Reverb Is Hiding Some Listings From You

Summary

Know Your Gear Podcast with Phillip McKnight

Episode 440: "Reverb Is Hiding Some Listings From You"
December 10, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, host Phillip McKnight dives deep into a controversial new change in Reverb’s listing policy that he argues negatively impacts both dealers and buyers, especially when purchasing new gear. Phil breaks down how Reverb is concealing some new-item listings unless sellers pay extra fees (known as "bumps"). He recounts his experiences, research, and direct communication with Reverb, explains implications for the guitar community, then shifts to answering listeners' questions on technical guitar topics, shopping strategies, and gear recommendations.

Phil maintains his signature mix of thorough research, candid opinions, and humor throughout the discussion.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reverb’s New Listing Policy: Hiding Listings Unless Dealers “Bump” [00:48–22:14]

• Phil’s Discovery

  • Phil demonstrates searching for a Friedman Smallbox 50 on Reverb—while the site claims there are 11 new listings, he only sees 6.
  • He notes this issue doesn’t appear with used gear, mainly only new gear, especially in categories like amps and guitars, but rarely pedals.

• Bump System Explained

  • Policy Summary: Only one non-bumped listing for new items is shown in search results, while bumped listings (sellers paying extra fees) dominate visibility.
  • If multiple listings of the same new product exist, only the highest-paying “bumped” dealers and one random non-bump listing may show up, filtering out the rest.
  • Sellers have to “bid” on their own listings for visibility—higher payouts to Reverb mean higher placement and fewer competitors visible to buyers.

“The more you give to Reverb, the more you win the bump... Not only the top bump, you may be...one of the only bumps...and we’re also going to remove your competitors...So customers won’t have as many choices.”
— Phil [05:30]

• Phil’s Critiques & Concerns
  • Reduces buyer choice and transparency.
  • May artificially limit perceived supply, potentially inducing fear-of-missing-out buys.
  • Disadvantages small, independent, or “mom-and-pop” shops with limited margins who can’t afford large bump fees.
  • Dealers may not know their listings are hidden — they only realize when they can’t find their own products in search.
  • Workarounds: Slight title or price variations help listings “sneak through” Reverb’s filter, but this is inconsistent.

“I had to do so much research on this all week...It was so nefarious sounding at first...It’s almost creepy.”
— Phil [05:18]

• Public Service Announcement to Dealers

  • Dealers should make sure their listings differ in title or price from other sellers; otherwise, their listings might be hidden.

• Real-Life Examples

  • Phil gets an offer on a Charvel Satchel Signature model that didn’t appear in his search—proving listings exist but are hidden unless directly linked or favorited.
  • Phil decides to purchase direct from a dealer instead of through Reverb in protest.

“I just don’t think this is right. A bunch of dealers let me know...They had no idea that no one was seeing them until...they tried to find one of their own listings and they were unable to find the listing without an exact link.”
— Phil [18:40]

• Call for Discussion & Action
  • Phil encourages listeners to comment, and would welcome Reverb reps to the podcast to explain the policy.

2. Q&A: Guitar Cases and Technical Advice [23:07–31:23]

• Finding a Hard Case for a Gretsch Billy Bo Copy [23:07]

  • The Billy Bo’s odd shape makes it hard to find cases. No “certified fit” options from Sweetwater or Gretsch; Phil asks the community for solutions.

• Coil-Splitting Humbuckers with Resistor vs. Ground [25:20]

  • Explains the difference:
    • Direct to ground: “True” coil split; one coil is defeated.
    • Via resistor (as PRS does): The off coil isn’t fully muted but reduced, creating a blend that sounds more like a single-coil but is never completely so.
  • The specific resistor value may vary with pickup output.

“If it sounds good, it’s good. If it doesn’t, you can clip it out. It’s like treble bleeds to me. Sometimes I like them, sometimes I don’t.”
— Phil [29:12]

3. On Supporting Local Shops vs. Big Chains [32:14–38:15]

• Local Stores’ Plight
  • Many listeners lament the lack of local (“mom and pop”) music stores and the dominance of Guitar Center or online retail.
  • Phil shares a story of positive engagement with a dealer (Axe Palace), emphasizing the value of good business regardless of size.
  • He discusses how store responsiveness (e.g., knowing the weight of a guitar) now makes the difference and can win/lose sales.

4. Gear of the Week & New Products [39:21–54:35]

• Gear Highlights

  • Firefly George Lynch-inspired guitars: Good value for the price, easy upgrades.
  • Line 6 Stadium XL: New, high-priced, digital processor — not as interested personally.
  • Soldano Astro 20: $300 off for Black Friday; Phil will review if the episode gets 500 likes.
  • PV solid-state amps: Surprised at $1500 price point, unsure of US/overseas manufacturing, excited to see classic brands return.
  • Fender Hello Kitty “Luke” guitar: Actual child-sized, on sale for Black Friday, reminiscences about Hello Kitty series.
  • Synergy Send 20 head + Marshall module: Good deal, strong flexibility for home players.

• Poll Results [49:56]

  • Listeners vote for which new gear Phil should purchase and review:
    • Soldano Astro 20: 34% (winner)
    • Line 6 Stadium XL: 26%
    • Hello Kitty Luke: 20%
    • Synergy Marshall module: 20%
  • Phil will buy and review the Soldano Astro 20, possibly comparing it to the SLO 30 and Synergy setup.

5. Technical Tips & Deep Dives [55:35–54:35+]

• Neck-Through Guitars & Neck Joints [55:35]

  • Explains neck-through vs. bolt-on/set-neck in terms of playability, heel thickness, builds.
  • Praises the Parker Fly for thin neck joints due to carbon fiber construction.

• Hand-Wound vs. Machine-Wound Pickups [59:39]

  • Phil’s philosophical take: The “recipe” (guitar, amp, strings, technique) matters more than whether a pickup is hand- or machine-wound.

“Your rig is a beautiful recipe...I look at players’ rigs the way I would go to a chili cookoff.”
— Phil [61:28]

• Cables: Are Premium Brands Worth It? [65:40–69:53]

  • Megami and other boutique cables are great, but most important is durability and reliability, not extreme audio claims.
  • Phil doesn't buy many cables due to industry samples, but recommends D’Addario American Stage for value/longevity.
  • Premium features like directional cables and models for specific instruments were “hype” in his experience.

• USB and Audio Cables for Studio Use [73:37]

  • For high-speed, long-distance studio use (like 4K cameras), quality matters far more than casual use.
  • Warns against cheap cables for mission-critical data transfer.

• Tool Advice: Calipers & Fretting [88:08]

  • Diagnosing and modifying guitars is far easier with even an affordable digital caliper; “diagnostic tools pay a dividend.”
  • On frets, he recommends Dremel polishing wheels and shares why some lutherie/repair content stays Patreon-only (to avoid criticism over “how I do things”).

• Locking Nuts & String Retainers [92:19]

  • If tightening a locking nut alters string pitch, it’s likely due to a missing or ill-set string retainer changing break angle and down-pressure.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Reverb hiding listings:

  “What I learned on this is even though their policy is correct, you’re only seeing the bumped listings. If you put a variation in your title, then your listing gets in there. So...it’s really a mess.”
  — [07:16]

• On information transparency:

  “I don’t think anyone should be...blocking any information from me as a consumer for any reason, no matter what the logic is.”
  — [11:42]

• On business practices:

  “I don’t like the idea of middlemen making all the money. It doesn’t make anything better for a customer or the dealer.”
  — [96:51]

• Community feeling about missing local shops:

  “I really miss mom and pop stores...It’s tough, man. I get it.”
  — [34:30]

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• Reverb Listing Demo Begins: [00:48]
• Official Policy Reading: [05:01]
• Bump System & Flaws: [06:27]
• Variation Workarounds: [07:22]
• Phil’s Personal Example (Charvel offer): [08:38]
• Why Phil Dislikes the Policy: [10:33]
• Dealer Feedback on Hidden Listings: [18:40]
• Q&A: Firefly Solstice Case: [23:07]
• Coil Split with Resistor Explanation: [25:20]
• Local Store Discussion & Dealer Story: [32:14]
• Gear of the Week Segment: [39:21]
• Poll Results for Review Gear: [49:56]
• More Listener Q&A (Neck Joints, Pickups, Cables): [55:35]
• Fret Polishing Tool Talk: [79:32]
• Locking Nut String Retainer Troubleshooting: [92:19]

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Flow & Tone

Phil blends thorough, researched critique with personal anecdotes and a dash of humor. The episode is robustly informative but interactive, encouraging listener feedback and community discussion. His approach is candid and sometimes ranty (“This is absolutely the strangest thing I’ve ever seen...It was so nefarious sounding”), but grounded in experience as a dealer, tech, and guitarist. The Q&A sections lighten the heavy business talk with practical hands-on advice.

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Summary Takeaways

• Reverb’s “bump” policy for new gear listings drastically limits the choices buyers see, favoring larger or higher-spending dealers and reducing transparency and competition.
• Both buyers and small dealers should be aware of these changes and communicate or vote with their dollars as appropriate.
• Phil encourages supporting local shops whenever possible but recognizes availability is a big challenge.
• Throughout, practical advice and technical questions are answered with Phil's signature clarity and humor.

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Listener Action

• Dealers: Make your new item listings distinct in title or price to avoid Reverb’s filters.
• Buyers: Be aware you may not see all available new inventory on Reverb—consider searching with variations, or contacting dealers directly, especially for high-dollar purchases.
• Everyone: Join Phil’s conversation in the comments; he’s eager to hear what the community thinks about Reverb’s hidden listings policy and gear recommendations.

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Transcript

[A]

The Know youw Gear Podcast.

The Know youw Gear Podcast is brought to you by Patreon members Channel members and viewers who like and subscribe. Thank you for making this possible.

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Know youw gear podcast, episode 440. I want to get into the first question because it's going to be a little bit bit of work. And so let's get into that first and. And then we'll start taking some more some questions afterwards. Here we go. So let me show you something that's kind of strange.

Okay, so let's get out of this. Go here. All right, here we go.

All right. So Reverb has something going on that's very strange and I want to talk about it because I think it affects. Well, it definitely affects dealers, but it I affects us consumers as well. I want to show you something. And this everything I'm about to show you only is with new gear. So no used gear is going to. Is going to have this problem. But new gear. I want to go and just go ahead and click and obviously I've been doing some research. I want to show you what I found. I want to look at something like the Friedman Smallbox 50amp. If you click on that amp, and this is just one product and I've noticed this is mostly with guitars and amps and it's not so much happening with pedals, but it's important that you know that it's happening when you see. When you click in Friedman Smallbox 50 because you're looking at that amp, you'll see there's 23 results. Well, sometimes you want used and sometimes you want new and sometimes you want to mix. I don't. I just want brand new amps. So I'm going to remove. So I'm going to go right to brand new amps. Okay, so I'm only looking at brand new. It says there's 18 listings and we're going to go ahead and click there. Now it says 18 listings, but it's only showing nine results. That's kind of strange. Now, of course, these aren't the small boxes I want. These are covers and stuff. So now we have to go to category and we're going to select amps Amps. It says there's 11 to choose from, but when we click on it and it says 11 to choose from, I'm not seeing 11. I'm seeing as you can see right here, here's six. But why did it say 11 when there was six? And there's a really interesting thing going on that, I think is. I think it's bad. So I just want to tell you right now, it's, it's. I just don't, I don't think this is a good idea. So what's happening is, is that Reverb is on new items only and everything being equal. In other words, the same price listing, same product listing. They're only letting us see so many of the new listings. Now. First of all, they're letting us see bumps. And let me just tell you how the bumps are working because this is a big deal. Let me go to this part. And, and so, you know, I actually have official, I guess unofficial official information from Reverb. So let's pull that up and I'll read their policy change because it's the important part. And I know a lot of you are like, hey, how do they, how are they making changes? Well, you know, when they do updates, we agreed to their, their changes. Let me just tell you what Reverb's official policy is on bumps. And that's what's really affecting new products here. And again, we'll get into why it's affecting you and I. It says that when multiple brand new listings exist for the same product like we just experienced with that Friedman small box, 50 only non bump listings. Wait, right? Only one non bumped listing is showing. Okay, Understand that. So what they're saying is I just clicked and I wanted to see. I'm looking for a Friedman small box. I want to see what's available. Like what local? Maybe I want a dealer that ships from California because I don't want this thing to ship across the country. I don't want it ship from Guitar Centers or our Sweetwater's warehouse because I don't want it to get damaged. Maybe I want it sooner. So I'm looking for a local, more localized dealer. Maybe I'm looking for a dealer I've worked with in the past. Maybe just for whatever reason, I'm just looking for whatever. Somebody with the best feedbacks, somebody who has a good service record. Maybe I want to go through the feedbacks and go, hey, who has the best customers? Saying these guys always take care of me. What they're saying is that with the new bump system, bumped listings, which is where you and I'll explain. Actually, I'll just. It says only one non bumped listing is shown in the search results at a time. So let me go back to that. So that's not exactly what we're seeing here. And we'll get into that. So we see Here. Bumped listing, bumped listing, bumped listing, bumped listing right there. And then there's two non bump listings. I'm going to explain how I figured out why there's two non bump listings. Okay, it's going to make sense in a second. So back to me. So basically they're pulling away the listings from us. They're not letting us see them. We'll get into that. It says if you're not the winning bump. Okay, so now let me explain how bumps work for new products. So when you go to bump your product, usually there's like a fee or a percentage or something. Now what happens is you kind of bid for it. So let's say you're a dealer and you list a small box, Friedman, small box 50. And you say, I want to bump this listing. And they're going to say you can bump between like 1% or 30%. In other words, how much of your money do you want to give to us? The more you give to Reverb, the more you win the bump. In other words, you'll get the bump. Not only the top bump, you may be the only or one of the only bumps that are existing. And we're also going to remove your competitors, right? Don't worry about that. You give us you. Hey, if you're willing to give us 20% of the sale of this product, not only will you get to the top, we'll remove anyone else. So customers won't have as many choices. By the way, that's not what they're saying. I'm adding that part because it's a little irritating to me because I had to do so much research on this all week to find out how this is working. Because it was so, believe it or not, nefarious sounding at first that I was like, what is going on? This is almost creepy, but let's get back into it. It says if you're not the winning bump auction for your product, your listing will unfortunately not appear in the general search results. In this case, only two of the highest bumped items in and one random non bumped item will show up.

So let's go back to what we're seeing here. So there's a flaw in that system. By the way, this is Reverb's system. It's horribly and stupid, but at least there's a flaw in their system. Here's why I think we're seeing two non bumped items because this item has a different price. See, this price was 3,099. This one's 2,899. So what I learned on this is even though their policy is correct, you're only seeing the bumped listings. And I believe like this one and this one are duplicates bumps. In other words, I think that's the same dealer. I'm not sure. But the important part is, is that even though they're saying you're only going to see one non bump listing, what I've noticed is, is if you put a variation in your title, then your listing gets in there. So if everyone was to put the exact same Friedman small box guitar amplifier head, you know, 50 watts, then only one would come on. But if you were to put something different in your title, like Friedman small box guitar amplifier head.

2 channel 50 watts, it would kind of go through their filtering system. And that's why we see it so and so it's either description or by price difference. So in other words, in this case we have two different price points. So that's why these two, this, this two non bumps are here. Plus I guess one's a combo and one's a head. It's really a mess. And the reason I'm telling you that is because even though this is their policy and I'm seeing it consistent, there is examples of where this doesn't work. I looked at a pedal and there was like 25 or 30 of those pedals listed new with very few to no variations. So they were slipping through. But this is the important part. The important part is go back to their official policy.

Let's see, the official policy is.

So anyways, it's saying that basically if you're not willing to pay for a bump, your product's not going to be seen. Now here's where it gets a little tricky. Does it exist? It still exists. And I'm going to use a perfect. I'm going to actually use my Reverb account to show you a weird thing that happened to me. So let me go to my favorites. Okay. And I was clicking on favorite products.

Because. Watch list, there it is. Okay, watch list. I want to show you a interesting thing that happened. Okay? So I want to type in this. I'm going to look at another product. This is a Charvel.

Guitar.

Okay? Signature. Whoops. Sig. And I have to be specific in my listing now.

Because I don't know how if it's so sensitive that it's. It's case sensitive or.

Far. Whoops. Far. Okay, so here's what I want to show you. Okay?

So I'm going to go to filters.

Brand new search. All right, so what I did Is I've searched.

Pro Mod, basically Charvel Satchel Signature Pro mod DK22HH FRM. Now keep in mind, if you don't final, if you don't make your search so finite to look at only brand new items, all kinds of stuff slipping through. So this is a real weird anomaly. So this is really about a. Just a public service announcement for the community. So back to this. If you look here, it's showing three. There is three of these Charvels available for sale. Two are bumped and one is not, which is what they're saying. Here's what's strange though. Okay, so when I go into my offer page, which is what I want to show you, I received an offer for this guitar and when I click on this guitar, this listing did not exist in the listings that I saw.

Proving exactly what we're seeing, which is they kept this away from us. They didn't let me see this when I searched for new ones. When I wanted a brand new Charvel Satchel Signature Pro Mod DK22, this listing wasn't available to me. But like I said, once I looked at one and kind of clicked on it. Then I received the offer from a dealer who wasn't listed. This has happened to me a couple times now. So just. So let me explain because what's happening is, is the listings exist, we're just not able to see them. In other words, reverb is stopping us, the consumer, from seeing all of the brand new listings. In this scenario where we click and look at only brand new settings at products, they're only letting us see so many of the new products. Why? I hate that. Let me tell you why. One, I can understand the argument. If the argument's like, well, otherwise the dealers would list 50 of the same product, everybody's selling the same product for the same price and you would have 500 of them to search for them. And it would be exhaustive. However, a perfect example is this. If there was 50 of them for sale. My first inkling as a customer, as an educated consumer is, well, there's a lot for sale and therefore I should be very diligent in my shopping decision. In other words, pick maybe the best deal, the best dealer, the best situation. I'm not in a hurry to have to click on this. I can, you know, I can find, I can search my options to see, like I said, is there a closer dealer? Is there a better review dealer? Is there a better price? What is going on when you basically make me think that there is only One or two, an item available on a giant platform, and let's argue, the largest musical instrument platform in the US or maybe in the world. It makes me think that my selection is very small and therefore I might jump on something or make a decision that I don't want to. And again, it's not always about money, but it is about information. And I don't think anyone should be taking any information, blocking any information from me as a consumer for any reason, no matter what the logic is. Now keep in mind, I don't know their entire reason for doing this, but I will tell you that having the bump system have it basically be this exorbitant. Keep in mind dealers, Sweetwater Guitar center, they're lucky if they're making a 40 or 50% margin on things. They usually sit in a much bigger margin than the smaller mom and pop stores or the mid tier stores. So, you know, if it was a thousand dollars, they could be buying it for $500. Great. Okay. And then, you know, shipping fees, you name it. But smaller dealers, the dealers that we try to support, they're running on a 30% margin at best. And of course, you know, reverb fees, let's just add, you know, they're not 10%, but let's just say 10% for argument's sake, round them up. I know that's not fair to reverb. In this scenario, you're down to a 20% fee. And then if you're eating your shipping out of that, it's really tight margins. Imagine if the only way you can get your product to the consumer is to give away 20% or 30%, which is the entire margin or the majority of the margin to reverb. And here's my bigger problem. This is back when I used to complain about map, and I still complain about that. You know, no offense to the system, or maybe I do mean offense to the system. If somebody's going to make 20% to sell me an item, to sell it to me, I don't mean as a retailer to get it for servicing. In other words, buying it from the manufacturer, holding it in their inventory, being able to answer questions about it, ship it to me, take care of all those things. That's the percentage they're getting for that. Now somebody's going to get that percentage just to be the website, essentially the, the, the transaction system and to, to basically sell it to me, the consumer. I'd rather the dealers just violate map. In fact, I'll tell you right now, as a, as a former dealer, I would absolutely just, at this point, just violate map and give that percentage that, that Reverb is trying to, to coerce, coerce, coerce out of dealers. I'd give it to the customer. Before I'd give Reverb 25%, I'd give a customer 25% off. At least I could earn a good customer out of the deal. If I'm going to give it away, maybe the customer will bring some loyalty and maybe have an opportunity to buy from me again. Even though technically, you know, you know, when you give away all your profits, you're always going to get a customer wants a discount, but not always. If you give them the opportunity to see your service, how fast you shipped, how fast you answer questions, maybe there's an appeal there. The thing about this is, this is absolutely the strangest thing I've ever seen. When I was looking at this this week and I got to tell you, some dealers reached out and sent me some information, and that's kind of the bigger thing that put on the radar. I thought this was some kind of AI trick. I was like, there's no way they'd be playing doing this. This sounds so crazy. And I'm sure Reverb has an explanation for it. They're welcome, by the way, Reverb, if you see this video, you're always welcome to come on the channel and talk about Reverb policies and procedures and maybe help us better understand this. Optically speaking, whatever I'm getting right or wrong in this, it just, it's not good optics for me, which means it's not good optics for the people seeing this. And what I mean by that is I have read your policies, I've read emails, I've read everything I can about this to try to understand it better, and every way I understand. Doesn't sound like you're doing anything for the customers. It's all just a money grab for you guys. And although I know you're in business to make money, this is just. It just puts a horrible taste in my mouth as a consumer to not want to do business with you. Just for an example, I did find a guitar this week. I did. It was on Reverb and I specifically contact that dealer directly and said, I just, I'm not doing business right now through Reverb. Can you sell it to me direct? And. And they sold it to me because I called them at their store and they're selling me the guitar. So I'm just gonna let you know, I. I don't think stuff like this is going to, to go well for, for the optics of this. Plus again, I really like to see how this works. The other thing is basically I just can't understand. I wish somebody can explain to me why the hell would anyone want, want to remove a listing. In other words, make it to where I can't see it as a customer. I don't understand the benefit of that to me as a customer. Why not seeing something is a benefit to me, even if it just like said, if you're trying to cure the frustration of me seeing too many of the same listings, which is a little annoying. For sure. We don't really go to Reverb for new products as much as we go for used. But sometimes dealers have, like I said, they have a new product and it's, it's not far priced from what's going for used. And I just think this is a horrible way to kind of, you know, kind of put yourself in between the customer and the, and the seller in the most, in the most horrible way of thinking of doing that, which is to basically make it a worse experience for your customer and a harder and worse experience for your seller. No one is, I believe is better for this policy. I'd like to know what you guys think. Let me know in the comments. If you guys want, I can provide the resources where I pulled all that from. I'll put some links in the description down below where Reverb's new policies are and the emails they sent verifying those policies and this, this change and why they've done it. What I don't know is the nuances of it. So I just want to be clear about that. In other words, like I said specifically what I said is how it's working. However, I have seen doing all week trying tons of different products that I can find where it's not working the way that I just explained it to you, that they're explaining it. But every, almost every time I could see a little detailed difference in the title change. So this is also a PSA for dealers. If you're listing your products, make sure your listing is somehow verbally different or typed out different than your other dealers because that's, I think that's how they're filtering it. They're filtering it by the exact same descriptions and maybe even have to adjust your pricing, whether that be a few pennies in either direction. Again to kind of get past these filters. I just don't think it's right. A bunch of dealers let me know. And this is absolutely true. That they had no idea their listings, the time and effort they put into putting their listings up. They had no idea that no one was seeing them until believe it or not, they tried to find one of their own listings and they were unable to find the listing. Without an exact link. I can, and that's actually verified, actually click their exact link. And when I click their link, their exact links, I can go to reverb and I can see the product. But if I search the reverb, I cannot find their product listed. And I was able to find multiple products like that. So.

I just want to let you guys know and real quick, I just want to show you guys. So again this is. If we type in this exact search, they're only showing three listings under the name under Brand New. When we open them up, we have Pro Music Tools is the seller.

We have Geartree and we have Motor City Guitar. And let's go ahead.

And do new and used. It takes us to 15. Right? And here's what's funny about this. See the used pop up. But that's it for new and used. That's it. But I can tell you for a fact there are more listings because one, it says when you go into filters back to brand new, there's 11. It says there's 11 show results. It's only showing me three. So I think of this, it's hiding, it's hiding eight of them. And we know that because people are sending me, sending me offers.

So tell me what you guys think in, in the comments.

Let's take a look to see.

What.

What you guys are saying because I, I mean obviously I think this is horrible. First of all, like I said it, somebody made a comment, I loved it. I was catching it in the corner of my eye about, you know, making it look like limited scarcity. And I agree it's, I, they wouldn't have pulled this when, when things were doing their best, you know, and everybody was buying like crazy. But now that everybody's not buying as much and everybody's scrutinizing each purchase, it's, you know, obviously it makes things look really sketch and I kind of feel bad for the dealers on this, especially right now. It's a competitive market out there and this is just another kick in the crotch for all those, for all those dealers.

Yeah.

Let'S see. Jeremy says, yeah, Phil, we're all thinking about buying a 14 hour guitar. Well, it doesn't matter. That's just what I use for an example. I mean it could be 140 guitar. It could be any price point, guitar, it could even be anything. I would argue that the least expensive the product is, the more you need to be better informed because your money needs to. It has. I, I don't know. I can never say money has more value to one person, another, but the more disposable income you have, the less it's going to affect you. Obviously, when your money is very scarce, it's really important. Yeah, I'm really hoping. What I'm hoping in this, in this whole discussion today is I'm hoping that Reverb reaches out and maybe we can have a bonus podcast with them and maybe they could explain this or maybe they don't care. I don't know. We'll figure it all out.

So we'll, we'll hit it again. Some questions if you guys have. And.

And throughout the show, if there's any questions.

Ted thinks, Ted says, hey, what do you think Reverb thinks is fixes? I don't know. I really don't understand it other than it could be some kind of a version of what Amazon does and other online sellers do. And it's just a, you know, obviously it's just a way of milking out every penny out of somebody. I don't know optically just looks horrible. Like I said, when I started getting dealers sending me stuff about this, I thought, oh no, I'm getting an AI hoax. And so but when I read the official Reverb policy on it, I was like, oh well, obviously they're, they're saying this is how the bump system works. And I want to be very clear, the bump thing I talked about is exactly what Reverb says. Let's go ahead and move on to another subject question. We'll come back if there's that many. This One came from Mort 2700. There was actually.

2,699 morts before Mort 2700 existed. Says, hey Phil, I can't find a hard shell case to fit my Firefly Solstice Gretch, Billy Bo copy. Any ideas for a budget friendly hardshell case? So let me double check that because if I'm correct, the Billy Bow is like a wacky shape. Guitar. Right?

So Billy Bow guitar. Come on man. Billy Bo guitar. Because you may have found one. The problem is that I don't think Gretsch currently makes one. So let's see. If Gretsch currently makes one, we'll have a shot. It is a weird shape and I'm just not familiar enough with it. But hopefully somebody Watching this will be like. They'll know what case fits it.

Okay, so let's take a look. I'm taking a shot in the dark right here. Okay. Looking. Looking luck and no luck. So here's what's not good, my friend.

So when you go on sweetwater.com, they have something called certified fit, where they. You can take pretty much any guitar, pretty much. And scroll down and find the certified fit case. In other words, the case that they've checked and found that works for this guitar. And sadly enough, they're not showing a certified fit in the cases for this guitar, so they don't have a case for it either. So my guess is it comes with a case, so I would definitely. At least we got a shout out to the community. Anyone know where he could possibly find a case? By the way, that's a cool guitar, man.

And.

And far cry less than probably the $3359 that that one cost.

Okay. At BD. Oh, come on, man. Just get a name. Just pick a name. Pick a name. It says at sign B D O T 6 13, and maybe I'm BDOT613 says. How does splitting a humbucker. Excuse me, I should have muted that. How does splitting a humbucker to a resistor.

Or a pot differ from splitting it to ground? Well, they have to split it to. So. Okay, hold on. Think about doing this with my Seymour Duncan Nazgul and my Sin Sentience rather than using a pushable pot. Okay, so what he's specifically asking for is.

There'S a ton of people done. It Purs is probably the most famous for it. And it came up on a. On a. On a. On a patron.

Clinic we did a while back. So PRS is known for using like a 4 or 3k resistor.

In. On the end of the. On the end of.

Why? Why? I had. I had it here for forever. I had a dry erase board here forever.

Forever. I had it here in case I needed to draw something, and now I don't have it. Hold on one second. I'm gonna grab one.

Okay. So I was so excited. I had to have my dry border. And this is my list on the back. It's like, I need some tomatoes, some squash. All right? So anyways, this is gonna be very crude, as they say. So what he's talking about is that normally when you have ground.

Right. This is the ground, and you're going to have a humbucker right here, and you want to split the coils, you're going to have Obviously one wire goes around, one wire goes to hot and then you have the two wires that are, that are, that are soldered together and they're going to go to some kind of push pull pot. Okay. This is crude, but you'll get the concept. And then there's a wire that goes aground and as you push this switch or this push pull pot, it will send this. These two wires to ground, defeating one of the coils. Let's say this one. Okay. And when you, you know, when you don't have it pushed to ground, they, they are not defeated. So Therefore you have two humbuckers. What PRs did is they put like a 3k or 4k resistor. My little resistor here, little wire.

And what that does. Yeah, yeah, you can make fun of my drawing all day long.

What that resistor does is it doesn't send 100% of the signal to ground. So this coil is not defeated. It is not Alfred. It is just reduced. Somebody said 2.2K, I believe flapjack 44 13. When I was in the factory, they were using so many different ones for different models because believe it or not, they need the resistor has to do with how. How. I don't want to say how powerful the pickup is, but essentially like a higher output pickup, they're going to put a more 1010 resistor on it. So there is a 2.2 K I believe. But the ones that are really running now is 3K and 4K. There's a bunch of them. That's why I said don't get, don't get too hu. That. That's not the most important part of the story. But thank you for the feedback because they do use. You're correct. They use. Do also use a 2.2 as well. Anyways, by putting this resistor in, in the. In the way of the where they're going to ground, the pickup does not turn off. It's just reduced by a whole lot. So therefore it. The other coil, this coil sounds really loud compared to this one. And it's going to give you. It's going to over overtake the sound to where you're kind of hearing the one coil. So it sounds, even draw some little circles there. It's going to sound more like a single coil. However, you're technically never 100% a single coil. So that's how they do it. So to answer your question, how does it differ? That's how it differ. It's not a true coil. Defeated pickup coil split. In other words, you're not Splitting down to exactly one coil. What is that? I don't know, man.

You know, some people hate it, some people love it. I don't know why anybody has an opinion about it. If it sounds good, it's good. And if it doesn't sound good, it doesn't. You can clip it out. You can clip it out if you want and just go run straight to ground on your guitar. If you don't like it, you could put it in your guitar. And if you like it, you're talking about pennies. You know, you buy this thing and, and you know, you put it in your guitar and if it sounds great, you do it. You. It's like trouble bleeds to me. Sometimes I like them, sometimes I don't. I have trouble beads on a lot of my guitars, but then some guitars I don't. I hear people have a strong opinions about it. I don't like to have a broad stroke opinion about certain things. Like. Like stuff like this about every guitar because not every guitar, not every pickup, not every situation is the same. And I might like it on one guitar than another. There are guitars that I like treble bleeds on. There are guitars that I just don't find it useful. And same thing with this. I've never, I've never had a PRS where I felt the need to kind of clip that out, but I've never really added it to another guitar. So.

That, that whole file gives an insight.

Okay.

Um. Trick 66 that seems that way would allow some kind of single coil but maintain a hum cancel. Yeah, I mean, I don't know the, the exact detail of how much of the 62nd Helm is introduced or not introduced at all. Now it could be a totally noiseless style pickup, but I don't think so. I think as you defeat one of the coils out. I don't know why I'm using that word for this, but as you reduce the, the, the second coil by it's. I think there's enough of the coil in there that maybe it minimizes 60 second hum. But I've never really tested it. And again, it's not something that they kind of tout as being that way. At least not in the jargon I've read or seen them talk about.

Brian said this is why Phil's not an architect. Yeah, so before you judge, I have to do that in reverse.

My screen is in reverse, is in inverse of what you guys see. So when I'm drawing and I'm looking at you and drawing, I'm drawing in Reverse. It's a very convoluted thing. I had a top camera, but then no one ever asked me anything that had to draw out. So.

Let'S see. Next. Next.

I have no idea. Okay, next.

Somebody asked a question. I'm like, I don't even know. I could just say I don't know. But then.

Okay.

See.

Alex, 2680 says, hey, we should all go back to our local music store and stop funding scammers. Sure. I mean it's great. I do a lot of stuff with my local news stores when I can. My biggest problem is a lot of people's problems with music stores is that the, the availability of product. So for instance, where I live, which is one of the largest cities in the United States, there is almost nowhere to buy most of the guitars that I like. So if you think about, if I was to name like the four brands that I like the most or want to see the most in amplifiers or guitars, there's zero stores that are within an hour drive to an hour and a half drive of my house with those products. And there's one store that's within a two hour drive, but it's an appointment only store. And they don't have everything that I like, but they would have more of the stuff I have. So yeah, so I tend to, like I said, I shop at Zim's Guitars because he does used and uses cool, but he does stick to mostly mid and lower price points, which is cool. Definitely for pedals because you get really cool pedals and stuff. But you know, that's the, that's the problem. Run Riot says my local music stores don't have shit. And I'm like, yeah, that's the problem. It's a tough, it's a tough thing. So I, I hit the guitar. I bought two things this week and I bought a guitar center. So you know, the guitar center had it. So it worked out. I got it there.

And.

So.

Let's see.

Yeah, Matt Hatter says all of my mom pop music stores are shut down around my local area and guitar center is 30 miles away. Yeah, I see it a lot. I've traveled a lot, especially this country and I've talked to many of you and I've talked to many music stores. Obviously I've talked to the CEOs of the two big chains and stuff and that is the big takeaway. It's. The availability is low out there. And so that's why, like I said, it's, it's tough man. I get it.

So. And Susan Says she really misses mom and Pop stores. Well, they still exist. But yeah, we do miss them. I like said it's, it's nice. I try to do as much as I can. Funny thing, just talk about mom and Pop stores. Let me just tell you a continuation story. So as you guys know, a couple weeks ago I talked about me buying the Musicman Majesty. This is actually why this Majesty is why I was kind of getting personally irritated with the Reverb thing. Because as I told you, the story on that guitar was, you know, a bunch of dealers were willing to make deals on that guitar and I was getting offers and I was looking and basically long story short, through, through a series of, of of decisions, I bought the guitar and I got a good deal on it and made the thing make sense. And let's be clear, without them giving me a deal, I wasn't going to buy the guitar. It's not because I need a deal to buy a guitar. I needed a deal to buy that guitar. It wasn't enough on my radar to justify that. And one of the funny things that happened is. Let's go hold a. I'll go here. Let's see if I can find it. Was I mentioned.

Oh well, okay. I mentioned that there was a store and I'm gonna talk about them real quick. Cause we were talking about. And I said hey, I try to, you know, especially you know, buy from mom and pop stores. And one of the stores I mentioned was Axe Palace. And I'll just tell you a funny story. So it's a little story with Axe Palace. So I told you the story was I reached out to Axe palace and asked how much the guitar weighs. And they basically said they don't know the weight. And I was like okay. And then they sent me. That was on October 27th. And then on the November 2nd they sent me a thing saying the guitar was 7lbs 8oz. Let's just call it that. And but of course if you're following the timeline, by then I pretty much purchased the guitar. I was in purchase of the guitar. And anyways I talked about that. I talked about the missed opportunity right now. The, the ability right now. The market when it's soft, you have to grab those opportunities, especially for high end guitars. Look, I knew I was getting a discount. He's not getting max margin. But and, and there. And I'm not telling a dealer they have to sell a guitar. I'm just saying as a dealer, I know what it's like to miss a sale over something like that. And I'd want to know if I was them. They responded to me and they said, hey, Phil. They. We see. I see that we made your video. And he basically, I'm not going to tell you the whole story, but he said that he's sorry and he, that he left a bad impression. And, and that meant a lot to me. Not because, look, I know, because I'm a YouTube channel, and it's like. But his, his heartfelt message. Their message to me wasn't, you know, hey, you put us on blast, or hey, really, this sucks that we got, you know, called out for not selling the guitar, what have you.

And, you know, they were. They were. They were sorry, you know, sorry in the idea that I, you know, that they could have made a purchase, but also that they let down a customer. Just to let you know, I've recently reached out to them again and I don't want to get too detailed in it because I don't want you to know what I'm up to, but I'm buying a guitar from them. And that's what I told them basically, is like, you know, it's the. It's a YouTube channel that reviews guitars. I'm always buying guitars. And if I see an opportunity to buy from you, thank you for that because that means something. That means something to me.

So that, you know, that a dealer took out, you know, the time to respond and say, hey, look, I'm sorry I lost, you know, I lost an opportunity with you, but I'd like the opportunity again in the future. They didn't really even say it like that, but that's the important part. So we. I found a guitar that I want. I can't tell you because I don't want you guys to know yet. And. And so, yeah, so we were able to. To do some business or will be able to do some business. So.

So anyways, my point is. What's my point? I talked about, I don't, you know, small business versus big business and good business. I like good business. That's good business. And. And I. And so I just want to say thank you, them for that, but also give you an update to the story that, you know, that they're out there, they're trying. The dealers are out there trying. Okay. I think that's what I want to say. I don't know. Speaking of, since I'm talking about spending my money, maybe it's time for you guys to spend a little of your money and talk about some. Some gear of the week. We're getting Closer to Black Friday. This is going to be the most legit Black Friday in the guitar community that we've seen in years. Of course, there's a lot of fake Black Friday deals just like there always is. There's a lot of markups and then bring downs. But let's just say we know for a fact that the one thing that's making this Black Friday deals a little bit more genuine is the used market is tough and the prices are low on used gear. So if you're going to buy a new piece of gear, it's. It's going to be tough during the sales cycle. But let's go ahead and we'll do our new banner for gear Gear of the week and let's. Let's do Gear of the week.

And now it's time for gear of the week. So I bought one of those George lynch inspired Bones guitars from Firefly and I showed it to you guys on Halloween. And they also have the tiger George lynch style guitar. But I guess it's not selling as well because they dropped it down to 249. So 250 bucks you get a George lynch inspired guitar with a roasted maple neck, stainless steel frets, a Korean Floyd rose, and a custom paint job. And the shipping is actually really realistic. So I would have guessed this guitar is going to be in the 260, 270 range after you ship it. Pretty reasonable. So I thought I'd share that since like I said, they put them on sale. And it's really strange because usually Firefly, they sell their guitars and then everybody buys them and flips them on reverb for more money. This also has the spoke wheel truss rod. As you know my opinion, I don't like the pickup, but that's an easy fix. And to be honest with you, it's not that bad. So if you under a rock or you actually were outside enjoying your life this week, you missed out on the fact that everybody had a video on the Stadium XL by line six. This is a big deal because they've been waiting 10 years according to this to come up with this thing. There's some cool features, obviously the touch screen. I like the Helix originally, so of course just improving. It's a good idea. Some of the shock factors was the fact that this is $2,200, which puts it more expensive than the Quad Cortex and Kemper. And I know it has more than them, but it only puts itself about 100 or $200 less than the Axe FX which has almost 300amp sounds and 3000 effects, which is a strange thing to think now that the line six guys have decided to kind of branch off from the pack as being the most expensive option. I'm really curious to see how this will, you know, kind of ride out. A lot of people asking, can it do metal? Apparently, I don't know who's asking that, but a lot of people apparently were. But out of all the videos, I thought Ret Shaws was the absolute best because it was just a practical approach at looking at it. And he broke it down and gave me some insight and I learned that I'm just not interested in it. I'm going to stay with what I have a lot of hokey marketing jargon on this. But for, for those who were curious, it's out for if you got some money. Like I said, I think it's cool. But I just want to tell you this is something I'm a little bit more excited with. They are putting the Saldano Astro 20 on Black Friday deals. So you can check it out. It's normally $2,000. This is an actual Saldano made in California with IRs, the whole nine yards. It's a 20 watt head and it was $2,000. Now it's 1699 and Sweetwater's giving away an IR package with it. But they don't have them in stock. But I looked and Guitar center is showing them in stock. And this is again, this is a map reduction deal. So any dealer that sells Saldano that you like, like if you have a mom and pop, you can get that same deal from them, you know, 1699 for a saldano head, that's pretty cool. I know a lot of you curious what makes this different than the Slo 30. Besides it's at this point it's almost $1,000 or over $1,000 less. The big difference is the Slo 30 is hand wired and it has two channels and the Astro has three channels with different options and it has IRS, but it is a PC board based unit. It doesn't. It's not a hand wired unit. What's cool feature about it is is it doesn't have a standby switch because they use DC heaters on the power tubes. So really cool. It's a cool amp. If you guys like to see a review of this amp, I will get one and review it if I get 500 likes today. So before the show's over. All right, so here's some new gear I didn't see coming. PV is making amps again now. We saw the Decade two earlier this year. They talk about that, but now they're bringing back the PV Super Festival 1200 and the PV Nashville Session 115 and 112. These are solids in amps for 13 and $1,500. I was looking, I can't see anywhere where it says if they're made here in the US again or if these are made overseas. It doesn't really say a lot. It just says they're new. I kind of feel like this got put up before it was time. I'm not really sure. To see PV solid state amps back is cool, but to see $1500 is confusing. So I just wanted to put it on everybody's radar. Let me know what you know about them and I'll do some more research too. But hey, at least we know PV is still alive. That's good. Well, it took over 15 years, but Fender has finally done it. They've made a hello Kitty guitar for little girls. Instead of for their dads to just kind of buy and then play in front of them, they partner with Luke, which is a three string guitar made for kids. I kind of liken it to a ukulele and a guitar together. But more importantly, it's on sale for Black Friday. So it's down to 1 99, which is pretty cool because I was a dealer when the first hello Kitty full size and 3 quarter guitars came out and the full sizes at that time were 199. So that's pretty cool. Those that don't know they did make a 3/4 guitar little guitar for kids. Fender did. But instead of putting the cool hello Kitty graphic on the pick guard, they just kind of put hello Kitty. They just were not as cool as the full size. So it's great. So all of you guys that want to get a miniature guitar version of your hello Kitty guitar, this would be a little $200 add on for you. And for people who actually want to buy these for little girls, they're available. I think it's really cool. This is another one. I don't know why I would buy this and do a deep dive on it. But if you guys want a deep dive on a Lou guitar, I think this would be the one. I' because I think it's got some appeal. Let me know in the comments. And I thought I'd give you a little fun fact about the original line of hello Kitty guitars that came out this guitar strap. When it came out with the original line of hello Kitty Guitars was 72 inches, which means cinched all the way to its shortest, it wouldn't work on anyone shorter than 5 5. So let you know how much Fender was thinking about making this guitar for kids. A lot of you have been asking me about the synergy. Send 20 head because you guys know I bought one a while back. The deal that they're offering now is 12.95 and it includes a module. So essentially the amp normally 11 and the module is 4. So it's about 1500 bucks. Normally that includes the Marshall module. This is important because that's 1300 for the Marshall 2 channel module with the clean channel that's in the Synergy amp. So that's the three channel amp, the Marshall vintage 20 that is also 20 watts. It is 1350. So the synergy now with the Marshall module is 50 bucks less. So something to consider and think about. Both are really good amps. I own both. I can tell you there's great things about both. One of the nice things about Synergy is it has the impulse responses, the direct out, you know, some of those cool features. It also includes a three button MIDI foot switch so you can control all three channels. But more importantly, it's a MIDI foot switch, which means you could use it like a MIDI switch with any of your other amplifiers or effects units. So it's like getting a $150 midi switch included. I think they sound pretty close. I can tell you one thing for sure. The Synergy wins hands down if you're trying to keep your volume down. Because the fact that essentially it not only has the master volume, but it has two individual volumes on each channel, plus, you know, the gain controls so you can get that JMP sound at a much quieter volume. So something to think about. I went ahead and picked up one of those Marshall modules right there. This is my sin 50 head. So I have the 50, but in the long term I just don't see myself using the 50 nearly as much as the 20. That's usually what I use. But it is nice to compare like the Saldano to the Marshall and have it in one amp. A Saldano and a Marshall in the same amp. It's pretty impressive. So last week I talked about some cool deals, including the boss TU3 that was $79. And so I picked up one of those. Let's see here. That, you know, I used to have a TU2 forever. I never had the TU3. And I got rid of my TU2 for my strobe tuner, Peterson, which I Love. But there's just something about the old boss, you know, tu pedals that's just kind of cool to have. And I'm gonna put this back on my pedal board. And then this one, if I recall, the big deal with this one. Yeah. Is that it has a way to. To adjust the brightness so again, you can use it for daytime or nighttime stages. So pretty cool. Let's do that right there. And then, if you notice, the other thing I did was last week when I showed you the Gretch, I ended up buying that Gretchen doing a deep dive. So thank you guys for checking that out. I think it did like 140,000 views. Super amazing guitar. Blew my mind for the price. It was one of those things I didn't know how you know it was going to go when you unbox it. And I also got something else from last week's show which will come soon. So if you haven't seen. You want to guess what that is? I'll tell you what that is. So this week, on this week's, you know, gear of the week and deals of the week, let me know if you think I should get the hello Kitty Gloog and the. The Saldano Astro 20. If I get enough likes and I get a reason to do it, we'll do it. Because I'll take that as you guys want to see the video. And that definitely makes the investment of time and money worth it if, if you guys are interested. All right, if you guys like this segment, this idea, let me know. And if you want to make it better, help me out by sending me some deals. You see, you can send it to the asknowyourgearmail.com email address. I'll put the link in the description. Don't send me your life story. Just send me the deal that on gear and where the link to where you're getting it or the mom and pop store that's offering it. Also, if you see new gear or new exciting things, same thing. Don't send me a long story. Just send me what you found and that will help us out to make this better.

Gear of the week.

All right, so I want to know what you guys think. So we had the poll done. While I'm discussing all this stuff, let's take a look. So according to this, get your last votes in now. I wish there was a way to screen share this with you guys. Your votes were. Okay, put in your last votes. We'll give it like 30 seconds.

Let's see. Nothing's changing. Nothing's changing. All right. If nothing changes. Oh, little bit change there. A little bit change. Okay, I think I'm going to end the poll. Last seconds to put in your votes.

And.

I'm gonna end the poll. All right, so I've ended the poll. And where'd it go? You mean it just. You end it and it just disappears? Oh, there it is. I was gonna say what? Okay, let's. Hold on, let me. So it doesn't move.

All right, 268 votes. Let's go ahead and put this here so we can share it and we'll share the poll. And.

I thought this would be fun and cheaper. So last week when I did gear of the week.

It. I ended up doing the, you know, the boss pedal. I ended up doing the Gretsch, and I got another guitar too, from that same last week. So this week I'm like, I can't buy two or three things every week and for doing this stuff, but I know when we talk about it, it would probably be cool to do a video. So according to this poll. Can we make it bigger? We can. Look at that. Oh, that's great. Yeah, it makes it a lot bigger. So anyways, it says Saldano was. 34% of you said we should get the Saldano Astro 20. 26% said the Line 6 Stadium XL. 20% way higher than I thought on the Luke hello kitty guitar. And 20% with the synergy Marshall module, which is what I was hoping for because I already have the Synergy module and have this in 20, but it looks like the Astro 21 20. 20 watt, one W O N. And so. Yeah. Okay, so I will make sure to do a Astro 20 video for you guys. I will let you guys put in the comments whether or not you would like a comparison against the Saldano 30 slo 30 or just a straight up video of the amp. Keep it in mind that, you know, they're a thousand dollars apart because like I said, the Saldano SL30SLO30 is hand wired. Somebody said asked. I saw somebody's asking, does the SL Saldano Astro 20 have a like a tube rectifier? I. I don't know. I don't have the amp, but it's probably a solid state rectifier. That'd be my guess. That's just my guess because again, it's as much tech heavy as it is and you know, in tubes and stuff. So it's all tubes, but it's also more of a tech amp. So I'm really curious.

I can't even say it. It's like at V8SN big tires. Big tires says test the Saldana with a hello Kitty little ax. Yeah, that Luke's cool. For 200 bucks. I gotta admit, I was like, I was sitting there trying to just. I was like, you know, it's one of those things you're like, I don't, I don't even know anybody I could buy a gift like that for. So Warlock311 says Saldano versus the slo 30 versus Synergy Saldano. That'd be a good shootout. I'd probably do that. I can tell you that I prefer, if it helps Warlock, I prefer the Synergy Saldano SLL2 SLO2 module in the Synergy 20amp more than I like the Saldano SLO30. So.

Just, you know, and here's why. Same reason I prefer the Marshall Sinergy GMP module over the, the vintage 20 watt Marshall. Because I can play it at a volume that it's reasonable here in the, in the room. I'm not gigging with them, so it's not about gigging. I would argue probably that both the Marshall and definitely the slo 30 are a lot louder and growl a little bit more and come to life a little bit more when, when opened up. So at a small gig or a mid sized gig, you know, those amps would probably be, you know, you know, killing. But the synergy is 20 is loud, but it's not super, super loud. But man, it, it's. Because there's so many redundant volumes. You gotta understand on a module. You're gonna have a gain control and a volume for the, the module, the channel, and then you're gonna have a mast.

Amp. So you. But between all that, you can really get a go. And then Hans 36 solo says SLO 30 versus Engel Fireball 25. I, you know, I've talked about this in the past. I thought the Engel Fireball 25 was. I liked it as much as the SLO 30, you know, for different reasons. It's not a quality thing. Because at that point, you know, quality wise, first of all, one's like $1300 and the other one's like $2800. So almost double the price. And of course, a lot more hand work involved in the SLO 30 and a lot more legacy to that. But purposely, you know, purposely, personally, I liked the Fireball 25 as much. But keep in mind, I also like the Steve Morris a little bit more than the Fireball 25 just because again, it's a usage thing.

Hero glop7411 says, hey Phil, is the Supro pedal tremolo more similar to the Princeton or to the Deluxe Reverb? Really.

Neither in my. My point, you know, in my opinion, it's.

Different. That's why I liked it. So I mean, I know there's difference between like the bias tremolo and optical and stuff and the two settings and stuff, but I'm just saying overall, like I didn't ever plug it in my Princeton and go, oh yeah, this sounds just like pretty much what my Princeton sounds like. I like. I think that's why I like it different, because it's different than what's the amp's already offering me.

Okay, let's see.

We have an A message, an email. We have a message from Amanda. Sent this one says, this is from Bake Bakey Bakey Danner says, hey Phil, is it possible to build a guitar with no neck heel? Like it's just neck all the way up.

That would be awesome. So what you're describing mostly is a neck through guitar. So that's the. Actually the purpose of the neck through guitar. It had nothing to do, as we know. We've. We've talked to people like Neil Moser and stuff and they've explained that the original neck through guitars really weren't so much about this infinite sustain and the wood going through. It's really just about.

Unlike a set neck or a bolt on. You know, you have so much more surface of the. Of the neck being glued onto the. Obviously because it's in the center. And then you're gluing on the wings. You can get a little thinner there. It's going to be really thin comparatively to a set neck and a neck through. There is some kind of. There are some guitars referred to as set through where they do a set neck and they use a longer piece, a longer tenon and then they can carve away at it a little bit and kind of make it feel kind of like a neck through. And it gets pretty darn close to that. The thinnest, ironically, I was playing it before the show started. The thinnest neck heel joint ever in history is probably the Parker fly because obviously they use carbon fiber on the back. There's a sheet of carbon fiber included. This is all one piece. So the piece was wrapped around the neck and the headstock and then wrapped here. And this is wood, it's a wood body. In this particular guitar. This is A mahogany body with a mahogany neck. And the neck was glued in, and then they could carve all this away super thin like that because the carbon fiber is so strong and rigid. And that's how they were able to get away with something like this, if that helps. So maybe this should be in the thumbnail for no reason. Like what? Thumbnails are a pain in the ass. So I'm like, thumbnail? I don't know. So anyways, but that obviously you can get really thin, too, because of the design. But I don't feel like when I play that, like, wow. All other guitars are too chunky. This is so much better. I feel like a lot of guitars, but I don't play a lot of high. I don't. There's, you know, there's a joke. There's no money above the fifth fret, especially if you're a bass player. I think there's no money above the. I don't even want to say the 12th fret. There's no money for me above the E minor pentatonic.

Just kidding. That's the joke. So.

Run Riot says, rest in peace. Ken Parker. Yeah, I know. We lost him this year. It was horrible.

You know, I think about that all the time because they made the announcement that he had cancer. And then we, we put up a thing for donations. And then before, like, the weekend was over, they were like, oh, he passed. It was just so.

So fast. So, yeah. Evan Ward, you're saying you should have a surprise face for your thumbnail? Yeah, the. I, I, I have to tell you, the, the editor of the second channel does the thumbnails for the second channel. And every time I catch my, I catch it, you know, my, my thumbnail. The, my. I'm in some. I'm always, like, doing some what me? It's always something, and I'm like, oh, my God.

So.

A. It's a weird experience, I have to tell you, having. Having had control of the thumbnails and all that stuff for years. It's, it really, it's crazy.

I don't know if you guys can hear, but the ice cream man's driving by the house. Can you hear that? Probably not.

See, hold on. Let's see. Hold on.

Okay, so that was, that was the ice cream man. I just thought that was funny. All right.

You know, John 1:4, he said, home Alone face. You know what? Every thumbnail is a Home Alone face. That kid should get royalties for every influencer ever.

Home Alone created the influencer face. Thumbnail for sure.

Yeah. Somebody Says mom ice cream. I heard it. Oh, cool. I'm glad you guys could hear it because it was kind of funny. Yeah, it takes me back to the ice cream, man. Let's see what else. Let's go through. We have this one. I have some pinned questions. I got some early riser questions too, and I pinned them right here. And this one says, hey Phil, Throwback pickups on podcast did the guitar argument this week. Theirs was what is the best tonal qualities A hand wound pickup or machine wound or does it really matter? Thoughts? I don't think.

Ma. It doesn't matter in a comparative. It matters in. So what I mean by that is, I mean if you take everything to account, like we're going to use the same magnet, the same wire, the same exact amount of wines, the St bobbins and I guess if you machine make that versus hand make that, I mean, there'll be a variance in sound, but the variances are going to be very small. But they'll be there.

But I don't really have, if you notice, I don't really have an angle that says like, oh man, hand wired's the way, the right way to do it or anything like that. I think that really there's things, there's attributes. That's a kind of the way I want to look at it. There's attributes to pickups that I like and I dislike. And that has changed for me over the years. I used to actually like pickups that were darker and.

They were able to make my playing it was better because of the fact that the nuances weren't there. So I didn't have to worry so much. And now I like pickups that are more clear. I like it when I strum all the strings and I feel like I don't feel. I don't hear a huge EQ curve in the strings. I like hearing, you know, more even sound. And that's something I'm drawn to. So there's pickups that draw me to that. But to say one, the problem is to say that there's one great pickup or there's one way to make a one great pickup is, is silly because the fact that, like I said, I think the guitar picks the pickups just like it picks the strings. It's an equation, you know, it's, it's, it's a beautiful recipe. That's what I think it is. And I'll always think that, that your rig is a beautiful recipe. And I look at people's rigs, I look at players rigs the way I would think I would go to a chili cook off and, and experience 30 different people taking essentially the same ingredients, beans and chili and, you know, and water and, and putting in together all of these things that are really, realistically, for the most part, taste the same. I mean, chili is the, for the most part, it's going to taste the same until they get out there in the, the extremities of the, of the flavors, but just the subtleties and why. This heat hits in the front and this heat hits in the back, and this has a sweet heat to it, and this has more of a sting to it, and this has a, a mellower, you know, burn. And as silly as that sounds, you know, taking the same ingredients and watching how somebody can come up with a different variation just by changing the percentages or just adding a few things, that's how rigs are. Because again, we always have to, we always have to acknowledge the fact that it's everything. It's your, it's your, your style, it's the way you play, it's the, it's the gear and it's the choices that you made with that gear. It's. That amp works well with this pickup, and this pickup works well with this type of guitar, and these strings will work well with that, and they work well with you. So it's, I think that's what it always is going to come down to. And I, I, I love it because I think that's the answer. The problem is that answer doesn't work for the Internet. The Internet needs, like I always say, quantifiable. This is the sound. If you just do this, it's the sound. This one thing, this is how it's going to change everything. And every time somebody talks like that, the one surefire thing that's going to make something be the way it is. The more I feel like I just, I, I recoil from that logic because I, I've not seen it to be true.

James says, if there's no beans and no chili, yeah, you know, it's free. See, you could tell where I'm, you know, foods are funny. Chili is another one of those things you can tell where somebody's from if they tell you if there's beans in the chili or no beans in the chili. So.

Yeah.

Michael says, hey, did you see the chili cook off where the guy bought Wendy's chili and was going to win in fourth place?

No, I didn't see that, but that's awesome. That's it. That's. That's fantastic. I don't. Not because he's cheating. Just. Just the. The irony of that, you know, that that is the con. That's the counter argument to my argument where I talk about the nuances and. And all the things like the being a connoisseur of Chile. And then essentially, you know, it's like going. It's like having, like, what's the best burger in the world? It's like. It's McDonald's. There's a little bit of, like. We're a little full of ourselves, too. There's that, too, for sure. And that's why I said, yeah, you know, so that's the counter argument to my argument. That's great. I love it. Which is, yes, I think all the little things add up and make something special. And then also, I think we get a little too much in the weeds, a little too full of ourselves and a little too preoccupied with the things that don't matter for sure. So.

The Shauna asked me a great question. I don't know who of you guys, which one of you asked it, but it came through Patreon, and Patron was asking a question. And Shauna fields a lot of those questions to me. As I said, the patron, they'll come through and she'll ask me, usually while I'm doing something, and she'll, hey, here's a question. Give me the answer. And I give her the answer, and then she relays the answer back to you guys. And it's really cool that she does that for. For me. And she'll answer a lot of them, too, because she's obviously very skilled, so she can answer a lot of stuff. But the question in particular was she wanted to know was, do I think Megami cables are worth it, or are they, like, is it a trick? And I said, I think Megami cables are fantastic. I think they're great quality. I said, but I've said this before. I don't think I've ever. I mean, of course I have. I have not bought a guitar cable for the most part. I think I bought a couple DiMargio cables because they were pink and green. I want to try them out. Last year. I'm trying to think now of some exceptions. With very few exceptions, I have not bought cables in almost 15 to 20 years because I was a store owner. And guitar cable companies would bring the store cable samples all the time to sell you cables because they want you to sell them to your customers. So they'd bring me cables, and I would just have cables and Then when I didn't do that, I obviously am a youtuber now. And cables companies will send you Klotz Cable sent me cables like in 2020 or 2021. And that's still what I'm using for the most part is these clots. Cables shout out to clots with the breakers on them. And these are neutric ends. And then the cable itself is, is branded clots. It says Klotz on there. And these will look a lot like the megamis because they're using the neutric ends too. So very expensive cables. And they sent me a bunch. And I've been using them and using them, using them because.

Very rarely did, in my experience, the cables go bad. Usually what happens is they get stolen. Cables get lost and stolen worse than guitar picks. If you're a gigging musician, you know that cables are going to disappear. And so when I used to play out, I would buy cables because they would. You'd get home and do your inventory and go, ah, my microphone cables are gone. Right. They're loaded in somebody else's car. And you know, obviously playing from home and doing YouTube, there's not as many opportunities to lose my cable. So I have them. But my favorite cables and I looked and I was a little shell shocked with the pricing. It's still the American made cables that d' Addario makes. I think they call them American pro cables or something like that. I think they're very good for the money. Although. They are, they are. I showed John they're four times more than what we used to sell them for in our store. So definitely the market has changed. But, but the point of the question was when somebody was asking, this is always like, you know, these fancy cables, like, you know, you got to plug the cable in a certain direction. I remember I got a cable from a company and it was like a 20 foot cable and it was like $150 for this cable back then. So now it would be a $300 cable. And it was. And you had to use the right side. Like this had to be the coming from the guitar and this had to be going to the amp. It was a directional cable. And I remember when Vox amps came out with cables and there was a cable specifically for bass guitar, there was a cable specifically for electric guitar and a cable specifically for acoustic guitars that had transducer pickups. Transducer pickups. And we would try them and we couldn't hear crap. We just couldn't hear. And here's here and here's what I remember about those cables. We sold all the electric guitar cables and we had a blowout on discount all the bass and acoustic cables. So that's, I think guitar cables sometimes is one of the things where you can expose the elitistness part of our brains where we're just kind of picking at the smallest things that matter. Dirt Racer X says, hey, you can make your own Megami cables. Absolutely. That's usually what I would do because you can buy the cable, you can get the megami cable at, on Amazon for the longest time a good deal. Now you have to source it a little differently and, and just put some noise your on it. For sure. Making your own cables is a huge way to save money because they are.

Yes, absolutely. But like I said, I just been using the same cables. All right.

So Johnny says, hey, I have a Firefly Hendrix Monterey Strat. I had to restring it for the first time and to regulate the floating bridge, I had to adjust the claw. Will I have to do this every time I restring? No. My guess is that one of two things has happened to you when you restring the guitar. You change gauge of strings. It's possible.

And, and I want you to understand it doesn't matter if you say oh no, they said there was tens on it and I put tens or they said there was nines. But nines. I test all these guitars that I do on the, on these, on the Geeky Stuff videos and I can tell you that for the most part they're never what they say. As soon as it's an import guitar, as soon as it's Firefly, as soon as it's affordable guitar, all of a sudden it's like things get variated. In other words, they say they're nines with their tens. They say it's a 12 inch radius, but it's 14. Look, they're moving in a hurry when they make guitars. And sometimes decisions, you know, people make mistakes. So it's possible you put a different gauge of strings on there. It's also possible that the strings we're using were such low quality that they were just not holding tension as well as the new strings you're using. So my guess is now that you've done it, you should not have to adjust it every time. You should not be adjusting it in the future. As long as you're sticking with the same quality of string and gauge of string and gauge as being more important than the quality. So.

Fast Fast Eddie says that I Phil, you want to save money on cable but basically I spent a lot of money on guitars in the wall. Sounds a little crazy. I. I don't want to save money on cable. I just said I don't have to buy cables because they give them to you. So I just don't focus on that. But also it's about what matters. I think. Like I said, I think the cable matters. And the idea that a low quality cable really is nerve wracking because you can hear it move, you can hear the noise in it and obviously get interference through it. But once you get to a certain level of cable, which I like, I said I think the Planet Waves ones or now they're called. Now they're back to Daddario again, right? They are the American series. American.

We'll call it d'. Addario. D' Addario cable.

Is one of my favorites for the price to quality American Pro. Let's double check that. I'll show it to you. American Stage. See, I knew it was something like that. So the D' Addario PW basically MSSGR our a 10 foot American stage cable. This $60. We sell these for 24.99. This is a great quality cable for the money. Great warranty on it. Let's see if they tell you if they still give you the good warranty.

Does it say because it used to be a like a lifetime warranty. They probably have changed things since then.

One thing I hate about buying guitar cables or seeing guitar cables online is they don't show you the package. I noticed this is really kind of an exclusive thing to guitar cables where they show you the cable but they don't show you the packaging. And sometimes they don't translate all the information that's on the packaging.

Hold on, let's go back. So audio file quality wire made in the USA reduces natural tones. I don't care about all this precision manufacturing exclusive inline solder process creates. Nope. Nothing about the warranty that I'm seeing. Oh, warranty information. Okay, here. Sweetwater is too free. That's Sweetwater. This isn't theirs. I'm not really seeing it but it used to be a lifetime guarantee on this cable. I.

So I'm curious to see if they still do that. If anyone knows. Anyone want to Google and find out if they're still doing that? Like I said, it usually would be on the packaging but they're not showing pictures of the packaging. So.

Now on a side note, let's go back on a side note to Fast Eddie's question. What I do have to buy though is every other kind of cable. So I do buy a lot of microphone cables. I buy a lot of USB cables. I have to buy the best USB cables. They're rather expensive, the ones I need. And then I also have to buy a lot of HDMI to HDMI micro cables. And so I spent a fortune in those cables that we can talk about all day. That is a small fortune. If you took the nicest guitar on the wall in this room, I've spent that in cables.

In the last year. And just microphone cables, USB C cables, you know, all kinds of, you know, all these, you know, MIDI cables, all this stuff to all the confounded things we have to plug up together. So.

Okay.

Sean says micro HDMI is still a thing. Sure. You need micro HDMI for most your cameras. Most your cameras are not going to be a USB C for something like that. So you'll. Unless you want to. Unless you. And even then, even if you try to go with a coaxial cable, you'll still need some kind of micro HDMI adapter to go back to coaxial. Unless you're buying a $10,000 camera, I'm not buying $10,000 cameras. Three and $4,000 cameras are enough. $5,000 cameras are enough. So. So yeah, and those cameras, like I use the canon, a Canon A6s and A5s and those have a micro HDMI. So that's what's converting to the router boxes that then go to hdmi. So micro hdmi. HDMI to my hdmi.

So yes.

El Dorino. So here's what I'm going to tell you. Some bad news. I got some bad news for you. He said USB and MIDI cables. MIDI cables are different mini cables. The same USB cables I'm going to talk about that should be all equivalent. Don't overpay. They are not all over equivalent. You have apparently. I'll tell you why. Now, in your world it's probably fine, but when I'm moving 24 gigs of data through a USB C cable, it massively difference in the quality of USB cable you're using, and especially when you're using 4K cameras that are transferring data in real time through USB. It's also another problem. Absolutely becomes a problem if you use the wrong USB C cables.

One.

You'Re going to see a massive difference in how fast everything starts moving. But also when you're running cable as long as I am, I have USBC cables that are 25 and 35 and 55ft long. Multiples of them. Because remember These rooms are all connected. Everything's connected through a network of cabling. So it's nothing I want to talk about because it's the thing that upsets me. I understand. It's my living and this was an important part to get all that done. But man, it was a fortune and it was a fortune of time that I put in behind it.

So.

So El do Naruto, we're going to disagree because he says it does matter. USB it. And I can tell you, man, we had hellacious problems until we switched cables. We had to switch cables. So to the ones that we're using now.

Okay, let's see.

Hold on.

Now. You guys are Samsung cable that I get with my SSDs are much thicker. Yeah, USB cables. Because we use a lot of so, so you guys know what we use a lot of is solid state drives. So we're using a lot of solid state drive like Samsung. We use probably these the most, these little solid state drives the most. And then we have ones like this that are a little bit more durable. This takes a beating because it's got a rubber coating on it. This is something that when we take portable. But a lot of stuff is going to solid state drive immediately. That's where everything's dumping into. I don't use SD cards or anything like that. We don't use anything like that. Everything goes into a solid state drive. All right, that's boring talk. Let's go back to guitar stuff.

HANS HOLM67 Back to this. We need another behind the scenes at Casa Phil Studio, please. This was a question we talked about. I, I'm just gonna tell you that I'll just say it this way. And I, I and I'm just gonna say it the way I want to say it, which is when it comes to the main studio that we use the amount of money that I spent, which is still to me, I'm still emotionally not over because it was this year and the time but more importantly the months and months of time figuring out the system we, we talked about like, oh, would it be interesting people see a behind the scenes. But it's also not fair because it took. There was no way for us to copy that. We couldn't find anybody who was doing anything like this. And, and so we, we discussed when it's time to share, we'll share. But it's not time to share right now because that was a hellaciously horrible.

Horrible couple months.

Let's see.

I have no idea what that question is. Says hey, Phil, I want to make a coder caster. What is the way to get a lab steel pickup? I have no idea.

This is. Hey, Phil, after a fret level and then a crowning with the Stumac X file, what is the best way to get rid of the tool marks on the top? I have fret erasers and steel wool, but I haven't been satisfied. So I, I have a, I use a Dremel wheel is what I use from Stu Mac. And this is what I use.

And let's see.

And I'll show you. Here it is. So these are the fret polishing wheels I use. I'll share them with you. And then I use a basic Dremel. And so these are the wheels. You essentially have a fine and extra fine on these. And you use it. This is how you use it right here. I, I cut. I, I wear a groove into my wheel first using a Phillips head screwdriver they use. I can, I don't unfortunately have a video on the YouTube channel of me using these. I do have one on the Patreon. So if you want to go to the, the clinic level. Patron. There's a reason why there are some repair content videos like that that I keep only on the patron side. It has nothing to do with the way you think the paywall works. It's not like, oh, ha ha, I'll get them to pay to see how I work. It's because sometimes I, as much as I do, I do a lot of videos. I've done, obviously hundreds that have millions and millions, if not tens of millions of views collectively on how to do things on the Internet. Almost all the videos are framed in the concept of this is how you could do it. Or here's a way I think that this would work for the average person trying to do something where sometimes what I'm showing you on the patron side is how I do personally do things. And so I don't necessarily want to make a video that makes me $38. And if anyone gets offended, I understand. I don't want to make a video that makes $38 so I can watch 38 people tell me how I'm doing it wrong. Even though I literally did this for a Living, for 20 years doing it that way. So I just put it on the patron. So anytime I stuff like that, it's not so much. It's I. So I basically want to tell you that if you get, if you go that, that route, you're not going to see something like, wow, this is so secretive and amazing. And I can see why he doesn't want people to know. Look, you can watch 20 videos on YouTube with somebody doing it. It's probably just, like, how I do. I just. Like I said, those videos don't draw a whole lot of eyeballs. They don't make a whole lot of money, and they do bring a lot of criticism that sometimes I just don't care to read or watch. I just don't care.

So. But it's how I do it. But I can tell you right now, you really don't need the video. You just need to know those are the Dremel tools. And put a groove in the. In the wheel. And you can use some Dremel polish if you want. I do not. And it's up to you. And. But I explain why I don't. But there's nothing wrong with using Dremel Polish. I used to. I start out that way. The reason I don't. And I don't know if I specifically say this in the patron side, it's because a. A builder who I respect, who I learned this technique from when I didn't. So I was like, okay, and I needed to. And then at some point, I was. I was determined to not do it the way or do it the way they did it, because I felt like. And so I saw.

And then model Barrio 6174 says, what Dremel tool do you all use? I own many Dremels tools. The one I'm currently one now is. Let me look. I'm gonna see if. Is this one the Dremel 4000? This is the one I use. You don't have to get it from Stumac. I'm sure you can find it on Amazon or somewhere cheaper. But that's the one I'm using right now, and I have the extension for it. So let me go here. Let me go to Amazon.

I have older ones. I have newer ones. I have no issues with any Dremels that I own. So I own like three or four of them over the years. I got one, and then I got another one. It's just how it works. And there's no. In my. In my experience over the years, there was nothing in particular in any one of the Dremels that it went.

Oh, yeah, this is the way to go. I like this one way better. There are just certain things. It was really what people had in stock, and I needed multiples because I had people working for me, and they were using them too. The extension is what I really want to show you. You've probably seen me use it in videos. Let's do extension. Let's see if that. Let's do this. There it is.

So whatever Dremel you get, like I said, I have the 4000. This is compatible with the 4000. This is the. The drill axe. 42 inch flex shaft, rotary tool, believe it or not. It's funny is I got one of these. Look, 11.99. I got one of these and it came with some kind of kit that I got. I didn't use it ever like ever, ever, ever, never used it. Because the person I respect that, you know, did amazing stuff, didn't have one. And.

Somebody in a YouTube video was commenting, the video was like, hey, you should use the extension. You should get one of those extensions. And I was like, well, I have one. And I'm like, oh, maybe I should try it. Because they were like, it's amazing. And I'm like, is it amazing? And I got it out and I tried it. I'm like, yeah, I like it. There's things I don't like about it, which is I feel like it's another process of things. But I don't know.

But yeah. So I would go with that find and it's Black Friday, so I'd find a deal on one of those Dremels and then get some of those Dremel wheels.

And then let's. Let's round out the show. Let's finish it out.

Says, hey, Frisky. Dev says, I love the show. Thank you. I want to answer your question because you say you love it. If you said you like the show, I was going to pass. I'm just kidding. I bought a Fender locking tuner for my Squier Telecaster Sonic. Okay. Not drop ins, apparently. So it looks like I need to drill and patch the older ones. Drill and drill and patch the older ones. Do you have info or a video on that? Don't drill anything. That would be my. You can ream it out with a reamer. That's what I would probably recommend I do. If you watch in the Sharpen My Axe videos that I. There's probably a specific video I have to. But the Sharp Max videos, like if you go to the Squire Sharp Max videos, there's probably a portion in there where I'm using a reamer to remount the holes a little bit. The. My guess is you're. I don't know what size tuning keys you had versus what you have. If there were 8 millimeters or 6 millimeters and now you're going to, you know, 10 millimeter or if you're going from 6 to 8 millimeters. But it's not a huge deal and you can probably do it with a reamer, it's fine. And, but I, I don't, I'm not looking at it. So I don't know if there's the, the furls are in there. I don't know what it is. And specifically because I'm not looking at your guitar. But absolutely. I would also suggest it's very easy if you don't have those tools. It's probably going to be just as easy and costly or cost wise just to buy the better replacement tuning keys that fit. That's why it's just important to make sure you measure it. It's why I always tell everybody, everyone, whether you work on your guitars, if you're trying to be a, a tech or if you're trying to do anything. The tools you buy first are diagnostic tools. They will pay a dividend, I promise. So obviously like a caliper is a perfect thing, especially digital calipers. Now it's like anybody can read a digital caliper. So you get yourself a digital caliper, you get yourself some tools. Measuring tools are the best because they help you, you know, figure out what sizes you need. Otherwise you're at the will of all of this. Like, you know, you go online and it says fits most or you know, and there's some kind of slang, you know, somebody saying some kind of terminology. But really it's nice if you're just like 8 millimeter holes and you're like, okay, these are 8 millimeter holes and this says, this fits an 8 millimeter hole perfect. So a measure is, is the best tools to get, especially nowadays. I mean, there's no reason to buy that stuff. I mean, like I've said before, you don't need to buy a stumac caliper. You know, I like it because it's got the notch for cut for frets. Let's see if I can just look at.

Yeah, this one's fine.

This one's $25. You could probably find fun for less.

See, $15. Oh, look, already it looks like the same. I mean I wouldn't really.

Okay, so people buy these ones. These are the, the cheaper one. This one you could probably look if it's. If you're, if you want to, you buy this for $8. I think personally you'll get a little more life out of this $15 one. Not like life, like how long it will last. But more usage, better. It's, it's more finite. Because I think, what did I notice on the first one? The thing that I don't like about these. Let me just tell you what I don't like. What I don't like about this one is it doesn't have the wheel. I don't know what you call it, the jog wheel, I don't know what you call it, but the wheel. See right here? See where this is? This is where your thumb goes. Your thumb here, you're going to be pushing this back and forth here. This will help. If I move this, you'd be pushing on your thumb here and you'll move these sliding back and forth. What I prefer.

Is this.

Because what this wheel does right here is your thumb. Obviously thumb can go there, but your thumb goes here and you can, you can roll this and it will help you. Because sometimes what you don't understand is that when you're using a caliper, it's easy. If you're using something like you're just going to take your caliper and you're going to go. And that's how wide it is. And you just put a little pressure on each side of this. But it's a little bit more difficult when you're trying to actually line it up physically like over, like a hole. If you're not going to use the inside ones, you know, it's just. I like having that wheel there. It's a, It's a nice option to have. And, and then also if you can make sure that whichever one you buy takes a 2032 battery and not a strange battery like this one does. This takes a stranger. Well, mine probably does too, so don't worry about that. Now I think about it, I don't think mine takes the 2032. It's just nicer if they take a more conventional battery. But, but basically what I'm trying to get at is you don't have to spend a ton of money. I can't find the chat now. There it is. You don't have to, you don't have to spend a ton of money on a caliper, but those calipers are absolutely, I think, worth their weight in gold when it comes to doing, just changing out tuners. And even if you're like, well, I'm not. After I change all these tuners, I'm not going to do it again, still buy it. It's not, it's not, it's.

It's not that bad. It's just nice to have some tools, some measuring tools. Like I said, a couple rulers. Get yourself like a.

A nice Japanese ruler. Get yourself like a fret action gauge if you want that. So, but, and then like I said, you will know. You won't. I don't think you'll regret buying better quality tools. I don't think anybody ever regrets buying better quality tools. But.

But.

So there you go.

Peel. I think Pwle Braun says the accuracy of that caliper is suspect. Which one? The cheaper one or the nicer one? They're all going to be slightly off in some degree. I would imagine there's not going to be as refined. But here, here's the thing. There's a saying, right? Good enough for rock and roll. And in my experience, when you're measuring something, first of all, let's just take like something like a 43 millimeter nut. They're never 43 millimeters. They're never 44 millimeters. There's always something and it's because sometimes it's just how you're squeezing it. The angle. I mean, if you shift the angle on a caliper just a little bit, you're getting some inconclusive results. But generally speaking, if you get 7.8, blah, blah, blah, millimeters, it's 8 millimeters. Just understand that, you know, you're, you're just, you're just trying to get close at that level. You're just trying to get close because it's a standardized thing that you're doing. It's a little tricky though, when you're making like design or cut decisions on that. But when you're just like said, diagnosing stuff, it'll get you in the ballpark. But again, better quality is better. Okay, let's finish this out. What's this one? It says.

Yes. Okay. So the real Arrowholic says, Phil, have you ever seen a locking nut.

Block so locking nut. So, Phil, have you ever seen a locking nut raise or lower the pitch of a string? When tightened, it somehow raises the sixth string by 10 cents and at the same time lowers the fifth string by 15 cents. Yes. Let's see if I can grab a guitar. So I'll keep talking. So you guys know I'm still around. I just don't know if I have a guitar here.

I do.

Okay.

Really sucks that I don't have.

What, what we need, but this will work. Okay, so what we're looking at here is, It's a Washburn. N4, has a locking Nut. This has a angled headstock. See this angle headstock? So what's happening is the strings cross over the nut, and then they're pitching at this angle of the headstock. That is why there is no retention unit here. I want to show you. I want to get it. So you guys know what we're looking at?

String retainer.

Okay, here it is.

I'm going to pull that up, and then I'm going to pull up a visual for you guys. Okay? Images. Perfect. Look at that. Oh, that's great. It's like things are. Are working.

They were. Here you go. I'll take it. Can I make it bigger?

Here we go.

Make that bigger. Perfect. Okay, so this guitar doesn't have it because it's at pitch at an angle. So what happens is the strings pull over. They're pulled immediately down. There's down pressure. The down pressure is caused by the fact that the tuning keys are at an. The neck's at an angle and the tuning keys are pulling down. So what happens. What I'm guessing in your case is you need a string retainer, or you have one and it's not set correctly. So what happens is, if the string is coming across here, as you can see here, and goes here, if this wasn't here, pushing down. Okay, so imagine this isn't pushing down. What's going to happen is this string is going to be. I don't know, man. We're talking, you know, human hairs at this point off, hanging off. Because you see it's not being pulled down enough. The tuning key is not pulling the angle down. See the angle just like these tuning keys are not pulling enough. There's not enough down pressure angle right here. Now you can wrap. Put more wraps. And if you were to put an additional two wraps, this string, instead of coming here, would hit here, and that downward angle would change that right there. And then when you locked it, you wouldn't have the issue. But see how much this slopes right here. So what happens is when you put the lock on there, it's pressing down and it's pushing this string sharp. So in this scenario, you would tighten this screw right here and bring the string retainer down to create that down pressure. You don't have to put a ton. Okay, now you're saying. And you might have this thing because you're saying. But on another string, you're saying it's. The opposite effect is happening. Well, that. Because it could be the opposite. This is actually pushed down too far, that string retainer. So some. And this is where it gets confusing because not all guitars that have a locking nut have the string retainer. And the reason is, is because, again, it's. It's. It's a ton of reasons. So let me give you a bunch. First, a guitar like this, even though this is a nice, expensive style guitar, they didn't do it because the angle of the headstock was correct. However, a Firefly guitar like that I have doesn't have a string retainer because they were cheap. They didn't add it. They needed one. It's just they didn't put it in because. Well, let's take a look.

They want $21 for this one. So even if it cost them $2 to buy some knockoff version, the Firefly is trying to make a guitar for $279. They can't add $2 for a string retainer. That's ridiculous.

It sounds crazy when you talk like that, but it's true. So my guess is either A, you need a string retainer. It's possible. I'm not looking at your guitar, but that's my guess. Or B, you need to adjust it correctly so that's how you do it. So that's. That's my guess. On that.

On that note, thank you guys so much. I hope having the. The information about Reverb and their new stuff, their new policy change and stuff, I hope that guys helps you out knowing some stuff. Like I said, I thought that was information that we should at least be talking about. Hopefully this will draw other, you know, community channels out there to talk about it and maybe get some. Some a discussion. It's just horrible to think that companies. Like I said, I don't. I don't like the idea of middlemen making all the money. It's just a. It just sucks. It doesn't make it. Like I said, it doesn't make anything better for a customer or the dealer. Gear of the week. I think what we decided is the Astro 20 was the way to go. So I will obviously be getting that and then we'll decide whether or not I'll do a video of just that amp. But obviously I think maybe doing the slo 30 versus the synergy module, we can make that kind of stuff happen too. You guys seem really excited about that. And as always, I want to thank all of you for hanging out this Friday. I hope you guys have a fantastic weekend and go play guitar now. And on that note, thank you for your time and know your gear 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.