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The Know youw Gear Podcast. The Know youw Gear Podcast is brought to you by Patreon members, Channel members and viewers who like and subscribe. Thank you for making this possible. All right, hey, everybody. Welcome to the Know youw gear podcast. Episode 432. Brian says. Hey, Phil, is the Engel Fireball closer to a Mesa Boogie or a Marshall Gain structure? I don't think of Engel sounding like either. You know, I'm sure technically you could get an amp guy to go in there and talk about, you know, it's based, what it's based off of. In my experience, Engel just it this way to me, Engle PV6505, 5150amp. The Mesa Boogie series, like, let's say the Mark series. Because think about this. In Mesa Boogie, that's. Think of this. When you say Mesa Boogie, it's like saying Fender. It's. There's different Fender tones, Mace of wig. I'm just going to say the Mark series and then of course, the Rectifier series. Let's call those the two main guys. Those are different from each other. So those two Maces wouldn't sound alike. The Marshall. Depending on the Marshall, if you're talking about 800 or a Plexi or a what, that's different. So they're different. I will tell you though, that in my personal travels, the Engel Fireball was one of my favorite amps. In fact, it was my absolute favorite amp until the Steve Morris came out. And I actually think maybe and I, you know, through lots of extensive abing, which sometimes I don't think I should do, me and some friends, including Ralph, thought that the Fireball sounded better than the Steve Morris. For those listening later, I'm making like air quotes because better is just a, you know, personal opinion, but the features on the, on the Steve Morris and the overall tones just were very good. And like I said, so I guess if I. If you're thinking about getting a Fireball, I recommend. How about that? I recommend it. Speaking of which, that sounds maybe not like it, but something happened today and I get to share. So we're going to do a little bit changing of the guard. We're going to do two things this week we're going to do. And now it's time for Gear of the Week. Gear of the Week. But don't worry, there's Guitar of the Week or Gear of the Week later. I don't know what we're talking about. Gear of the Week. Let's talk about all the gear that came out and this week, and there's a lot of gear news. I don't really do the news, but I definitely want to do the news this week. I want to talk about some stuff because. And this ties into two things. This first thing is sometimes one of the hardest things about being a YouTube channel reviewer. Somebody play the violin. Just kidding. Is that companies either reach out or send us gear. In my case, they send you gear. And now I'm aware of. So they don't talk to each other, obviously. Marshall's not talking to Fender, and Fender's not talking to Kiesel, and Kiesel's not talking to PRs. And when they come out with gear sometimes, and it's just, you know, you just can't do it. I want to be like, oh, no. If you knew what your competitor was up to. Oh, no. Or sometimes I see it and I go, oh, the competitor's just going to kill everybody with this. And what I do, ultimately, since I can't say anything to them, is I go, well, what do I do? And I really come up with one philosophy over the years, and it's I protect the viewer. I'm beholden to the viewer because the viewer pays my salary. That's kind of how I look at that, right? Like, you know, somebody made a joke once that YouTubers should have, like, patches on their shirts, like NASCAR drivers of all the sponsors. So, you know, and I was like, oh, yeah, that's a great idea. Uh, it's like my biggest sponsor. My. My shirt would be YouTube, unfortunately. So it'd be a big YouTube logo, and then it would be my Patreon channel members, uh, would be my second biggest. But the point is, it's you guys. Yeah, the viewers are YouTube. YouTube are the viewers. So you guys are my biggest sponsor by far. Are. Who pays the channel. So. So when my buddy at Bad Cat Amps sent me a message saying, hey, do you want to check out the new Ocelot? And we talked about it a couple weeks ago, and notice I didn't do a video of it. Now, I've talked to John since then, and he said he was going to send one. I thought I was going to do a video on him today, the Ocelot. I did not want to release the Ocelot video. That's why I was pushing it back. And if he ends up not sending it, it's fine. I was thinking now would be a good time to send it, because now it would be interesting to compare it to other products. But if you haven't figured out what I'm talking about, the big news, let's just go there. That was. I don't know why I spelled it like that. Twice as many Y's as I need in it. Okay, hold on a second. I think Synergy should have three Y's. Apparently. Okay, so if you haven't seen the news, it was pretty epically big news and for a lot of reasons. Let's talk about it. So Synergy Amps has now partnered as, you know, with so many amp builders, but the one in particular today is Marshall. And this is an actual Marshall licensed unit. You can see the Marshall logo. It's gold. This is a Marshall jmp. This is a plexi, essentially. Now, if you have a Synergy amp, you can have a two channel plexi Again. I'm going to always recommend my favorite Michael Nielsen's channel. You can to check out his sounds and what he did with was really impressive. But back to the amp you can see here. This amp is $1459. Now, there's a couple things I want to talk about today, and I just hope you guys will understand what I'm saying. I knew this was coming. So when. What happens sometimes is you think, okay, wait a minute. So the viewers, they can buy for 1450, so 1460, they can buy a Synergy amp with a Marshall module. Or if they already have a Synergy amp, they can get a Marshall module. Or for $100, $160 less, they could get the ocelot from Bad Cat. Now, keep in mind, feature to feature set, we're talking same. They both have direct outs with irs. They both have the ability to do multiple. Well, the ocelot does two channels. This does three channels because you have a clean Fender channel with that module. Plus, of course, if you don't want Marshall, you can put in, you can get, you know, Friedman, you can get Tone King, you can get, you know, Dr. Z, you know, you can get Saldano. I mean, it's a. It's a hard. It's a hard thing to compete with. However, if you know, my complaint with the Synergy is there's no reverb. And this brought on the second thing that I want to talk about. And I'm going to do something a little against my own personal rules today. So let me just share the other thing, which did come out, but also I knew it was coming out right before I knew the Bad Cat was. And this one is probably the most important to me. Just so you guys know if you guys didn't see Rev came out with a new amp, the Rev D20 dynamous. Why am I having trouble with that Dynamous? I'm thinking of like the, I'm thinking about. What's the Greek God? That's Dionysus. I see Dynamis and I'm thinking Dionysus. Okay, so anyways, Dynamis. So this one, of course you can get in tan, but this is what I was talking about. Think about what this is. This is. It has the same thing. It has irs. It has, you know, impulse responses. You can do direct out. This has reverb built in it. Now it's got a cool light up front, which is cool like the, like the Bad cat. This is $50 more than the Bad Cat. And I just got to tell you guys, it's just my opinion, whatever it's worth. But for me, this right here, right here, where it says made in Canada, the Bad Cat's made in China. Nothing. I'm not, I'm not disparaging that. I review Chinese amps all the time. But if you're telling me you can have a Made in Canada amp for $50 more than a Made in China amp and get a different wood. I mean, there's different wood color boxes for this that give it a new look and you get reverb. It was like I said. And the problem is sometimes I have to make that decision. And I don't really want to speak for you guys, but in my heart I was thinking, man, as much as I love Bad Cat and you guys know I love Bad Cat, if I was to review the Bad Cat and a bunch of you bought it, I know I could already see the comments when the Rev came out with Reverb and when the synergy comes out with the Marshall module and I can't tell you who because I'll get in trouble, but it was supposed to be today as well. Was pushed back to a week from now. There's another amp company, a well known one, with a product exactly like the bad cat for $400 less. Same specs, same amp, looks almost the same. Maybe the. I say the Ocelot looks better. And by the way, this doesn't mean you shouldn't get the Ocelot. I love it. That's why I said when John says he was thinking about sending one, I was like, oh, cool. Because I would like to run them through for you guys. I would rather do a comparison of them all these amps. And then you guys decide you know, because you guys can't put your hands on everything which one you would like better. But in my opinion, it's really tough because, as you know, I've had this happen to me. We've all had this happen. Right? We've all had it happen. You see a new product, you're excited, you buy the product, and then you find out two months later, oh, I wish I. I wish I would have waited. So sometimes I want you guys to know that, especially with products where, you know, I know the company or products where, you know, it's pretty easy for me to obtain one if I'm per. If I'm purposefully not making a video, sometimes there's a reason why. Again, it's not because it's not good. It's just because, you know, I'm like, wow. After looking all the options, if you knew, and basically the best way to put this, guys, if you knew what I knew, you, you would probably want to see all your choices first. And since everybody's releasing around the same time, I think, by the way, strategically bad cat, amazing to release early so before everybody else for the big shows. So, but anyways. Oh, cool. All right. I won't get in trouble. Verso says the Ingle Ravager Ravager is just out and kind of fits there as well. Okay, that's the one. I didn't say it, so Engel can't say anything to me. So. Yes, if you don't know. Well, it was just put out by a viewer. So if the viewer figured it out. I'm sorry. Engle Ingle has a new amp called the Ravager. It's essentially a two channel amp with an attenuator built in. And no reverb, no delays, no the bells and whistles like the Steve Morris and the Iron Ball, but essentially. Think of it like the Fireball, but in a metal box. Of course. Two channels, clean and dirty, with IRS impulse responses out, direct out, all that stuff. And a built in attenuator and priced under $1,000. So. So cool. Darrell says it's on Sweetwater. Well, let's go look at it. Actually, wait, let's verify it's on Sweetwater. Hold on. Because they sent me a thing saying don't tell anyone. And I was like, they just sent that to me. Maybe they just didn't want me to do a video of it. They're like, we don't want Phil's crappy video to go out the same time as everybody else. Look at this. Everybody, let's Share with you guys. This is it. This is the Engel Ravager IR20. This is a 20 watt 879. I got to tell you, though, just for the record, I have one here. And on mine. Oh, does it. Made in Vietnam? Okay, well, does mine say that? No. See, I thought I got a. So you guys know, I think I got a prototypey one. Cause mine doesn't say anything. I was trying to figure out where it was made, but. So it. Made in Vietnam. So this is it. This is the Ravenger Ingle. My video would have been out, by the way. If it's out now, it would have been out now. I just. Engle sent me a thing saying, don't put out the video. I'm like, okay, I won't. So I didn't put out the video. Maybe I'll send it to Patreon this weekend. So this is it. Two channels. It's the boring black box that I keep saying they're making with no. No exciting. It lights up, though. So, you know, the. The Distort channel. The whole thing lights up. Red and then blue. Kind of like the MT15, but.879 price to fight the MT15. So again, I think the Ocelot by Bad Cat looks a lot better than the Engel. Just personally, I think it looks aesthetically a little better. But, you know, you have to decide what fits your needs for options and price. So that's the new stuff. Let's talk about the other new stuff. So much stuff. This was like a big week for releases. That was a big one. This other big release. Let's go here. Most popular. No, we want newest. All right, so if you didn't see, Boss came out with two new pedals. They came out with the poly shifter. Essentially, this is their competition to the Digitech Whammy. So if you've been wanting a Whammy pedal, but you hate Digitech or you hate the color red, and you always thought, I'd own a Whammy pedal, but I want blue. I don't know. Maybe it's better. I don't know. I watched one video on it. It looked pretty cool. It looked like it had a lot of cool options to it. 349. But this essentially is the Whammy pedal. And then essentially what I get from it is this is essentially the competition for what Digitech has. So Boss getting into that world as well. So you can hear, you can set this just like. I'm pretty sure it will let you do the same thing. The drop does by Digitech. And if I'm incorrect, somebody put that in the comments. Like I said, have not fully looked at this stuff in detail. I saw the announcements and again, for me sometimes everything is in my world is like, oh, do I need this? Or is this a video I need to do? And you know when, when companies drop now, they put, you know, 50, they put 50 of these things in the hands of YouTubers. So the last thing you need is a video from me as well. So I don't need to buy one and try to make a video just that's, you know, two weeks late to the game. And then also then it goes, well, if I'm gonna buy it for myself, I just bought a Digitech drop. So I'm like, I'm happy with that. So there you go. And then what was the other thing? There was another cool announcement this week. So we got the new boss stuff, we got the new rev, which isn't new this week, but you know, we're talking about this week, the new Marshall with synergy. And I thought there was another big announcement. Am I missing something? Some of you guys in the comments will hit up. Steve O says Digitech is way better. I think he's saying way better. Well, better, in my opinion. Yeah, I don't, I mean, you know, I've never had a complaint with the Digitech stuff. I mean, well, it's not true. I used to hate it when they had their own proprietary power supplies, but that's been gone for a long time. So. Seneca guitars are good. Nice title, man. Nice name says Phil. Is that a carven or Kiesel TL60 behind you. I'm presuming you're talking about that. That is a, that is a moonstone. Because all guitars, other guitars are just mediocre and crap. Sorry, inside joke there, buddy. But Moonstone, that is the single handed greatest guitar ever. If you want to learn anything about it, just type on YouTube the greatest guitar ever made ever. And it'll come up, I promise you, if you're interested in learning about it. And then there was. Oh, line six just announced the Power Cabs. That was pretty neat. And I thought, you know, it's funny, I thought I made a list because I thought there was one. I'm going to think of it right after the show. I'll be like, oh no, what was that? Oh, there it is. I thought there was one other cool little announcement that I thought was really, really fun and I don't have it, so I guess not. That's all I care about then I'm just kidding. Let's see what you guys have to say for cool releases. Anyone else see anything cool? Somebody says, oh, yes, I know. Thank you. Tall fret said PRS reclaimed. That's actually not what I wanted to talk about. But yes, PRS is doing another issue. A line of reclaim to talk about was PRS's announcement to drop their prices heavily for the rest of the year. So between now and. And the rest of the year, PRSSE guitars are 20% off. Now this is something I want to talk about. This is it. Okay, so think about this. If you guys were thinking about getting an F53 and they were 950 bucks, they're now 783 from now until. Well, until, you know, supplies last. This is. So my understanding is PRS is killing. Are putting 20% off on SEs, 10%. And some of these numbers are wrong. You can just verify them on their websites. 10% off on S2s. In fact, as I say that, I'm pretty sure I screenshot the information. So let's see if I did. Because I'm just thinking, going. I thought I was smart enough to grab the PRS announcement and I think it's on a different phone. I think I was. I screen grabbed it off a different phone. I apologize, guys. So. So to give you a rundown, I think it's like 10% off on their amps. Well, we can verify that. So let's just look at the PRS MT15 and we'll talk about this MT15 because there's something you guys should know, and it's something I can't tell you, but something I can allude. All right, so same thing here. So we go here. Like here you go with the amp. See, basically was 949. Now is 808. So these are on sale. Their amps are on sale. Their S2s are on sale. Let's look at a PRSS2. PRSS2. I believe those are like 10% off or they might be five. So let's look at one. Let's look at something like this and see if it's actually changing price. And yes, this was 2449. And now it is. Wow, 2079. That's a pretty good jump. So savings of $370. So the PRSS2s are on sale, the SEs are on sale, and the amps are on sale. Now P. PRS's official stance on this is, you know, that it's the 40th anniversary of PRSSE and that they want to pass the savings on to us. So nice of them with all the tariffs going on and everything. Just they're dropping prices. They're the opposite. Everybody else is raising them and they're dropping them. We've seen this before. PRS dropping prices in the year. Somebody's. I saw a lot of jokes online and I'd like to talk about them because I think some of them are. Have a lot of warrant merit. I don't know. They don't have a warrant. They're not arresting anybody. They have a lot of merit. And the merit was, you know, this seems to be like, you almost shouldn't buy a PRSSE until the end of the year, fourth quarter. Well, there's a little logic in that. So I definitely would do that. That's why I want to talk about. Because I saw a lot of people saying, hey, don't buy a PRSSE until fourth quarter. You know. However, as I could tell you what, I also. Let me tell you what I can tell you and can't tell you and you'll be able to figure out the rest. You guys know, I was just at the PRSSE factory, so I'm just saying maybe. I'm not saying don't buy these on discount. I'm saying if you've been wanting one of these and you want a discount, 20% is a legit discount off the price. However, yes, PRSs, I do talk about this in the factory tour with Jack, about the fact that pure SSE is more like clothing manufacturing and less like guitar manufacturing in the U.S. in the U.S. most manufacturers do what's called just in time manufacturing, which means Kiesel guitars, sir Guitars. Purest guitars for sure. Those three. Let's use those. They don't build a single guitar without an order. Now, granted, like a perfect example that is Kiesel sells direct to us. So of course, when we order guitar, Kiesel starts to make it. PRS does the same thing, however, they do it with dealers. So in other words, when PRS makes a guitar, they don't make a guitar unless a dealer orders it. So it's called just in time manufacturing, which is a fancy nice way of saying pay for it up front, kind of. So anyways, the important part is that SES are not like that. They forecast, right? It's like, just like the clothing industry. It's like, what do we think is going to be the new trend? And they make a bunch of different models and they know that some models aren't going to sell as well. And they'll be discounted. Some models will be out of stock. Perfect example of this is, is if you go back to Sweetwater's numbers. I was noticed on the PRS NF53 which I didn't think sold as well as I thought, you know, it was going to. That was my take on it. I thought Sweetwater's purple one was the best one. And notice like it's out of stock. Right. This is back ordered now if you order it, will you get this price? I don't know. I don't know how this works. I would definitely call somebody at Sweetwater if you want this on order for this price and get them to actually say yes or no. Like you know, will I actually get this? It says it'll be estimated here by October 1st. That could make sense because obviously I think that's the next shipment coming from Indonesia. So that would be make sense. And by the way, just because like I said everything I was there when they were building. That's pretty much when it's getting here is in a couple of weeks. Right. I flew back and the rest all the guitars came in a boat. So I got here first. Anyways. So my point is I'm not. I'm saying that if you want the discount, you should take it. However, without having to, without breaking any kind of privilege. I will tell you that you'd be. There was a reason also besides just giving you a good deal there, there. So if you're thinking you, you were wanting an SE and maybe something different coming along so not just new models, maybe some revisions maybe happening, I don't know. So I'm just saying. And if you don't care and I will tell you this, most of stuff would be in my guess would be probably more cosmetic than anything else. But at least you're as informed as I can make you guys without breaking too much privilege on that stuff. But I also want to let you know about the deal because you know, and then, and then 60 cycle Steve says certain brands don't allow discounts. Now here's what's interesting about that Steve. You are, you are right. However, I'll tell you a funny thing. And this is why I've never liked Map. Now I'm on the record for many years here on the show saying I don't like Map. By the way, I've gotten a lot of heat for that. I've even been told to my face with a finger in my face. The wiggle face, the thing where they're like this they were like this at me. They're like, what you don't understand is small dealers need map. I'm just recreating what they did to me and the big dealers. And if. Without map. So if you guys don't know what map is, Map means minimum advertised pricing. By the way, I believe it's illegal in Europe, but here in the States, oh, it's illegal in Maryland too. So they can't do it in Maryland. But anyways, in the States, a manufacturer can tell the retailer, like, the retail on this guitar is $1,000. You can sell it for 699. Yep, okay, 699. But you can't advertise a better price than that ever, period. At all. Which means you can't put an ad or anything. And that's why when you guys get frustrated with Guitar center and you get the discount code, and they go buy this with a discount code. And then there's all these people who. All these brands that are excluded from it. That's a map system. That's a system saying they can't break the minimum advertised pricing. Now can they sell you stuff cheaper? They can. A lot of companies and a lot of retailers say they can't. I've heard retailers tell. I've had it both ways. I've had manufacturers tell me I can't discount something. And I'm like, I absolutely can. You cannot stop me. You can stop selling to me, but you can't stop me. And also, I don't mean publicly from advertising. I'm going to just mean physically selling it to a person. And I've had retailers tell me like, oh, we'd go less, but the manufacturer don't let you. I'm like, they let you. They just don't let you advertise it. The loophole in this weirdness is I've heard a manufacturer argue. Because I've heard it and I've heard the retailer then argue the same dumb argument, which is, but if I sell it to you for less than the map price, the minimum advertised price, you have a receipt or invoice with that price. And now that's advertisement. Because you can show that to somebody. It's. That's just dumb. The reality is, I get it. You can't. I personally think map is stupid. Here's my logic for it. It's just for whatever it is, the wiggle in your face. People told me that if. If it wasn't for map, the big retailers, the Amazons, the Sweetwaters, the guitar Centers, they would sell everything for a dollar over cost. And all the mom and pops go out of business. And I would say this to them just like I'm saying it to you. They want to sell everything for a dollar worth of over cost. I would imagine two things. One, good for all the people who bought something for a dollar of costs. Look, I hope that happens to all of us. And two, they're gonna all go out of business. You can't sell stuff for 10. I don't care who you are. Right? And first of all, even if they could survive it financially by selling something for a dollar over cost, when they sell out in five seconds, you think anyone who's an investor in that business is gonna be like, great job now, sell more. And they go, well, we can't because we sold everything we had in 50 seconds because it was all so cheap. See? So I think MAP is a way of controlling prices. So in other words, the manufacturers, they use that as force against the retailers. This is my opinion. So in case I get any legal letters, in my opinion, what happens is because I've had this discussion with so many companies, they go, hey, you should buy this. And I go, I don't want any of these. And they go, why? And I go, it's too risky. I don't think I'll sell them. And they'll go, well, you'll definitely sell them because they're going to set. We're setting the price. I'm like, just because you set the price doesn't mean anything. And so back to Steve and his comment that the manufacturers don't let you discount. Some manufacturers don't let you discount. Well, that's the other problem I have with map the first time. Remember, I'm dumb. I'm a dumb person. I didn't figure anything out. I live a lot. For some reason, I go out there and I do a lot. And when you go out there and do it a lot, you get screwed a lot. And then when you get screwed, you remember it if you're smart. So I'm smart enough to remember not to get screwed twice. So here's the thing that happened the first time. A manufacturer. And they rhymed with Mender. That's it. They just rhymed with Mender. That's it. A company called that Rhyme with Mender sold me a bunch of things. This is a fact. It happened. Told me that there's map and I can't sell this stuff for below the price. And then I was like, okay. And I went on my merry way. And this went on for A while. And I don't mean years. I mean I was a dealer for months and months and months. And then I got an email and it was a good news email. You know everything that the letter that opens up and says good news is not good news. That's what this letter was. It said good news. We're removing MAP on these products for this time period so you could sell it for whatever you want. And I gotta tell you, as a dumb retailer, I was so excited. I got that letter and I ran over to Shawna and Ralph and I said, look at this, we should put this stuff on ebay and sell it for cheaper and we'll sell it all out because it hasn't been selling that great and we're going to make a lot of money and, and we're going to Tahiti and life will be great. I didn't say the Tahiti part. Anyways, and I go online and Guitar center had already put everything at a way lower price. Now I know what you're thinking, what's way lower price? That would be 10% below what I paid for it. Yeah. Now somebody will argue, well that's why you need MAP to protect you. But I would argue that I thought MAP was going to be protecting me and if I didn't have map, I would have thought about that ahead of time. Like wow, Guitar Center's really stocked up on this item. See that's things I thought about as a retailer. Like when they go, I'll just rat everybody out today. Like when Epiphone told me that part of my stocking requirement was I had to have their top selling models. And I said but I don't do well with those models. And they go, well, they're the top selling models. And I said, well if you require everyone to carry them, aren't they by definition top selling models? Because you make it happen. And the reality is their logic which gives me a headache to this day was well, it's because Guitar center, these are the top selling models at Guitar Center. And then I thought, well, my job as an independent retailer is to stay the away from Guitar center. Right? Like if Guitar Center's selling these and doing it well, maybe that's covered in town and I could carry something else. And they said no, cause I was wrong. But don't worry, I had MAP so I was protected. Anyways, they didn't say that part, but I just kind of might have had to set it. But anyways. So Steve, the point is, is that MAP is yes, some manufacturers don't Discount because of map. But a lot of them do choose the, you know, choose to remove the map when they want to. Usually whenever they can't sell stuff either. So it's when they drop the map. So. And oh, and then, by the way, let's be clear because I want to be very clear. And sometimes when I timestamping these shows later, I go, oh, crap, I should have said that. I forgot that part. I just remembered it. So when I say, in that instance Guitar Center, I went online and Guitar center had them for 10% below my dealer cost. Let me explain why that happened. Because when they removed the map, in other words, really what happened was because Fender would do it in small. They'll do it in small pieces. I'm sorry, Mender will do it as small runs for dealers like me. Small stuff like this, same kind of treatment. Let's say they got a thing and it's map and they have a lot of them. Let's say the purple seven String Squire did not do well. And they have lots of them, maybe hundreds and hundreds of them. And they go. And what they do is they'll go to the Guitar center and they'll go, hey, you want to buy these for like 20, 30% off normal dealer cost with a free freight program, whatever their deal is, right? I don't know how Guitar center works. I think the freight program programs are different with Guitar center because of the way they buy. But it doesn't matter. They'll go, hey, want to get it for basically 30% lower or 20% lower or 40% lower than normal dealer mark. And then you can blow them out. And then they know they're going to. And then of course, this company that rhymes with Mender says, oh, and we'll remove the map. So you guys can blow them out and you can put them in ads now because you have an ad advertising system every week with your musicians for ad stuff. And then they send all the small dealers, hey, good news. Which really, if it was, if it was like, if you could translate what they said into a different way, I would read it like this. Good news, Phil. We blew out all this inventory to Guitar Center. We realized you might. Might have some. So you can blow yours out too, even though you didn't get the massive discount they got. I don't. I probably sound bitter. I wasn't bitter, by the way. I'm never bitter about this stuff. I make jokes about this stuff because that's just part of business. If I, if I worried about every time I lost money just that's just part of business as a whole. You lose money, you win money. And I told you, you live in a small business world. In my experience, for 20 years of doing it now, I live quarterly and yearly, not daily or weekly. It's just. It's not a way to live. If I looked at any, in any given day, I could be negative. So why look at that? I just care about quarterly and yearly. Okay, so that's our tirade on that. Well, that went off the. Off the rails. Let's look at. What are we looking at? I don't know. What's the next subject? Since we've talked? Well, hold on, let me make sure that anybody's not talking about this in any kind of way. Yuli, I hope I'm saying the name right, says that's a pretty messed up way of treating the dealers. You know, like I said, I tell you the story because it happened. I put a funny spin on it because I think that's a funnier way to deliver the information I have. Like I said, I have mixed emotions. My personal emotion about it or my real hardcore feeling is what I started with, which is I don't believe MAP protected me. And that's just how I feel. And I believe that MAP makes you feel more protected than you really are. And that's my whole thing. Like if there was. If you're gonna make a policy that says you can't discount, then the policy should be. It never can be reversed. And also just. Thank you, Yuli, for bringing this up because one thing I should also mention too is. Although I just, I don't wanna say villainize, but even though I just kind of threw the Mender company out there, they were not alone in any way. And in most cases would take care of you later in some other way. Like I said, there's other ways you could talk to your rep. I've done it afterwards. The first couple times you get screwed, you're like, I guess I'm an idiot. But then you start talking to rep and you're like, hey, I'm getting screwed on this deal anyway. We can make up some of that ground on the next order and your rep would take care of you. So the, the. The thing that made big companies, and I'm not familiar with it now because I'm not in the. I'm not in that world and definitely not a daily basis anymore. But back in the day when you deal with companies like big corporations, as a small dealer, you would have a sales rep. And in some cases, if you could build a good rapport with the sales rep. You could have a good relationship with that company because of the sales rep. A perfect example is I once got mad about something Fender did to us. Again, this is, again, it wasn't like they screwed us or anything. Just a policy change that I didn't agree with and I thought it was wrong. And so I told the rep that I don't like the new policy change and that basically he should grandfather me in, like, you know, for this next transition. Right. In other words, this isn't going to work. And he said, we can't do that. And I said, well, then I'm not going to be a dealer anymore. And his argument, which, which is great was. And this is a, this actually happened, this whole conversation happened. He said, look, Phil, you know, because we like each other. To this day, we like each other. He said, look, Phil, you know, in the grand scheme of things, when you're stored, you know, if you stop carrying Fender, it's not going to be anything to Fender. Like, you know, they're hundreds of millions of dollar company. You're just a little store. And I, this is what I told him. And, and I think it actually changed him a little bit. I don't know, might have been, who knows? Or maybe, you know, I don't know. I said to him, I said, yes, I don't matter to them, but I'm going to put your kids through school and I'm paying your mortgage, so I should matter to you and you and I should figure out how to get this done. And that those kind of conversations were what worked. And that's why as a whole, I will always tell you as a net positive, Fender was a net positive manufacturer to me as a dealer to the day I stopped being a dealer. Fender was a decent company and one of the best ones to work with. The things that I mentioned, they do negative just because I'm telling you, because what happened? Not everything's roses, right? But as a whole, they were a good company, even to a mid sized dealer, a smaller midsize dealer like me as a hold. But, but yeah, all right, let's see. To give you a counter argument, I lost the dealership over a map violation. And I won't say the dealer, I won't say the manufacturer. Because first of all, if I said, you wouldn't even know it. It's a small boutique company. Very, very boutique. Very. Don't think, sir. Think small. Like small. Okay. Like they're a boutique of a boutique. Anyways, they had A weird policy about map. They, they, they called it. They didn't call it minimum advertised pricing. They called it. What do they call it? They called it something else. They called it mandatory advertised pricing. Right. So mandatory. It was mandatory, right? Something silly like that. Anyways, the funny part of the story was I sold a customer this instrument. And I'll just tell you it was a base. I'll line up a little better. So I sell the instrument, customer, a bass. The customer is working me, man. He was working me on the counter. He was like, ah, come on. 10% off tax out the door. I know you could do it. I'm like, oh, man. Okay, we'll figure it out. So I gave him the deal. And then apparently a few months later. It was a few months. He had an issue with the instrument. Okay. I don't know what the issue was. He didn't call me because he just contacted the manufacturer. The manufacturer required him. Luckily for me, I built great relationship with friends as customers because otherwise I would have never know the story. He called me because he was freaked out. He contacted them and had the issue with the instrument. They, they told him that they would absolutely take care of him. They need to see his invoice. Okay. And they said, and they need to make sure he paid the right price. And then they told him it wasn't full tone, everybody. I just said it was bass. I said, they told him that if he didn't pay the right price for the base new, even though I was a dealer new, brand new dealer. It's a brand new instrument. They weren't going to take care of his claim. So the customer called me and he's like, what do I do? And I go, come to the store and let's print you a new invoice for the right price so you can get your warranty work done. I go, this is insane. I was in shock. I thought he was kidding. But he showed me the email correspondence. And so, you know, he was talking to the owner of the company. The owner was like. And basically owners flat, flat out said, if you got a discount on this instrument, you didn't get it new, you know? Right. And so, so anyways, the reason why you're probably wondering was how did I lose the dealership if I made a fake invoice with the customer? Well, I did both. So, you know, what I did is I made the invoice for the customer, I took care of the customer, and then I told the manufacturer what I did, and then we were done because I wasn't Going to let the customer get screwed for the decision I made. So that's not good business for me. So. And at that point, you can imagine I wasn't too excited or too, you know, heartbroken if I lost that manufacturer. Although it was my favorite base for years and years. Okay, but let's go this way. So this one. Okay, here's this topic. Says, I got an email from Gibson with a dealer spotlight on Sweetwater. What? Why is Gibson pushing Sweetwater? Come on, man. You know why Gibson's pushing. Why is all the retail. Why are all the YouTubers pushing Sweetwater? Why do I mention Sweetwater? Come on, let's get to. Let's get. This says Gibson bougie Sweetwater as a source for Gibson guitars, question mark. Yeah, probably because they worked out some kind of deal with. I mean, look, Sweetwater is a premium dealer for them. You know, that's why they do it. It's why we all. First of all, I've told you guys this before. That's where you're all shopping. So let's not play the game that, like, I. It's for all the people who says, I don't go to Amazon and I don't go to Sweetwater. Sure, I was a holdout. I was a holdout for Amazon forever. I told you guys how. I snapped. I snapped. I snapped and finally started giving some business to Amazon. It wasn't because everybody I knew was doing it. It was because I told you I bought two things on ebay and I found it. And those people then took my money and bought something on Amazon and had shipped to me as a gift and kept the difference. And I was like, okay, I can't be that old stupid guy who's just buying things from. People know how to use Amazon, right? So I broke. I broke. They broke me. They broke my will, my soul. And then there's Amazon. Okay, Sweetwater. Here's the thing with Sweetwater. That's where you guys all go. I have affiliate links everywhere. I put affiliate links on everything. You guys pick Sweetwater 90% of the time. It's very specific. It has nothing to do with me. I have as many links. I told you guys, Sweetwater pays me the least. I told the CEO of Sweetwater to his face. Is absolutely true. I said, you pay me the absolute least of any. Anyone. And then before he could say anything, I said, but literally, that's where everybody goes. So I just let it happen. I just go. What I mean is, I learned, like, instead of saying, notice, I don't go Push the links. Everybody support the channel. I just know if I put a Sweetwater link, you're probably going to use it. So you guys click Sweet Water. So Gibson's probably like me. They're probably looking at the, the. What do you call that? They're looking. They're taking a survey of the environment and they're going, I bet you Sweetwater ends up winning. And I think that's where it's going to go. So that's what my guess is. Now, granted, they could be doing highlight dealerships and stuff. And of course, this is for Gibson. Like, obviously Gibson Custom Shop. They might highlight more specific dealers that do a lot more premium Gibson product than somebody else. But yeah, I could see that. And of course, also, keep in mind, it could be also, and I'm guessing here, this is not information I have, it could be some kind of co op agreement. There's a co op. Co op. Co op sounds like a co op. It's cooperative agreement. Sometimes that happens between manufacturers and retailers. In other words, Gibson and Sweetwater are sharing some kind of cost. That is a very normal thing. Sometimes it works both ways, I would imagine. In other words, like, even as a small dealer, I could do that. So for instance, let's say I was running an event. I could go to a manufacturer and say, hey, I'm running this event. And it's going to cost me, you know, $1,000 around these ads. Will you pay half of that? Now, my world, that's what it costs, right? A thousand bucks? It's like, no, not $100,000. $1,000. Will you pay $500 under co op? And they would go, yeah. And then they would be the only brand I would mention in the ad, like, come for our big sale on Saturday, mega event featuring. And then it would feature this because they paid for some of that. So it could work backwards, I would imagine. So maybe Sweetwater is like, yeah, we'll pay for part of your, you know, your advertising, distribution stuff for that, whatever that promotion is, that could be it, too. That's a guess. But without knowing anything where we're just throwing guesses at the wall, my first guess is that's a good move for them. You're probably going to buy from Sweetwater anyways. Even if you tell me I hate Sweetwater because that's what people say. I hate Sweetwater. I'm like, okay, granted, but they're winning. There's this. That's just the way it works, which is why I try to share all I told you guys this As a rant a couple weeks ago. I try to share as much as I can, as much as I can with all you guys. Because like I said, a huge number of you are my friends that are dealers still that are in the industry. And you know, the truth is one thing I used to believe when I. When I was more naive about certain things, I'm still naive about other things. Sure. When I had a store, I used to think I knew how everything worked above me. And I talk to a lot of stores now and they think I see it in their mannerisms. They think they know how it works above them. And then as this YouTube thing unfolded and then all of a sudden I started working with all the big corporations. I was like, oh, yeah, this is not how I thought it went down. So that's what I'm really just telling you guys what I learned from these experiences so that it might help you have some insight too. That's my insight. It's a question. I don't. I don't. I'm. I'm gonna answer this question, but I just want to say, like, I don't have any inside information again, so just. Blackwell says, hey, does Trogly. If you guys don't know the Trogly Guitar channel. He's heavy into Gibson. So he does other brands. But he's really specific Gibson. He says this Trogly get Gibson kickbacks his business. I don't know his personal business. Obviously I don't have. But I do, I do, I do. Say I don't know. I don't want to say. I do know. I do hear constantly that they actually don't do anything with him. Like, here's what I can tell you. Gibson doesn't specifically work on this channel. Epiphone. Gibson does not work with my channel. Neither does PRs and PRs. I'm sorry. Fender, Squire, they did both those companies used to work with this channel. But then it just went to hell. What I mean by that is, you know, you know, no one stopped. Everybody stopped watching the channel. My views went way down. And then, you know, no one subscribed anymore and it all died. And then they stopped working with me. That's sarcasm. I'm sorry, guys. Sarcastic by nature. It's like, yeah, my channel's doubled up in views and subs. But for some reason, the biggest guitar companies now stopped working with me. I wonder what I did. I sure was okay. So anyways, back to the funny thing. My understanding is they don't work with him at all. That's just My understanding. So that would be something you would, you might want to reach out and ask him. But I don't get the impression they're working with him. He's not like a secret, you know, shill if you call it for Gibson. If anything, I think he's like, like me in this regard, working against his best interests. So. And what I mean by that, so there's no misconception later is I constantly highlight Gibson on videos and, and, and Fender. Even though like I said, they don't, they don't work with the channel in any, any real way whatsoever. So I'm working against my interest. Obviously I could pick other brands. That would be heck. I mean I'm not even talking about companies that pay me versus not pay me. That's a far cry from what I'm talking. I'm talking about like loaning things. Like I, you know, I pick companies that I highlight. Yeah. I highlight companies that won't even loan me a piece of gear over companies that would probably pay me to do a video because I think it's just a better content to make for the time or it makes sense. So Matt says Trogly is a professional flipper. That is so. You know, again, I'm just giving you the thing because obviously like this, I mean you guys. So we take. One of you guys are going to send this to Trogly and I. And if I misspeaking trackly, you can just send me a message and I'll clarify it. But that's what I get from him as his channel. I look at. Look, if there's one thing I can tell you guys is I can look at pretty much most guitar channels and kind of assess how their business model works just from how their mannerisms work, what they do. My gut instinct is he makes his money flipping the guitars. That's everything. I looking at his numbers. I mean he makes a good amount of money on YouTube and then he. That. Which is a beautiful system if you think about it. It's, it's. It's paid for advertisement. In other words, he gets paid to advertise the guitars he's probably going to sell you guys. It's an ingenious business model. I give him totally props for doing that. I know some of you guys that think he sells stuff too high or whatever. Again, I don't know any. You know, I don't look at that stuff. So I don't know. But Sean says, did Trogly have a day job? There's no way Trogli has a Day job. So I say that because there's no. There's no way you can make that amount of content and be doing any kind of real job. And there would be, based on what I see looking as. As a. As an educated insider, there would be no reason for him to get a job financially. It would make no sense. So, yeah, I don't know. Now I feel like I'm just talking about somebody else's channel, but maybe if you find it interesting. But yeah, the only thing I would tell you is, again, don't know his personal business. Don't want to talk about in two regard. But I will tell you that looking at it, he's definitely successful financially. Not because of, like, his imagery or because he has nice, less paws or anything. I'm just telling you as somebody who, who. How. You know, know how it works. I can tell you he's. He's doing. He's doing. He seems to be doing fine. So good for him. We should all be so lucky. Okay, let's see. Kdub says, hey, if he's selling, the price is right. I don't disagree. You know, that's what I said. I'm not here to argue it. You know, we all just have different philosophies on how we do things. It's. Every business model is different. On YouTube, it's the wild West. There was no set system. I know sometimes we get too into the weeds on the YouTube stuff, and I could go down it all day because it's basically what I do all day is I'm more of a YouTuber now than anything else. I'm creating content and doing podcasts and stuff. So obviously you guys can get me down that road pretty easy. So. So. All right, we're on a tangent. Let's go over to see what Amanda found for us. Amanda found this. It says, what is the best way and how do I repair binding coming loose on my 2020 Martin OMJM. And it is lifting a little. I am the second owner, so I cannot do warranty claim with Martin. It says in case with humidity pack. Well, it says in the case with humidity pack. Humidity packs as well. It's in its case with humidity packs as well. Okay. Sorry about that. Okay, so this is where it gets tricky, buddy, because I'm not looking at the guitar, so I'm giving you advice and I'm not looking at something. Right. This is a really scary thing to do. It's like, hey, I can't see it. So there's the things I'd want to See on the guitar, I'd want to see how the binding is pulled off. How much of the bindings pull pulled off? Is it sticking off and like sticking off like this or is it a little piece for instance? Let me give you examples. And again, this isn't to tell you what to do. This is just to inform everybody if you are having an issue like this. How we look at it as a, as a tech, how it would fix the problem. If you brought the guitar to me and you said hey, my binding is lifting. And I looked and at no point is the entire piece of binding off. In other words, like a, like, let's say the last six inches is just like I said, hanging off like a, like one of those inflatable, you know, inflatable sales things. Right? It's not flailing off like that. We're talking about like it's just separated where I can see a gap. Maybe the gap is an inch long or 2 inches long or 3 inches long or even a quarter of an inch. To fix that, I would probably use super glue. I would put super glue in there and I would clamp it and I would pre, you know, first I would press it, press and make sure it's all going to seal up nice. Inject some super glue and I'd probably put some accelerant in that super glue to bunt to just like zap it tight and just clamp it and let it sit for a couple hours, pull it and it's all fixed and good to go. If 6 inches or so came off or 2, 3 inches off. But I again I could see like there's an end piece of the, the binding is off, let's say where it joins like to or the neck or something. I would then go ahead and use type on. I would use wood glue. I would want to stay water based wood glue. Like I would stick to the original wood glue. But keep in mind I would also be looking at it. So there's things I'd be looking at is I might use a razor blade to scrape off extra glue that's crystallized and cracked up and stuff because again you want to have a new fresh bond to, to where there's going. So, so that's, that's what I would, I would do. Now keep in mind I'm not looking at it. And I'd also have to look up stuff because technically if they're using like specific kind of glues that martin for that particular model. And this is where it gets tricky because guitar manufacturers are notoriously Known for like high end manufacturers like Martin will use high, high glues and stuff like that. You know, better kind of more, you know, better glues. I don't say better different glues. But then on lower models maybe go to different types of glues. It doesn't really even matter. It just matters that for me, if I'm doing a big section, I'd want to be able to play with it a little bit. So I would go to a water base like a wood glue and if it was a small piece where I just knew, I just want to clamp it and then I want it to bond super fast. I think a dot of, of some super glue and there's different viscosities of super glue. So again we're looking at that. And so this isn't a how to tutorial answer. This is just an insight of how you would approach that. I find these kind of conversations interesting because a lot of people don't realize how much first of all. And somebody's going to say something because always someone always says anything like Phil. They always say that everybody critiques everybody's ideas. Look, if you have a better way, put it in the comments, that's great. However, I will tell you that, and I've said this before, if you go to any manufacturer, I don't care who they are to make guitars, they are using crap, tons of super glue. Super glue is a very, very well used, well accepted glue in our industry. For a lot of quick repairs and a lot of easy stuff. It gets in there, it's really easy to get around. And of course titebond wood glues are also used heavily. They're probably two most used glues. What I usually try to tell people is to stay away from a. Epoxies, mixing epoxies, you know, all that stuff. So that, that's just my, you know, my insight on it. This one is. Thoughts on customers talking from the dealer end. How do you feel about the lengthy chats I see very often in stores? Sometimes looks hostaged. Story time. I don't understand what that. I don't understand this. Thoughts on customers talking from the dealer end? I don't know. I don't understand the question. I apologize. I don't know what that means. Like customers in the store talking a lot. I don't know. Have you guys, anyone ever been. This is, this is true. It's funny. Anyone ever been in a, in a store where you're not allowed to talk? I've been in two new stores where talking was not allowed. It Was kind of funny. And cell phones were not allowed to be pulled out and you weren't allowed to talk to each other. And I thought that was funny. And there was no kids. No1 under 18 was allowed in the store. So if you haven't had the experience, it was an odd experience. So and so. Okay. Lewis says, hey, did you see the new headless guitars from Hills? Yes, I did. And I would say the answer, but I'll get made fun of. A lot of you guys make fun of when I go, I have a video on that. I have a video on that on the new Hills guitars. So. Yes, yes. And they're very good. That's the takeaway. Oh, so here's the. You don't have to watch my video. They're very good. The Hills guitars was a perfect example. Somebody, I think somebody reached out and talked to me about doing one of the Ola from Solar Solar guitars and new signature headstock. Or not signature, but new headstock headless guitar. Not headstock guitar, headless guitar. And it looks really cool. But I kind of like the Hills a little bit better. But I'd still be willing to check one out. In the grand scheme of things, I think the Hills right now is the guitar to beat for the affordable headless guitar market. It's just hard to beat. Roasted maple neck, mahogany body, stainless steel frets. Comes with a deluxe gig bag in the five to $600 range for most of them. Of course, the seven strings go a little higher and stuff. But five to $600 range, made in Indonesia. It's a hard beat, hard thing to beat. You know, for compare, contrast, think about this. The solar guitar, which is very good, is. I think it was like a basswood body or a poplar, which is no big deal. Again, it's not about the tone, woods or anything. That's just cost of, you know, goods. Nickel frets, regular neck, not roasted. Not that that's a big deal. But no gig bag and made in China and it was $100 more. So it's like, again, we don't have to make every decision value based, you know, okay, let's keep the romance in this too. But. But it's hard to get excited about something when I'm like, oh, okay. So there's two products and one has a lot of features and a lot of cool things to say about it. And it's a little bit less money. Kind of feels like that's a, you know, without being able to hold both and compare them, you really don't know if you're just going off a spec. A spec sheet. Okay. Nope, nope. Randy, this is a good. I like this one. Here's a. Here's a good fight. This one says which is better, shielding tape or shielding paint. I have actually heard so many people argue this and I just don't care. To me, you know the argument. I don't think I've ever heard anyone argue that shielding paint is better than shielding tape. I've never, I don't remember hearing that as an argument. So let's just say that's. That's probably the case. Right. The majority believe the tape is better insulating than the paint. To me, two things to think about. One, the paint is much easier to apply than the tape as a whole. But especially if, you know, you're not building the guitar from scratch. If you're repairing a guitar and you want to add shielding paint, it's a lot easier. Just take the componentry out and then, you know, do the shielding paint and let it dry, do another coat, let it dry, and then put it in. Speed wise, tape would be faster in the theory because you don't have to in speed and not doing it, but waiting, because you don't have to wait for a couple days, you know, because shielding paint takes a. You paint it, it's 24 hour waiting. You got to paint again. Two coats is minimum because you want to make sure you get every, every part. And so I mean, you're talking about 48 hours. So that takes a little bit of time. But I don't really have like a hard opinion. I use both. But the important part is if I was given a guitar to work on and had neither one, I'm gonna probably pick shielding paint just for the ease of it. Cause I can get in there, paint it, let it dry, go and paint it, let it dry, and then call it a day. And I test it with my multimeter where tape is a little bit more of a work thing, cutting it. Plus, I don't know, I think the tape, if you don't do it right, looks crappy if you're just all slapped in there and crappy looking. So I don't like the way that looks, especially if you're a customer. So. But I have no hard opinions about it either way. Like, in other words, there would be no reason. Let me put it this way. There's no way that I would ever replace shielding paint with tape or tape or, you know, you get what I'm saying? I never replace shielding paint with tape and I never Replace shielding tape with paint. Does it make sense? So, and another argument sometimes is that shielding paint is expensive if you buy it from, like Stumac and stuff. But the can of shielding paint that I have from Stumac is at least 15 years old. I even had to look up twice because I couldn't remember. You ever look up something and learn it? And then so much time goes since then you looked it up and you go, I remember. Look it up. I just remember what I learned. Because a couple years ago, if it was any good still, because I had to mix it and stuff. Stuff. And it's still good. Still works good. So that. That's. Yeah. Somebody says the Copper lining by Kiesel and otherwise. So Keisel Guitars does tape for sure. Is the best tone shield ever. Granted the best sound. Yeah, that's an argument. I know you're being sarcastic. I would love to really know. Like, that's what I want to know. Does the shielding paint sound better or. Or does the shielding tape sound better? That's where I want to know. Katie says. Hey, Phil, Strandberg released their new N2 line today. I love the new green color. I saw a couple of the new colors are cool. Do you think they'll release more colors if they haven't announced them? I don't see why they would release any new colors that they haven't announced in the new colors. If it hasn't. If it hasn't been officially announced as a line, then, yes, I would say there's more colors coming. Strandberg is definitely trying to level up its growth, as you guys know, or at least you'll soon know when the Cortec video comes out. One of the things that we're going to talk about in the Cortec factory, which, by the way, it's almost done. One of the things we're going to talk about is the fact that obviously Strandberg is made there and there's different levels of Strandbergs and where they're made and within the factory. Factory and stuff. And. And so obviously this Strandberg is making a really strong momentum to make a more obtainable price units and of course have more mass appeal. If you think about it, Strandberg's been really dominating. You know, when you. When you think of headless guitars. And again, I'm just telling you, I know that there's Orange B. I know there's tons of companies. And no matter what I say, there's going to be somebody mentioning 50 different companies that I didn't mention. But that's my point. When I Think of headless guitars in the market right now. I would say the two dominant forces are Strandberg and Kiesel. I think they've both figured out how to, to. To make themselves really well known in the headless guitar market, to the mass market and also probably appealing to the most non focused head headless guitar consumer. In other words, you know, guitar players that love headless guitars probably know all the brands. And that's kind of what I'm getting at here. If you're into headless guitars, you know all the brands who do it. But if you're not in headless guitars, you could probably go, oh yeah, it's that Strandberg or Steinberger or Keisel, that would be the ones that most people are gonna know. But let's see. Okay. And Kevin says, hey, I have 20 guitars that were stored in a pod. If you guys don't know what that is. So think of it like as a mobile container that they drop at your house. You load it up. For those that don't have this system, you load up this container. Like think of it like a box truck, but it's not on wheels, right. It's just the container. You load it up with all your stuff and then when you're ready, they come and get it and then they transport to wherever you say. And then they put it basically in front of that new house and. And then you go unload it and then they take the empty one away when you're done. So he's basically saying he's got, that he's filled it up with guitars, 20 guitars, and it's showing up in Arizona Saturday. How should he bring them into the house? Well, just bring them in the house. It's not a big deal. If they're in cases or gig bags, that you're fine, doesn't matter where it came from, because right now you're set. Because the weather is going to be fine. Your house is going to be probably in the 70s. The outside is going to be in the 80s. I would say maybe in the middle of the day when the container's the hottest, it'll be a little problematic, but I wouldn't worry about that. The only thing I would really worry about is anything that's nitrous, odors, lacquer, I would leave in a cake until the case is at minimum of the temperature in the room you're in and you feel like it's acclimated. Okay, let's go here. Nope. All right. Oh, I don't know. Okay, hold on a second. I'M sorry, this one. Normally I would answer this question. I'm not gonna pull it. But you got me on the laugh. So everybody's gonna be like, what was I laughing at? This one says, hey, Phil, if you weren't a youtuber, what would I do? No, it says, if you weren't a youtuber, what would your guitar collection. Gear collection look like? It would look exactly how it looked the first day I ever made a video. So you can go back and look at that video. There's probably 10 or 15 guitars there. Whether you can see them or not, you kind of get a sense that they're there. And I have, like three amps is what I had. Two or three amps and that's it. And then. And some pedals, probably then way more pedals than I have now. And that wouldn't go back to being more pedals. But yeah, like a dozen guitars maybe, and a couple amps. That's what I would have for sure. Without a doubt. And think about this. It's because when I had. Obviously I. The irony of this is I had more guitars when I started my YouTube channel because I owned a store. It's a lot of guitars. Those are my guitars. The. You know. Right. We own the store. The store owns the guitars by Transit of Properties. They're my property. So. So anyway, so I had a lot of guitars then, but I didn't really need a lot of guitars at home. I just had the few that I liked, you know, and that they were extra special to me in some way. And that's what I had, and that's what I played. And I generally would play the one guitar the most, which was my copper Strat. So basically a Strat, I was playing a Strat the most. And then a Mira that I still have. I have both those guitars. And then. So today, if I was no longer a YouTuber, it would go back. Not. I wouldn't go back to that exact year, but it would go back to that kind of thing. That's what I do now, anyways. So, you know, this guitar, this Kiesel Delos and Copper Penny metallic. Just to. I don't know how to show you this. Do you guys. Can you see the. See the. See the glare. See this glare in the. In the light? That's because I have played this guitar so much in the last couple years that this guitar. If I was to bet you, you'd all lose. But, you know, I'm telling you now, so you won't lose. I guess if this was a Finish. A gloss finish. You would say there's a gloss finish on this neck. There's no finish on this neck. I have played it. I have buffed this neck into shine. It is as shiny as it can be. In fact, I have another prototype of this guitar that we're working with right now. And the. My biggest problem is, is I almost was like, I gotta tell him, like, you gotta put gloss on the neck because this is gloss now. Because of the fact, like. Like, if you look at the headstock, you'll see no shine on the headstock. Right. And then shine on the neck because I've glossed it. That's how much I play this guitar. If I was going to say a guess of how many hours of playtime are on this guitar. Let's see, we'll say, here's my guess. I'm gonna do on a calculator, if that helps, or if that. If you don't mind, I'm just gonna guess. So, like, 1500 hours. Is that good? So. Yep, that'd be right. That's a lot. That's a lot of hours. I play this guitar a lot. So this would be the guitar if I wasn't a YouTuber. I'd just play this. And then I would probably have a couple of guitars that mean something to me for a ton of reasons. And then I'd have a couple amps that are just really, you know, kind of important to me. And then I'd change. I. Like I did before and I do now. I change out things as I got bored with it or found something. Something new and exciting. But no, I wouldn't have the level of gear. I'd have a lot. Don't get me wrong. Don't think I'm going to be all of a sudden. If I'm not a YouTuber. I'm minimalist and I got one guitar, one app. That would never happen in any way. I think variety is a spice of life. I enjoy this. I have no. There is no part of me that's like, am I worried about hoarding or anything like that? Nope. Like I said, this is something I'm super passionate about. I don't have anything else. This is it. This is the thing that I care about, you know, guitars. So this is where I spend my time and my money. But un. But unfortunately, or fortunately, being a YouTube channel, yeah, you tend to have a ton of other gear that I don't necessarily have to have because I need it for videos or, you know, like I said, it's. There's stuff that's just visiting. There's a lot of stuff that's visiting here. So that happens too. Yep. Okay. Alex says, hey, Phil, when replacing tuners with identical replacements, should you change the bushings? So if it's a threaded bushing, I would definitely do it because again, the threadings can be off, especially, you know, when you have different brands. So yes, but if you're talking about just a push in bushing, like if you have like a Cluson style key, I look at it like I look at the original. So when I look at the original tuning key and it's going through the bushing, I look at how much play is in the shaft, in other words, how much it's bumping the sides. Okay. And then I put the new tuner in and if it doesn't look worse than that, it looks the same or better, even improved. Sometimes it can be improved. Then I leave it alone. I don't necessarily need to push the bushings out and do them in different ways way. And I mean that in the idea that sometimes I don't do it at all. But usually in the beginning I don't do it because I never know if I'm going to take those tune keys back out. And then what happens if the new bushings or the old bushings don't sit in as tight as before? And now I'm dealing with a lot of problems I don't want to do. And one of the things that I've heard, you know, I've heard people argue the other way. But let me just tell you something that I hate, that I hate over the years about bushings is I've seen so many damn bushings glued in and you shouldn't be gluing in bushings. And it's the worst. The worst is when you, you, you, you go to pop a bushing out and somebody has just put a ton of super glue in it and it just took a chunk of the paint off the front of the headstock and you're like, oh, I can't believe it just happened. So I like to not have to mar the instrument any more than I have to. Like I said, I like all modifications, especially when you're not 100% sure about them yet to be what I call non marring modifications. In other words, they can be reversed and put back. Sean also has a follow up. He says, hey, do you have more camera or recording gear or guitar by far camera gear than guitar? All the money is in the damn cameras by, by far. If you Don't. If you ever want to. If you just want to feel better about yourself today for this weekend, and you have somebody in your life that's like, man, you need another pedal. When you buy that $200 pedal, I just want you to understand that, you know, it's. Cameras in themselves can be expensive or they can be inexpensive. It doesn't matter. Right? There's. Like I said, you can hear my argument. You can do things all different ways. But a good camera, you know, I mean, you can get, like I said, you can get a good camera, 1500 bucks. But let's just say when I say a good camera that I, you know, because you need durable equipment. Think of this for, for making content and stuff. You need a durable computer. You need stuff that lasts the stuff. You cannot have this stuff fail on you. It's. This is your. My, this is how I'm paying my bills. So I buy equipment that lasts. So computers. You burn through them pretty on the regular cameras are. I mean, just so you know, $6,000 for a camera and then a power supply for that camera is 500 bucks. And then two lenses, one lens could be like 2000, $3000. Another lens could be 1200 bucks and other lens could be $6000. And, you know, multiple. And you have to have multiple cameras sometimes camcorders are pretty relatively inexpensive. So Those are about 1,000 to $1,200, but you need a couple of those. I mean, this stuff adds up. But I'll tell you, like, the things that you don't see is not only the. All the cabling, but all of the mounts. There's lots of mounts, lighting mounts, all kinds of mouse from cameras. This stuff adds up fast. Mixers, switchers, lapel mics, microphones. The upgrade we did. Now, I'm okay with saying it because I think the content is improved. If you. I don't think it. I mean, me personally, I like the new content for this year. If you haven't noticed, we have new content this year. If you haven't noticed. The deep dives are. I think they're better. But regardless of whatever you think that was 30 grand, basically, that's. That's the investment you had. We had to make in the channel with gear for. To just revamp everything and put it in there. And that's all in computers, multiple computers. You know, it's. It's a lot, so. Yeah, it's a lot so. And I hate all of it. So you can imagine. And that's where I'm telling you guys I want you to know I'm like, I'm very happy that I get to do this for a living and I'm glad that anyone's interested to talk to me about it. Thank you. But also, you know, but I mean. And it's all funny to think I started it all with just a cell phone. I could have gone back to that. But yeah. Tripods. Michael. Michael. And then we're off this subject. Okay. Tripods are my favorite thing to talk about. It's not how expensive they are because they can get pretty expensive. It's how many I've lost. I have lost so many tripods. At least four tripods. Just lost them. I left them in a hotel in so. And so I left them. They just somehow I just, just. It just. You know. Anyways, let's go to. Gerald says at this point I think it'd be funny to release a two minute Cortex video just to mess with people, then put the real one up six hours later. You know what's funny is. Yeah, I get it. But that would be funny. Okay. And let's go. Here, let me revise this, if you don't mind. Okay. I have 10 guitars and that feels like a lot to manage and play. How often do you change strings? As a collector player with dozens of guitars, I don't change strings very often. I do focus my time on a couple guitars. So like I said, the PM Delos is a huge part of that. It's the guitar that just beat out the rotation, you know, the most. So that's where it gets a lot of time. The next runner up on that would be probably right now. It's out of favor, but for a long time it was my Gibson sg. When I say it's out of favor, it's just in the rack now it's not. I'm not playing as much for some reason. I'm playing that. The 60s reissue strat a lot. So there's just a few. What is. What I'm trying to say is I have a few guitars that I'm playing a lot of times and I'm changing the strings a lot of. And then the other guitars, the strings get crusty and old and. And yeah, but I don't have like a day of the year or something where I change all the strings on the guitars and stuff. It's. It's tough, but I really like. That's an interesting thing to ask you guys. Like, do you change all the strings if you have a lot of guitars, do you change all the strings all the time. Do you buy strings in bulk or do you just change the strings on the ones you play the most? So I don't know. Okay, let's button it up. Let's do this. We did it. We made it. Okay. Okay, I'm just scrolling real quick. Have I ever tried putting car wax on the back of a guitar neck? No, I have not. You can. You want to use. If you use any kind of car wax, you want to use a car wax. Meguiar is a great brand. You want to use a car wax that says that has no pumice in it, like carnauba wax, but Carnauba with no pumice. So you. Because the fact that it will actually put micro scratches in your neck and I don't know anything about cars and car finishes and why that exists in the car world and somebody who watch this show maybe is a car person and understands why there's that exist. I can just tell you that if you use a Carnauba wax with any kind of pumice in it, it will, you'll, you'll, you'll see it in your guitar. You'll see it. Or sadly enough like later, just fine little marks, swirls and stuff everywhere. And it's going to be a little pain in the ass. So I would go with the carnauba wax, but no, I haven't done it and I wouldn't do it on. Obviously we're talking about a finished neck. A one with a finish. Keep in mind when I talk about this in my neck on this guitar, saying the keysil has no. That looks like it has a gloss finish. That is the oils now packed in my. It's my. That's my oils from my hand packed into the wood. Now there's no finish on that neck. It's so I wouldn't put anything on that neck. It would not do well. And then somebody says, how do you not have a string partnership? I don't know. So, you know, in all fairness, Ernie Ball strings reached out and offered me to offer to give me like our artist pricing. So discounts. But I had. But they offer that to me right after I just bought a crap ton of strings from both Guitar center and Sweetwater. So I'm loaded. I was loaded up on strings. I didn't need it. And then I mentioned you guys that I had some defective strings with d' Addario and I stopped using d' Addario and that's why I bought a bunch of Ernie Ball strings. Let me just back up with a. I mentioned that I had some defective daddario strings many times, many a lot of strings. I bought a bunch of Ernie Ball strings. Ernie Ball said, hey, we would love to hook you up with some great pricing on strings. I just don't need them because I have dozens and dozens of packs because I just bought them. So I have them. Those. So, you know, just to be very clear, I'm buying those packs for all the guitars. I. I do deep dives on every single guitar I do a deep dive on. I have to change the strings because I'm taking the guitar apart. So I have to buy a pack of strings so for every single guitar. And anyways, when Didaro heard that I had problems, they reached out very nicely and said, of course, I already had that problem. We'd like to send you some strings. But I don't think they did or I don't know whatever happened with that. I don't know. I thought, I thought, I said, sure, send me this. And then I didn't see anything or I don't know, maybe. I don't know. But it didn't happen. So anyways, my, my long story short is I'll eventually reach out to Ernie Ball when I need strings and say, hey, I'd like to buy some strings, but so, you know, I'm buying them for deep dive guitars. So to ask your question, why don't I have a sponsor of strings? I don't. I think you guys misunderstand how much I don't know. Look, I don't want to say it because here's the deal. I don't want to be negative because I think the channel does great. I think you guys are supportive of the channel and I have a lot of fun. And that's all really matters. I don't really care what the companies do or don't do with the channel. So I don't know why. I don't know why anything. I just know that I like doing it the way I'm doing it. And I'm very lucky to be able to do it the way I want to do it. And I'm lucky you guys are supportive. Let's. Let's do one last topic, then we'll call it what do We Got? Okay. Oh, here's a good one. I just yelled in. The mic says you're always pretty excited when you get a new guitar that has a bone nut. I like the bone nut. It's because I like big bone bones. I don't know, it says, but have never heard you ascribe a performance Benefits to its use? Oh, does it really matter? If so, why don't. Why doesn't everyone use bone? Okay, so this is a good question. Keep in mind, when I'm excited, it's usually mostly when I'm excited about a bone nut. It's because I'm excited when it's on an inexpensive guitar. Inexpensive guitars are very, very problematic when it comes to the nut. Right. When you think about your old guitars, you know, a lot of guitars, people go, oh, the tuners are cheap. They are cheap. Those tuners probably will hold tune in most cases. Are they very finite? Are they easy to tune? No. Usually when guitars won't stay in tune and they're inexpensive, it's because the nut material is really bad. The slots are cut very bad. And that is the first thing we can fix on a cheap guitar. So if you give me, like a really inexpensive squire, like a $150 squire, if that's even a thing they make anymore, and you said, hey, do a setup and make it perform well, the first thing I'm going to address is the nut. That's the first focus frets and nut. Like, I'm going to make those better set besides the general setup. But I'm going to make sure the frets are dressed right and the nut is cut correctly and preferably out of a better material. Now, that material, I really don't have a preference. Okay, so bone, if it's graphite, if it's brass, if it's tusk with a Q or they sometimes they call that new bone. Or maybe, you know, new bone's another brand of that synthetic material. Man made materials, all of those are pretty good. The harder the material, the better. The reason is, is because the thing that causes the problem, friction, it makes perfect sense. The string. When you bend a string, when you use a tremolo on a string, you know, your vibrato on your arm, on your, you know, wambu arm, whatever you're doing, whenever the string moves out of position ever so slightly, either forward or in, stretch, pull back, whatever that movement is, anything that binds it or makes it obviously creates friction, and it doesn't let it return to the exact spot it was before that action happened, you're going to now have the guitar slightly out of tune. So you can imagine we want that to be as perfect, which is why. And the best way to always explain how important a nut is is to explain how crazy we got with the Floyd Rose system. The Floyd Rose system is where they take and they lock the nut and the logic being is, because if you put the, if you make a locking nut, what happens is the, when they use the whammy bar on the guitar and the strings get loose and then they get taught and they get loose and they get taught again, the strings can't move position from the nut because they've been clamped the entire time. So of course they return to the exact position. Now can the strings stretch out? Sure. But once you stretch the strings enough, they'll stop doing that. So the idea is they won't move out of position because they've been clamped. I don't think you have to go to excess for that, especially if you're not doing whammy bar dives and pulling some Steve I. Strix tricks. So you just need a nut that's well lubricated and of course cut very well out of a hard material. Harder again the better. So that's why, so that's why you hear me get excited. Notice I probably don't look at like a $4,000 guitar and go, well, it's in a bow nut. Because at a $4,000 guitar I'm like, yeah, of course it's going to use a, A, a high end material. You know, whether like I said, it's a man made material, synthetic. The materials that they use for inexpensive guitars tend to be really cheap and soft plastic and they're really bad. If you notice something, I do as much as I can. Anytime I talk about a guitar where the nut is not very good, notice I pull it out of the slot and show you the underneath. And it's because sometimes they're hollow because they're not even solid. And to me that's the first sign that you have a problem. Now again, I'm not arguing whether or not a nut being solid or hollow makes it better or worse. I'm just saying cheap parts, cheap plastic nuts tend to be hollowed out. They don't tend to be very good. Again, at that point, if they're trying to save money, it's all about saving money. And that's really goes to, that's why this is a great question. What really goes to it is this. The lower the expense of the guitar, the more, you know, they had to make decisions to save money. So, so then the question is, what are those decisions? Right? We know what's in their favor when they make a guitar in China or Indonesia or Korea or Vietnam or India or you know, insert here, the exchange rate's in their favor usually, right? So the dollar is strong. So they can go there where the exchange rate's really in their favor. That makes a lot of sense. And of course, because the dollar is strong, in other words, a perfect example of that is. I'll share this with you. I stayed when I stayed in Indonesia at the hotel I stayed at, which was a top tier hotel. Okay. One of the nicest hotels ever been in. And I've been in some nice hotels. I. It was absolutely is the same quality absolutely as the hotel I was in in like, let's say, you know, Hawaiian stuff. My bill have it. I have it. I'm gonna share my bill, not my credit card number. So let me, let me make sure there's not on here. Let me take, I'm gonna take my credit card number off. I don't think it's on there anyways. All right. So I stayed in this hotel. You can look it up online, you can check it out. It's called the Shangri La in Sarabaya. Okay. For those, anyone. Shangri La is pretty phonetically correct. Sarah Baya. S U, R, a B A Y. For those listening later, driving. Don't, don't look it up now, but look it up later. The Sarah by beautiful Shangri La hotel in Sarabaya. My hotel room was beautiful room. It had a bidet. It was really nice. A beautiful. And had bottles of water, free bottles of water in the room. I had. They brought me beers. I got Heineken's when I wanted them. There was a concierge that brought me things. There was a. Every morning the breakfast is included in the concierge stuff. And I had a beautiful breakfast. When I say breakfast, I don't mean like it was like the tins with the heaters. I'm talking about like I ordered an omelette and then they had a chef make me something and bring it. So what did that cost? 3 days in Shangri La. What did that cost? Well, I'm gonna give you the, the rupiah, which is Indonesian currency if I'm saying it correctly. It was 6,174,630. For those that want to see it, there's. It is. Okay, there it is. Look at we this. You can see my wife's writing on the side as she was trying to figure out what the hell is this thing really costing me here. That's where Sean is. Cool. So what is 6,174,000 in American? It was $398 three nights stay, including my alcohol, beverages, breakfasts, bottles of water, all the things all the amenities, $398American. So I'm just telling you that because I say that all the time because people always talk about the labor costs, but they always seem like one of the factors. Isn't that just the rates in our favor for exchange, for obviously for currencies? So basically what I'm saying is I think when you look at a guitar for a couple hundred dollars, you go, okay, look, if they're making it in wherever in Indonesia or if they're making it in China, you're like, yeah, the exchange is part of the factor. It's part of it. It is part of it. Then of course, then we unfortunately one day start have to, you know, looking at the, the way the employees are treated and stuff. And that's a factor too. That's something that always should be on our minds as well. But again, I can only talk about things I know or see or understand, right? I could, I can insinuate a lot of things, but I'm not talking about stuff I know, okay? So I don't know much about the world when it comes to that stuff. I haven't seen it. I'm trying to, I'm trying to use my YouTube power to go to these factories. That's how I got to Cortech. I. You said, hey, let me go to Cortech, right? I'm trying to, I'm trying to go somewhere else next. So you guys know I'd like to go to a Chinese factory. I'd like to go to a bunch of them and, and share with you what I see and what I learned. But anyways, my point is, so that's one way they get the cost down. Then the question is, what's the other ways they get the. Well, they use cheaper materials, they use cheaper woods, they use cheaper metals. And so that's why when I'm looking at guitars, you notice I get excited because I'm like, oh, well, they're not skimping here. So we know they're just skimping on. Like I said, the exchange rate, the labor costs, whatever. At least we know that's coming, right? And so that's why I get excited when they use real material. But as s fourth is material. Bone. First of all, when I make a nut, I mostly make them out of bone. I don't know why. You know, when I started doing guitar repairs, it was really easy, and this is a long time ago, it was very easy for me to do them with Graphtec parts because they came pre slotted and it was Just an easy exchange. So I would almost push every customer into that, you know, right. So a customer comes in and goes, hey, I need a nut. And I go, okay, want to do bone or, or not bone, sorry, you want to do graphite, which is. Right, which is graphtec, graphite nut or like I said, a new bone. N U B O N E. Or a tusk which is again synthetic man made materials that look like bone. Because I could get them pre made. Especially if you go online, you can look, not only are they pre slotted, but they're made for almost every kind of guitar. So I can get the Epiphone one, the Gibson one, already made in sized. Then over time you would come across a problem guitar. In other words, this guitar is not templated out. It's not so easy easy, you know, not. It's not a traditional Squire or Strat or Les Paul or whatever. So the part that they need that is a different shape. So you'd have to get a blank. You can make them out of the same materials. You can get the new bone of the graphite. But I just started getting bone. Does it make sense? And then an amazing luthier that you guys may have heard of named Neil Moser, he, he makes bone nuts out of actual. He gets cow femurs and he dries them and he, he starts his bone nuts from scratch. Like he starts from the source. He doesn't get a machined out blank. He actually just like boils the cow femur, dries it and he gave me some. And so I felt excited to like I'm going to make more, you know. And so I started making bone nuts like that. And so it just became a sense that was something I do. But, but it's not specifically because I think it's any better. It's like I said, anything that are, anything that is a hard material is good. Like I said, I have, if you look at my videos, of course you have to search now we're gonna eventually try to fix that for you guys. But like I made a nut out of brass on a video. I made a nut out of bone on a video, right? I've done a ton of the graphite, graphtec and new bone ones where they're pre slotted and you drop them in. So so again, it's just again, the harder material the better. And then some people have, you know, preferences, I'm sure. You know, I would imagine if you're, if you're vegan, you're probably like, I don't want a bone Nut. So I'll be like, all right, fair enough. I'm just guessing. So. But nice. What I want to like about the. The question and topic is nice observation because one of the things that. That no matter how many videos I make and how much I try to illustrate what I'm seeing and doing in a video, you know, keep in mind the best. I'm a hack that just got lucky at this. And I mean, when I say that is maybe as a repair person as well, but also as a content creator. Right. I'm just figuring it out. And when I get excited, it's sometimes I don't. I don't explain. And so maybe I'll try to work on that more explaining what it is exactly that I'm explaining instead of just saying, oh, I'm excited about these features. Maybe go into detail why I think it's exciting that it has these features. So. All right, I think we did it. I think we. It's funny. Cow femurs. A lot of cow. Cow femur talk now. All right. I think I'm just double checking. Okay. Nope, I covered all these. Actually. I think I got a lot of Amanda's questions in today, which is good. I'm not. Don't. Not enough. But I got more in. But anyways, I want to say thank you to everybody who hung out with the show today. If you're part of my Patreon crew, tomorrow is a clinic. We're doing clinics. If you guys don't know this little. Sell you a little bit. A little bit. $5. Patrons get the bonus podcast every month where it's just like this. But you get a little bit more behind the scenes. I get a little bit more open with what I'm saying. Especially when there's like, you know, some industry information I can give you a little bit ahead of time. I try to do that. And then of course you get your. I would say it's guaranteed to get your questions asked, pretty much are answered because at this point it's very rarely have I missed one on those. And I do those once a month. And also for $5, you get this episode one with no ads and that's cool. And then you get some pre release stuff as well. At $10 level, you get that. Plus I do multiple live clinics a month. It's just like this. It's just in my shop and you can ask me questions and I actually pull out guitars and I can answer. So like for instance, when you ask a question about a guitar, I literally start pulling out the guitars. And we start and talking. So it's just a really in depth, a nerdier version of this. Let you know that. And then of course there's a $25 tier. And that's really the same. It gets everything. Plus if you pay for the year, you get one of these custom made shirts by my wife and you get to. We do twice a month, we shoot for twice a month to do coffee with Phil. It's just not like Ola's great channel where he does coffee with Ola. This is just you hanging out on a zoom call with me. And I don't. I don't know, we just talk about stuff. So I just want to let you know because I think sometimes I don't mention that enough. What it is, all those options are. So thank you guys again for supporting the channel as you do. And I hope you guys have an amazing weekend. Play some guitar and I will see you guys next Friday. If you're learning something or having a good time, don't forget you can subscribe for free and help this channel. Or for $10 a month, you can join me on Patreon for live clinics where you can ask questions every single week.