← Know Your Gear Podcast
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The Know your 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.
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Hey everybody, how's it going? A little crossover there. A little crossover. I hope everybody is is having a good time. Before we get started, I want to let you know this is the last weekend to get Moon Pie shirts. We're doing a limited run of these until August 11th. So if you guys are interested in getting any of the Moon Pie guitars and if you guys don't know what is a Moon Pie guitar, I'll put a link right now to this timestamp that will take you to the Moon Pie guitar story, which I hope you guys enjoy. It's definitely something that's been a big part of our life. So I'm going to jump into a couple of the first ones from Matthew says Hey, I bought a cheap guitar to leave at my son's place when I visit. I bought a Squire Strat at his at his local guitar center for $270. It plays insanely well. Felt like, felt like it was a steal. Really impressed by the Squire. Yeah, well, I mean Squires are great. You know, it's funny is, you know, I have a video from a long time ago talking about the Squire that I had and I had it for years and years and years and I really liked it and you know, it was just a really good quality guitar. And I really think Squier and Epiphone make really good guitars. That's not a question. I don't know why my hat's all messed up, but I just don't see the value in Epiphone and Squire and the lower price points anymore other than the brand. Having the customer's back, you know, obviously is a bigger brand. You know, you can buy something from Sweetwater Guitar center or your mom and pop shop and feel like you could, you know, walk back in with your Squire and Epiphone and say hey, I'm having an issue and there's a huge history of there a dealer and a manufacturer relationship and of course I think you'll be covered versus the Fly By Night company, you know, on Amazon or you know, whatever flavor of the week's on the YouTube channels. As a guitar builder, however, I just cannot get over how good these inexpensive guitars are. I can't wait to show you. As you know, I asked Gabe, the CEO of Guitar center about what he thought about these guitars and he referred to them as toys. The import, you know, Amazon you know, guitars. He didn't specifically name them, obviously. He just had generalized that. Of course, when I think of this, I think of it like the E Arts, the Fireflies, you know, the Monoprice, you know, whatever. All those. All those brands. I actually talked to the CEO of Sweetwater, which. That podcast will come out soon, Mike Clem, and I asked him the same question, and he gave a much different answer than Gabe. And. And. But either way, in my opinion, which is my opinion at both times, I don't think either one see what I'm seeing. And when I say that, I don't mean, like it in a. Intelligence level or an education level or anything like that, or intuitive in the industry level. I'm just like, look, there's a lot. You know, it's like I'm taking these guitars apart and I'm seeing something I don't think they're seeing, which is they have learned. They, meaning the collective mind of the people who are buying them from China and Indonesia and selling them to us. They've watched the YouTube channels. They took the notes. I don't mean my channel. I mean, there's a lot of channels. There's lots and lots of channels that are looking at guitars differently. Because if you think about the first days of YouTube, it was really about show and tell. It was like, hey, a new guitar day. That's why New Guitar Day doesn't really work for a lot of channels. You know, it used to be you could put New Guitar Day in your title and you would get a lot of views because a lot of guitar players would be like, well, what do you get? And you were very curious, what did I buy? Why did I buy it? And what's my experience with it? And it was very, you know, very exciting. And that's why I watch them too. And then, sadly enough, I believe New Guitar Day got corrupted when New Guitar Day just means this company sent this guitar to me to show it to you guys. And now everybody's in on the fact that the YouTube channels are not presenting to you their. Their experience of their guitar. Like, hey, I got a guitar, and let me share that experience with you. It's. They're sharing the, hey, this company really wants you to see this guitar, so I'm presenting it to you. And that really, I think, killed it. Killed it for me. And the point I'm making here is that's why I think it had a change from, you know, look at this, I'm having a good time. Which is an honest kind of way of Looking at it to, okay, if I'm actually presenting this just to you now, then I need to present something to you that has value. Like maybe go over the quality and the details and the specifications and kind of give you a presentation, right? And so it goes from show intel, in my opinion of just look what I got and how much fun I'm having to. Now this is just like, you know, you're in front of the class. Instead of showing them what you brought today, you're now presenting your, you know, your report, right? And that's kind of how I look at it now. Now I'm presenting more of a. A report to you guys than I am a show and tell. I think the smaller. As in every industry, the small businesses, they figure it out first because they're hungrier. They're a little bit more desperate. Maybe they're a little quick to change. They're looking at it and going, okay. These guys really seem to be focused on the presentation. In other words, again, I'm giving a report. Look at the boxes. I'm checking, like, this is a quality piece of wood. This is a quality piece of material for the nut. These are locking keys. These are the right for us. This is the. This is what's going on. And I think, honestly, I think Sweetwater Guitar center, they're all not catching on. And I think Fender and Epiphone are Squire Epiphone, and they're not catching on because what they're doing is they're still running the same game, which is, hey, do you want a Fender, but you can't afford one? Well, this looks like what. What you want, doesn't it? It's really damn close, isn't it? It's really close. Like, let's say you want to look Ibsen, Les Paul standard. That's your dream guitar, you know, and it's $3,000, $2,500, and it's just not a practical purchase for you. And you're like, I'm gonna find an Epiphone. And you go, you know, you're like, I'm gonna get an Epiphone. And now you're like, Epiphone, $1300. You're like, what the hell? You know, this isn't the price point. You thought, you know, here's, you know,699,649 for a Firebird. You know, those prices are crazy. $700. And then you're like, oh, okay, I'm looking for something. Like, hey, I watch this YouTube guy, and he's showing me a great guitar for $200. You're like, okay, so. And what do I get from Epiphone for 200? Oh, I get this doesn't. Look, you pull this up and you go, well, this is a Les Paul special. This isn't even a les Paul. For $200, I don't even get something that looks like the actual Les Paul. Now maybe here, epiphone, here, studio, $269. And now you're finally getting some Les Paul. But, you know, black finish, very uninspired. Bolt on neck. You're like, bolt on neck. And here's the irony. This right there, this is the thing I'm gonna show you. Made in China. And so you're like, wait a minute. So I'm looking at a guitar from a guy on YouTube or a couple YouTubers and here's a guitar that has a set neck. It looks exactly like the Gibson has binding like the Gibson and it has, you know, nice pickups like the Gibson and nice tuning keys and all these features. It's made in China. And you're like, okay, so I'll go to the real brand for alternative. And it's like, wow, for the same price I get a lot, lot less. And I'm sure that's always, always been the case when it comes to brand names and off brand names. But isn't that the whole point of Squire and Epiphone to be the off brand? Isn't it supposed to be the affordable version of the Gibson Les Paul and the industry? So that's my long tirade to say that basically. I think it'll be interesting to see how this goes, especially since. And I feel like this whole question sent me on a tirade. But this is a thought I've been having and I actually had this discussion at Sweetwater again. I just think it's going to be interesting in 10 years when the used stores are full of these really high quality used guitars. That's my argument now is what's going to happen to Epiphone and Squier? Like, is that going to be enough for someone who's 10 years old today when they're 20 years old and they're like, okay, I went in the music store and they were trying to sell me this $499 affinity and it played okay, but they had a $99 thing called a Firefly and it was like, perfect, right? It'll be interesting, but yes, but the good news is to. Your original question is, yeah, you can get a great Squire, you can get a great Epiphone. I just, like I said, it just makes me think of that every time. And that's why I said I'm curious to see what you guys think about Mike Clemson's responses to that question. Mistress 30, mistress 3840 says gonna pick up a Carmel Harley Benton tribute, Keith Richards from the Tech Today. I put Northern Lights in the bridge and a Seymour Duncan broadcaster pickup. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, Harley Benton is a perfect example. You know, I think that is an interesting thing because you look at Thoman and I, and that's why I asked. You know, I was very strategic that he didn't get it. Gabe didn't understand it when I asked it. I. I asked him about those guitars because. Because of Tolman embracing the. Harley Benton is. Think about this. I know a lot of the guys that are selling you these guitars, these E Arts, these Fireflies, you know, all these brands. I meet them. You know, these aren't companies, okay? There isn't like an artist relation. You know, it's not like how. You know, like, I don't talk like. Let me put it this way. Paul Reed Smith doesn't call me and go, hey, Phil, really like to promote the new Herman Lee. What do you think? Like, I talk to the marketing person. The marketing person reaches out, like, and they usually have a boss. Like, so there's a. Like I'm talking to the employee of marketing, and then there's a boss, their boss. And then. And then, of course, then there's lines of bosses ahead of them. And then there's Paul, right? So I'm not talking to Paul Reed Smith about his new SE line or his new guitar. I'm not talking to the CEO of, you know, of these big companies, you know, when they reach out. I just realized, like, a lot of those companies don't reach out. I was gonna say Fender, Gibson, but they don't talk to me. So anyways, my point is. My point is, is that on the smaller builds, you're just talking to the people, the owners, right? That's. I mean, they're doing it all. They're handling the. You know, they got to market it, they got to sell it, they got to get it delivered. They got all this stuff. And I thought it was interesting because these guys are small, all of them that I'm talking to, so they pull in a half a container of guitars, or maybe if they're lucky, they can pull in a full container of guitars. It's a very big expense to them. They're really Betting their lives on it a lot when they start out hoping that they can get a YouTuber to show you guys this guitar and then get it sold and then of course make sure that the factory did a good enough job, you know, so that you're not returning half the supply. And Harley Benton, because it's Tolman, they have so much buying power, they can just do what those guys can't even think of doing when it comes to buying. And so could Sweetwater and so could Guitar Center. So they could easily be in this. When I mentioned it last time, somebody mentioned Mitchell at Guitar Center. Mitchell's a joke compared to the Harley Benton guitars. And if you have a Mitchell and right now you're like what he called my guitar a joke. Look, a Mitchell is a, is as good as a Squire and an Epiphone and any of the entry level price guitars that you can get. And then so if you like it, I, I've worked on them. There's nothing wrong with them. But the Harley Bittens are a step up. Just like those Fireflies and those Y arts and stuff. They're a step up in quality because they're, they're definitely trying to sell you on the quality aspect. I'm not saying they're great perfect guitars. There's no such thing. But I'm just saying they are a step above. So. So yeah, I think the Harley Benton is interesting and it's interesting. I have a theory and one day we'll talk about it, but unfortunately not today because I can't even do it until I get the interview with Mike Clem out. I have a theory why Guitar center and Sweetwater don't, don't go down the Harley Bitten route because they're obviously neither one of are interested in being. Is creating their own Harley Benton line. And then Christian's question. Thank you. Unfreakable says cheap versus expensive. Pacifica's deep dives of an expensive model. Yeah, we mentioned that. I'll see. You know the, the big thing right now is I took, I mean traveling. Okay. And so the traveling is not something that can be planned in the way that probably people plan like a vacation, right? Like hey, let's go this month and go on vacation. What happened was it took two years minimum. And I'm. Isn't that funny? It's like John Muir took two years to make the Silver Sky. It takes two years to do something. But it did take two and a half years. It started in 2023. The communication with June at Cortec to get to See the Cortec factory. I wanted to see the largest high quality factory in the world. That has been a goal of mine for so long. You have no idea. To see. To go into a factory that's large but also known for making some of the best guitars in the world. And here is why. And so you know, this is part of the reason why it took so long. It took so long because I one, it took two years because there's hundreds of brands basically in that building. So they have NDA, so obviously they don't want you filming. That's who's in there. Okay. Even though we all know who's in there. But also keep in mind there are prototypes. This is the thing you guys don't think about. There are guitars being built. In fact, for a fact. I can tell you what's going to happen first. Almost everything. I'm going to be in the PRS building because PRS has its own building at Cortech. I'm going to do. I'm spending an entire day just in that building. That's one day for that building. That video. Those videos won't come out until these October. I've already talked to the people at PRS who by the way, they're flying out Jack Higginbotham, the CEO of prs to meet me there. Just like June is flying out from Korea to meet me there so that Jun can spend the day with me on the second day. The guitars in the. So if you get excited and you're like, oh, when he gets back from Indonesia, can't wait to see what he says and shows. Well, keep in mind, I've already been told that almost everything I'm gonna see I can't even put out content or talk about till October. Because you're like, right. Cause think about this. It's August, right? So August, September, October, three months out, they'll have delivery of the guitars they're building right now. So there's guitars. So see how hard it is. I'm like not only looking at brands that don't want you to that you're, you know, you're making guitars, but they're guitars that aren't out for the public yet. So that's a big issue. So there's a lot of issues there. So the reason I'm pointing that out is what happened was that got planned finally for the first week in August. And then Sweetwater reached out and said, hey, we would like you to sit down with Mike Clem, the CEO of Sweetwater. We saw the interview Basically with Gabe at Guitar Center. And we thought, hey, wouldn't it be interesting to have a perspective of the two? You know, because like I said, between those two CEOs, they run about 50% of the guitar market in the U.S. so I was like, oh, okay, yeah. I mean, I'm not going to say no. That doesn't sound smart. So I'm like, yeah, the problem is I can't do it until after I get back, you know, in August. And so they're like, well, can we do it in July? I'm like, oh, okay, I'll go in July. So that's what I say. So the travel thing messes up some of the, some of the content that gets on the channel. So I got to put out some of the content. So that's my long way of saying, I just don't know if I can get to that kind of video anytime before the end of the year. It's going to be tough. Just, can I tell you for a fun, fun thing just to go to for a second. So the trip to Indonesia, I was looking at the itinerary because I'm getting my stuff prepared. So I fly out of Phoenix, So Phoenix to LA, which is like a 40, 50 minute flight. It's not that long, maybe it's an hour. Then I have an eight hour layover, lax. I was like, so I sit there for eight hours, then I fly from LA to Hong Kong and I have a six and a half to seven hour layover in Hong Kong. And the flight, I guess the flight from LAX to Hong Kong is 13 hours, maybe it's 17 hours, I can't remember. It's some nuts number. And then how it works is then I fly from Hong Kong to Indonesia. I forget what city I fly into, but I know this when I get there, once I get through and I gotta get a visa and pay the, you know, for the visa and all that stuff, once I get through that, through the airport, then I'm being transported to the hotel which they said is about an hour and a half away. And then I'll get to the hotel and then I'll technically I'll be there at you know like five, six o' clock at night, their time. And so then I'll go to hotel, I'll be able to rest. And then the next morning we get up and then we go to the factory which is like an hour and a half drive to the factory, which isn't big a big deal. And then the way back, the same thing. So it's like so that's why I was saying I'll be physically traveling twice as long as I'll be physically in the factory or physically there. That's just so you see, you know how this works by the way. That's how the Indiana trip to Sweetwater was. I was physically traveling longer than I was physically there doing the work. I was more. I spent more time in the airports and on the planes. That's how it works a lot. So yeah, it's a little brutal. This one is from Christopher who says, hey, I found myself wanting a USA Ovation lately. Perhaps something a little older, but the brand seems to have fallen out of favor. Are there genuine problems with Ovations as they aged or is it just a case of preference shifting? It seems like guitarists love to hate them. Ovation got was huge. You know, the 70s it just became the guitar to have huge. And then of course the 80s it really became this iconic rock ballad type view guitar. I mean that's the way I kind of take it is, you know, when you think of Ovation you think of rock ballads. You know, it became the standard guitar you saw in MTV videos for all of the the metal bands that did the ballad. And I think that's where the stigma got, you know. But I think the biggest problem with Ovation is the same thing that happened to a lot of companies that did something interesting and innovated. Innovative pickup companies are perfect example that where the entire guitar culture shifts and goes oh, the only good stuff came from the 60s, the 50s and then maybe the 70s if you're lucky maybe. And it's like oh, and Acoustic World, that's not even. So that's actually accurate for electric guitars. Acoustic World's like everything that's good on acoustic camera, you know, from basically Martin and Gibson. And that's kind of where we've centered back to, right? So there was a time where guitar players obviously in the late 70s 80s were definitely like thinner acoustics, more comfortable. You know, why not? You're just plugging them in anyways. You know, think about this. It's the Ovation is a perfect example of the crowd isn't going to hear the actual guitar. They only hear what's the guitar's plugged into because you're on this giant stage, right? And if you're going to play a stadium, that's the Ovation. You know, that's a thin body acoustic. You know, who really. Who cares? And then I think now you have just like. I think they found out favor the way a Marshall stack has fell out of favor. You know, a giant stack of amps, you know, everybody's like, hey, you know, more, maybe a more realistic. Well, that's even a huge amp, this one I'm pointing at. But just a more practical 112 cabinet amp. Maybe a PAF style pickup maybe. I mean it's really just funny how we started innovating all this stuff and then we stopped and said, you know what, I think we had it all right at the beginning and I think we're done and we're gonna go back. So that's the thing with Ovation, but if you want it, you should get it. The fact that it's in favor, out of favor shouldn't matter to you at all, I think. And I, and so, you know, I didn't read the question wrong. I'm not, I don't, I didn't read that you're concerned that people will, you know, you know, make fun of you or not, you know, you know, you're not getting something that's cool. I think that your real question is, is there a quality issue with them? No, I've reputed, I've repued, I've repued, I've repaired a few ovations over the years. And the only repairs, I mean, I've had a cracked top one, but that happens in the guitar. I had two where the bowls popped off and that was same thing. Somebody hit them really hard and the bowl flexed just enough and the corner of a top popped off and we had to re glue it and fix it. Pretty durable. I was never a fan of them because they slide off my leg and you have to have that rubber thing there. So that's kind of like the only thing I didn't love about them. But standing with them, I think they're really comfortable and great and I think they look cool. So I'd say if you want to get it, there's no issues that I think you should worry about. Brian says, hey, on an offender American Professional 2 Telecaster Deluxe HH version, is it possible to swap out the 3 barrel bridge to the 6 saddle bridge? I'd have to look at it. Let's take a look at it. The answer is yes, because somebody makes a component that fits that retro style six aisle. So what your problem is you don't have six individual holes on the back of the bridge. So the bridge needs to be swapped out. Now is there an aftermarket company to make something? They might, I don't know what you think the advantage of is Getting six individual saddles. If it's an intonation thing, first of all, this should be able to intimate fine with these, these adjustments they made to the brass pieces. But even if not, you can always replace these ones with more ones that are more compensated for intonation purposes. If it's just the aesthetics you don't like, that's a different thing. But like I said, I would go with just changing up the bridge. Somebody makes an aftermarket bridge, it'll probably fit in there. It's my guess this is one of those things like how it would happen with me is somebody would come in and ask me that you a repair. And I would take the guitar in and then I would do the research online and go, okay, let me look for a retro bridge and see what we can do. Something like this. I haven't, I haven't done that particular bridge. That's not a very common bridge to swap out. But my guess is somebody does make an aftermarket saddle that will get what you desire. But I would also say don't worry about the six individual saddles on the bridge versus the three. There's a lot of discussion about the intonation issues with three saddle bridges. But keep in mind, a lot of that discussion is on the original three saddle bridges that were fixed and didn' didn't adjust. Now they really know how to calibrate them. And, and I say that for one reason, one reason only. And when you go to Nashville and you go into the studios, the guys who are playing the music that are just, you know, where intonation is just all they care about, they, they obsess about it, to say is an understatement. They still use three saddle bridge guitars, so I mean, obviously they can intonate them just as well too. And I've never had a problem intonating most of those guitars. Jimmy 4th says, hey, have you noticed the difference between PRS USA made pickups and the foreign made S versions? Thinking of the 5815s in particular. Yeah. The difference to me is the, the import versions are darker sounding. There's not as much high frequency in them. And that's the major difference. My PRSS2 single cut semi hollow now has 57 08s in it. So I swapped those pickups which I thought were much brighter than the 85 15s. That one had 8515s's right. The 5815s's I think are a little better than the 85 15s's to my ears. When I say by High end frequency, if that's what you're after. Keep in mind, I don't have a problem with the guitar being, you know, those pickups being too dark or bad. I just. I wanted to try it. I think I like them better, but to be honest with you, I think they're slightly better than the 8,518 S's that were in the guitar. And even part of me was like, well, I can go back and swap them and I can just sell these to me. Honestly, I was like, ah, it's a little better and they're already in the guitar I'm gonna leave alone. So I guess that's my way of saying that that's what's in my guitar now. But I don't want to allude that. Like, there's so much, so much better than the original pickups that are in the S2. I just thought, you know, I did the whole, like, hey, I wonder if I put some, you know, some high quality, you know, PRS USA pickups in this guitar. It's going to sound better. And I did. And, you know, it's fine. Like, there's nothing I can think of. One thing I guess I could say is I think the, the bridge and the neck pickup are more balanced now. Where the neck pickup was really warm and bassy and the bridge hiccup was a little brighter. Now they're more equalized. So it's not as dramatic when I switch from neck to bridge pickup, which is. Which is cool, but not so much that I noticed or had a problem with it. So anyway, it says, hey, Phil, I'm interested in a super distortion pickup. You have a video talking about it and you said that you would put it on a guitar. But I didn't find the video of the guitar. Do you still like it? I like the super distortion. I also think it looks. I also think it sounds really good in the bridge of a. Of a Les Paul. I think it's really good guitar. It just depends if you like, you know, you want to kick the front teeth out of your amp. That's what the super distortion does. That's what it's good at. So what's great about a pickup like that is sometimes you have an amp and you're like, man, it's just almost there. It's got just almost enough gain, but there's nothing left on that knob. You can juice up a pickup now. You can use a booster pedal too, but. But I think getting it from the source is always a little better. When somebody says you know, like this pickup spacey. Well, then you can just adjust the controls of your amp. You can, you can adjust the controls amp. You can get an EQ pedal, you can get a boost pedal. However, everything is better with from the source. Does it make sense if you have to, as you start manipulating the sound as it goes? I found that you don't get the best version of that sound. Does it make sense? And, and that's. And, and that's not super important, but it's nice. So like I said, I'd rather have a hotter pickup. If I'm trying to juice the amp, I'd rather have a hotter pickup than a boost pedal. But I know that's not always possible, so I just use a boost pedal. Okay. Dan the guitar man says, hey, any issues leaving guitars stored in gig bags in a closet? I do it. I live in Southern California, so humidity in the climate controlled. I also use nines. That doesn't. Excuse me, coffee. That doesn't matter. I also leave most of my guitars and gigabytes. I leave them vertical. So the butt on the ground in the closet in rows. It's fine. I've had no issues with it. My only thing I tell you guys, whether it comes with gig bags or cases, is what I found is it's probably a good idea every couple of months to open them up and check the guitars and, you know, go through them and put them back. That's all. So problems move slow. So necks, you know, bowing, back, bowing, laminate. You know, laminate meaning things glued, coming off. Things move slow. So if you open up a gig bag or a case and you're like, oh, my God, what happened to this guitar? Trust me, it happened over a long period of time. It's because you weren't paying attention to it. So every couple months is enough. I've never seen anything where somebody's like, I stored this two months in my closet. And now it's like, look at this. And I'm like, it's not really going to happen that way. And that's also the same thing with fret sprout and stuff. So if you're like, oh, you pick it up, you're like, oh, it's sprouted a little bit. Usually don't get fret sprout within two, three days. If you notice all the guitars that I get on the channel and I check the frets for fret sprout notice, I'm like, I've had it for a month. I've had it for a month minimum, two Weeks. I try to keep all the guitars for a minimum two weeks, so. Because I find it takes at least two weeks for fret sprout to happen if it's going to happen here in Arizona. And that's a minimum, so same thing. So. And why that matters is if you're getting a little fret sprout instead of having to correct it, if you get it when you first get it, sometimes really nice to just maybe put a humidifier with the guitar and see if that fixes it since it's at the beginning of its. The beginning of its journey to suck. All right. Okay. He says, hey, I saw an Ed Roman guitar that I can't get out of my head. Inexperience with their builds. This would be the Pagan model. The body shape is gorgeous. My experience with Ed Roman is not great. Shawna's experience with Ed Roman is much worse. Yeah. So Shawna got actually in a heated argument once with Ed Roman. Isn't that funny? It was really funny. So Ed, God rest his soul, who passed away. The Ed Roman story goes like this, everybody. If you haven't heard of Ed Roman, first of all, you can go to edromanguitars.com and read rants. Go to the Rants thing. That'll tell you some of them great. Some not so great. He used to have a hard on for hating Paul Reed Smith in the funnest way. I think, you know, a lot of people have a different way of hating Paul Reed Smith now, but he used to have a different way of hating him. And this fight, he was notoriously known through the rumor mill of doing counterfeit guitars, you know, counterfeiting guitars and doing weird stuff. So he's got a lot of drama when it comes to that. Now again, these are the rumor mills. So I, as always, which is why I like to stick to my own experiences. Tell you my experience instead of a rumor or what people say or what the industry, you know, whatever my experience with Ed Roman was. And a rep comes in our store and they are representing Baker Guitars, which is now owned by Ed Roman, which if you don't know anything about Baker guitars, they're very purs. They were looking. Baker guitars were built in California and very, very prestigious, very high end guitars. I didn't have PRs in the. As in the. In the stor. You know, we were, we had, we had Fender, we had Schecter, we had Washburn, we had some brands, but we didn't have like a Gibson or, or a RP or anything like that yet. So Baker seemed like a great way to go. It's a unique brand. And so he showed me the pro, the. Not the prototype, but the sample cell sample. I looked at it. I think it was. I got how to buy six guitars, which is great for a small dealer because, like, six guitars to buy in is not a huge buy in. And I said, let's do it. He left with the order. I asked a lot of serious questions, and I mentioned to Shauna, I said, you know, they said, these are made in USA in Ed Roman's shop. She's like, yeah. And I go, I think it's made in Korea. She goes, why? And I told her. I go, I just. It's hard to explain, but you can almost sense where a guitar is built by just the way the finish feels and the way it looks and just you get used to who does what, how. I said, this just screams world manufacturing or the mirror factory. It's just high quality. Almost to the argument. I could almost argue that the Korean manufacturers, some people have said, and they say this about PRS guitars all the time. They go, oh, they're kind of. They have no solar, sterile, whatever. And some people say that to me, like, Korean guitars just feel like plastic and they're sterile. I think it's because they're too good. You make the guitars really, really, really well, and you make a guitar too well. It just doesn't have any as much personality. And so I was like, it's really good. Like too good. So here's why the story's funny. The person from Ed Roman store calls Shawna, calls the store to get the bill paid. This is. I don't know if it's days later or weeks later, probably days. And Shawna's like, okay, what's the bill? And they go, yeah. And you know, she's like, okay. And she's like, and I just want to verify these are made in usa. And they said, yeah. And she goes, and you're. You can. You can show me proof of that. And they said, hold on, we'll call you back. So Ed Roman called Shawna back and he starts yelling at her, right? I kind of feel like I should find her and find. Because she's somewhere here and get her to explain the story. Because I don't remember what. Because I only heard the tale of it. End of it. I heard the end of the call. She's basically, they, they. They didn't start yelling each other, but let's just say it didn't end well. Okay, hold on a second. I think I can get Shawna and we can clear this up. Give me a second. Okay, So I real quickly, I'm asking her. All right, so tell them what happened when the people at Ed Romans called for payment on Baker Guitars. Because I don't kind of remember it.
- [32:02]
A
Entirely, they gave me a call, they wanted the payment before they shipped. And then when I asked them, so let me make sure before I pay this, these are USA made guitars. And he wouldn't answer me. He just asked, kept asking me for the payment. I just got a vibe that something wasn't right. And so I just kept pushing, where are these guitars made again? And then he said, well, let me call you back. I got the call back. It was actually Ed Roman. And Ed Roman was irritated with me for even questioning where the guitars were made. And through a few minutes of going back and forth, he admitted to me that they were finished in the usa. My question to him is, what are you finishing? Aren't they a set neck or. I mean it's complete, right?
- [32:48]
B
It's a set neck guitar.
- [32:49]
A
And he got very angry with me and the call did not end well. And we did not buy the guitars, right?
- [32:56]
B
So when they said finished, I remember they said they're oh, they're finished in the US and we're like, what does that mean? And that's when they're like, well, it means we get Korean made necks and bodies which of course came already glued together and we add American bridges, tuning keys and pickups. And I thought I remembered they said they could refinish some of the guitars, but that was an extra charge. And that was the other thing was weird now that I'm remembering was one price, but then it was a couple hundred dollars more if we wanted Seymour Duncan, all this other stuff in it. Otherwise they were putting Ed Rowan pickups in it or something. I just remember like the whole thing was weird. So, yeah, so it was a. It was an interesting experience with the Baker guitars for sure. And, and Ed Roman of course was basically what people kind of described him as.
- [33:43]
A
It was a little gruff.
- [33:44]
B
It was a little gruff. Thank you. We'll. We'll move on to the. We'll move on. I heard not great things about his. The history of his legacy in store. But in my experience we didn't order those guitars in the end result because. And they did, they did pass. That did try to imply those guitars are all made in the usa. But later it did come to a fruition are out that they were essentially schecter guitars that they Were swapping all the components and doing setups here in the US that's the story I can tell you because at least it gives you a reference of, of the person. And my general instinct is if Shauna doesn't want to work with somebody, I kind of take that as a, as a sign. Did not work with them because I, I would argue, silly enough. Shauna will tell you that when it comes to business acumen, I have a better business acumen than her. However, my business acumen is corrupted with my passion, which happens. Which is why, you know, so like, when it's not guitar stuff, I almost come across like a smart person in business. Like, I can really make some decisions that have been very, very fruitful. And you know, that's. She's been very, very happy with all of my decisions. But when it comes to guitar, I make a lot of decisions sometimes based on like, well, I really want one and I think it's cool. Or I think it's cool. And, and where she always kind of is the, the compass, you know, Right. She can look at it without that passion for the love of the guitar kind of vibe. And she's like, no, no, no, no. You're. You're not looking at this, right? This one, you're. You're paying attention to the amp or the guitar, the pedal. You're not paying attention to the, to the actual business of it. So. Yeah, so. So that's why I trust her with that kind of stuff because I was just excited. Oh, and I should also point out these were freaking expensive guitars. This wasn't like, wow, American guitars for $800. These were $200 less than a Paul Reed Smith. So, you know, $200 less for American made PRs at the time. But you were going to get a Korean made guitar with American components on it. And that's why I think the Baker line failed. You can still find them. And now it's hard for me because when you see it's really hard because there's some actual old school USA ones and then the import ones and because they're not marked. People, people, Some people fall for it. I see it all the time on Craigslist. Some guys are. I was asking like $2,000 for essentially a Schecter guitar. He just doesn't know that it's, you know, which, you know that it's a, essentially a Schecter with a Baker logo on it. All right, we're gonna do something fun now.
- [36:30]
A
It's time for guitar of the Week.
- [36:38]
B
You guys know I Just had a birthday. Okay. And that was my excuse. That's all you need. You need an excuse. Birthday, holiday, Monday. You need excuses to buy a guitar. Those. I use those three days. Birthdays, holidays, and Mondays. If it's any one of those three days, you. You can buy a guitar as far as I'm concerned. Which makes it really tough when you want to buy a guitar on a Friday. So, anyways, I went to Sweetwater. I did a bunch of videos, and while we're there, I told the story that Shauna and Madison. Madison is the person in marketing who was. We call him a handler. That's probably the best way to explain what they do. When I go to places like Sweetwater or factories, like when I go to Indonesia and where I was, there's usually a person who's with me all day. What's great is they're there to let me do whatever I want to do, but also make sure I don't do anything crazy. They're also there to make sure that I take a break and get some lunch or if I need a coffee or water or something. That's why we call them handlers. They're handling everything. They also going to make sure the schedule. So, like, for instance, Sweetwater, she made sure I had access to everything I wanted to in the building, and everyone wanted to go. She made sure I had a coffee, she made sure I had water. And then she also made sure I was there on time for my appointment with the CEO of the company since he was spending a lot of time with me. We spent a good chunk of time together. We actually walked the. The entire warehouse together before we did the podcast. We got to know each other, which was really nice. Okay, so. And I know what you're thinking. They sponsored this. No, I bought the guitar. When I came back, I was thinking about it the whole time. And then when I got back, I go, you know what? I'm gonna order it. And I was able to get it before my birthday, which was really cool. They don't even know. No. In fact, if they're watching the podcast now, they're going to find out. I bought a guitar when I was there, so I got a Dane electro 59. And the whole thing about Guitar of the Week for me is about a story, and a real good story. Not just a, hey, I wanted this guitar and I got it. There's actually a crazy story to this, and I think it's okay to start to tell the story now. So the first thing I want to show you is I Told you. This color is really hard to see. And I want to show you how if I switch cameras. Okay, I'm switching the side camera. This is more accurate. They're calling this color baby blue. That's what I would call it. I'm actually going to here and I'm going to switch to this camera. So if you look here, right, that's unlooking. That would be. Cover my face. That would be the more accurate. I think this is the most accurate. See how deep this blue looks? It's not like a light, powdery baby blue. Go back here. It's. It's really beautiful color. I mean, it's gorgeous. And in person, none of those cameras. The camera I switched to is like an 8K super crazy computer camera. Computer is a camera. So, I mean, it gets it the best. Okay. So this. So Shana saw this, and it was a gorgeous. Now, first of all, I gotta tell you, it came pretty horrible out of the box. Come on. Sweetwater. 55 point inspection was. They inspected it. I mean, there was no defects. Action was really high, so I lowered that. The neck had a lot of relief in it. That could have been in shipping, of course. Right. The nut, though, is not cut as deep as it needs to be, which is fine because as I always say, that I'd rather it be cut a little shallow and a little deep. It's aluminum. What's great about this one is these pop off. They have a little screw right there. So I'm going to probably take it off and then make some file some spots real quick. And then that will help me for lubricating it. And it's on borderline fret sprout. So if I put a sock on it right now, I think it would get a three and a half out of five. It's not. Obviously it's not scratching me, but I can feel they're about to. That's just why I want to, you know, maybe keep it humidified for a couple of days and see what happens. Right Now I'm at 60% humidity in the room, so this will be fine in here. So Danielectro 59 nos. The why this is a funny guitar is why do I even have this guitar? Is if you watch this channel, I've owned a lot of these, and I want to tell you why. Okay, well, let me tell you the story. So Steve at Danielectro was one of the first people to ever. By the way, Daniel Electro also owns snark. So Steve owns Danieltro and Snark. Steve at Dane Electro was one of the very first, very first ever companies to reach out to me ever and say, hey, I love what you do. I'd like to send you some products. You don't need to make videos, you don't need to do anything. I just want you to, you know, if you have any thoughts on them, great. If you want to keep them, great. You know, whatever you want to do is fine. He only had. He had one stipulation. You can't sell them and you can't do a giveaway. Like a. Like a sponsored giveaway. Basically let him know if I don't like him. He sent the guitars and some tuners and some stuff. And I went through the guitars and the guitar that he wanted to promote. You could tell was this one guitar. I don't even think I did a video of that guitar. And in this, I think there's three guitars. He said there was this red 59 Dana electro. And I never liked 59 Dana Lyktras. They would come in the store, I'd work on them. I just always thought it was cardboard junk. Like it looked dumb to me. I don't know why. I mean, this looks like a beautiful, right? Doesn't remind you of Corvette or a Cadillac. But I mean, you know, when you see the black ones, I was like, they always were black, right? With sparkle. And it was just like, like the silver tones. It's not my thing, right? Obviously I did the video on the Silver Tone. Doing these guitars now, it just wasn't my thing, right? And I just wasn't loving it. And I got it and I played it. I kept playing it and I'm like, I absolutely love this guitar. I love the way it sounds and loves plays. And at the time back then I think it was like 399 or 350 for made it. It's made in Korea. I believe these are made in the Mirror Factory. So you guys know this is not world. This would be mirror, I'm pretty sure and just really good. And here's why. I had to know why. So I reached out to him and I said, why is this guitar better? I hate these guitars. Like I. People used to bring them in and I used to cringe because I knew I was going to play like butt. They always had this weird, like I'm plucking the string. They always had this weird sitar thing. I just hated everything about them. And he said when I bought the brand and I brought it back to life, I thought the one thing we should do is improve the quality of them. So we went to what I felt was the best factories like Mirror and World and made them in Korea and then put higher standards. So these are made differently than their vintage ones. So no one. So no one confused the new Dane Electros to the vintage ones. They are not the same bones or structure, okay? These are far superior in the way that they're constructed and built. I mean, just look at the bridge. This is a better bridge than what that. You know, when they. Now they still make retro ones because they had people complain because they're not the same and they don't even care. They're unapologetic. You know, the original ones, they would use Masonite, you know, as the pick guard, a piece of, you know, that. That cardboard wood that they make the body out of. Now they just use a piece of plastic. Why? Because why would. You don't need to use Masonite. We did the Silvertone video. If you don't know what I'm talking about, please watch my video $67 guitar from Sears video, which is about Silvertone. And that's essentially. Dane Electro was a builder at the time of those, so he improved them. When you play this guitar, it doesn't. It looks right. It looks like that guitar from Sears, but it plays amazing. It's in tune. Great. Here's the problem, though. I don't like red. I love the way it plays and I love it sounds, but I don't like red. And when I looked at all the Dana Electros, I was like, they had a copper one. They all these ones that I thought were just way cooler. So I was in a guitar center one day and I saw a black one, okay. And they had it on blowout for like $175, 190 bucks. It was super cheap. And I actually had a gift card, a guitar center. So I bought the black one because I go, okay, I really have the black. And I gave the red one away, which was fine, by the way. I got permission from Dana Electro. They're fine. We didn't do a giveaway. I just gave it to someone. So I gave it away. And then the black one didn't play as good as the red one. It didn't sound the same, but it was really close. I just kept thinking, you know, man, that red one was really special. And that's okay. I was happy until one day, this YouTube channel, who I dearly love, named RJ Renkillio, did a video. RJ is also good friends with Steve at Daniel Electro. And he's A very talented musician. I love rj. I've sent him some, some, some business over the years. Like, here's some companies I think you should work with. And I think he's a. One of those channels that's great channel. And then one of the channels are not appreciated at the level I think it needs to be. RJ does a video of this blue sparkle, and it's absolutely gorgeous. I'm like, wow, that's it. That guitar is gorgeous. It looks like a bass boat at a showroom floor. It's just gorgeous. And I, I reach out because I go, I could buy it, but I go, hey, I got this buddy, his name Steve at Daletro, and I, I've done a lot of videos, right? And he's. We have a good relationship. I reach out to Steve at Daniel Entro and I said, hey, I like to buy a blue sparkle 59 nos. And Steve responds back to me, goes, When Phil McKnight wants a guitar, we don't, we don't charge him for guitar. We get him the guitar. It's coming to you, buddy. And I'm like, wow, thank you so much. The day later, he emails me and he goes, phil, we don't have any more of those guitars. And I said, no problem. He goes, no, wait, Phil, there's a dealer that has one. We're buying it back from the dealer. We're going to get it back here. We're going to check it out, make sure it's fine because it's been on the wall for a little while and we're going to send it to you. I said, no, no, no, no, no, you don't need to do that. He goes, we're. We're going to do that, Phil. And they do it. And so, you know, fast forward the time. So I get the guitar in a box, shows up, I open the box. This is a really dark blue. You could barely get see sparkles in it as much. And I go, you know what? I. I replace the black one with this one. It's better than the black one. And it just, every time I saw it, I thought, man, I wish I would have got one like RJ Rencilio. So then I went to Germany and I saw R.J. rinchillio. And I walked up to him and I just like, when I see any of the other YouTubers, I say, hey, just fan of your channel. He said, thanks, man. You know, right? We're talking and I just said to him, I said, hey, you have this beautiful Dane Electro in Sparkle. I loved it so much I had to have it. So after I saw your video, I got one. I said, steve sent me one. He's like, oh, yeah, it's great, right? And I said, yeah. And I go, but your sparkle so, so much. And he goes, oh, well, I set the lighting, you know. And then he goes into detail about how he sets his lighting and he color corrects his videos. Because he's not just, I don't know if you know this about rj, he's not just a talented musician and talented studio recording engineer. He's a talented videographer. And as he's telling me this story, which I never told him, so if he ever sees this, this is the first time he's going to know this part of the story. As he was telling me, I was like a little bit in my chest, sinking in my chest, going, oh, that's why mine doesn't look like that. Mine doesn't pop like his does in that video. Like I said, look at the two videos. His just gorgeous. The good part of the story, which is what this guitar is when Shauna stopped and said, wow, that's gorgeous. And then Madison also said, yeah, that's gorgeous. And I turn around, I go, oh, that's it. That's the. It's the guitar I love. But finally in a color that I'm just in love with. And I know this is a lame story, but it's just funny. I think these stories to me are like, this is, I think, who we are as a whole as guitar players. This is the insanity. Sometimes I wonder if, like, if you, some of you guys that watch this podcast or listen to it, you have your. Your spouses with you and stuff, or your girlfriends or your boyfriends or whatever, or your family, and they're like, this guy's nuts. But then they go, but that's you. Look, we're all nuts. Let me get a cake so we can hear this thing. So let's plug it in and play it. One of the things I absolutely love about what they do is I love that they match the knobs to the finish. So, you know, on this, the way this works is the top ones are the tone controls and the bottom ones are the volume controls. Three way switch. But there's something different, which we'll show you in the sounds. Okay, so what we're going to do now is I'm gonna start with the bridge pickup and then I'll go to the neck pickup and then the middle. And I'll explain why when I get there. Let's Start with the bridge pickup first. Here's on the clean tone. Okay, let's go to the next pickup. Now here's why I wanted to go in that order. When you go to the middle pickup, middle which is both pickups, these are in series. So obviously they're hum canceling. But more importantly, they're like a humbucker. They're twice as powerful. So I want to show you when I go from a single position to the double position, they actually gets bigger, fuller sounding. Here we go, Sam. Okay, so some things to know is the neck is a solid wood neck with a Rosewood fretboard and 22 nickel silver frets with an aluminum. Aluminum or aluminum truss rod. Sorry, nut. The truss rod is a dual action truss rod. I have the COVID off because I was making adjustments to it. The body is masonite. So if you watch that video, I explain what masonite is. And it's essentially a full hollow guitar. There's a center block and then most is hollow. So very light. This, this guitar is in the five pound range. I think when I picked it was like 5lbs 9oz is what I picked off the Sweetwater site. They get as high as about six and a half pounds maybe and as low as about five pounds even. So very light. So that's, that's one of the appeals of it. Let's just show you one more tone, one more playthrough. I'm going to start with the. The neck and actually no, you know what, I'll do the middle and then I'm going to roll the tone control off the. Wrong number. Wrong one. The tone control. No, right one. Tone control off the bridge to show you how that kind of is a good sound that I like. Sam. Okay, there we go. There's a little something. So like I said, I love the middle position. That's kind of where I stay with this. And I kind of really like it. I think I adjust the neck right before. I want to check something. Yeah, just the neck right before we started the channel or the. The show. It seems to be settling pretty nicely. Like I said, I think it was nice. I think they. They shipped these with d' Addario strings. Yep, the d' Addario strings. And I stretched them pretty good. But maybe they need a little bit more. So there's your Dane electro 59 nos new old stock. The cardboard guitar. This came from ATX. Guitar dude says Hey, I would love for you to do to you to review some of the old blood noise endeavors pedals. One day mini could be A little over the top for you. Of course, I'm starting to branch out into some more exotic stuff, thus my interest in the topic. Gassing for the pedals can be just as bad as guitars and amps. Sure, I can look into that stuff and see, you know, it's one of those things, especially like I said with the second channel where I can just turn on the camera, have some fun and then somebody edited it up and put it on the second channel. So that's what we'll do. So that's. This works great. He has a follow up or another part of the question. He says, hey, what do you think of the two Notes Reload two as compared to the UA Box Oxbox, the reload appears to be more advanced features in addition to preventing loss of high end when attenuating the signal. Do you think in time it will surpass the Oxbox in popularity? Not the popularity means much to me, he says. By the way, I have the older two notes, so I love this analogy. I'm gonna stick with it forever until, you know, these products are obsolete and gone. I think Two Notes is more like a PC and the Oxbox is more like a Mac. And the idea that, you know, obviously the, the Oxbox is very, very limited in what you can do. And what I mean by that is, you know, for you guys that are tech guys, you're like, what are you talking about? I can do all kinds of stuff. Just take it for the, the generalized point which is you generally buy a Mac and it's complete, right? You buy a Mac and it's like, like a Mac Studio box or you buy a MacBook and you're like, this is what it is where you know, if you get a gaming computer and stuff, you're, you're upgrading cards and you're, you're, or you're building it to, specifically to your needs. Okay. For the most part. Okay. Most people are looking for. Most consumers of Mac products like me are looking for something a little dumbed down like turn it on. It does what it's supposed to do and I don't have to worry as much. I think that's the Aux box, right? You turn it on. It's very limited what it does, but what it does, it does really great. Like I said, I say this all the time. It's got a lot of quirkiness to it like using their own weird power supply. The fact that you have to, you have to edit it with WI Fi, not Bluetooth. So you have to get out a, an iPad and then connect to your wi fi and then edit it. And it's kind of weird, but what I can tell you is that once you edit it, set up your Oxbox, which I did three years ago, four years ago, I've never, never done anything to it again. It's just the same way it's aimed. And when I've talked to musicians that use it, professionals on tour and stuff, they say the same thing. They're like, yeah, I set it up and I've never really adjusted anything ever again. It just sounds good all the time. The two note stuff I think is far superior in the, in the idea that you can get more precise. You can get more precise. Sorry, no s in there. More precise sounds. And get your own irs, do all, you know, do all your own stuff. And I think you can make it sound great, maybe even better than the Oxbox. So. And it's less expensive. So all. That's why I like that analogy. It's all the things, right? It's less expensive, it's got more adjustability and, and, and you know, just to me, superior in those attributes. But I really like the Oxbox. It's one of those things where knowing that something's better out there doesn't necessarily make me want it. It's, it's like, yeah, I agree, the Oxbox does kill some of the top end sound of the amps when you run it through. That's fine. It's fine for me. I can make it work. I just like it. It works great. And I've already invested my money and time into it, so that's what I have. But if I was going to. What I can tell you is if you have a two notes product which like I said, costs less and technically has more versatility, I don't know why you would specifically want to seek out the Oxbox. I don't know what would possess you to go, hey, this has way more. I'm going to the. Or, you know, the Oxbox, not a better product in my opinion, in that way. I just like the simplicity of it. One of the things I like about the Oxboxes is. And the same thing I like about my Kemper, they have something in common. Here's what they have in common. I get a sound that I like and I just have no Im no inclination to change it. My Kemper that I bought four years ago, I'm still running the three sounds in it that I set up when I first got it or shortly after I got it. I have not added or changed Anything. Okay, that's untrue. Okay, see now I just realized that's not true. A few months ago, which I can't remember when it could have been. In February, I did buy a. You can buy like, you know, profiles. I bought a profile pack and I loaded it into my Kemper because I was like, finally. I'm like, ah, you know what? I'm gonna get some new sounds. And I played with it for about two hours and then I was just like, yeah. And I went right back to where I was. So I did try it, but. But no, I just like it. So same thing with the Oxbox. I just like it. So that's the only thing. But there's nothing about it that I can say given the price comparison of the Oxbox at two notes. There's just nothing I could tell you that says spend more money and get the Auxbox. Nothing. It's not more portable, it's not more durable, it doesn't necessarily sound better. It's just what I have and what I like. And that's it. Feature wise. I think I liked it. One of the things I like about it, like when I got the. Remember I had the two notes captor X and one of the things I really liked about the Oxbox was having five way rotary for the attenuation. That was a really, really important thing for me. That's part. It's actually everything part of what I need when I'm doing this stuff. Do I tell this story? Do I sell you guys? I think I'll tell you guys. I remember telling. I told this to Glenn Fricker and I remember his face, he was confused. He's like, the hell's wrong with you? So let me tell you why I like the Oxbox. And I think sometimes that is better than specifications, right? Like here I am talking. I'm sure maybe it's confusing. So you like the thing that's more exp. That has less features, right? And you're like, yeah. And then why? Let me tell you why. When I started on YouTube, I was a guitar tech sharing reviews and tech advice. That was kind of the thought process here on the channel, for some reason, people are like, your lighting sucks, your camera angle's atrocious. Why is that, Aunt Mic? That way you're an idiot. And it didn't upset me, but I was confused. Like, what do you think you're watching here? I'm a dude who works on guitars that just happens to have a Droid phone, right? Like I have a Galaxy phone. I'm filming with a phone. Like, what do you think's happening? I'm not a videographer. I'm not a studio person. Right. I'm not any of those things. I've never done those things. I have no idea how those things even work. And that's what YouTube gives people, is it lets people have no business making content. Make content. But they have substance sometimes. I'm not going to say I have substance, but I'm saying sometimes they have substance. And that's what they bring the table. They bring energy, or more importantly, information that you wouldn't get from, you know, a professional studio environment, right? So as I learned lighting, as I learned cameras, as I learned stuff, and. And then also got my own. I want to say my own voice. In other words, figured out what look I like. There's a look I actually go after. And it's very important to me that videos look a certain way in the vibe of it. I don't want to over polish and produce. And then to me, it looks like a sweetwater video. It just looks too, too good. And then it feels like a professional guitar demo. And I don't think that's the vibe because that's not what I'm actually doing. Right. I'm actually still kind of giving review. I mean, opinion and insight. But anyways, one of the things I used to deal with that drove me nuts was I would mic up my amps and then somebody go, oh, man, you put the microphone too far to the. On the edge of the cone. And that's why it sounds muddy and I can't stand it. Oh, you put the microphone in the wrong way. Why is your microphone far away from your amp? Why is your microphone close to your amp? And I would just adjust things because people were complaining, and I'm like, okay, I'll do this. Why does the amp sound this way? Why does the amp sound this way? Why? What are you doing? Everyone had opinions. Now, here's what's funny. Everybody has a lot of opinions. But the difference, and this is the important part, is that when somebody said, phil, why did you turn that that way or do that that way? That's not how you do it. I'm like, well, I've been doing it for almost 20 years, and it's been working for me. So I'm going to continue this. Like, they're like, their. Their opinion had no value to me. In other words, in changing the way I looked at how I repaired an instrument, I feel confident. I didn't lose any sleep that night. I'm like, somebody disagrees with how I fixed it. That's how I like to do it. That's how it works. Customers like it, I'm doing it. However, I would lose a lot of sleep every night over camera work and recording work because somebody goes, why is your. Why? Oh, you. You recorded it bad. Well, remember, I'm not a recording engineer, so they're probably right. And then I go, man, I just made a horrible video that sounds pretty bad. So I was trying to learn how to do this. I watched a lot of content like you guys do, and I was learning recording, I was learning lighting. And I've done all this stuff, read some books. And then one day I came with this idea, and it was really funny. Somebody said, why don't you just take, like, the oxbox or, you know, the two notes and just run a light in? And I go, you know, the problem is I kind of like to capture the room. I like to capture more of the environment. I don't want to. You know, once you go down that road, you go down the road of like, well, why don't I just, like, put four tracks of it and why don't I just, you know, polish it up and compress it in the, you know, post? Why don't I just fix it? And I go, I don't want to do that. So I came to this idea one day when I got the Oxbox. I plugged in the oxbox and I recorded it, and it sounded amazing. I was like, this is great. I go, this is. This is so good. So let me tell you how what I do now, which is funny. Every video, I do this same video. If I do this magnetone right now, what's going to happen is I take the magnetone, I run into the oxbox, I run the oxbox into my interface, and I record the guitar. And that's the recording once. And I go, oh, I like it. If I like it, I like it. One shot. No. No fixing in post. That's the way I like it. Then what I do is I plug in the microphone and the other microphone, because I have two. One in the room and one on the cabinet. And then I record it and I ab them. And then I go, oh, man, my. My mic sounds brighter. So I move the microphone to the outer side of the cone and I go, oh, now it sounds too woofy. Okay, I just. So all I'm doing in every recording is trying to get my real recording to sound as good as the auxbox. The oxbox is how I actually fixed all my recording. It just became a way I just do things like. Cause my thought process so you know, was the oxbox isn't just IR's impulse responses in a room. You know, it's not speakers. It's also some engineer thought this sounded good, right? Somebody who knows way more than I know about making stuff sound good. Pick these sounds, pick this stuff. So if I try to adjust more to it, I think it's essentially that's it works. So you know, I've been doing that for years. It definitely has changed the overall sound of the. Of the channel. It's made it a lot better. So sometimes I don't have to do it anymore. Luckily for me, if I'm using the same amp and the same mics and the same stuff all the time, I just go with it. But a lot of times if I'm trying something new, I do that all the time. So I'll take the Oxbox and I kind of set the standard. This is through my monitors right here. I listen to the monitors, I listen to and I go, that's what I like. Sounds great. Now let's try to get a real version of that. So yeah, that's. It also lets me learn a lot about when a company's cabinets aren't very good. Because man, sometimes I mic up a cabinet and I just can never get that cabinet sound as good as the Oxbox cabinet. And then I just know like this is what I'm dealing with. Steven says, hey, I was watching, I was watching a tour of Ernie Ball Musicman Factory and they said they only use single action truss rods. What is the benefit as to opposed to a double action truss rod? Is it just cost savings? I'd have to know two things. One, when was that factory tour recorded? The problem with all of this information, the problem with the Internet is that when you state something from the past, it might not be the truth anymore because it's not. Things change. My understanding is that they use dual action truss rods. I can tell you that some of my music bands are dual action truss rods. Originally, originally the spoke wheel truss rod was a single action truss rod. So it is possible. Well fun. It's possible they are using single action truss rods and some ghidors. And that could have been dismisstated or they could have been referring to maybe only one type of instrument there. But it also could have been a time thing where. Now the. Originally when the spoke wheel truss rod came out, one of the issues was how it works. Is it. It only tightened right so you turned it one way and it just tightened. But like for instance, now. So here is what a spoke roll truss rod looks like. This is what Musicman typically uses, this style of truss rod so they can flex in both directions. Originally they did not have a lot of these. I don't remember the very first ones having. Does it. Let me make that bigger. Wow. Gee, thanks a lot. Don't forget, 10% off. It comes up every time. Up bow and back bow. So even though the original spoke wheel truss rods were single action, Music man has dual action truss rods. So I will confirm that when I go to their factory. I'm going to their factory in a few couple months. So I will confirm that when I, when I go. Al says, hey Phil, would love to hear your thoughts about Kramer's. I feel like they were everywhere when I was growing up and I have a soft spot for them and it feels like I don't hear much about them anymore. That's because Kramer is the, is the bastard stepchild of Gibson now. You know, Finder has definitely gotten better over the years with Jackson Charvel for sure, for sure. But there was a time when they were the, the same thing. They, you know, what happens is this, Fender buys Charvel Jackson like 2001, and then there's really no love for the brand at that point. No one's really trying to advance the brand or do something with the brand. They're really just milking the old designs. And, and then it just becomes a race to how affordable you can get the old designs to people. Right? So you, you, you buy an IP that's, you know, you buy this look. That's essentially what Fender's after they buy a look, okay, the 80s metal look. And then it's how cheap can I get this to the people? Because obviously we can source this anywhere in the, in the world. Over time. They decided like I guess to build the brands, right? That's how it kind of works. And they're not the, by the way, this isn't picking up. Fender PRs was like that with SE. They built an SE line. And then over time they decided like, hey, let's, let's turn this into something. By the way, Fender did it to its own, to Squire. Gibson did it to Epiphone. Right? There was a time where they just didn't care about those brands. The, the main, their IP that mattered was Fender. The aipa, that matter was Gibson. Gibson, you know, has Steinberger and has, you know, Kramer. Why there's no American made Kramer guitars, you know, they can build out of the Gibson factory. It's because to them, at the end of the day, and I'm guessing, because they haven't told me this officially, there's no Kramer guitar that's as valuable as a Gibson guitar. That's just the reality of that. You know, there's no. Like, if you own those two brands and you cared about, you know, money because you're in business, you're like, I can make a product today. I can make a Gibson Les Paul that I have on backorder, you know, 10 months, two years deep, or I can make this Kramer. And they're not going to do it. So what do they do? Well, they go, well, we'll make import Kramers, right? And they have somebody run that. And it's. And you gotta understand, there's a problem on every level. You got to go to the next level, right? So here's the next level. You got a dealer, okay? And the dealers take Sweetwater guitars and out of the equation, right? Take the big guys out of the equation. You have all the other dealers. You have the dealers, and they want Gibsons, right? So it's easy enough. But more importantly, they all have credit lines. These dealers. They only have so much money, just like all of us. There was only so much money to go around. So if you were that brand, if you were Gibson and you're sending your rep to a store and you're like, hey, I need you to sell them, you know, 40,000, 50,000, $100,000 worth of guitars, $10,000 worth of charge, whatever it is, your numbers, you're gonna push those Gibsons, right? And then if they're like, hey, I like to take 10 kramers, you're like, you know, and think about this. If, you know, if you're a rep, see, and the system gets kind of broken. And I've dealt with this many times as a dealer where the rep knows that if I pick. Let's use Fender as an example. So I'm a Fender custom shop dealer, and I'm Fender Jackson custom shop dealer. And the rep knows that if I order six Jackson custom shops, it's going to take two years before I get those in my store. But If I order six Fender Custom Shops, I get them in 12 months. What do you think he wants to sell me, right? He wants to sell me the thing that. Well, first of all, he wants to sell me anything I want to buy because he wants to set me sales. But if he can control the narrative, he's going to kind of inch me towards getting the guitars that, that I get faster because that means I can get then more guitars and then more guitars. Right. So there's a lot of stuff behind the scenes. The reality is, is that no one really Kramer is not owned by anyone who really is passionate about it. You know, you can talk about. I think, I think Al John still runs it. I guess. I don't know. I haven't seen much of him anymore. But he was used to pretty more active I think in the social media range. But. And I think he really was passionate about the brand. But in my experience he had almost no control. And that's what you get deal with. I tell you all the time one of the, my biggest frustrations with dealing with companies, that's why big companies really suck is I deal with people have no authority to make any decisions. I make all decisions, right? If I want to do tomorrow, if I'm supposed to have a video come out tomorrow when I change my mind and I want to do a different video, I just do it. No one is stopping me. No one. Not Sean on no one. No one cares. They're just like whatever, do your thing. That's the benefit of having a small little business. I make the decisions on myself. I just did something crazy. So you know, and, and I, which is we were making so many black stock pickups and we're getting so backlog. I actually stopped production of the Blackstock pickups. We're retool. I don't say retooling. Re thinking our process and how we're going to do this. Thousands of dollars of loss. Thousands of dollars. And in the same year that I'm also focused on, you know, hiring a full time person and you know, building out the new studio and stuff, all the cameras stuff. But I want to do this. I think it's the right decision. I don't have a board of directors. I don't have a meeting. I don't have a boss. This is what I want to do and we're doing it. So I think that's the problem. You know, I bet you whoever runs Kramer now would love for Kramer to be better than it is. And they're not going to stay. They're not going to say oh no, it's not great. They're going to say oh no, it's great right now because what would you say? You would say oh yeah, it could be great if my bosses weren't assholes. It's, it's a brand that just, it's atrophying off I think Kramer and, and, and it's hard to judge them fully because I think BC Rich is atrophying off as well. There's a bunch of these 80s brands that are just atrophying off because they haven't figured out what really matters. What really is the market. Right. They only know two markets and it's because it's the two easiest markets. People who want to buy a custom shop and people who want to buy the inexpensive version of it. But the reality is, is that we know that the really good guitars sit in that middle space. And that's where a lot of customers are. And that's where a lot of, a lot of the meat is. Yeah. Al says B Switch would do a lot better if their prices weren't stupid. I, I agree. You know, there's a lot of focus on where the guitars are made. I don't think that's in matter anymore. I think it's about to me. BC Rich for a time in the early 2000s were making fantastic guitars essentially out of the world factory. Just like Schecter. They were Schecters shaped like BC Riches. Old school BC Rich lovers did not love this because they wanted the American icon BC Rich guitars. But. But what they didn't understand was they were getting a guitar that was super quality, that looked the part, that had cool finishes, that was sub $1,000. It was a fantastic instrument, fantastic instruments. I know because finding them on the Internet is hard. It's hard. People who have them love them. Korean made BC Riches like Korean made epiphones. They're highly collectible because the quality was there and the price points were there. It was like everything was great. BC Rich moved on because BC Rich again, everything becomes a focus of either got to move units or dollars. And you can't just be happy with the success of just making a great guitar or a good guitar at a good price. Like there's just no love and passion in that. It has to be, you know, either ego driven, which is like, hey, look at this crazy $7,000 guitar, or it has to be money driven, which is this. Look at this, you know, $99 guitar I made in a junk factory somewhere. And I think that's where a lot of those companies failed. We'll just pick on my channel, go through the guitars I reviewed in the last two years and look at these Sire guitars. Look at these mid tier, mid tier price quality instruments. Just amazing. You're telling me that the Sire can deliver, right? This quality guitar at $800. That people love that is built really well and they can't make a BC Rich or a Kramer exactly like that for the same. Now I don't want to say I don't like these mid tier Kramers. They're fine, they're fine. But nothing's really prompted me to, to buy one. I think the problem for me is is that one of the things that Kramer lacks for me is variety. When they do make a model, there's a couple models that I absolutely love and I was looking at them, I was like, oh, these are great guitars. I just wish it came a different color or a different way. And I'm sure they get that a lot. But you know, if you look a lot of companies like Schecter have no problem. I don't think there's a color or a choice or a model of Schecter somebody can't be somewhat happy with. Okay, so let's pull it up. So looking at Sweetwater, Schecter, which is a fraction of the size of Gibson, has 337 electric guitars listed in the category of solid guitars. Kramer has 76. So look at the massive difference of variety of a brand like Scheckter versus Kramer. Also, just like I said, I think what's going to end up happening to the 80s genre of guitars is it'll just go to the collectible market. So it'll all be about buying an expensive one for some reason, which is fine. And, and like I said, and you could pick on, I could go on tirades for all kinds of brands and why I think they should be addressing different things. And there, but there's more to it than just we want it. Like I told you, there's the dealers, there's the sales reps, there's, there's economies in play. There's all kinds of things that factor into all those decisions. So I'm just only pitching. I'm only bitch. I'm bitching. I'm only bitching about the one thing. But, but yeah, I like you. I would like to see more Kramers and better series of Kramers. How about a, how about this? Could you imagine. Just let me, let me give you example. Like could you imagine a Vola could get a licensing deal to just rebrand as Kramer and put a Kramer headstock on that particular guitar. They'd have to change a couple of the specifications because their necks are still the wrong neck profile is my opinion. But, but a thousand dollar made in Japan Kramer. I mean the biggest problem is the backlog. They're gonna have to deal with. That's why I said, isn't that funny? Like Vola has to like give their guitars away because they have no value. Because everybody's like, oh, it's a major band guitar, it's really good quality. But no one wants a Vola. Right. And so that's why they had to go for this. They pulled it from the dealer market, they went direct to sales, they dropped the prices. You know, they're just everything they can to get the price super down. And, and could you imagine if it was rebranded Kramer? It would be like I said, a twelve hundred dollar Kramer. Right. Made in Japan. Still fantastic. Right? Would be fantastic because it'd be exciting. Yeah. It wouldn't be the American Kramer you dreamed of as a kid. But here's the funny part. They really didn't make any American Kramers. Right. Isn't that what's been implied? And multiple, multiple videos now is that even the ones that say Made in USA Kramers are kind of sketch now. We, you know, and if you're really into Kramer, I guess you know more about it than I do because I haven't done a deep research into it. But the takeaway I'm getting is that there was very few actual American Kramers being made. And the good ones were, a lot of them were Japanese parts. Elroy says, hey, since this is your traveling year, how about a portable guitar rig that also focuses on the guitars themselves? I have that video that will go on the second channel probably in a week to two weeks. And then Jonathan says, hey Phil, I hope you and your family are doing well. Thank you for that. Says I was, I was thinking about doing a guitar kit, guitar build similar to the one you did recently. Yeah, you're talking for the clinics. I was going to use a blowtorch to burn it, the guitar and highlight the grain. Then was going to use penetrating guitar oil to finish the body. Do you think I need to clear coat the oil finish? You do not. I did the, I did the beer caster. That's how I did it. If you want to watch that video, if you haven't seen it, where I took a torch to a guitar and I did not clear coat it. You don't have to clear coat it. And then Christian wants to know, oh, Christian says the question about consignments and then we'll hit that last one says, hey Phil, have all the guitars you listed on consignment sold yet? How long on average does it take to sell them for you? So you're talking about When I took them to the store and consign them? No. So what happens is, is I took some guitars and some amps and stuff to a store and hadn't consigned it out. I think they sold about 70% of it, is what I saw, because he got me a check for about 70% of it. So it takes a while. How long did it take? That took about a month. And then it'll probably take about 2, 3 months to sell the rest of it. That's just how that goes. The desirable pieces will go first. Is my best recommendation, when you're getting rid of a lot of gear is get rid of the least desirable product first. It's the smartest thing to do. It's the hardest thing to do. So you just get that way. Somebody always wants to buy your Fender, Strat, your Gibson, Les Paul, your, you know, whatever your Ibanez, your, you know, whatever your, you know, your heritage. Somebody always wants to buy the stuff that people want. It's really hard to sell some of the off brands or the stuff that's less desirable. And so that's why you always kind of push that first. The reason I tell you that is because what ends up always happening if you don't is you sell your good pieces and then you're sitting with your pieces that you don't love as much and they're not as great, and then you either keep those pieces, which sucks, because now you've got rid of your good pieces, or you end up blowing that stuff out because it's a nuisance at this point. Right. And I find that if you spend more time focusing on getting rid of the, you know, the. The. The less desirable pieces. So that's just the rule I follow. I had very good success selling everything on the gear exchange program, you know, with Sweetwater, of course, keep mine. I got. I have the advantage on a Friday show to say, hey, check out what I'm selling, and you guys can click on it. Plus, because we came with the idea to basically have Sweetwater sponsor it, we were. I thought the prices were very good, you know, so. Because I wasn't really, really super focused on overhead cost. So when I say Sweetwater sponsored it, just keep in mind they paid for the overhead. They paid for. They pay me enough to cover the boxes, the tape, the bubble wrap, you know, like this, the silly costs, right? Paper, you know, all that stuff. And essentially the shipping is what I. I factored out. We sold 10 guitars. So if I figured each guitar cost me about $60 to ship and then you figure in the boxes and the shipping, I think Sweetwater covered about 90% of all that. And so that's how I was able to pass on a savings to you guys, because I was like, oh, cool. You know. Right. Which has made it easier for me to sell the stuff. See, that's the advantage I got, is that I kind of wanted everything to go so. So it was a kind of a. I thought it was a win win. Everybody wins. Somebody gets a good deal. We get guitars. Later the week, Sweetwater gets you guys to know about their gear exchange. And also I learned I like Gear Exchange. So Al says, hey, so are you going to be selling more stuff? Yes, I just need a. A break. And because, you know, every week it was like, I do the show, and then that Saturday, you know, Saturdays usually for me or some bonus content and stuff for the patrons. And then I had some stuff I got to zip up from the week, and now we're shipping guitars. So it was just a lot more stuff to do. Yes, we will be doing more selling off the gear kind of stuff, because I still have a lot of to sell off. It's a lot. Yeah. But it'll be through Gear Exchange. I've decided I just like Gear Exchange. Will I use Reverb again? Absolutely. Reverb's the biggest, and it's the best in the way it overall operates. But in my world, Gear Exchange was just. There was a lot of benefits. And the thing that sold me and this is how in this show, when I was sitting in the van, I was sitting in a van. Here's a story. I was sitting in the van with the CEO of Sweetwater. We're sitting in this because they have. The campus is so big at Sweetwater, to get from one, you need a golf cart. To get from one, like, Giant building to the next Giant building. So, of course, there was a few of us. There was like four or five of us. So we. They put us in a nice van, so they had this van pick us up. I sat with Mike in the back, and we were talking, and I was telling about my experience with Gear Exchange and what I liked and didn't like. And he said something to me that just really made it make sense. He focused in what I was explaining to him. I said, gear Exchange doesn't sell as fast as Reverb. Gear Exchange, you know, doesn't have the customer resources that Reverb has, which is why it's not selling as fast. Gear Exchange doesn't have all the gear that Reverb has. It's just not what Reverb is. I said, but I really enjoyed everyone I sold a guitar to or bought a guitar from. I said, I just really enjoyed the interactions. It was more casual and less like you're going to include this right? Or you know, there was less like this. You know, who's going to take advantage of whose kind of vibe. I said, it kind of remind me of the old days of buying and selling online when you weren't freaked out that some somebody was always going to try to con you, he said. One the reason why there's not so much gear on Gear Exchange was one it's not as big yet, but also all the reasonable price gear sells really fast. Our data shows it. If you put your stuff on Gear Exchange at a reasonable price, it moves fast. So. So we are seeing the churn happening. The second thing he said was he thinks the reason I have a positive experience with Sweetwater customers, the Gear Exchange customers, is because every single person on Gear Exchange is a Sweetwater customer with a Sweetwater account. They're tied into the same and I was like, okay. I thought he was pitching like the and Sweetwater customers are the best. I think his point was good. I stick with my point. It's small community. Small communities tend to be better. The bigger the community, the bigger the amount of jerks get in. So that's why I like it right now. But it is harder to sell on there than Reverb. That's why I said do yourself a favor, list them both places. It'll be cheaper on Gear Exchange on average for shipping and I think you'll have a better experience on it overall. But in all honesty, I think 8 out of 10 times, if you list here on both sites, you're probably gonna sell on Reverb way before you sell on Gear Exchange. So. But those two times you sell on Gear Exchange, I think you'll have a better experience. So. All right. On that note, I want to thank everybody for hanging out. I hope everybody had a good time and thank you guys for your time and Know youw Gear the Know youw.
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