the action is more. More has more effect on the sound than the string itself when it comes to really low action. So, yeah, I can understand why you want to raise them up, especially on a 12 string. They just. They just don't have any, you know, you want the 12 strings have to ring the church bells. Part of those two strings ringing together is. Is the magic of the sound. You know, that higher frequency and that lower frequency, you know, hitting at the same time. And. And so if it's. If it's too close to the fretboard, it's just gonna be. It's gonna be dead now. There you go. Oh, okay. I'm just leaving some of you guys comments, trying to see. Okay, if you're talking to me, put a question mark at the beginning of it. Ron wants to know, did you use their pickups in your own delos? Yes. So the thing about my delos, I got a question. This happened a month ago and it was a really nice question and Shawna fielded it and talked to. A lot of times you guys send long emails. Shawna is nice enough to go through them and get them out back to you guys. And that's why. So, you know, she's consulting with me. We're talking back and forth. Sometimes I'm working, and she'll just sit here. She'll grab a chair, sit right behind me while I'm working, and go, you know, hey, I'm gonna. I'm read off some questions to you, and so I can respond. So one of the questions was, you know, I make pickups. Why don't. Why didn't I put my pickups in my signature Kiesel Delos? And I like how my little quotes there. And it's because I did not design the delos. I'm not. I was not a part of it in any way. Like, I didn't go, like, here's how, like, a lot of, like, the Tim Miller with Kiesel, Jeff Keisel and Tim Miller got together, and they like, how do we make a great guitar? And they made a great guitar. That's not what happened. Like I said, my signature guitar. In other words, the thing where you go to their website and you see, like, there's a film ignite Delos is not like a traditional signature guitar where it's like, I worked for two years. Why does everyone say that? I work for two years back and forth, designing the ultimate guitar. That's not what happened. What happened was. And I've told the version of the story, but I'll keep it fast for you guys. I have a copper Fender Strat, that Strat, because of I. It's a production team built custom shop Fender that I bought in 2007. And back in 2007, the specifications on that guitar made that guitar about $2,400 retail, right? $2,500 retail. Now, the copper Strat, if you were to get it the exact way I have it, would cost you way over $7,000 way. And take two years to get because it has to be master built now. And I'm probably even really low on those numbers because the 7,000 number was from like 2017. So I was like, every time I would play that guitar, you guys, because you're all gear freaks like me, would go, I love that guitar, Phil. I want to buy one. And you would call Fender custom shop, our dealer, and then you would have a heart attack. You'd be like, oh, my God, Phil. It's like, I want $8,000, $7,000 in two years. So I mentioned to GNL, why don't you make a version of that guitar and I'll play it. And therefore, if anyone asks about it, you know, you guys, hey, I love that guitar. I go, oh, you just get it from G and L, and G and L, for some reason, wasn't interested at the time. So I mentioned it to Kiesel, to Brandon at Kiesel. I said, hey, why don't you make me a delos in copper? Which, by the way, the copper. My copper Strat is not copper. It's actually bronze. Little funny story for you. When. When Fender made the custom shop strap for me, I said I wanted it in copper. And they sent me a color swatch because it was custom for the store. And I said, that's pink. And they go, well, copper's got pink in it. And I go, I don't know. I go. I was thinking, like, the Arizona flag, right? Anyone ever seen the Arizona flag? Of course you have, because who wouldn't know? The state's a baby. The state's, like, barely over 100 years old. Okay, so here's the Arizona flag. If I can make it big and share with you. Okay, here it is. I have no idea what website I grabbed. So this is the Arizona flag. It's a copper star. So you can see the copper. If you look at that copper star, what does it look like? It looks like that guitar, right? It's like an orangey copper, brownie copper look. And anyways, so when Fender did it in the pink, I said it didn't look right. And they said, that's what color? And so the only other color they had was bronze. And I said, okay, let's do bronze. So I picked bronze for the Fender guitar. And then we called it Arizona Copper. They let us name it. The name everything because it was a custom shop guitar for the store. And so anyways, when I did Kiesel, I said, would you do it? Brandon said, yeah. And then Jeff Kiesel said, that color is ugly. It look right. He's like, can we do something cooler? And I said, sure. And they made that color again, I had no involvement in it. They made the color. They sent me the guitar. And I was like, oh, that looks great. I'll use it. And so I started playing it. Now, the only thing I had done, I had them do the color. And then I said, this is how I wire my guitars. I have it. So if you want to watch my review of my PM Delosh, you'll see how I wire my guitars. Almost all my guitars are wired like this. So I said, can you do that wiring? They did. And then for two years, I played that guitar all the time. And Brandon, who is a good friend and a good person who also watches the podcast, heard me say once, if you really want to know what a YouTuber likes when they demo an amp, what guitar are they using? That's the guitar they like. And when they demo guitar, what amp are they using? That's what amp they really like. And when they demo. Right. When they demo a pedal, what guitar are they using? That's the guitar they like. Like, that's how you figure out what a YouTuber really likes. They can say, I don't care what anybody says. That's how you tell right when they're using. Because here's why it's if you're demoing an amp, you're trying to put your best foot forward. So you're going to play the guitar that sounds the best and plays the best for you to put make the amp sound the best. Same thing with the guitar, you know, if you're doing a guitar, you're going to use the bam that sounds the best and works the best. And so he was, he mentioned one day, wow, you always use that copper delos in like every video. And I go, yeah. And he goes, well, you know, guys call in and they order it, but we charge them. I don't want to go all this boring story, but they were charging them for you and it was off menu and all stuff. And they said, go ahead. If we make it a signature model, it'll just be a SKU and they can click it if they're interested in it. So we did that and they had their pickups in it, everything in there. And I just like it. I don't know what it is. I just like it. I play it all the time. And so I left it alone. And we've all. I. Not often we've. We've talked once or twice. I've thought about, like, what if we have did some updates? What if we made it more like a specific signature model? And the reality is I just like it the way it is. They're not my favorite pickups, but they sound great. They're not my. It's not my favorite anything. It's just. I just like the accumulation of that guitar. I like the way it looks, I like the way it feels. And that's why I play it. And I really like it. And so that's why I don't mess with anything. So that's your answer question. That's why my pickups aren't in it, because I like it. It's fine there. All right. And then all right, we're gonna end this because the show's over. We're gonna end this on the story of a funny story that I told the patrons that a couple weeks ago, and I was with my top tier patrons. We have this coffee with Phil thing where we do. This is my highest tier patrons. And I told them the story, and I said, I never told this story. I said, should I tell this story? And they were like, yeah. They said, yeah. So. And this is the opportunity because it's about pickups. It's. How did I get involved making the Blackstock pickups in the first place? And here's how it happened. And so this. I figure if you're hanging in the show, maybe you like the channel, maybe like me a little bit, and maybe you curious why that happened. You know, the Blackstock pickups are a giant accident. It's a massive accident. How it happened is just beyond insanity. So here's what happened in the beginning part of the pandemic. Okay, well, first of all, let's start with this. I told you guys, when I repaired guitars, I had a customer one day, and he was like, hey, his pickups didn't work. And it was a guitar. And I learned how to rewind pickups and fix them. Texts do this all the time. It's just a lot easier. I used to shop them to a guy. He wasn't available. So I learned to fix pickups. So I learned to rewind pickups into stuff. So over the years, I had made pickups. No big deal. I told you guys, I have a friend. He was making pickups, and I liked his pickups. And then he stopped making pickups. And then I said, will you teach me how to do it? And he taught me how to do it. I would make them just so I'd have them for myself. I have no time. I had no energy left over to do any pickups and anything. So I never really discussed it with you guys. What happened in Covid is Crimson Guitars reached out to me and said, hey, we're doing this thing called the Great Guitar build Off. We would like to send you a kit. You build a kit, and a bunch of people are gonna build kits, and it's just gonna get excitement about building kits. And everybody's on lockdown, basically. And this is. They could build kits. And I said, sure. And they said, like, it was supposed to be, like, February or March. And I said, perfect. I'm in. I'm in. And they said, you can raise money for charity. And I'm, like, excited. Well, what happened was they didn't ship the guitars. Something happened. And the guitars did not get here until June. If you guys remember in those years, this is like four years ago. I was doing. I had my garage. I converted part of my garage into a shop. And I was still. Even though it's. I've been doing YouTube for a few years, I'm still new to the concept of making videos in YouTube. And so what happened was I was building the kit. The kit came, and I have to build the kit and to film. I didn't know what overdubs were. Like. I'm not a filmmaker. I was making videos. The way everybody. I turn on the camera, I talk to the camera. I learned how to lightly edit out, you know, like, oh, there's me picking my nose. I'll take that out, right? But I was doing generic editing. Generic stuff. I wasn't doing anything. And I sure as hell didn't know that you could film stuff and then put it into a software and then talk over it. Like I said, like, overdub it. So what happened was when I was in the shop, because I didn't expect to do this video in the middle of summer. It was 115 outside, it was 120 in my garage. I'm not exaggerating, by the way. And I had fans, but no AC back then. And I couldn't run the fans because they were loud and you couldn't hear me. So what happened was I turned off the fans, right? And I got the guitar. You guys know I did the great guitar build off. You guys watch that video? All timestamps, put the video in here. And I did a guitar and they sent me a kit, and it was a PRS kit. And I had the guys, Brian at Painthuffer, paint the guitar. And my big deal that no one knows this day, including the guy who owns that guitar doesn't know this. So the person who owns that guitar doesn't know the story. He's gonna find out something about his guitar he doesn't even know. I thought, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna take this kit, I'm gonna put it together. I'm gonna put some DiMarcios in, because my friend is Larry DiMarcio and he's gonna hook me up with some pickups. I'll throw them in there, and I'll have paint, hover, paint it, and I'm gonna refret it in stainless steel frets. Because I only do stainless steel frets, and I like Them. And so I get the guitar and I re fret the guitar in stainless steel frets. And I am sweating so much that the sweat is dripping on the guitar. I had to re sand the guitar three or four times because I just couldn't stop the sweating. I'm like, drop it. Just like. Like it was agonizing. It was two hours of just doing this. I go upstairs. I go upstairs and I shower because it's just right. I'm exhausted. The heat takes it out of you, right? Shower. I go, and guess what? It was so hot that the camera turned off. I didn't notice it overheated. The camera overheated. I have no footage of me refreading the guitar and stainless steel frets. There's no way in hell I'm pulling those frets. No way I'm pulling those frets and refraining it for a video. This is nuts. Like, right? I even thought, like, what if I reach out? But I remember it's the pandemic kind of times. I'm like, I don't know, Reach out to Crimson and be like, send me another neck. I'm like, I just. I. Because it was a glue to neck. I was like, I don't know what to do. And I'm like, I'll just explain to everybody. And I'm like, there's no way. I go. There's no way. If I go and explain, like, hey, everybody. I refread it with stainless steel frets and it's amazing, but I don't have any footage of it. You're going to be like, I don't believe you. So I made the decision to not tell anyone, including the guy who owns it, that has refread instant frets. So the guy who owns it, if you're watching this, if you're still a fan of the show UF Stanley still frets on the guitar. So now the problem is paint huffer. He paints the guitar. It's gorgeous. If you guys seen the video, I mean, that guitar is better than. Better than prs. Never made a guitar that looked that good. And he did such a great job. The paint hover guys are next level. So they painted that guitar. That's why I got a lot of money for charity. And I was really excited to do it, but I was thinking like, oh, my goodness, what am I going to do? I'm not doing anything to this guitar. He painted it. I'm just putting it together and setting it up. They're going to be like, you didn't do anything. And I'm like, I'll wire some pickups. I was like, I can wire pickups. So I made a bunch of prototype pickups and I wired in the pickups and I put the pickups in the guitar. And that's what I did. And those two pickups specifically are only in the guitar. And so I go, that, that's something. I did something now. And I was like, okay, so all I did was wire in the pickups. But I actually refreaded it and stayed still for us anyways. And also. So then the guitar goes to charity and it sells for a lot of money, and that's good. And charity gets money and that's good. And then what happens next is you guys started inundating me with. I wasn't thinking, because again, I'm still. I'm a YouTuber, but I'm not as tenured as I am now. You guys are emailing me like, can I buy pickups? You make pickups for me? You make pickups for me? And I was like, no. But also, pandemic. My repair business went to zero because, remember, for. They shut down. I couldn't have anybody come and pick up guitars or drop off anymore. I'm like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm doing YouTube. I remember the boom hadn't really hit yet, where, like, you know, I was like, maybe, yeah, you guys are trapped in your houses and you have to watch YouTube now and videos. But remember, if I like, no one is. Everybody's miserable from they're gonna buy any guitars and. And no one's going to want to watch me talk about a guitar if there's not buying any guitars. So I was like, I'll sell some pickups. So I go, well, I make these pickups that I like, and I started winding them and selling them to you guys. And that's how we started selling pickups. But keep in mind, what ended up happening, which was, I mean, it's a blessing. It's all a blessing. It's just not the best blessing. What happened was you guys were buying pickups, great. But also the market was booming and I had to make YouTube videos and do all the stuff I'm normally doing. So it just became like a double duty, double working all the time. And that's why I pulled in Shauna. And Shauna helped me. She, you know, she did the packaging and she helps with assembly, process and finishing up the pickups and doing all kinds of stuff like that. And that's how we got into the Thing. So you understand there's no, like, I have no lifelong dream to be a pickup manufacturer. I have no desire to want to make pickups. Maybe if I wasn't doing all the YouTube stuff, I'm constantly doing all the other stuff because then that would be a nice thing to do. But it's like, like I might, my comment is like, I'm not looking for 10 jobs. Like, I got a couple jobs and it's good. I'm, I'm, I'm happy. So that's how that all happened. Uh, and so I hopefully, with that information, I, I, I hopefully gives you guys some insights why I don't push on selling the pickups so hard and why I don't do certain things. It's because, like, if I mention the pickups right now and, and you guys put in 10 orders, what happens is, is 10 orders, which is 20 pickups, I'll be doing that this week instead of making videos. So I have to choose, like, what am I going to not do or am I going to take away time, you know, for my family or am I going to take my day off and do other stuff and, and luckily I'm fortunate enough to not have to like, have to work every day. You know, I mean, I like to take, I take two days off a week now and I love it, by the way. I don't know how I ever went 13 years with only one day off a week on Max. And I look back now and I think, what an idiot. I should always take two days off. It's, it's amazing when you get two days off. All right, so I just shared the story and by the way, whoever, if you're watching, you got a guitar. I hope, I hope that makes you happier and doesn't upset you. I was like I said, I didn't know what to do with that situation, but I figured at the end of it, the worst case scenarios, you got some really good frets that you didn't know you had. All right, guys, on that note, I want to thank you guys for hanging out. It was so great. It was so fun. Please look forward, look for the new videos. Like I said, the jazz master one's almost done and then I have a bunch of others coming and of course all the new stuff from namm, I'll have that just like going out and I'll be doing a other second channel or something. I'll be showing you guys how we changed the rig and in the studio shop and what we did and you'll see some of the new looks and some of the new features, which are some new measurements and new other things we're adding. So on that note, thank you guys for your time and Know youw Gear. Today's episode of 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.