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The Know youw Gear Podcast. The Know youw Gear Podcast is brought to you by Patreon Members Channel members and viewers who like and subscribe. Thank you for making this possible. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Know youw gear podcast, episode 424. And, uh, let's. Let's just get into the episode. What are we gonna do today? We got a couple questions. Couple top already. I'm gonna hit this one first. This was the first one I got. This one was from. It doesn't say who it's from, so we'll just say his name's Jeff. This is. Okay. He says, hey, Phil, you mentioned on podcast 420 when you were talking about signature guitars, you mentioned that the Jeff Beck, My Guitar Hero. He's saying My Guitar Hero was the best selling that you carried at the store. My question is, how good are they and how do they sound and play and how is playability? I can imagine you played them. Did you own one? And what ones did you have? The first ones with the lace sensors with baseball bat necks or the current ones with the hot noiseless pickups and the roller nut? I'm thinking of getting one. Well, for the store we had the newer ones, which is the ones with the noiseless pickups and the roller nut. And I've played many. In fact, let's see if I can find this. I'll see. Go here. Scroll, click a couple of times. If you go to the Fender factory, you'll notice that they have a wall, right? Let's go here. Sorry. If you go here, they have a wall with all the necks. Now this is important because if you know they have CNC machines, you know that they don't need these necks, right? They. These are. These are all the necks and they're all signed. If you look here at the headstocks, it's hard to see in this picture, but they're all signed by the artist or the person who approved the neck. So these are bass necks at the end. And of course the guitar necks are at the far end where it's shorter. So like Eric Clapton signed his neck and John Mayer signed his neck. And when we were there, there was two Jeff Beck necks. And they were both signed with Jeff Beck. And I go, hey, there's two Jeff Beck necks. And they go, yeah, it's because we made his neck. And I'm assuming that was the first one that you referred to as the baseball neck. And then they said that, I guess he visited the factory once and he held the neck and said, this isn't the neck I play and then they go like what? And then they got his neck. And the newer ones are more pro, more correctly profiled after his, his current neck. And I think that happens actually quite often. I've talked to a lot of guitar players that have signature guitars where the, either they, over the time they have their techs kind of mod their, their guitar parts or necks or just the factory, you know, changes a few things and it's not the same, but. But it's just funny to know, I guess that at some point they did remake the neck. So the newer Jeff Beck necks are the ones that, that currently would be the ones we sold then. And I like the neck a lot. It's a U shaped neck. Did I own a Jeff Beck Strat? I did not. I mean, technically, yes, because I owned a store and you know, maybe, you know, I mean, obviously I owned the stuff in the store, but I owned probably one maybe and played it. But I didn't necessarily take it home and say, oh yeah, this is my personal guitar, I liked it. I've just always liked a Fender standard Strat or a player Strat. So I've never really, I've never really owned. I don't think I've actually owned. I want to say at one point maybe I had an Eric Johnson Strat. Yeah, see here's the tough part because like I said, I own the store. So all the product was mine. So I mean technically I had a John Mayer, I had the Erik Johnson and we played them, I set them up, but I don't specifically remember taking any of those guitars home. I don't think I've actually ever owned a signature Fender Stratocaster. I did own a. What did I own? I had a telly, a signature telly once and I can't remember which one it was, but that was like in 2004 and I don't think that's it. And there might be some exception I'm not thinking of right now. Like maybe I don't remember it, but I don't, I don't, I don't remember owning any artist guitars because like I said, for Strats, because, you know, and current, my current Strats, I play my 61 Strat and then I have my custom shop copper Strat and then I have the green American Professional Strat and then I have a 90 something American Deluxe Strat. And then technically I have one other Strat, but that's the Strat that I have that I'm not keeping. So. But yeah, it's a cool guitar, definitely. I like the neck. I've always liked the jet back neck. The. The U shape feels really cool. Oh, yeah. Donald says, oh, you had the. The yngwie. I did own yngvey. Yeah. I bought that ingve. That's what led me to get. Oh, look how funny. It's funny. That Keisel right there that has the scout neck. I bought that Ingve. So thank you. Because, you know, I was thinking, I'm like, I kind of remember having one signature guitar or something. Yeah. I bought a signature ingvey because I had an idea to revisit the idea because I never liked it that much, and I thought, well, it's a good video idea. What if I buy it again and see if I liked it, you know? And I got the ingvey, and I really liked the neck. I just kind of didn't need another Strat. And so I was talking to the Kiesel guys once, and I said, hey, you ever thought about doing a full scallop neck? And they go, well, yeah, we can do that for you. And they made me a full scallop neck, which is behind me. That's the guitar with the orange pickups, and that's a full scallop neck. And so then I sold the Ingve. But. Okay, hold on. Let's see. Hold on. I'm reading real fast. So many questions. All of a sudden, I was like, there was no questions, and now there's a million. Oh, my goodness. Okay. Oh, you know, soul. Soul Sample says, I think a scallop base would be dynamite. You know what? I've never played a. A scalloped bass. Now I think of it, the closest I've played is the Billy Sheehan bass and has some scalloped frets, but not necessarily a whole scalloped neck. That might be cool. I never thought about it as a bass before, so maybe. Maybe just try that as an experiment. Okay, let's go over here. And Amanda grabs some questions. This one's from Hero. Glop says, hey, can a digital pedal be boutique? Big companies should have an advantage with more resources and the economy of scale. Can a chase bliss last pedal have better algorithms than a line six? Okay, so the boutique thing. I don't think boutique means what we. You know, there's a thing in society where a word gets adopted or changed by the society. So the word means something once, but then as a society, we get used to, like, using it in a different reference, and. And now it's not the same word anymore. I think boutique is definitely a word that has been morphed and changed to mean a lot less than what it used to, boutique. Obviously, when we say, hey, like a boutique builder, we used to mean, like a small builder doing it by hand. I use the word artisan now because artisan means, like, in my mind, if somebody says, oh, this pedal is an artisan pedal, that would imply to me that the person. That one person made the pedal, the person who probably owns the company, like, right. They make the. You know, just like if you go to a. An art fair and somebody's selling their own personal art they made, that's an artisan. That's somebody's, like, who did the thing, right? That's how I kind of look at that. They didn't, you know, print 50,000 of them or have them made by a third party. So I think now boutique just means expensive and kind of, you know, not fancy. But. So I think we use the term a lot, like a boutique guitar and a boutique pedal. But we're really kind of just saying expensive and maybe still implying high quality, but not necessarily. Like I said, a person building one thing. So I don't really. So, yeah, I think now big companies use the word boutique to describe their stuff. It's just because it doesn't really have the same meaning. On the second question, can a chase bliss last pedal. Chase bliss pedal have better algorithms than a line 6? Sure, why not? I mean, I think all that stuff. I mean, it's a digital product, right? So I think there's all kinds of things in the. In the tech that can be improved. I mean, I don't know. I say that because what's funny is I think about this all the time. Like, Larry Mitchell was playing his axe effects, and he was using an eventide H9. And I said, oh, why do you have the H9? Don't you have the axe effects? And he goes, oh, I'm trying to offload some of the. The effects. I use the H9. So it's because obviously, like, there's only so much processing power and the AX effects. And I never really thought of it as, like, oh, yeah, I guess it is a computer, basically, right? This is a computer. These are computers. These are some kind of, you know, technology like that. So, yeah, I mean, I guess just like a better computer, a better technology could equate to a better sound. I think it's possible. I really. That's not my. My forte. It's not a thing I'm super interested in. So I don't really get into that too much, but I can see the point of that. Let's see. Okay. What some of the questions I'm like, what is this? Let's see. Let's go to another one. Okay, this One is Tim Rod 1984 says, how will you. How will I know if a replacement bridge will fit my made in Mexico FSR butterscotch blonde Telecaster made in 2016? Well, if it's. That's a standard Fender product. In other words, if you have a 2016 Fender Main Mexo bridge, the American made Bridges should fit that. Anything that will fit the American made will fit the made mix go 2016 model. So you should be fine with that. That's how you can know or you can just measure. But I think it'll be safe. Okay, let's jump around to here. I have a pin question. Bernard4664 says, hey, when you go to Cortek, do you think you can get an update on Digitech? I might be able to. I'm spending two days at Cortek, so I'll be there two days for two different sections. It's obviously a very large factory. And I'll have like a. What do you call it? Specially special guided tours of the factory. I won't be like, well, first of all, there's no standard tour for the factory, so start there. But it'll be. The owner of Cortech will be his flying in from Korea to meet me there. I think he's. I think they're picking me up at the airport. I saw in the itinerary, but I'm not really sure. And they'll. Well, he. He might be. Or somebody might be. But then we'll. We'll. He'll walk me through the factory. So I'm going to see pretty much everything. I think that's what we discussed, to see everything. As I told you guys, I will not. Well, I won't film and show everything because Obviously there's some NDAs there. There's some companies that probably don't want to disclose who's. Who's building for them. But we have permission to film certain things and do certain things and more importantly, share some information with you guys. And we'll be better educated for it, which is important. Which is important. Let's see, let's see. Richard Clark says, hey, Phil, when will you be doing a tease guitar review? I didn't see tease guitar on my sheet. Let's see if I pull it up. I have a little. Oh, it's Wrong screen. I have a list of guitars that take me through September, I think. Documents, open report. I'm just double checking for you right now. Titles, videos, deep dives. Yep. September to the third week of September. I don't see that guitar on there. I don't know if I should tell you what guitars are on here that seems. Oh, one, I can't. There's one in October. I can't tell you, but. But the rest. Yeah. So I don't see it on there. So I'm going to say no, it's not on anything that they have worked up for me. As you guys know, Shauna handles that stuff for me. So she. I'll give her a list of things that I want to do videos on and she makes that. She facilitates it and gets it on the schedule. And then of course, when companies reach out, they talk to her and then they might integrate some of those in there. And then as you guys know, I like to kind of salt and pepper the channel with that stuff. You know, a little bit of like what I like, like the Moonstone guitar video. Like, here's a video I want to do. Here's a video that you guys asked about. Here's a video a company saying, hey, we want to send you some product and do a video. And so that's how I usually get my list. And yesterday alone, I did three videos in one day, which was pretty freaking exhausting. It was pretty perfect to get prepared for the Indonesia trip because obviously Indonesia is like a two day travel, two days there, two day travel back kind of thing. And then I'm probably need a day to recoup maybe. Okay, let's do this one. Let's switch over here. We have time to refresh to screen. All right, let's do this. We got Litv says, hey, happy belated birthday. Thank you. My birthday was good. I took the day off with. Mostly I say I took the day off. I hear Sean in my head mostly, you know, But I took most of the day off, which was very good and I had fun. It says happy belated birthday. Today, tomorrow, today, tomorrow for you. Oh, is it tomorrow your birthday? Well, happy birthday. He says, also my birthday. Thank you. Not thank you. Happy birthday. Thank you for saying happy birthday. Happy birthday. Back to you. He goes, I almost bought a green Crackle Aria Pro from Facebook Marketplace, but it got away. Yeah, you know, that's a good segue to talk about this right now. I've been getting a lot of emails from a lot of people talking about Marketplace and instagram and I think maybe even, you know, Facebook, marketplace, Instagram, with a lot of fake ads, like fake guitar center, fake Anderton. So. And a lot of, a lot of con artist stuff going on. And so just I want to give you guys a heads up. I'm sure a lot of you are seeing it. You know, some people I know, some friends sent it to me not to like, look out for this. Like, look at these deals. And I'm like, those aren't deals. That's a fake. That's a fake guitar center. That's not real. I have not seen fake Sweetwater, but I would imagine that's next. So be prepared for that. You can usually tell because they're just offering us smoke and deal on something. They're like, hey, 50% off. I think the guitar center one I saw said something about, you know, they have to sell this product off at 70% off. For some reason it was explaining that, but of course it was all fake. So be. Be weary out there, guys. That is very scary. Let's see. SeaDriver300 says, I think boutique is being handmade or small production runs. Well, I think that's, I mean, obviously that's what it was meant to be. But. But we're talking about how the word has been used. You see it a lot. Boutique builders, boutique this, boutique that. And it's. I think it's just the definition is a lot looser than it used to be. And you could argue like, yeah, but that's not what it means. But I'm not talking about what it means. I'm talking about, like I said, how society, how people use a word. And then because of the usage of that word, you really don't want to, you know, you're not going to, you're going to have issues if somebody's saying the word and you're thinking it means one thing when they. We've definitely loosened up the definition. So. Okay, let's go over to this question, which I thought I had queued up. This came from antique rocker says, hey, do you think Fender, Gibson and PRS will ever follow Ibanez and produce a line of headless guitars? No. If they do, who's likely to be first? No, you know, Paul Ray Smith has been asked about headless guitars. He says he has absolutely no interest in it and he's got none. Okay. My statement is, I've talked about this in the past, that, you know, Fender and Gibson and PRS and most companies nowadays have put, especially the big guys. They have definitely put a lot of money and time into the intellectual property, the trademarking being the headstock. It's the thing that protects them the most. Now could they make a headless guitar and trade market? Sure, of course they could come up with a new design for sure. But I don't think they're interested in the market. It's not a huge market. It's more just like we know it's growing, but I don't think, you know, first of all, I don't. I think Fender's so big, I just don't think they care. I think that's the one who should do it. Obviously we see there's a headless Delos from Kiesel. It's essentially a Strat. So, you know, they do have. Kiesel does have the trademark on that headless delos, on that design, on that body design and stuff. So just something to know. But I don't think Fender is interested in it. Even though I think it would be huge, like I said, if they made a made in Mexico headless Strat or Intelli for, you know, 699, 799, whatever, 899. I think it would do well or whatever their price points are. And I think it would do, like I said, do well. Gibson, I don't think they have any interest at all. First of all, I don't think Gibson would want to create the jokes. Could you imagine the jokes if Gibson makes a headless guitar? Like Gibson already makes headless guitars. Just, it's. They're user created. So the battery's like we're gonna pre break headstocks. But I, I just don't see it. And of course Paul Reed Smith act, you know, he just says actively outward, no, he's not gonna do it. Now here's what could happen. So, so that's my, that's my take. You asked me what I thought. I think this is not gonna happen. How could it happen? Like in other words, what do I think could prompt it? It would be an artist. If an artist. If Pierre S or Fender or Gibson wanted an artist bad enough and that artist was playing headless. I think I could see them doing that as we've seen this. Look at what? Look at what? No, Looks like PRS said, no, we're not going to make a Strat. There's a silver sky. No, we're not going to make a telly. There's a telly, right? No, we're not going to make an Ibanez copy like the Herman Lee. Yeah, right, right. So maybe if an artist who was that they wanted enough and was playing headless guitars. Maybe they can convince him to make a headless guitar. I think it's possible. So. But yeah, I don't know. Like I said, and I don't know if I would. Like I said, I think Fender would be kind of cool to do it. But at this point I have a bunch of headless guitars. I absolutely love them. And you know, I mean there's always a new cool guitar to check out, but I've definitely happy with what Kiesel comes out with. And the sad thing is I don't think PRs Gibson or Fender, unless they of course they made them overseas, would make a less expensive headless than what Kiesel already makes. So I would just rather get it from Kiesel. It's a USA made high quality guitar and we know Keel's going to use stainless steel frets and just makes my life easier. And like I said, I already have a headless Strat, which I absolutely love. That's what I travel with all the time. Somebody asked on the Patron side, tomorrow is the Patron bonus podcast, Saturday morning and then Sunday morning is the coffee with Phil with the top tier patrons. And then after that's the. The Patron clinic. So that's my weekend before I pack to go travel. And the, the one thing that was they asked and I'll be showing this to you guys is they asked if I would show my travel rig. What rig am I using to travel. And since I have been traveling, I have been using this rig. So I thought I'd share with you. And of course the headless Delos is really a part of that. Okay. Yeah. Says I have a Hills HN3 next to my bed. Not a big headless guy aesthetically, but very happy with it. Yeah, it's, you know, I think that's the. Always the takeaway. You know, a lot of everybody says the same thing. I don't love the way the headless guitars look. I'm. I don't necessarily like the way they look. There's nothing about the headless guitar that appeals to me aesthetically. But like I said, functionality wise, it's very easy to travel with. It's very easy to play, it sounds really good, it's always in tune. So there's just a lot of qualities that I like about that. So that's all. Okay. And then we have Mort 2700 says, what's a better location for a neck divey guitar? Neck hill or the. Oh, so putting the strap button I Don't know what kind of guitar it is. I mean, I always like them on the top of the horn. I don't really like them behind the neck heel. It's not usually the place. I like a strap button, but if it. You know, you got to go where it works. But no, I don't really know. I don't have a preference. And I don't know which one would do better, actually. And then. Okay, I don't know what that means. Somebody's asked me a spear question. I don't even understand. Okay, we're gonna go to Steve Malt, who says, hey, Phil, first time poster. Here I goes. I bought one of the Kiesel kits you mentioned around Father's Day. I went with the ash body, roasted maple neck, and fixed bridge. It arrived last week. It's awesome. Yeah, that was a really good deal. And. And like I said, I hope they do it again from time to time. You know, it's kind of like a. A throwback to when Carvin used to do, you know, parts and kits and stuff. And I kind of miss those days. But, you know, I understand, you know, Carvin and Kiesel are much different companies, you know, obviously sharing the history of the employees and the designs. But, I mean, they are different companies, obviously. Carven, of course, was a much larger company with much bigger. Well, bigger facility. But most importantly, it could do stuff like that. And the Kiesel guys are just not really set up for it, because anytime they do stuff like that, they're dividing up their employees. Like, their employees aren't working on other things. So they can do limited runs to keep the, you know, the employees busy when they have slower sales times. But. But I can imagine it gets tricky when they start getting backlogged. No one wants to, you know, they. No one wants to be building guitar kits on the cheap. And I know. I understand it's $1,000, not cheap, but you understand, comparatively speaking, to two 3000 $4,000 guitars and putting those out with your employees, putting those out by while people are waiting for their guitars to be finished. So I think that's why they'll parcel Mountain periodically. You know, once or twice a year. I'm sorry, once a year maybe. And that's it. Chris Goodwin, what's up? He says, hey, I got my Zeus acoustic last Sunday. I really love it. Feels great to play, and it sounds huge plugged in. I love my Zeus acoustic. Obviously, I think you bought yours because you heard me play it. That thing has been a nightmare. Everybody comes over and Hears my Zeus acoustic, they end up buying one. I'm like, wow, I need to get commission or something. Something. It would be nice. But no, no. All kidding aside, I'm glad you like it. I love mine. I play it all the time. And then Slingin Simfield singing. Singing. Not no S singing. Slim Field says switched to sgs from Strats. I missed the single coil neck position options for single coil in the SG neck. Dylan talks tone enduro. Any good thoughts in general? Thanks. I don't know anything about the Enduro pickup. I don't even know what it is. I'm assuming It's a. A P90 sized humbucker, right? It's a humbucker size P90. So my suggestion would be to put a humbucker size P90 in the neck. That's the big fix for the guitar. And then yeah, if whatever your brand is that you prefer and a pickup that you like, I would give that a try. So yeah, it's. I don't really, I don't have, I don't have a passionate, you know, pitch for the brand. I want you to go with like, hey, go with this brand. If you like Dylan's, go with Dylan's or if you like, you know, supporting that his company. Support his company and do that. I don't know if you know necessarily everybody's going to be a little bit different but no one's going to be low quality versus high quality, which is important. It's not like I'm saying, hey, there's a better option out there. There's just different flavors but not different really overall different qualities. Okay, this is from Seth. I don't know. I'm gonna say Seth. Okay, there's just a lot and then it's 7332. And then there's. There's a lot in there. Seth there Ford 7332 says but thank you for the super chat. I should say it says, hey Phil, my associate. Specific years, periods with Particular guitar models, brands. 1954-19 Strat, 58, 59 Les Paul, 80 Charvel, Jacksons. What do you think are the modern equivalent? 2000, 2000s. 2020 silver sky. Okay, so I'm gonna boil down your question why I think's going on. You're saying when you think of like this, the 54 Strat, the 58, 59 Les Paul, the 80 charvels, iconic instruments. What are the modern equivalents to that? 2000, 2010s, 2020s is the silver Sky. I don't know, here's what's different, okay? The modern equivalents are tricky because what makes those guitars good were the artists in the albums that were used. So 54 strat, you know. You know, you see, when you think of 54 Strat, I think, like Buddy Holly, you know, something like that, right? And 59 Les Paul, you seem same thing, right? You think of these artists. Same with 80 Charvels and Jacksons, you think of the artists, you know, you think of a Charvel, you're thinking Eddie Van Halen, you know. You know, you think of Jackson, you think in Randy Rhodes, I mean, there are iconic players with iconic albums that make these guitars iconic. So the question is, in the 2000s, 2000s and 2000s, what are the iconic guitars? Well, those iconic guitars are missing from those iconic albums. So the question I would ask you back, and anybody here, is what albums 2000, 2010, 2020s are so iconic? What? Guitar players are so iconic that their albums are, you know, gonna change somebody forever? And again, younger people are gonna have a much different, you know, obviously opinion of this, of course, but that's the way I look at that. I don't think of the guitar itself. I think guitars are pretty much not important. It's the players that made them important. You know, without Hendrix, do you care about a Strat? I mean, you could say yeah, because of Jeff Beck. Yeah, because of Clapton. Right? That's my whole point is I think artists make the guitars important. And even more so important is the albums that they're on. And that's where that's what moves that forward. So I once. I once was talking to the Paul R. Smith guys. Paul R. Smith. This is like 2009. And I was talking about the fact that this is my philosophy, right? That. That people don't care about the guitar. They don't care about. They don't even care about the artist. They care about the song. The song is everything. Think of this. Everything is for the song in service of the song. The artist is to there to make the song. The guitar is there to make the song. The amp is there to make the song. Everything is there for the song. Without a song, who gives a crap about any of this? If you saw a guy walking down the street or a gal walking down the street, and you're like, oh, they're really good at guitar. You're like, cool, right? It's the song that makes it amazing. And so Talking to the PRS guys, 2009, I said, you know, that's My theory. And then, therefore, if the song is the thing that's important, then why we care about an artist is the same. And I love this analogy. I've used it many times. I'm at a restaurant. The food is amazing. And you're like, I'd like to say thank you to the chef. And the chef comes out, and you say, hey, this was an amazing meal. I want to thank you. Now think about this. I didn't give a cr. A rat's ass about the chef 20 minutes before I got there, right? But this meal, I got to know who made this meal. It's so good. And they come in, and I go, this meal is amazing. And now I care about this person because of what they've created. And then in that discussion, they say, oh, I use a Japanese knife and a special pan, and I sear the butter this way. And I use the unsalted butter, not the salted butter. And I get the tomatoes down the street at the. You know, at the farmer's market. And now every. All those ingredients matter to me. Everything now matters because it's in service of this meal. You know, it's connected. And I think that's how a song works. I love this song. So who created this song? This guitar player. I really love this guitar player. What does this guitar player use? He plays a Strat or he plays Les Paul. I keep saying he, but you understand what I mean. She plays an Ibanez. You know, she uses this pedal. And now that's where the passion, the drive, that's where the gear acquisition nuts comes from, is this. You know, you're just. You're. You're connected to it. So. So anyways, and I think without that element, no guitars are the iconic 59 Les Paul, the 64, 54 Strat, the 62 Strat, whatever you want to say, right? That's what they're all missing. Here's a good example. Here's a really great example. A Parker guitar. What I can name. I can name two or three artists that I absolutely love. Adrian Blue. And then I just lost the other one, which is actually my favorite one, which is why I have a white one. What's wrong with me? From Jane's Addiction? I'm spacing it. See how that works? I'll think of it. I love these guitar players, but I'm not even sure they use them in any of their actual recordings, right? Dave Navarro. But see, it come to my head. Dave Navarro. I like. I have a white Parker fly because Dave Navarro had a white Parker fly. And I just loved it. And I. And I like. I like the way he plays. And I like. You know, when he was with the Chili Peppers, I liked him when he was with Jane's Addiction. And here's the funny part. I don't know if they actually. He used the guitar in the albums, and that would be a much different feeling because then that's. That really connects it. That's a good way to segue into the Guitar of the Week. Talking about a guitar player. What a. What a great way. Thanks for the. What do you call that? The tee up. This week's Guitar of the week is exactly what I'm talking about. It's a guitar that actually. And I couldn't have planned this. Okay, I'm sorry. I couldn't plan this. This guitar actually is what I'm saying. And a lot of you are going to be offended because of how I'm going to say this, but that's fine. You'll get over it. We'll all be friends by next Friday anyways. Today's Guitar of the Week. It's a Keisel. No, I'm just kidding. It's a Music Man Axis in purple. Okay. Look at that. Is that beautiful, right? Do we need to go to side camera on this? A little bit of. Look at that. Look at that beautiful top. Does that. Does that just gorgeous. Got the beautiful burl neck, right? This one's in 1996. And so why is this connecting to what I'm saying? Well, here's the issue, okay? Eddie Van Halen is important to so many of us in so many ways, okay? And a lot of you. This is why I don't mean to offend you, but I was talking about when we were talking about last week about Ozzy passing away, which has made me want to pull this guitar out for this Guitar of the week. And it'll make sense in a second. Why the Ozzy connection? I was talking about how Ozzy had reinvented himself three times, you know, through the Black Sabbath, through, you know, through with Randy Rhodes, and then obviously, you know, just all the other guitar players past that, you know, just keep reinventing himself. And I think Eddie Van Halen, for second idea of that, you know, you're either a Roth fan or you're a Hagar fan. And I. I mean no disrespect, because it always seems to upset Halen fans when I'm like, I'm a Hagar fan. But not for the reason that everybody says. It's not that I don't like Roth. I love Roth. But this. This. No joke. This is my Eddie Van Halen. This is how I knew Eddie Van Halen. For me, I'm sorry, I don't. I didn't think it was gonna be so shiny. Let me go the slide camera on this. This is my Eddie Van Halen. This is the album cover. Just reflect. You know what I'm gonna try? I have to try a different camera again. Let's try a camera over here. How about that? We'll do this one. Look at that. See? Finally, I knew I kept switching cameras. Just hiding behind it now. Okay, so this is my Eddie Van Halen. And this is when I was starting to play guitar, and I was like, wow, Eddie Van Halen. That's the guy the older kids liked, right? That's the. That's Eddie. You know, I. Like. I've said this before. I said. A long time ago, my first experience was with Steve. I. Not Eddie Van Halen. Like, when I hear. When I knew guitar and I knew guitar playing is my first experience is with, oh, Steve. I. That guy's crazy good. And then somebody goes, listen to Eddie Van Halen. And I'm like, well, of course, everybody knows Eddie Van Halen, but I never listened to him as a guitar player. I listened to him as a guitar player, and I go, oh, yeah, but he's not making his guitar talk. He's not going, you know, the. Steve I think was just crazy to me with no context of feel and emotion yet. Because I'm just a dumb kid. All I think is like, this is the Olympics or something, and Steve Vai is faster. So therefore, how could somebody say Halen's better than vi? That's just dumb. But then Van Halen releases another album, and it's now with this, you know, Music man, and I get the album. And I go, I love this album. This is great, right? This is some. This is my. This is my Van Halen now, right? I mean, I've been listening to Van Halen as a kid growing up. But, I mean, now it's the time for me. I've been playing. I'm playing guitar now, and I'm hearing Van Halen, and I saw the COVID And of course, that's why the purple axis stuck in my head. By the way, he did the ad for the red one. So to me, it was always the purple or the red axis. And so I was like, I gotta have a purple one one day. And these things got so stupidly overpriced. And I don't know if you know anything about the purple ones. They all. A lot of them faded and they greened out. We had one at the store once in the headstocks. A lot of these. The headstocks. This one's even a little faded a little bit. Very little, though. And I had one at the store where the headstock was actually green. And somebody would come in the store and go, because it's used. And they're like, why is it got a green headstock and a purple body? I'm like, they fade. They faded out. And it does not green. It like, it went to black. So this has a black back, basswood body, maple cap, and two special Eddie Van Halen pickups. And this one's a really cool story. I don't know if you know this, but this neck pickup, this specific DiMargio neck pickup, has a patent, and the patent is called the air gap. And Larry DiMargio told me the story. So that's how I know it's true, because he told me why they filed. I think it was him and Steve Blucher. They. They filed the patent for this when they were making the guitar. The story he told me goes like this. He said. He said when they were making the pickups for this guitar, they brought him some prototypes. And they. They had this pickup for the bridge and a tone zone. And, you know, they didn't have, you know, the tone zone hadn't come out yet, but they. That's the two that they narrowed it down to. And they had Eddie play them and. And they said, which one you like? And Eddie says, oh, I don't know which one I like. And he goes, Larry DiMargio said. Steve Lukather was there. And Steve goes, eddie, you like that one? And then said. He goes, okay, I'll take that one. Which was the one that wasn't the tone zone. So the tone zone was the. The bridge pickup that Eddie turned down. So they turned that into a pickup they could sell. Then they. They made they. He approved the two pickups, but the problem was when he went on stage and he was touring and they were trying the prototype, the drill kept demagnetizing the neck pickup. So they didn't know what to do. So they came with this idea to create a small gap. There's a small gap. They call it air gap. Small gap between the magnet and the slugs and screws so that they can. Magnet. There's magnet. I guess the magnetic energy gets to the posts but doesn't physically touch them so that it won't become demagnetized from the drill. I thought that was really crazy, right? And so that's why they did that. And then something. If you want to know if you buy an Axis today, it has the very same pickups they had originally with Eddie. The deal was when Eddie left Music man and went to Peavey. They called Larry DiMargio and said, hey, we need you to design some pickups from Peavey. And he said, I'd love to. And they said, but you're going to have to stop selling pickups to Music Man. And Larry said, here's the problem. I didn't make a deal with Eddie and you guys. I made a deal with Musicman, and I'm not going to violate the agreement. So he lost the deal. That's why he wasn't with pb. But he kept selling the pickups to Music Man. So that's. That is why it still has the original pickup. So this has the same pickups that are in the. The original access that Eddie Van Halen was playing, which had the switch tip or the three way switch up there, which I wish that they would have. I. I know they moved it, but man, Music man put it back where Eddie had it. That was a better spot. So pretty cool. This is what I call a bath scale victim. If you don't know what that is, I'm going to share it with you guys now. If you don't know what a bath scale victim is, it's when people on the Internet weigh their guitars, which. Please stop doing this with their bath scale. So when I bought this guitar, the guy said, hey, it's 7 pounds, 1 ounces. I'm like, yeah, that's great. Nice and light. It's going to feel amazing. I got the guitar. Guess What? It was 7 pounds, like 9 ounces, 10 ounces, something like that. And I go, huh? And let me tell you what happens. You guys won't. You're cheap. You cheap bastards. You won't buy. You could buy a scale on Amazon. Get a day scale. Get a fish. Look, if you're that cheap, get a fish scale, okay? Put something like some. Some shrink tubing over the hook, right? The luggage scale is the best. I have luggage scales, too. Just get a scale. Get a nice scale. These are cheap and easy. The whole point is this is portable. Get yourself a nice scale so you can weigh a guitar if you want to know what a guitar weighs. But what I found is happened to me now. This is the second time this has happened to me personally when I bought a guitar I get the guitar, and the guitar is heavier than the person said. And then if you go, hey, you know, I'm being nice, like, I'm keeping the guitar. I love it. But you say, you know, you weighed the guitar wrong. It's always the same answer. It's like, well, I weighed myself with the guitar, and then I put the guitar and I weighed myself, and that was the difference. I'm like, oh, God, wait, wait, who's making me laugh? Somebody says, Brian says, Phil just has a random fish scale on his desk. Actually, you know what? It's here because I had to confirm. I wanted to confirm the weight of the guitar. Like I said, this is. This is what I use for a portable in my. In my. My portable toolbox. So anyways, so the bass scale victim. So that's what that is. But still, it's under eight pounds, and, you know, it looks great. And they added the D tuna in purple, which I thought was a nice touch. And it had the original case and original paperwork. I, I looks like I, I can't tell you when because I don't know when and stuff, but it looks like I'll be going to the Music Man Factory. And I sent a picture of this to the guys that meet Music man, and they were like, oh, yeah, that's a good year. Oh, my God. So they're very excited, too. So let's play this thing. I'm going to be running it through my magnetone, and I have some pedals here. I have a boost pedal, and I have an EQ pedal that lets me clean up the amp. And I'm actually running delay and reverb through my podcasting mixer here, so it's just a lot easier for me to do that. And I have it mic'd up with a Sennheiser E609. Move back so you guys can see this stuff. And let's. Hold on a second. Let's do that. Okay. I just want to make sure everything's working the way it should. Let's clean that up. Okay, so we'll do a quick little demo of the guitar, and then. I don't know. Then if you have questions about the guitar, you can ask me. All right? And I'll play a little. I have a little cool little intro now. I want to thank. Real quick, before I get started, I want to thank the Academy. I want to thank Andy Murray again for the jingle for the Guitar of the Week jingle that we were using. I'm trying to use it anytime I can. I think I got it all figured out now where I can use it. So let's go ahead and do it. Let's switch over. So first the jingle, then some guitar playing. Okay, hold on. Let me have my mic. I got all my buttons. It's like a little space station here. Here we go. Now it's time for Guitar of the Week. No, your gear ain't just for geeks. So here's the guitar of the week. Okay, so what I'll do is I'll start with the clean sound, and I'm going to start with the two humbuckers, and then we'll go to the neck pickup. So let's start with two humbuckers. Okay, let's go ahead and switch cameras here. Okay, so couple things. Let me move my chair. Okay, so a couple things that are important. What made me think of this was obviously the. Well didn't. Now it ties in perfectly to the whole, you know, this guitar means something to me because that album means something to me. So a little. Little funny story. Which is sometimes funny because it's. You know, I always feel like now I used to listen to, you know, like Howard Stern or whatever, those DJs from back in the day on when I'm driving to work and they would say how weird it is to talk about their lives in front of people and their friends and relatives, hear their stories now. And now I have have to deal with that. Funny story for me was when, when, when For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge came out the Eddie Van Halen album, I was in a. You know, I was a young, young man, very in love with guitar and music, probably overly so. And I remember I started dating this girl and she was. She wasn't. Let's just say she didn't like the album. She didn't like what the album meant and what it said, and she didn't like the album. And so I. I'd like to tell you that I broke up with her over the album, but I did. What's even worse, I just stopped talking to her. Just like, faded away. I was like, wow, you don't love a Van Halen album we like. I just like, oh, can't be around that negativity in my life. So, like, I said, this guitar specifically, more so than the PB Wolfgang, which I think is amazing, and new Wolfgangs, which I also think are amazing. This one particularly speaks to me for the thing I told you about. This was a guitar that when I hear it, I play it. It's like, wow. It was like that time, you know, it's funny as I was. You know, I put new strings on it today and set it up because I knew I was gonna be playing it for you guys. And I was thinking about this today, going on a funny, known, funny note. Would you. Would it make you laugh? I was thinking this funny story in my head. I was thinking, what would happen if Eddie Van Halen. So. So the thing that I remember Larry Dimargio told me that made me laugh the most was before he went to see that he got to see the prototype of this. Okay. Obviously, because they were working on with Eddie. And he said that Scott Ball or Sterling Ball? Sterling Ball told him, yeah, we're making a guitar for Meddy. We're gonna let you see the prototype. And he goes, okay. And he goes. He goes, it looks like a telly. And then I remember Larry goes, it looks like a telly. And he goes, yeah, it's like a telly. Unless Paul had a baby, something like that. And. And then he saw it. And I was thinking to myself, when I was thinking that story, restringing the guitar today, I was thinking, you know, could you imagine if Eddie Van Halen, like John Mayer and the Silver sky came out with this guitar today in social media? Do you think this would have gone over well? Anyone gotta. Anyone got an opinion on that? Like, does you think that Eddie the mighty Eddie Van Halen, do you think if he never. Instead of he making this in the 90s, he made this in today's social media climate and we all know him for, you know, his super Strats. And he goes, hey, here's my new guitar. And it looks like this. Like it. Right? You think it would have gone over well? You think people would have been. Or do you think they would have reacted to it the way they react to the Herman Lee guitar and the majesty and silver sky? It's. It just made me laugh. I was. I was actually picturing like the troll comments in my head. Right? Like, what would they say? Because we've all seen all the troll comments all the time for everything. You could just know this is gonna. This guitar would not go over well. How can the greatest 80s rocker guitar player of all time play this? And especially if you think about. Right. The purple one, I think came later. The first one was the. The. The, like amber, which is like a yellow and then the red. Yeah. Brian says it was a bold move. It is. If you think about it at the time. You don't think about it really, but it was a crazy move. This guitar just does not like it's funny how, you know, thank God Guitar World was so iconic because you see this and you go, well, of course this is Eddie's new guitar. So of course it is. But that guitar is not like an Eddie guitar was. And I remember at the time, it was kind of shocking when it came out. A lot of people are like, that was kind of weird, right? But. But, yeah, strange. Strange guitar, right? But very cool. And like I said, they got crazy. The purple ones are sometimes super hard to find in good condition and the prices get really ridiculous. And I just, you know, was one of those guitars that just happened to find its way. As I always tell you guys all the time, you know, if you wait, you have to wait, you know, and there's always somebody getting rid of a guitar. It's just the thing, man. That's the. So as much as everybody wants a new guitar, somebody always wants to get rid of guitar. The. There used to be a saying. They used to say it about women, right? I'm not gonna say the women version, but you'll understand what I'm saying in a second when I say guitar. For every great guitar, there's a guitar player sick of playing it, right? That's the. That's really the way you think of this, right? Every time you see a great guitar, there's somebody who has the guitars like other. Sick, sick of it. So, like, you know, so there's always a new guitar coming down. Let's see. Off offbeat bass gear says Music man had the initial design, then PV and then Fender. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Music man was definitely the initial design and theirs is slightly different. You know, you kind of always think of them, all three, especially the Wolfgang PV and the Wolfgang now looking. All three looking similar. But if you really look at the three, the Music man is different. It does look different from those other two. It is more Telecaster, less polish. And the other ones do have more of a double cut kind of vibe and a little bit different. So there's a little bit different to it. What I will tell you, and I've told you guys as many times before, this, though, has the smallest neck. So it's a really tiny neck that gets a little strange to get used to. So that's the different thing about it. But. So there's the guitar of the week. It's. Anything else. Think about this. Oh. So I'm gonna tell you. Okay. I gotta. I gotta tell you the best part. I gotta. The best part, right? This guitar was very expensive when it came out. They're Expensive now, but it was expensive when it came out. Like, this wasn't an affordable guitar when it came out. If you guys remember, anyone could look it up on the Internet when they came out, what they were. I kind of remember them being like $2,000. That sounds about right. In the early 90s when they came out, like $2,000. Here's. Here's what the troll comment would be. You know this, right? Okay. Eddie Van Halen comes out with this guitar now in social media. The first comment. I'm predicting the first troll comment. I want to see how much you guys agree with me. The first troll comment is $2,000, and it's Basswood. I can get a Harley bit with basswood. No, my Harley Benton has mahogany. That's what it would have been, right? Am I right? It's right, right. This is exactly what the basswood. Little fun. Last fun fact. Oh, thank you. Horse head book ends said it was $2,359.95. Yes. They would have said so. 2K. So probably 5K now. So you can imagine this guitar, 5K now, Eddie Van Halen, and somebody goes $5,000 and it's Basswood. Right. And that would definitely be the thing they would say. What's funny, though, I was going to tell you. The fun fact is Eddie Van Halen. A little weird connection here. Eddie Van Halen and John sir both have said publicly many times that they think the best wood combination is a basswood body with a. With a maple cap. So a little interesting thing. Yeah. Quilted maple says sir uses basswood. Yeah. Because that reason. Because John sir has said the same thing that they think that's the perfect tone wood combination for those that want to spin out because I said the word tonewood. Let's see, Steve says, what's wrong with basswood? Well, you know, I think it's because it's the same thing everybody says about everything that's expensive. They're like, how could they make this expensive thing but not use the most expensive components? You know, it's. It's just a thing, you know, I'm not saying anyone's wrong for thinking that. I just, like I said, I just like the I thinking about the hilarious comments. And then Blue sky said, yeah, I heard sir say that in an interview. Yeah, he said it many times. This is something, I think. Okay, let's go. Let's move on. We've. We've covered guitar of the week. Let's move on to something fun. Funner. That was fun. Let's find Something funner that's funnier. Okay, okay, real quick, Richard says, hey, can I buy that? Rick and Pocker660 behind you. No, you can't. There's a video coming out with that guitar soon. So, Richard, good news is there'll be a good video, if you're curious. As you know, it's one of the things I, I've been focused on the channel about doing is doing content that's outside of the whole, hey, they sent every asshole youtuber one of these this week kind of content. Hey, and I, by the way, I'm including myself in that, right? I know we all sick of it. I'm sick of making it. They're sick of making it. You're sick of watching it. It's how we pay the bills, just how it goes. But, you know, trying to create something interesting and unique is the benefit of doing that. You know, when a company's like, hey, we want you to do this content this week, you're like, okay, cool. Then I take that money and I make content. I think that is more interesting, even more so than, than that. And actually, if you guys haven't noticed, I'm kind of secretly planting some seeds here just because I wanted to be fun. And I really appreciate you guys that hang out for the Friday shows for loyalty. There's two guitars on the wall. Yeah, I'm just looking around. There's two guitars on the wall today that are future videos that are very unique guitars and, and for fun, some fun and unique videos. So I'm not going to tell you what they are so you can throw guesses out, but we have Nick Winning7852 says, hey Phil, thanks for the advice. A couple weeks ago, back about road worn Strat and the story of your mom's BMW. I'm now holding a. Oh, I'm holding out for the rosewood over the maple. Yeah, good for you. See thing hold, hold out. You know, if you have a nice guitar already, play your nice guitar, enjoy it and, and when you get the next one, you'll appreciate it so much more. You know, this is one of those discussions I, I like to constantly, constantly have on the channel because one of the things that I, I hate about, you know, that, oh, I love that I get to do this for a living, but I hate the fact that sometimes people are like, oh, he's constantly getting a guitar. And I'm like, well, sometimes it just looks that way. Yeah, I'm getting guitar sometimes personally because I'm a, an addict to guitars. But A lot of stuff is just for the channel. And it churns. It's. Its purpose is to come and go, to make content. So it's an. It's a device of content creation. And so that's why I like to get, you know, tell you guys to help focus you guys in. It's like, it's not as crazy as it looks. So, you know, so get what you want. It's what's important. By faith, 747 says I have my first reverb return request. Okay, so you're sold something and somebody's requesting return. Said item was like, new and worked great. Now person says it's not working. Will this be covered by the shipping insurance? Okay, so this is very important to your question because this came up a couple weeks ago, and I didn't really understand what everybody's saying. So on reverb. Let's go to reverb. And this is also true with the gear exchange. So, you know, okay, if you want to use them as well. I don't know how to get to the screen because I don't know, because I don't have anything listed or anything. Let me go to listings. I don't have any listings. Let me go to sold items in. In your reverb. Maybe I can sell a fake piece of gear real quick. Start a thing from scratch. Oh, hey, I'll just pick an item. It'll let me sell it. Continue. Upload a picture. It's gonna be very generic. Upload. I'm just trying to get past screens. I just want to share with you guys. I'm saying it's mint. I'll type here some bunch of letters. Continue. Okay, the price will say $972, because that's what it's suggesting. I should be showing you all this, but there's nothing really to show you. Okay, here's the important part. This is it. Okay, so when you go here. So I made up a listing. So you guys know what I did is I picked an item, and I picked an item. There it is. I put in a. I put a synergy. Send 20, because, you know, that's what it told me to sell it for and stuff. So now we want to go ahead and continue to the shipping. Okay, now here's shipping. This is very important. So when you hit shipping, you want to hit shipping. Okay? And then you want to go to offer free shipping. You can do that. More shipping options. You can set a flat rate. Okay, so I'm just gonna assume you set a flat rate. Okay. Shipping rate, we'll say, you know, $100. I'm just. Or let's say, you know, yeah, 50 bucks. 50 bucks. And then. Does it do it now? No, see, it won't help us because it's when we. It's when we buy a label. So it's not gonna help us. When you buy. This is what sucks. When you buy a label from Reverb, there's a tab you have to click that's going to give you additional insurance. This is actually buyer's protection insurance. It's a level above the shipping damage insurance, so that when you have an issue like this, you can go through revert. What I can tell you, because I obviously did a very public video where somebody and I had the same issue. Somebody said, hey, this isn't as you described, and yada, yada, yada. And what I did in the video, which is why the video is called I made a mistake, I refunded their money, had them send it back and refunded their money. What I should have done is contact Reverb. So in this case, this is the same thing. You need to do whatever the complaint is from the buyer, contact Reverb. Okay? So that's because if you. Especially if you need. Especially if you paid for the buyer's protection insurance. So first things, everybody. If you're going to sell stuff, especially with today's day, Day and age, you definitely want to pay for the extra insurance. It's going to pay its way. Don't be a cheap. Like I said, don't cheap out anymore. When. When selling stuff. Look, the problem, we all know is this. When you. When people are buying, you know, be the buyer, because you're the buyer, too. Be the buyer for a second. When you're buying something, you're paying shipping, you're paying sales tax. You know, you're waiting for it. And you know it's to them, to. To you. You're like, oh, I paid $800 for this. I'm selling some for six. I'm losing 600 bucks to them. They're like, I'm paying 600 plus shipping, plus, you know, tax. This is really expensive. And I'm not saying they're not doing anything right or wrong. I'm just saying that's the way you have to think of it. But you definitely want to double box when you can pad up everything you can and buy that extra insurance. And then no matter what, this is the important part. No matter whether you did or not. So if you look now and you Go, damn it. I didn't contact Reverb anyways. Look, there's a lot of things I don't like about Reverb. I critique that. There's a lot of things I don't like about Sweetwater Guitar center, but a lot of things, right. I have a lot of. Like all of us, there's no. Nothing's perfect. But just because I point out some negatives. There are positives. Reverb is pretty good at taking care of customers. So go ahead and try to do that first and see what they say. I will tell you what I've learned on Reverb that's happening and that I've learned selling some stuff over the last year. And this is very particular in the last year. And it's obviously was always true, but more so this last year, a lot of times, just because I'm done, when I want to sell something, I'm just like, I just want it to go away. I don't want to come back. So I'm just like, all sales final, no returns. I'm not giving a seven day return window anymore. What I learned from that, selling a bunch of gear is that when you put no returns, they tell they that's what they do to get around that. They go, oh, it wasn't as described or it's defective. And then you're like, oh, well, ironically, the one loophole that lets you return it is what happened. Okay, so I've kind of just decided that I got to go back to the seven day return again. Like I, you know, or three days, whatever. You got to give them some time to return it. And then that way it's actually better for you because then you can say, okay, you're gonna pay to ship it back. If you just aren't returning it because you don't want it, you pay to ship it back. I know, it sucks. And that's why, like I said, we're hoping there's a better system to come down the road. But right now, between Facebook Marketplace and you know, and trading into stores and Reverb and Gear Exchange, there's really not a lot of great choices anymore. You know, it's what we got. It's not what it was. It'll never be what it was. And yeah, damn, it's just tough. It's tough. And I told you guys, I'm not faultless. But you know, like, I pointed out 600 positive five stars and I'm like, yeah. And I feel like on Reverb, half the time I had a problem 50% of the time I'm like, that's insane. You sell six things and three people have problems. You're like, either I'm really bad at something, right, or there's something going on. And again, I could say, oh, I'm perfect. And I'm not implying that, but I'm also like, well, I'm not screwing people over, obviously. Why would I pick now? I picked, like, I was always good to people, selling them something and fair and honest. And then I got really public with a Persona, which actually makes it worse now. And now this is when I'm gonna pull crap. Like, it's just weird. But so, yeah, so definitely check your reverb for the insurance. And. And then Jeremy says, reverb saved me from a scam. No mess, no messing about. Only time. Yeah, I. I've had reverb now protect me two times with issues, and I don't even want to call them scams because I, you know, like you. I'm pretty sure it was, but who knows? But both times they protected me, and I was like, oh, okay, good. That's good. Well, that's why I paid for that. So. But what I've learned is, you know how they. It's weird. Is. And this is why I. Like I said, here's my fault with reverb. They want to almost automatically make you. You have to uncheck the whole Paying them to. To put your. You know, to promote your sale, but you have to check to get protected. And I'm like, see, this is funny. Like, I, you know, so you. That's what I'm saying. You can go by and not get protected. So somebody's asking about the Moon Pie. Oh, okay. Moon Pie guitar. The Moon Pie guitars are the only safe bet. Yeah, they are. By the way, we're still selling Moon Pie shirts. So if anyone's interested in Moon Pie shirts, they're good till August 11th. You can get one if you want to have one. And then who knows? Maybe there'll be something cool in the future that makes your shirt really cool. That just sounded so hokey. Not really good at selling the merch. All right, all right. Nick winning. Seven eight. What about all you guys? 78, 52. There's a bunch of 70. Okay. Nick winning. 70 is okay. 7852 says. I found a 2012 USA 62 vintage hot rod Strat. Good price, similar to a made Mexico road warn. Owner says frets need work due to two years. How likely is it that they need replacing rather than crowning? How do they compare to Maine, Mexico, Rosewood? This really tough question. The most important part of the question is I'm not looking at the frets, and so anything after that is just a guess. So I can't give you a great answer. You know, the reality is this, if the frets are medium jumbo, if they're taller, you can get two leveling crowns for sure out of a neck and steel for a party. Good. The third one, you're gonna really start noticing those frets are really low now. And so if it's had one already, you're on the second one, and it could start feeling not great or it could feel fine, and the next one's gonna feel great. But also it depends on how tall the frets are and how good the person was that was leveling. Because, you know, not all leveling is created equal, which is a good segue to something we're going to talk about in a second with futures, workmanship and craftsmanship. And so I tend to stay away from any guitars that I buy use that say that they have fretwear or anything like that. I just don't do it because I know I can do the work. But in most cases, I'm going to end up refreading the guitar. And so that's just an afternoon I don't want to spend. And if you don't have the ability to do it, it's going to be very expensive for you. So think about that. Factor that in. So just my two cents. Okay, so this segues the craftsmanship, workmanship segues into this topic question that came in. I got a bunch of them, and it was asking if I had seen the KTH video. So kdh, the channel, did a video talking about Jackson's neck Through deception. And this was. I had to, for the bonus podcast, watch it, because everybody's like, hey, will you watch it? And then, you know, talk about it. And I thought, okay, I'll talk about on the main channel, and then we'll talk about a little bit more tomorrow, too. So let me share with you real quick. This is it somewhere right there. Oh, look at there. Here he is. He's like, wtf? Which means we try freaking next. I don't know. Anyways, I'm kidding. So he did this video, obviously, five days ago, Jackson's Neck Through Deception, in which he breaks down that Jackson has a new way of talking about necks. Neck Throughs. That's not. Not good. So I'm gonna give you guys the short version of the. Of the video. You can also watch his full version if you'd like. But and I definitely recommend that short version is, is that Jackson is doing a new construction style of making a neck through. So if you're not familiar with a neck through is a neck through guitar means that technically the neck, in other words, from the back of the body to the headstock, is one piece of wood. Now, that is not entirely true, but let's start there for a second. So a neck through guitar. Okay, so you have a bolt on neck. We know what that means. They screw on a neck, a set neck, which they glue it in, and then we have a neck through. It's one piece. Now, what's interesting is I own a couple neck throughs. All my neck throughs are actually, actually one piece necks. They're all one piece neck through guitars. Okay. That is not technically how we as an industry describe a neck through anymore. Neck throughs can be multiple pieces. And so a perfect example this is to show you on the Kiesel site, because when it comes to net throughs, people who are making net throughs right now are probably Jackson, you have Jackson, you have espltd, you have Schecter, does some. You have Kiesel, you have. I'm missing one. Who am I missing? B.C. rich, of course. All right, so let's find a neck through and then we'll discuss this, because this is where it gets a little weird. And if you don't know this information. And this is why I thought this question would be interesting, because I think KDH had a really interesting take on the subject, but it was minus that. I've been to 35 factories around the world. Obviously, Cortec will be number 36. So let me give you the insight of what I've observed at those factories and shops around the world. And we'll go this way. So I picked a guitar. This is an actual guitar I own. So we'll keep this easy. We're gonna go here and we're gonna see. This is a neck through. So this is a true neck through. This is one piece of wood. Let me move that there for you. So, guys, one piece of wood that goes from the top of the guitar to the bottom as I'm showing you right here. And if you go to the neck options, Kiesel does something strange. And if you don't understand Keisel or some of the companies, that this will confuse you with a lot. So we go to the neck wood. Okay? One piece, three piece, five piece, seven piece. Okay, so this is the one piece it's one piece of maple or you can get mahogany. Interesting enough, I have this guitar and mine is a one piece mahogany neck. Now it's $100 more for mahogany. So we'll just go back to maple. Maple is free of charge. Doesn't charge you anything additional to the guitar. The three piece. The three piece. Now it adds. In fact, let me make this easier for you guys to see, okay? The three piece is $150 to $200. So it's more. Three pieces more, five pieces, even more. 250 bucks. What? Seven pieces, even more, $400. Let's look at that. So multiple piece next. Which by the way, I guess Ibanez does next row, especially on base and stuff as well. But you get the idea. This is just great because we can actually illustrate this way. So multiple piece neck throughs cost more. And you're like, well, that doesn't make sense because here's why. Let's go here. Here's why it doesn't make sense because you're like, isn't it harder? Hasn't everybody heard it's harder to get one piece of good wood, right? Isn't it one? Yeah. Isn't it harder? Yes. Is it more expensive? Yes. Is one piece of wood that's straight and good, especially quarter sawn, more expensive than taking a bunch of strips of wood and cutting it and then gluing it sideways? Is the physical wood more expensive to do one piece? Yes, it is. But what you don't realize is, is that not everything is the material cost to the manufacturers. The labor cost and time costs actually have to be factored in. So the time it takes someone to glue up multiple pieces of wood on a neck and let that now that wood sit will add costs. And that cost sometimes, depending on how you look at it, can be way more than just buying a really nice piece of wood. Because think how easy that is. You just order wood and it shows up and you have one piece and you're going to make a neck out of it. Yeah, you paid more for that material, but you're not adding more time. Time is a big factor when you're trying to get so many guitars out the door effectively, especially expensive high end guitars. So that's a big factor in this. Okay. In his, in his video, he talks about the fact that basically Jackson is now doing this thing and I'll use this guitar as an example. What they're doing is they're taking a guitar and they're saying it's neck through. And what they do is they, they take this piece of the wood, the neck, and they glue on a scarf joint. Okay, so that's two pieces. And then they glue on a board here on this other part, and they inset in the body and they don't go all the way through the body. And that's why, like I said, you could watch this video if you want to watch more details about that in my mind, although I, I kind of see his point, I definitely do. I would argue that to the manufacturers, that's still three pieces of wood like we saw in that analogy. He even showed his keisel. Where the wood is glued is not really important. It's still somebody taking pieces of wood, gluing it up and like I said, clamping it, letting it sit. And then somebody has to sand that all down. You have to sand off all the edges of the glue and then prep the guitar and put it together. And so again, it's, it's not really a huge cost savings to do one piece of wood. In fact, I'd argue it's almost none. Then you have to also realize that a company like Jackson is so much bigger. You know, Fender and those companies are so much bigger than other companies. They're going to do a lot more volume than some of these smaller companies. And so they also have to contend with finding those really good one pieces, which gets a little more difficult in volume also. They also have to deal with stability. And the reality is this, and I use this example a lot, a laminate top acoustic is, is not as loud, is not as vibrant as a solid top acoustic, but it sure as hell is a lot durable because glue is a way more durable than wood. And that goes to a second part of what he was saying. He was saying, like with the scarf joint, he's like. He said that there's a saying, which he got it almost right. And again it's. I think this is sometimes. Maybe this is the problem with YouTube. Maybe I'm the problem. Guys like me who have been doing this for a long time, maybe we don't say it correctly. So maybe that's what happened. He said that people say, guitar builders and repair techs say that a scarf joint, a glued joint, is stronger than a non glued joint and therefore it's better in some cases. And he showed a lot of pictures. He had a lot. He had like three or four or five, whatever, good examples of where necks had broke. At the scarf joint. He goes, well, if the scarf joint's so good, why do they break at the Scarf joint. Well, he missed the one equation. It's because what we probably said, it's wrong. And I probably said it wrong to you over the years too, and I apologize if I did. It's not saying that a scarf joint won't crack. That's probably the big miss the misconception. If a guitar is glued. Okay, will the glue crack? Yeah, it can crack. The, the thing that you're missing, the thing that we're not missing to tell you is. But it usually doesn't. It's not, it won't, it's just. It doesn't usually. Right. So that's where I think it's confusing because we say, oh, it's stronger than the wood. And then you go, yeah, but it broke at the glue joint. Yeah, it did. But if you took 10 guitars without a scarf joint and 10 guitars with a scarf joint and pushed on them, you'd most likely see more of the non glued ones snap than the glued ones. So they will break. He is right to point out that, you know, if the scarf joint so great, why do they break? Well, it's great. And they do break. They just break a lot less than the other ways because the glue is going to be stronger because of the way. Because you have two different pieces of wood and the way they're glued up. Right. So it's an interesting thing. And I, and I understand what he was saying, but I thought, I thought I would do this and that's why I thought it would be fun. And I want to share something with you. I mentioned that. And this is where I think sometimes I really appreciate that we've built these communities out here on the Internet. I, I absolutely love it that we've all, we all get to watch, you know, Rick Beato and, and, and you know, I don't want to name a ton of channels. I probably should have, you know, thought of 20 channels. But you understand all the guitar channels, all the music channels, all the places where we get information now to see these resources. And I really think that's a great thing. And what's funny is, and that's why I take this very seriously. Like I said, I'm going to Indonesia next week to learn more about the biggest like, so you get to give you a concept. The Cortex factory makes 1 million more guitars a year than the Fender factory. So I've never seen a factory that big. That's why I'm going. I've seen a lot of factories, but I thought I would share something with you guys that's really Cool. That a lot of you have probably never seen. If you guys don't know, one of the. One of the most well known neck through guitars is a BC Rich. And the person who was involved with that at the time was a guy named Neil Moser. So if you guys don't know Neil Moser. Neil Moser is an amazing luthier. He makes amazing guitars to this day. And here's a little clip I'm going to share with you what Neil Moser thinks about neck through guitars. And I thought this might help and this is why I think maybe I need to go sometimes a little different way with some of you guys with some of this stuff. Because like I said, when I go, oh, I've been to 35 factories and shops around the world and I've shared a lot of that footage. But I have to admit I have hundreds of hours that I've never shared with anybody. So let me share this with you. Here is a clip I just want to share. When I think of these guitars, I think of the very first Nectarus.