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The know youw gear podcast. Hey everyone. Welcome to the Know youw Gear podcast for June. What are we at? June 5th. It's June 5th. June 5th. We've almost got half of 2026 done. I guess technically we do got half of 2026 done. Hope you guys had a fantastic week and want to talk about some guitar stuff. We hit two pretty big milestones in June and it's only June 5th. So the first one is if you know the Know youw Gear channel, it's our second sister channel. It hit 45,000 subscribers already, which is pretty crazy. We were hoping to hit 50,000 by December of this year. That was a hope and I definitely think we're in line to do that. It's we might do it sooner, but it most likely still might take most more time. But 45,000 is pretty amazing. The second thing is the Know your Gear podcast. Full episodes right here on YouTube. They're also on, you know, Spotify, itunes. All that on YouTube have crossed over 100 million views. So those seem like pretty epic things to share with you guys since that all has to do with you and nothing to do with us. So I just want to say thank you for both those huge milestones. So with that we're going to do Guitar of the Week and a this or that and maybe one in the same. I don't know. We'll see how that goes. And we got a lot of fun topics you guys have also put in. This one was from Marsh P. Who says with the exception of gimmick dime dive bombs. Gimmick dive bombs. Alright, I'll give it fair enough. Is there any real reason to own AA Floyd Rose? Two reasons. I mean, obviously. Look, stability and tuning is a big thing for Floyd Rose. Also I think the just the way the bridge is installed, the mass of the bridge and the system, it does seem to alter or change the sound of a guitar. So a little bit. I have owned guitars, exact models, exact woods, exact all this stuff with and without a Floyd Rose system. And I noticed that the Floyd Rose guitar had a little bit different sustaining properties and that's kind of more important. Like notice. I'm not saying it was bassier or brighter, it's just that you notice when you hit a string you just felt like the string had a different sustain quality to it, which I noticed. Another thing is some players like the spacing on the nut. In fact, you'll notice a lot of guitar players, especially from the 80s, who kind of gotten away from playing the type of stuff they Need a Floyd Rose for. They tend, they continue to use Floyd Rose's because they're so used to the nut spacing and just the way the neck feels. So with that nut. So there's, there's some, some, some thoughts there. What I always say is if you, if you like a guitar that has a Floyd, but you don't like Floyd, just block the bridge. You know, some people say why block something if you don't like it? My logic is because it's a, I, I, I did a video. I don't know if it's on the main channel. If it is not, I will put one on the main channel. It's a good way to segue to two things. I do live clinics for the patrons. So to say thank you for all the years the patrons have been supporting the channel. We used to have three tiers of patron members and there was really no reasoning for it other than just like a donation system. Like you could take $5 or $10 or $25. And that was just it. You were just a mega supporter or a regular supporter. A medium is like, you know, right Tall grande Venti supporters. And over the years I was so shocked and I'm still in to this day that we've had so many patrons for so long that we decided to put reasons behind the supporting the podcast. And so the five dollar tier, you get all the podcasts that you see here ad free. And you also get a bonus podcast. I do every month just for you and you guys just like this. But it's a small group. But, but then we added a tier. It's a $12 tier. A $12 tier is all those things I just said. But then you get a live clinic. It's like this, but it's in my, my repair shop. So it's got nine camera angles and all that stuff. That is tomorrow at 10am for those patrons watching this. Tomorrow at 10am Pacific Daylight Time, you can join live or just watch the rebroadcast. Keep in mind any of those tiers, you get to see all the backlog of that stuff too. And then the top tier is for this coffee hang that we do once a month where we all hang out on a zoom call now. And then of course everything below. And then there's some other features, but those are the main ones. But the main reason I'm sharing that now is I can't remember now if I did my blocking trick for the bridge on the patron side. But here's the thing I want to tell you tomorrow we're hoping to get some very important news that we've been talking about. And I know that's vague, but hold on. And that news is going to change the channel in another positive way. And it'll also allow me to free up some of the specialized repair lessons that we have just on Patreon. So what I want to do on Patreon now and what I've been going towards is, is I don't want to sell, like, hey, join my patron and get my lesson courses. I are, you know, repair lessons or repair maintenance stuff. I just want that to be free on YouTube. I want you to have all the information for free. Like I've been doing it mostly on, on YouTube for free. Anyways, what I want to sell you, I guess not sell you, but if you're supporting the podcast, I just want to give you my time. So you, you get to see a live clinic. You get to see a live podcast, the bonus one. You get to see a live hangout with me and, and, and, and on a zoom call. It's just, I'm giving you my time to say thank you for patron, the channel. So what I'm trying to say to your question is about blocking a Floyd. I have a video on how to, how to live with your Floyd. If you don't love it, it's a great video. At least I like it and you can watch that. But I will go in and if there is this extra video, I have a couple tips and tricks videos that will release to the public as well. Because like I said, we'll do the clinics and all the clinic archives for the patrons. But the, any of the single instruction stuff, I'll make sure that gets on YouTube so you guys can see that. What else? That's it. That's the end of your question. Let's go to the next question. The next question that I grabbed was this one's from mythical snow creature says, hey Phil, my uncle gave me his 98 Mexican Strat. It needs a refrat, but I have no attachment to this neck. Is it cheaper to buy a new Fender neck than pay someone to refrat it? Yes, currently. Now I would say yes. Let's double check because I feel like after this week, which we'll talk about, prices have just been a pretty hard. So I'm going to type in Fender neck here because I, and I'm, I'm gonna look and let's, let's share so you guys see what I'm seeing. Okay, ready? What are we looking at? I'm Trying to look at it says fender roasted neck. So 472. This is a satin roasted neck. Okay, just looking to see a prices here. 314 Fender Player Series fretless jazz neck. Okay. Fender American performer. So I know you got it made in Mexico. So I think we're looking for that. I'm looking. I don't know if I missed it. Oh, here's a classic series 70s for 314. I'm just trying to get the vibe of all the necks. It looks like. Yeah, you can get a Fender neck for about $315. I'm not seeing. Oh, here's a players two series neck $305. Okay, so here's the. I know you have a set of Strat but the Strat will be the same price as the. So it looks like you can buy a made in Mexico fender neck for $300. Couple things to know about the Fender aftermarket parts like the nex they are actually serialized. Okay so you have a serial number and they come with a warranty. So something to be aware of. You need to research and read what those warranties are. But just keep in mind it's not like a generic part. They actually put a serial number on it. It's pretty cool. And that's if you want to go with an actual Fender like you know, real Fender neck with a Fender logo. You can get a mighty mite or a warm off or whatever too. But you know you have a main Mexico strap. Might as well just put, put a Fender neck on it. And 300 bucks is what I would suggest you, you, you look at. Because I don't think you can get a reef rat for much less than that right now in today's market. I'm not familiar with your area A but I would imagine the cheapest good fret job you could probably get out there is 250 bucks. So maybe this is 50 bucks more for this neck. But however you know what you're dealing with so you know, you know you're getting a neck and you can get it from you know, something like Sweetwater or pretty much anybody sells that stuff, you know, guitars and will have it, your mom and pops will have it and you can go ahead and, and, and go ahead and find you know, somebody who has one in stock, so to speak. So let's see. Plump weasel says Ricky Hutter got a warm up neck and threw his Fender neck in the trash. I saw his video on that. You know, curious, I'm curious to see. You know it's one of those things. When he said that, you're like, I'd really like to have seen that neck. Because I'm like, how twisted was that neck? It's tough, it's tough because, you know, I'm sure a lot of people are like, you know, hey, you could save the neck. I've saved tons of necks. I've done videos where we've, we've sa necks. However, you know, if he's not doing the work, then you got to pay somebody. And then somebody's time and labor basically makes it to where it might be cheaper to buy an aftermarket neck. Now, I mean that was, think of this, that was Leo Fender's idea from the get go, was to make the part swappable so you didn't have to pay labor. You know, you could just get a new part and stick it on there. And I mean, so yeah, and like I said, you can get. I actually absolutely love warm up necks. So, you know, I have three guitars with warmth war moth necks and you can get a quality warm up neck in any wood you want with stainless steel frets or regular frets, you know, if you want nickel, silver. And I think the quality is amazing and highly recommend them. So you have, you have options is what I'm trying to tell you. But yeah, I wouldn't necessarily. The reason I say that is because if you said, hey, I have a luthier I know I trust, I have a repair guy that I know. You know, when you're telling me you got to find somebody, the problem is you're going to find somebody. You don't know if they're going to be any good or you don't know what kind of work they're going to do or how you know. And so with all those variables in play as a recommendation, I would just get the aftermarket neck. The thing I will tell you is, is I know it's your uncle's guitar and he's giving it to you, but what I highly recommend is if you get an aftermarket neck, they generally come in a little long box with roses. No, I'm just kidding. It looks like a box of roses. And in fact, you might want to tell your wife, if you have a wife or girlfriend, you might want to tell her that the neck's coming because otherwise they're gonna be like, you got me flowers? Like, no, I got a new neck. But anyways, you take the old neck, you put it in that box. What I recommend is you, you either sell that neck off, somebody will buy it or you keep that neck for a little while until you know you love the new neck and the new guitar and then that everything's great. If for some reason the honeymoon does not work out and you decide you don't love the neck or the guitar, you can always put the old neck back on it. The guitar will sell more with the original neck. Sell the guitar off, and you can put that neck on something else. So I just definitely don't. I don't recommend throwing your neck away, first of all, I just don't understand throwing the neck away. I gotta tell you, because I'm like. I'm just thinking in my head going, you couldn't give that neck to somebody. I'm like, how bad was it? I think a lot of you. I saw a lot of people mentioning him saying that in the video. I have to say, when I watched the video, I was thinking the same thing. Like, you see the neck away. It takes a. I'm like. And my brain was like, what? It's got to be worth something, right? Like, it's furniture. I feel like just. You feel like, I don't know, make a table leg out of it. I don't know. Yeah. All right, so there you go. Let's see. Okay. And again, if you're talking to me, put a question mark at the beginning so I know that the question or the topic is for me. Let's see. Bunky, bonky, bonky. I'm gonna say bonky like monkey like bonky bonky monket. Mucket. Bonky mucket. Okay. Oh, you know what? I bet you he's just swapped the O and the U. So it'd be like. Oh, and the. Okay, so it'd be like monkey bucket. I think bonky mucket is monkey bucket. I kind of feel like that's what it is. He's just playing with the words. Okay. He said Rick be out of his new neck. Had a Fender logo on it. What's up with that? He probably bought a. Or whoever did the neck, probably put an after market water mark decal. You. I. I don't know if you ever see the Fender decals. They look like. And the. The fake ones, they look like the decals that you put on model airplanes and stuff, right? You just. You submerge it in water and then you, you know, you kind of slide it off the. The backing, you put it on the guitar, and then they shoot clear over it. That's how Fender does it. Or at least how they did it back in the day for the Most part for most of the guitars. So you can buy those. You pretty much. I don't believe you can actually buy one from Fender. Even when I was a Fender warranty guy, I don't think, I don't remember us being able to get one even for a customer. So I don't, I don't think that's possible. But I never really. I don't remember. I just don't remember. But there's so many people on Etsy that sell them because any laser print or whatever, you know, they print on that. If you guys have ever done models, you know, not only those decals, but then they sell those clear sheets and then you just print whatever you want it. So there's all kinds of ones that, that you can print and put it on there. So he, that's what he did. So, so that's why I'm just explaining what I think he did. I'm pretty sure that's what he did. When I say he, I mean whoever put the neck on and did the work, they just put the Fender logo on there and the Fender stuff on there. So that's the, that's what. Lumatoro says. As in plastic models. Like model airplanes? Yeah, like plastic models, like model cars, model planes, all that stuff. Yeah, those, those water decals. So yeah, just letting you know. Okay, hold on a second. I'm scrolling through and actually you know, to be honest with you, I queued up. I'm sure Amanda sends me so many of your guys comments and questions that I can never get to them all, but I kind of archive them. So this is from last week. This is gray haired newbie, says Phil with the hybrid guitar, like the Yamaha. Yamaha. I say Yamaha and you guys. So not you guys. But people are always like Yamaha. Why do you say it like that? I'm like, I don't know. So it's because the way everybody I know says it says you reviewed. So he's talking about the Yamaha transatlantic guitar that I did a video on. I'll put a link to that video where it has two actuators on it that make the, the body of the guitar into a speaker and then it has reverb effects and delay and chorus and of course you can Bluetooth speaker and play some music on it. His question is, is it possible to change the rechargeable battery? Electronics buried in the acoustic may be hard to maintain. Thoughts? Sure, I'm sure it's a nightmare in there. And I wouldn't buy that guitar if that's something that concerns you, you know, if you're looking for. This is back to the conversation I had last week about cars and power windows and power doors and features that are not going to last. Yeah, A lithium battery obviously has a shelf life, as we all know. How long does it last? I don't know. I'm sure somewhere in their, in their information they might have a disclosure of how many recharges it has. For instance, I have a lithium battery. Just give you a reference. I have a lithium, I have a Sanyo lithium battery that I use. I have a bunch. So you know, I have like the d' Addario one too. Like this one. This you get, this one you can use for powering pedal boards stuff. But I have a Sanyo one that I bought before I made my first YouTube video ever. So let's just call it 2014ish. 2013ish is when I bought it for sure. And I remember when I bought it, the package said like good for 1000 charges. Or maybe it was like 400. I don't know what it was some number. And I thought, oh, and now it's been 20 years. No, what am I trying to say? It's been 12 years. It's been like 12 years. It's been 12 years and it still goes strong. So I don't know, I don't know what the shelf life is. I would imagine the guitar. I would imagine a company like Yamaha is like a lot of the bigger companies where they kind of know what the shelf life of the product is. And so what I mean by that is they probably, they're probably shooting for like a 10 year, you know, problem. Right. Companies like them tend to, you know, because you don't. First of all, they want, they want to make sure that their warranty covers it, you know, for a certain amount of time, a year or two, whatever. But I would imagine they put like a 10 year product lifespan on it. In other words, like I said, not for the warranty, just for their own, you know. You know, like they want it to last that long. I say that because as I've been doing this YouTube gig and I travel so much to go meet with these companies and learn from the companies and go to the factories. And I hear that term a lot, like 10 years. It seems like a lot of companies shoot for a 10 year lifespan on certain products. And when I say that, I don't mean it's not the don't get in conspiracy hat. Don't get out your tinfoil just yet. I don't Mean they want their stuff to break in 10 years. I mean that they think of that as like the odds that the original owner still has it in 10 years and then therefore it breaks and they have a negative experience and that has a. Negatively affects the company. I feel like the better companies really do kind of shoot to try to make sure that the product lives a decent enough lifespan that people feel that they got their money's worth. And so I mean think about this. It's a hard thing to argue. The Yamaha guitar, it was $1399, okay? And so 1400 dollars for an acoustic is a lot of money. But, but let me argue the other side too. You know, it's a technology item. And technology like your phones and your cell phones and things like that, you're lucky if you get 10 years out of them. It's like a miracle. So I would imagine, just like when I talk about modeling amps, when I talk about the Tone King amps, all that stuff, the Tone, not Tone King, I'm sorry, Tone master amps, all the digital type products, I personally. And again, this is on me just for thinking this way. When I think digital products, I think acceptable lifespans because one of two things will come true. They will break or they will get outdated. And so Yamaha will have a better product, right? And so it won't matter or they won't have a better product and it fails. And then you have something unique and it's no different than when you walk into music stores now and you see these 80s era keyboards or the key tars, right? And stuff like that. So that people, you know, people, people get like, you know, they get nostalgic about it and they still have value. That's what I'm trying to say. So, all right, so that's just my, my thoughts on it. Again, I could, I could see the other argument too, which is, you know why I say if that's your argument that you think things should last, then there are lots of great products that will last forever for $1400. Like I was going to, I was going to. So I was going to say I'm trying to think of the person's sign on Mythical. No, not mythical. Snowcat. What was it? What was your sign on? I'm sorry if I forgot it. It was Monkey Bucket. I think if I'm wrong. Nope, see it was gray haired newbie. Gray haired newbie. If your concern is the longevity of a guitar like that, might I recommend for the same price. I did a review of a Made in Mexico Martin acoustic Guitar that I think is fantastic. And you can also get a guitar like from Taylor made in Mexico that I think both those guitars in the, in the 1400 range, same price, that Yamaha guitar will last without any, well, I won't say any issues. They're going to last much longer. Okay, pretty much forever because they might need maintenance, but they're going to last a long time. And you can get an aftermarket system. So you know a company that makes an aftermarket system that does exactly what the Yamaha system does has reached out to me. They're sending us one. We will be demoing it and show it to you on a gear of a week segment so that you can see that you can add that to any acoustic. I have a video of their older system. You'd have to go back into my YouTube video seven years ago. So if you go back seven years ago, it was tone wood amps is the name of the, the product. But they have a new updated system that's supposed to be better. And I thought, okay, cool. This will be an interesting thing to show you guys to so that you can add it to your acoustic. And by the way, you don't even have to buy acoustic. You can just add the system to it. But telling you that just so you know, don't run and. Well, I mean, you can run and buy whatever you want, but I'm not endorsing it. I don't. I haven't checked it out yet. What I'm trying to say is, I'm just saying it exists. So we're going to check it out and see. Maybe it's as good as the transatlantic and we'll see. Okay, I'm not old, I'm vintage. Says, I think I might have this exact same shirt. This shirt is the one of the most expensive shirts I own. I have no idea what I paid for it. I just know I was two things. I was not drunk. It's important because I was on vacation. I bought this in Hawaii and it's made in Hawaii. And it was all explained to me why it's expensive. It's expensive because it's a real Hawaiian shirt where I guess like everything lines up. I don't know. Right? Something like that. I don't know. They explained this to me or I fell for was really expensive. And then because I'm so sometimes dumb smart, I don't know. I was so impressed with the shop and the shirt. I texted my kids and I go, do you guys want a shirt? And they both did. And I was like, oh, My goodness, I could have bought everybody boutique overdrive pedals. So I have no idea what I paid for this. I would don't want to remember. How about that? So I didn't look at the receipt. After I swiped the card, I. I picked the shirts and I went, so yeah, it's a nice shirt. It's very comfortable. It is a hundred and I. It's got to be 105. Let's see, it's 105. That's 106 currently Fahrenheit. So you guys don't freak out. It's not Celsius, it's 106 Fahrenheit degrees right now. And so this is a very light thin shirt. It's very nice to have a break from the heat. So there you go, Gerald. I don't know. Something I can't see. Gerald, Geraldine Turkin says you paid for the story. You know, I'll just tell you not to go down that road. The main reason I bought it was, and I don't want to say the thing because I didn't ask him if I have permission to do this. When my wife and I had our 25th anniversary, we went to Hawaii. We had never had a honeymoon before. We never, we never did a honeymoon. We were too broke when we got married, so it was just not a thing for us. So we decided to have our 25th anniversary honeymoon. We went to Hawaii because that's, I guess that's the thing you do. And so we booked a trip to Hawaii. And I asked my wife for one thing and one thing only, which is to hire a travel agent because I didn't want my wife doing all the work. That doesn't sound like a vacation. I mean, it sounds like a vacation for me, but it sounds like her stressing out about the whole trip while I basically drink my ties. It didn't sound as fun. So I said I wanted her to go and not think about it. And what happened was, if you guys recall, this is a couple years back, the fires happened in Hawaii. And so our trip got canceled and postponed. And then, you know, they had to move our hotel. They moved our hotel three times because they were using the hotel we were going to be in as a place for the victims of the fire to stay in and stuff. And so what happened was luckily, because this tells you just what kind of community we have here, we didn't even know if we should go. We're like, we can't go. We can't go and put strain on the resource there. And on the economy and on the people. And so we're just, you know, what are we gonna do? We're gonna. But because we had hired a travel agent and paid for all the insurances, we could cancel anytime. Like, we were financially hurt from this is, you know. Right. And luckily, I have. I have you guys. And some of you. Two of you is particularly. But one more. And so live in Hawaii. And I just said, you know what? I know you guys. Let me ask. And I reached out to some of you guys that are in Hawaii and I said, what should I do? And my favorite thing was one of the viewers said, come here, spend money. Don't be an asshole. I don't know if it was that order. And he said, buy the economy needs money. Come here, spend your money. You know, obviously. And he. I think the. Don't be an a hole was a joke to be a joke. But so what happened was I spent a fortune because every time. The whole time was there, I was. I was specifically trying to buy anything that would help the local economy. So that's why I bought the expensive shirts, is what I'm trying to say. So it was my, I guess, real reason for my indulgence. And then also why I want to help the. It was an emotional time. I don't want to go down that road. I just got to tell you, like, one of my most vivid memories. Besides, it was a fantastic trip and it was a beautiful place, and it was an amazing time with my wife. But I remember, like, right before I bought this shirt, my wife was in another store. And then her and the clerk, they were crying because, like, like I said, it was a crazy time. And then so like, when I found stuff I liked and if I. I knew, like, it would help the local economy, we did it. So. Yeah. So good times. Good times. So you guys know the reason why my wife and I just. I feel like I should tell you guys this. The reason why my wife and the clerk were crying was the flight we landed in was the first flight that it was full in months, the air flight. So as I guess they were saying they were getting like, like 14,000 people a day laying there, but, like, it had dropped into, like, nothing. Like, literally nothing. And so my wife was talking to the clerk, and the clerk was telling her about how economically it's been a disaster. And my wife said, well, our flight got in yesterday, and they told us on the plane, this is the first full flight in months. And then the clerk started crying, and then my wife started crying because, you know, because look, it's, you know, it was a tough. It was a weird time is what I'm trying to say. And I'm glad we went and I'm glad I have this cool shirt and wow, we're off the subject of guitar stuff, so that's not gonna work. If we don't, we don't. We don't go. The. Let's see. Jose says, hey, Phil, I want to buy your Ibanez Gem 77 floral print in case you're interested. You. You wouldn't want to buy it because I don't want to sell it. So. Because I don't want to sell it, you wouldn't want to hear the price I'd want. I don't even know if there's a price I would sell it at. In fact, it's just funny that. Funny you asked that because I just told my wife yesterday I was going through guitars and I have a pile of guitars we're sorting through. And I said, I mentioned. I said, I told her specifically, I said, I think the floral gem is going to be the guitar my kids are going to have to sell when I'm dead. I'm like, I'm not going to sell it. But it's a very unique Specimen because it's 100% no damage, no marks, no fading. It's a case Queen, which is kind of sad and. And also cool. But also it has a bunch of cool stuff with it that you can't physically find. The stuff that's with it is really cool and collectible, which is. I have the original poster for it that they, when they shipped them the stores, they gave the Ibanez dealers a special promotional poster. I have the promotional poster that it. That didn't come with the guitar just from that year. And for that it's anyways a bunch of other stuff. But yeah, I wouldn't want to sell it. So, Eric the Bull Phil, for a while you had a purple cracker old BC Rich on the back wall. Did this guitar ever make it into a video? Curious because the white gunslinger you read was such a disaster. The purple cracker BC Rich Warlock is in a video. It's just not published video yet. Funny again, you should mention that. I need to reach out. So BC Rich, it's my understanding they're gonna be making some good announcements. Cool announcements that should make a lot of us happy soon or this year. I got the impression this year and so I was trying to, for obviously for video volume of views reasons, trying to release the video somewhere around Their good announcement just. Cause I happen to know that they're gonna make some cool announcements and it just doesn't happen. So I was actually gonna reach out to them and say hey, not to, you know. Cause I'm not really, you know, I don't know them that well. But hey, if you, you know, are you gonna make some announcements soon? If not, I think I'm gonna post this video now because it's been a while sitting and it's edited and ready to go. So either way it's coming out soon. So that's my answer. So I thought, I thought I'd give you answers to you. And it's currently hanging right on a rack down the hallway. I'm actually gonna see it because my door's open. So. Okay. Okay, I'm trying to read this message. Okay, this is from Papa, this Hughes. I'm gonna say, Phil, a little bit of personal question, okay, is about my shirt says but how do small business, music store owners or even content creators purchase health and dental insurance? Free market, you know that. It's not a personal question, it's just not really a guitar topic. But I'll tell you this. You know, when we had the store for years, we had insurance for the kids, but not for us. It was just impossible to insure us. It's impossible. It was. Financially just could not happen. We were paying. I couldn't even remember. I don't handle any of that stuff. So I'd be making up numbers and then if I'm too wrong, high or low, it's going to sound crazy. Let's just say I remember like the deductible was the most insane thing you could ever imagine per year. And the coverage was almost basically just catastrophic. So it was like you pay this, you pay this immense amount of money for insurance and then, you know, it covered nothing. So we were, me and my wife, we went without insurance for I don't know, I feel like 10 years. But it could have been eight years. It was a long time. And so we would self pay everything and we would learn the system. So you know, we learned that like, you know, it's like you got to negotiate. I remember my, my wife needed a. A X ray and the place was like 800 bucks. And. And she was like, oh. So she called around. Another place was like 300 bucks, another place was like 80 bucks. And then she just went and she. And then, then. But keep in mind it was pretty hard because in between those calls it was tons of places saying we don't even Sell. We don't do X rays without insurance or we can't give you a price if you can't tell us your insurance. And so we would find ways to do self pays. And then I remember. So you know, now we have really good health insurance and it's much different now. But I will tell you that even because of that, what we learned from that is to this day my wife and I still do this thing like when I get a prescription or anything, I always get the non insurance price. And sometimes it makes you laugh. They're like, your insurance is going to be $20. Like, oh, what if I don't have insurance? It's $3.15. You're like, what? What? So I remember one time I had to get some medication because I had this insane dental work done. And, and I remember that they were like, I remember. That's how I knew the guy goes, it's like, it's like $86. And I go, oh, okay. I go, whoo. And he goes, wait, you have insurance? And I go, no. He goes, oh, let me look up the non insurance price. And he goes, it's gonna be $16. I'm like, okay. And I paid $16. So. So to answer your question, you can get better insurance now, although it's not great. So I mean you got to go out there and work it. Just this, it's the, it's why I have a sympathy for small business owners, period. Or people who own businesses. Because again, like I said, I've been on, like I tell you guys, all the time. I had the store and I've been, I'm a customer. So I've been on both sides of the counter, you know, selling the stuff and buying the stuff. So I have a little insight. Both sides. I know what it's like to feel both sides. I had a corporate job just to give you a reference of what I gave up my corporate job, which was pretty stupid to this day. I gave up a corporate job just to give you an idea. My son, when we had my son, our insurance was so amazing. We worked for a Fortune 100 company. So you gotta understand, the insurance was so amazing that it was $25. You paid $25 for them to confirm that you're pregnant. My wife was pregnant. And then the rest of the pregnancy is covered. My daughter, who's five years younger than my son, I still worked at the same company. The insurance company had skyrocketed. Just kidding. The cost had gone up so much that then it changed. You had to pay the $25 for the copay to find out you're pregnant. And then you had to pay $250 copay at the hospital for the baby. So my. My daughter's. Her. My wife's pregnancy. Our pregnancy, I guess, for my daughter was 200, like $75. So both my kids cost $300, which is insane. I couldn't even tell you what it cost today or as a small owner, what. Anything like that be insane. But so, like I said, I've been on the side of, like, my health insurance being, you know, my son. And this is weird show feels like my son was. Was in such a horrible accident. We. He had to be airlifted and with a helicopter. And the insurance had a zero deductible on ambulance for my company. That's how good the company insurance was. And they considered a helicopter, an ambulance and a helicopter, I guess was at the time $25,000. And he needed to be airlifted twice, so from two different places. So that would have been $50,000 back then in today's money, $150,000 now. And it was zero because I had a zero deductible. So basically what I'm trying to say is I. I know what it's like when you. If and when you have that great corporate health insurance, and I know what it's like to have no health insurance. And I know it's like to have the crappy insurance you get when you're a small mom and pop. And so what people don't get to see. You know, when you're looking at people working those stores, you don't understand. It's a. It's a. Those. Those corporate. The. Wow. You know, it's just. It's just. It's crazy. All right? But let's not go down that road because insurance is never going to be a good subject. That'll. It'll always be a sad subject. It always ends with sadness. Um, let's go to Plus. I don't know anything about it. Like I said, I'm only giving you just what happened to me stories. Okay, hold on. Okay. All right. This one's from the Silver Zephyr. Who says Phil. This is from last week, by the way. I'm just grabbing this because Amanda gave it to me. It says, phil, when you've been to Fort Wayne for Sweetwater, have you ever visited our local used shop, Fort Wayne Guitar Exchange? Everyone in the music scene here knows the owner, Mitch, and he's got a great vibes. No, you gotta understand, I live I live the YouTuber life, which is all glamour and glitz. I say this with all the, all the humility I could say and all the appreciation I can give. I love the fact that I get to do what I do. It's pretty freaking amazing. But people's perception of what happens when you're a YouTuber versus when it really happens. I talk to a lot of guitar guitarists, professional guitar players, who, you know, touring guitar players and famous guitar players and they kind of have the same story. So it's not just a YouTuber thing, it's just, it just, it's not what people think. When I go to an event or when a Sweetwater invites me out, let me just tell you how it goes. Usually you're on some kind of red eye flight, you're landing, it's usually land and you get there late at night, you land, you sleep, you wake up in the morning and then you go. And then it's make content, it's earn your keep. And then when you're done, it's drop you off at the hotel, you pass out and then you do it again if you're there for multiple days and then on then, no joke, you're always leaving on a red eye flight. And so it's always like you're the last day. It's always like, okay, we end at like 8 o' clock at night and then you go back to a hotel room and then usually you have a wake up at like 2 o' clock in the morning and then you're gone again. Right. Does that make sense? There's no usual time to see anything. Now keep in mind, I just want to say this. If you choose to, you can like, if you try to work that into your deal. I don't. In fact, now that Shawna has been to three things with me, three factor, well, events and factory tours, she understands now that I actually make that even worse than they make it because of the fact that I really want to keep going and get as much content as possible because there's content that they're always going to want me to make. What I mean by that is everyone, whether it's a factory or it's a Sweetwater or it's Guitar center, everyone has a video idea they think you guys are gonna love. And, and no, no offense to them, it's just usually not the video you guys are gonna love. And so I need a video that's great because then that makes sense for everybody. In other words, let me give you example. Let me a perfect example. Like, they're like, hey, why don't you come here and then film our Plek Machine and show your audience how cool Plex guitars get plucked. And I'm like, okay, you don't want to watch that video, right? Like, no one wants to watch a Plek Machine just go through its paces. So I will do, like, what guitar would I buy in the Sweetwater video? I'll do that instead. Or I'll. I'll do something else, you know, something. And. And maybe sometimes it's something that interests me, but I just feel like, you know, I. So it's already a tight schedule, and then I just kind of make it a little harder because I always want to make extra videos. And what happens a lot of times is I end up having to film the video or do the video they want to, but a lot of times those don't come out. In fact, recently, when I went to Sweetwater last year, we did five videos and we only put out three. And Sweetwater was happy with the content we put out. And the fact that we put out the content we wanted. They were obviously, they saw good numbers and they were happy, and that made everybody, them on their side, happy. And I didn't really have to promote the video that, you know, that I didn't really feel that you guys wanted to watch. To you guys, I was able to shelve that video. So let's see. See Izzy. Izzy. I don't know how to say the name. 77553 says has have I received a season. This is letter from fellow Fender telling me my logo might change my logo. I'm not in Europe. So I'm gonna say no. If you guys watch my content that I did. I did the two videos on Fender. One was to tell you guys what happened. The second one was to do a follow up on the update of what happened. And for whatever it's worth, I've talked to the patrons about this. I'm going to tell you guys now, if you watch both those videos, it's up to you if you really pay attention. I told you guys way more you think I'm telling you. And I only say that because when I read the comments, I'm like, wow. A lot of people didn't catch what I was saying. But yeah, like I said, physically, everyone who got a cease and desist physically had a product in Europe. And so. So that's why I said, that's why you're seeing what you're seeing. Which is like, Nash guitars did not get Served. And Shabbat guitars did not get served. But like Schecter guitars did get served and PRS guitars get served and ESP guitar guitars get served. Right. And LSL guitars get served. It's like, exactly. It's almost, I'd say I told you guys in, in that and so I'm just letting you know so. And I, and I there and like I said, so that's one of the reasons. Plus the reason, I don't know, we go down any ton of roads, but that's the main thing. Brian says this as soon as Phil lands in Europe, then I'm in trouble. Then I'm physically in trouble maybe, right? Let's see. Soil sample says, hey, Phil, how would you feel if Fender made a Cirrus J Novo model? I thought they did. They don't make a guitar that like that. I, I pretty sure they did or something like that. It depends. Like something like that. It's like, think of this. The Fender has a hollow body, Gibson style guitar. They have a Les Paul style guitar. Everybody has a style. Let's be very clear. If they don't, if Finger's not selling a guitar like, like that, it's because it didn't sell. Sell. They would make it just like everybody else. They make what sells what we buy. Remember, always works. Like I always tell you guys, been saying this for years. It's just my opinion, for whatever it's worth. It's all about the customers, baby. It's all about who's willing to hand you money so you can make stuff. I watch, I look, I talk to dozens and dozens of builders a year that just don't understand the concept. They have these amazing ideas. They tell them to me and then they tell me over and over again why. And then they tell me why they're not selling guitars. And I tell them it's because you don't have customers. And they go, no, it's because it's always. Because if it's something else, it's always some other reason. And I'm like, no, it's look, if you had people that wanted to buy this, they'd be buying it. If they, you know, especially when we're talking about they know about it. I'm not talking about somebody doesn't know about a product. I'm saying, look, the product was presented to guitar players they're not buying, I would move on. Or you could keep pushing on that, but at some point you need to pay attention that they're not interested in this. I've always believed this, as in the guitar side of this things. But I really now believe it. As a content creator, I can tell exactly what people engage with and don't engage with and why. I can tell you why they're not interested in certain things. I could see it all the time. And I go, and, and for those watching, and I've said this many times before, I'll say it again. I make a lot of content that is not going to engage a bigger part of the audience. And I have all kinds of motives to reasons to do that. Maybe it's because I want to, maybe it's because it's being sponsored by a company and it's some compromise I made that's like, okay, I'll make this video. I don't think everyone will like it, but, you know, it's a sponsored content so I don't have to worry about the, you know, trying to get this in front of so many people. There's a ton of reasons to do that, but ultimately I can always tell before a video launches how well it's going to do or bad it's going to do. And I think builders are the same way and they can look at a product, but it's like Fender in the Meteora. I think it's a cool guitar and it's, I, I like it. But, you know, is it gonna ever overtake the telly and the Strat? I doubt it. So that's, I mean, we'll see. Maybe one day I'll be wrong. Maybe the younger generation will grab it and that'll be the huge thing. But just like if, just like, you know, when they made, look, when Fender, when Leo Fender, when they made the telly, when they made the Strat, after the telly, they thought they were gonna replace the telly and it was gonna go away, but people still wanted it. They thought the Jaguar and the Jazz Master were gonna replace the telly and the Strat. Essentially they thought there's gonna be new higher end stuff and it's gonna push away. Essentially, everybody makes what will buy. It's why Fender, that's why Fender was. YPRS makes a Strat style guitar and a Les Paul style guitar because of what we buy. They make their style guitars and other guitars. And like I said, Fender and Gibson have done the same things. They're all the same. I said it when I did the first broadcast. If we're going to talk about, if you, if you guys want the show to be about who's suing who this week, I could literally make that episode every single week. If it's just about people suing each other or ceasing to ceasing each other, that makes you more happy. When I say it that way. They're all. And I think I have. Out of. Out of every friend I have in this industry, I think I have two of them right now. Currently not in some kind of legal dispute with somebody either. Them being. This industry is very litigious. So they're all fighting all the times. So. Okay, so, yeah, but that. Yeah. Novo. I don't know. I thought for sure there is some Fender guitar. To me, the Novo takes its inspiration from this. This. The. Was it the Starcaster? I have the. This one. The. I can't. I can't grab it. It's like, I can't. It's not over there where I thought it was going to be. The. What do you call it, this guitar. Starcaster, right? Yeah. See, to me, this has that kind of vibe. I know it's not the same shape, but this is that same kind of vibe. So, like, I would argue like this. This exists in that form factor. So, like, if somebody said they wanted a Novo Fano type guitar, but wanted to buy an actual Fender or Squire product, that's where I would. I'd say, look at that kind of shapes and stuff. It's kind of got that vibe. Looks retro. Cool. So. Oh, NDOG says the media order should have been a 24 and three quarter scale. Yeah. You know, that have been cool. I liked it. I actually almost bought a meteor Meteora made Mexico months and months ago. That was at a store and was one of those things. I picked it up and I was like, I really like it, but I wasn't in love with the color. I like the color, but it was in love. And I was like, maybe I'll get it in a different color. And then I went and looked. I left and I went. Looked online. Moments went by and, you know, the desire to have to buy it kind of left me a little bit. So. And Andrea says, hey, Phil, have I talked to the Synergy guys? No. Have I talked to the Amplified Nation guys about possibly launching a synergy module? I have not. I know the Synergy guys very well and I know the Amplified Nation guys really well. I just don't know. You know, it's one of those things. The way the etiquette. The way my etiquette works is if one of those companies reached out to me and said, hey, can you do a soft introduction to the other company? I would do that. I'd be willing to do that. You know, I've done that many times. Let's say throw, for example, let's say Amplified Nation said, hey, can I, you know, I know you know, Synergy. Do you want, you know, can we, could you introduce us? I would reach out to Synergy and say, hey, this company wants to talk to you. And then tell them, you know, some insight. Like, I know them and this is what I think of them. Because that always helps, you know, to have an introduction like, instead of a cold, like, hey, it's just a company. It's like, hey, here's I know these guys. And then if you're interested, you want me to give them your information, you know, and then I'll pass the information back. I would be willing to do that. But. But neither one's ever asked me. And so I'm, and I'm sure they're both, both. I've. I know both owners, both are really smart guys, and I'm pretty sure if they wanted to talk to each other, they, they definitely would because they're both really smart. So. And, and I, I don't know. I have a. I have a lot of good things to say about both of them. For Whom the Smells Tolls says Phil. Have you ever bought a Gibson from the Mod Collection? Why don't other companies copy this model? I have not. So is the Mod collection. So if you guys don't know what the Mod collection is, that's the thing. That's the Mod collection is the, is the reverb thing. Right? So that's the thing where they take and they repurpose guitars and they fix them up. Am I thinking the right thing? Yep. So I think this is what it is. They take guitars and they do. They deck them out. Let's take a look. So stuff like this. Yeah. Sue, I have a friend that works at Gibson and he was telling me that a lot of these, like this is obviously the limited edition looks like it was the limited edition Guitar center one. So what they do, that's smart. It's smart. It's a smart business model. So what Gibson does is they get guitars. Like there's a lot of these guitars. They were telling me that a lot of these guitars are slash guitars. And then when they have defects, they just paint them over and make them look like other guitars. So a lot of these guitars, like, like this guitar, see how it's all painted? Like they could take a guitar that has, you know, a, you know, an issue, a blim or an issue and Then they just paint the whole thing. They just take it apart, paint it and stick the Gibson Mod collection thing on it. And then they charge upcharge for it. Right. It's kind of smart. So, so that's. And I'm not saying they do that to every single one of them, but I know they were saying that's one of the things they do. It's like repurposing guitars. So it's pretty smart. No, I haven't, haven't been interested in anything, if you notice. I have mostly when I buy guitars, I've been mostly buying used. And it's not to save money, although that's always a huge factor. It's just because, like I said, I've just been hit. You know, it's been a good time to buy a guitar that you want because it's. The market's a little softer. Actually flipped it if you paid. If you go back to my videos, the podcasts and the videos during COVID I was buying mostly new and almost no used. Now I'm buying almost all used and no new. And the reason being is, and I said this back then, during COVID the dealers would give you deals, they would discount things and you could find the guitar. You know, everybody said you couldn't find anything, but I had no problem finding things. I could find things and talk to a dealer and a dealer would give you a discount, but individual people wouldn't because they knew there was buyers out there. Dealers, they don't think cement, you know, like sentimentally, they think like churn, you know, right. Just get this unit gone and get another unit and. And now it's the opposite. Now the, the used gear is sitting a little bit better. And that's ideally what I'm after anyways, is the used gear. So it's back to, you know, back to finding cool little things. And I, I'm talking about, for me personally, for the channel, it's almost always new and it's always almost focused on what you guys are interested in or what, you know, I think will be a good video. So let's see, let's do. Now it's time for Guitar of the Week. Guitar of the Week. Okay, so we have a Guitar of the week and a this or that. I'm going to break them into two segments because why not. The Guitar of the week is fun. At least it's fun for me. So hopefully it'll be fun for you. It's a guitar that just came out kinda this week, so it's not even actually Out. In fact, I don't think it's very hard to explain. So let me explain as best I can. So I'm gonna show you the guitar that it's not first, and then we'll get into that. So the first thing is it's a Fender. No, it's a Kiesel. So It's a Kiesel Mark 66. Now, if you guys have watched the channel, you've seen this guitar in the background ground. This is the mark 66. So if you guys don't understand what that is. Mark. Mark Keisel, who's Jeff Keisel's father, right. Who. He used to play a guitar just like this, but was. At the time, I think it was Carvin, I think. And in the. In 1966, and based on a lot of you guys, basically, and me, but not, you know, mostly you guys. A. They got a lot of feedback, and one of them was like, why all the guitars kind of more modern? Why aren't the guitars a little bit more vintage, aged? And Mark and Jeff were talking and they were like, you know, Kiesel guitars been around since 1946. In fact, technically, they're a few months older as a company than Fender, and they have a lot of models throughout the years, and they thought, let's recreate this. So they brought this back and they. They kind of reimagined it, right? So they changed the thing. They changed a few things on it. And These look like P90s. These are not. These are recreations of pickups that they made in 1966, but they're shaped like a P90 now. And this is a cool guitar. Now, here's why this is not the guitar of the week. This. A couple weeks ago, when all the Fender stuff happened, I was talking to the guys at Kiesel, and, you know, we were talking about it as. As everybody in the industry was talking about it. Everybody's talking about. Of course. Right. That's why. That's why I'm wearing a Hawaiian shirt today, too. It's because I'm trying to be like, hey, look, can we cheer up the people? I'm. I want to be cheered up. I don't want to talk about the doom and gloom. So one of the things I mentioned to him was when I was talking to him, to them was, I like this more than the Delos. I think it just looks a little cooler than the Delos. And the Delos is obviously a Strat style guitar. So I kind of like the aero guitar, and I like this guitar. I Like these kind of guitars. I like the modern ones, too. As you guys know. I have a Kyber in the modern ones, too, but I kind of like that they're going this way. And I think they. This is a cool little thing to it. To me, it feels more like somebody like this is. This identifies as a different brand, as Kiesel. And so one of the things he did after we talked was he sent me a picture, and he says, what do you think of this? So this came out this week. Kinda. This is the same guitar, but with a different pick guard. And so you could put single coils and humbuckers in it. Now, the reason why there's a different pick guard on it is because this is front routed and the other one is rear routed. And the reason being is because this is the best way to put multiple pickups in there. Because they can make this a humbucker. Humbucker, Humbucker. Single humbucker or whatever, you know, Right. Or three single whales. And so I believe if you watch his Wednesday show, I think he said that either this is coming out or it's gonna come out. They're really kind of trying to figure out if we're interested in this. Well, I'm interested in it. So I was like, can you send it to me? I would like to show it on the show. So. So they were nice enough to send it because they're a hop, skip, and a jump away. And they got it to me so we could check it out. And I thought two things. One, guitar of the week. So this is guitar of the week. But also, we're going to AB these two for this or that, because I want to AB the P90s versus the. The single coils. I love it. It's like Raphael's like, what a horrible guitar. So obviously you're on the modern take. You don't like the older style. This, to me, looks like all the quirky, cool made in Japan guitars from the 60s. I always love this kind of, like, wackiness. But. And this is where I've been saying this for years and years and years, to the point where I'm like, so many companies don't listen. I like guitars that look like they were from the 60s, but they perform and play, like now, Right? I want to go to a 510. This is my favorite bridge. I want, you know, carbon fiber rods. I want the stainless steel frets, although you can get them in nickel frets if you want. I want, like, a roasted maple neck. I want courtesan. I Want a better plant. This guitar plays like AN A decked out 80s Jackson where the action is just fantastic. And it plays great, but it doesn't look like, you know, a shredder guitar. And I love it. Yeah, somebody said Tesco. Yeah, same thing, right? I love these by. I love it. I love the idea of making things look more vintage or, you know, kind of older, but performing, you know, like modern. So I just don't know. Do we need to demo this for guitar of the week if we're going to do this or that later? Let's not do that. Let's just talk about the guitar. Although we got to do the picture look with my. Look Hawaiian shirt in this guitar. That's the thumbnail. Right? So pretty cool. And of course, if they make this right now, if you want one, you can call them up. You can call up Kiesel and they'll. I believe. I understand. They'll build you one. It's just not on the builder. Not this form. You can get this one and any color style you want, pickup configuration. But this one, I think you have to call them because of this. The cus. It's custom because it's a front route with a different pick card. But you can change it up. Maybe go a hardtail. Right. Change things. So pretty cool. And then this is the ash body with the. The raw tone finish. So you can see the grain in it, which looks really cool. That's why it's got a satiny kind of look to it. Oh, you know what Eric the Bull says? Needs gold hardware. Yeah, I could see that. Gold hardware would be nice on this. I agree. I think that would be really cool. Right? I like it. There's the back. Okay, so that's guitar of the week. So we don't have to. We'll do this or that and we'll. We'll ab them, because I think that will be even funner. Is it funner a world word? What I just noticed right now is this one has the tusk style nut and this one has the graphite nut. So it's kind of funny how, like I said, you can get it either way. All right, so that's the guitar of the week. So it's the mark 66. You know what's funny is. Do I have a picture? I do. I should have queued it up. Give me a second here is. Let me send it. It's coming right now. Is it? There it is. Okay, let's. This picture, I want to show you where the inspiration came from. So Jeff. When I got to the Keisel event, Jeff gave me a little quick little tour. And then he showed me this. And there's pictures online, so I'm not the only one, you know, showing this. But let me show you guys this. Let me get all that out of the way and we go to the web. This is the original one. So this is the one, what it looked like in 1966. And it had the Bigsby style bridge on there, which again, see, again, not a huge fan of this. I'd rather have the go to 510, but, you know, and again, this was like a slab of wood. No real huge contours like it does now. I never noticed that double dots up the fretboard. It's pretty crazy. So that's what it was inspired from. So I love the idea, you know, of a company, you know, pulling from their heritage. But more importantly, I like the idea of somebody doing something like Said gives you that vibe. But those guitars generally are horrible. Every time I see a cool guitar and I think I. I think this way because all the years in the store, you'd get these cool, kitschy, little weird guitars in and you'd be like, that's so cool. And then it was like you would just spend hours trying to play. And if they got playable, you're like, playable is good enough. But it's just so nice when you pick up a guitar that just plays amazing. Like butter. Like butter. So. But. So that's guitar of the week, the mark 66. And then soon we'll talk about the. The different variations. Let's pull up. Well, I've been not doing my job. Amanda's been doing the job. So she's been pulling her. The questions for us, this is Jazz, is have players are feeling hot, H cold. This is h cold. I don't know what that means. If fillers. If players are feeling cold towards Fender, what guitar body shape would be best positioned to take the bite out of the Stratocaster market? The best thing you do. If you're. If you're. If you're upset with Fender, here's the deal. If you're upset with fmic, okay? That's the company that owns Fender. Okay. I made a video very long time ago. It went viral and I was like, I don't write checks to Fender. I write checks to fmic. Right? When I was a dealer. If you're mad at fmic, you can buy used Fender. There's tons of it. So if you want a Strat, you can still buy a Strat, just buy a used one. They won't see the money from it. I know some people argue if you buy it off reverb, they will. Well then don't buy it off reverb, if that's it. Now, if it's so much that you're so upset that you can't stomach the Fender logo now, I gotta tell you, just so we're all on the same page, I'm not. I don't look at the Fender logo. I don't get upset. I don't, not at first. The Fender logo, like I said. But it does remind me of all the crap going on and it kind of bums me out. So I'm not. I have not been picking up my Fenders lately as it's just kind of, you know, it's kind of like a. The vibe sucks, right? And even though, like I said, my Fenders are pre this, this, you know, current Fender company version, then if you. So if you want to, here's what I would suggest. If you're really upset, then what you're really upset about is a big corporation. I would probably stay away from the big corporations then. You know, there's tons of builders out there that build quality guitars that are smaller and you can buy from them. You know, I've shown you guys every company I can over the years. I've gone and shown you all the, all the factories I can show you. And the reality of it is this. And I've said this before, and I said this once when the, you know, play authentic thing happened with Gibson. I'm different some ways. Okay, here's why I'm different some ways I said it then I'm trying to remember exactly what I said. Somebody can go find that video. You can the podcast, you can quote me. That's the thing about having almost 500 podcasts two hours long. Everything I've said, I've said it. So it's like I'm stuck with what I said. In other words, I can't change the past. I, I put it in it's document documented. I said this. If I was Matt, if I boycotted everybody who was an asshole in this industry, I'd have no guitars on the wall. I, that's just the reality of it, right? I mean, maybe I'd have two, right? I'm talking about not even to each other, just personally to me. I've had companies, you know, that I've worked with that are just been deplorable in every way. But like I said, companies are people and people change, you know. You know, Gibson changed hands a couple times, vendors changed hands a couple times. Maybe we'll have a different vendor one day and you won't even be mad vendor anymore. If. And who knows? Or maybe they'll redeem themselves. Who the hell knows? Right? The important part, though, is if you don't agree with the way they're doing things, then, yeah, the best way to show them that is to not give them any money. They'll pay attention. There's one thing everybody can, you know, guess on. There's one thing I believe with 100% certainty. Whether I'm wrong or right, I believe 100% certainty, which is Fender is not paying attention to what we're saying on social media. They're paying attention to sales. That's all they care about. Because they're a company. They're just a big corporation. Right. It's not that corporations are evil, because keep in mind, almost all these companies are LLCs. Even the small ones. It's corporations. So I'm not saying an actual llc. I'm saying the corporation. The corporation mindset. Right? A report. Remember I used to do Oracle reporting for a Fortune 100 company? We would literally follow the reports. I would go to the CEO, and I would hand them the reports personally in his office. Here's your reports. And the reports, we didn't take. We didn't take into account how the customers felt. We looked at the reports. They told us everything. They're like, hey, I don't. I think that we have a problem, because this is what's happening. So that's what they'll see. So if you. If you want to really give it to Fender, just don't give them your money. So now here's the problem. And this is why I'm the way I am. And again, if this loses me more subscribers than fine. The reason I'm not saying boycott them by not buying their old stuff is because the stores didn't do anything wrong. Why are we punishing the retailers? Look, the retailers are already screwed. Notice no retailers are talking. Okay? I'm not. I'm laughing because I'm like. Because it's. I think it's funny that I have to point this out. You notice there's not a lot of retailers speaking up. There's some, but not a lot. It's because if you're a Fender dealer, which I was a premium Fender dealer for a decade. If you're a premium Fender dealer, which a lot of them are, that means like, 40% of your product is Fender. You understand? Like a boycott Defender is a boycott to the small, to the dealers, the big ones and the small ones. You're basically putting the hurt on them. Now, some will argue that's good because they'll then call and cry defender, and maybe something will get done. But you don't necessarily have to boycott them 100%. You can buy used Fender from them. You can buy other products from them. And I totally understand that. Right? But I'll tell you, just so you guys all know, my friend, and this will segue us to something else. My friend has decided. He. He's played a little bass for a few years. He's gonna buy a guitar. He reached out to me and, and to Sean, and he's like, hey, I'm looking at some guitars and amps. I'm looking for a good guitar amp. And of course, he sent me a link to a starter kit. And I was like, don't buy the starter kit. He already plays bass a little, so he obviously can play an instrument a little bit. He's obviously got a little bit more vested in emotionally and mentally to just buy the starter pack. So let's upgrade. I suggested he was looking for a good, economical practice amp because I told him the starter pack amps are not great. I suggested a Marshall that was like 129. He went and talked to a guitar center and they told him the Mustang, the GT, I think 75. And he's like, what do you think of that? I didn't send back a text like, oh, boycott Fender. Look, it's his choice. You know, it's his choice. I recommended, I did what I think was right. I recommended the product that I think I would, I would buy right now. I'd probably buy a Marshall Offender right now, but it's still his choice. And, you know, I, I, you know, that's it. And, and now he's looking to get a guitar. I gave him some suggestions of some ibanezes and some PRSs that I like that are SEs that are really good quality, and he might go with that. And if he gets with a Fender, I'm not gonna not be his friend anymore. That's not even where I'm at. I'm just saying I'm doing the due diligence, which is, again, I'm voting with my money. I'm giving my, I'm giving my recommendations to my friends accordingly because obviously, I'd rather them not give their money to Fender as well. But again, you know, look, I already know this is, this is going to hurt a little bit for Fender because I don't want to buy a new Fender right now or any Fender type products. I'm not in the mood. They bum me out, you know, with all this craziness. So Farm Dan says buy the two rock. Yes, that's a good starter amp. You get a two rock, you begin. See, I get easily distracted. My point is back to what I'm saying. Look, voting with your dollars to FMIC I think totally makes sense. But also keep in mind that there are other players involved in this. Like I said, the, the retailers and, and you know, so make sure you don't take it out on the wrong people. Does it make sense though? Is what I'm just basically getting at. But to your initial question, which I really didn't answer, which sucks, is what Stratocaster. What, what Stratocaster shape guitar would I recommend? I don't know your price points, so I don't know. I. I mean, look, I own all of them. What I mean by that is I have a Delos. I like my Kiesel Delos. I have a Fender Strat too. There's not a. I like the, the sire Strat copies. I like the Arts Jet. The Jets Strat copies. There's a lot of Strat copies out there. So you know that I like. And it has nothing to do with my opinion offender being good or bad. It's just I've always been that way. I've always liked all the, all the different versions of guitars for different reasons. So there's tons of guitars. That's the good news. That's the craziness of this whole mess is the good news is that whether, if Fender succeeds and no one can make an Estrat style guitar ever again, there's going to be so many of them forever it won't even matter. There's so many now. It doesn't matter. There's just tons of options for you to get out there. That's what's. That's why I think this is crazy. It's a. It's a crazy because like I said, there's so much. You're so much product for you to buy used Fender used, not Fender. Fender shaped objects. What do they call them? F. Fender so Ffsos. Fender shaped objects. There's so much of that to choose from that I can't imagine if we won't deplete it, It'll take us 30 years. Even if, even if it's locked down, even if all these companies can't make their Strat style guitars anymore. I still think it's gonna take forever before there's no options for you to choose from. So there's gonna be tons of so. But if, if it is one thing I think that a lot of people have, at least I've gotten this, you know, vibe from the comment sections. One thing I've gotten is that people are not so much upset of at so much like the Fender logo or they're upset with this corporate idea. Corporations and the way they act. Like I said Fender. I've been, you know, my opinions have been pretty consistent for the last few years. Vendor has passed up no opportunity to do a price increase ever. Vendor has passed up no opportunity to basically put the screws to their dealers. They passed up no opportunity to show their greed every time. And again, that's just because they're a big corporation. And so if that bugs you, then do a little research. Doesn't take much with modern technology now and find a dealer. And I can tell you one thing that will help you a lot is if the person on the headstock is running the company still, it's probably already going to be a better choice. Just, just in my experience when you. And it doesn't even matter if it's a expensive guitar or an inexpensive guitar. It's just something about when the person who started it or the person the legacy of the family is still involved with just seems like a different vibe. And that's my experience visiting them and going to their factories. Let's see the real Mr. Zombie. Hey, what's up? From Zombie Guitars says Phil. Did you see this? The Seymour Duncan Telecaster dropped today. Did it drop today? I saw the video that Seymour did with it and I thought what I got from it was a super limited edition and I didn't. It's one of those guitars that when I see it I go, oh, that's cool. And it's probably meant for collectors. So it's kind of one of those things. You know, I feel like that's another thing if we're bitching about things. I feel like so many companies now just all these announcements are just these unobtainable expensive guitars. Look, I've told you guys before and somebody made a comment about what I said last week when I said that the market's smallest is three thousand dollar market is super small market. And somebody goes, well, I only own $3,000 guitars. I can't. Right? That's absolutely right. It's not my opinion. It's. They're Literally verifiable metrics. I have a Factory video coming soon where I break down how many guitars they make in each like price category. And it's like this, the pyramid's like this, not like this. It's just like it's skyrocket. Like the amount of guitars in the high end price point, it's just so small comparatively as their big number. And this is a company that's known for high end guitars. So the reality is when I see guitars that are 5, 10, $20,000, I'm like, oh, that's crazy. I know what that is. That's collectors now. That's, you've, you've left just the players who will buy expensive guitars. There are a small amount of players who just have the cash or they have the craziness because you got to have one of the two or sometimes both. You have to have cash and craziness because you know to buy these expensive guitars and, and then when you get to certain price guitars, you're out of that realm. You're out of crazy guitar players who are just addicted to it and have the money. You have just collectors, people who collect things and a lot of that and they've falsely created this market. There's two markets that I've again been consistent. There's two markets that I'Ve accused Paul Reed Smith, Gibson and Fender of creating. And when I say creating, they're definitely the biggest proponents of this, okay. Which is creating a market of aspirational USA made guitars that no one can buy and then creating a more obtainable import market. And notice how I don't, how I say that, I don't say, oh again, it's an affordable market and this is an expensive market. No, no, no, no. It's built around the idea. There's a lot of companies doing this again, esp. That they make these aspirational guitars that no one can, no one really can afford. And if you could, who the hell would like, it takes a lot to get somebody to spend $7,000 and then wait two years. Like I said, I said earlier, I have two kids. If my wife can have a baby faster than you can build a guitar. This is a crazy thing. It's a crazy, it's a crazy thing. This is, you know, like, like I once heard this and I thought it was a joke. It's like, what was it? Jeff Bezos yacht was built faster than like some of these custom shop companies can build a wooden guitar. Like you're like, just think about that. Like that's crazy. Right. So my point is that they're by design. They're trying to get us to buy these more obtainable import guitars. And there's nothing wrong with them. As you know, they're very good guitars. But it's a system. And like I told you, the reason why I believe this is what drives the price points for those guitars. When you see these, you know, import versions, like an Epiphone or an SE or a Squier, when you see the price point, it's not representative of what it costs to make it. And the reason I know that is because I travel. I like, look, I don't regurgitate the crap I'm seeing on other YouTube channels. I literally go places. I go everywhere. My wife just recently was talking to me about this because I told you, she just recently did two factory tours with me and an event. And she said she's like. Because she didn't understand why I write up my contracts with these companies the way I do. I sign these NDAs. I basically say, I won't produce any. I won't publish anything to my audience that you don't approve. And she. My wife was like, I don't get it. And now she gets it because she. What she understood is she understands that the reason why I do that is because, yeah, they'll stop me from showing it to you, but they can't stop me from knowing it. See? And once I know it, we can talk about it. And let me tell you what I'm going to talk about right now, then. When you see these guitars, these, like, these brands that, you know, everybody likes to make fun of, like Firefly and stuff, and you're like, $200. How they do it? Well, they do it because if you follow the math, it makes total sense. That's what a Squire would cost if it wasn't layered in all kinds of other pricing, like adding a dealer in. That's a factor. But also advertising. That's a factor. But also comparative pricing to the product it's emulating that is the bigger part of the pricing structure. It's like, hey, we got to make a guitar. What does it cost? Cost us 150 bucks to make it. What does it cost for the dealer? Dealer wants another, let's say, $65 profit. Okay, so we're at like 1, 2. Let's call it 220. 220 advertising. Gotta advertise it. Okay, let's put that guitar up to $300 now. Now we get a guitar. $300. Okay, but here's Our problem, our problem is, is the US version is $5,000. So how do we make that make sense? Oh, let's make 800 bucks. It's a coincidence, apparently. And if I'm wrong, it's fine, but I'm not. It's a coincidence apparently that almost all the import guitars are like 25% of the USA ones. Like that's literally a. You can figure that out. Like I told you, it's $5,000. Like you can go on Gibson's website and look at it breaks down almost like that. It's almost like a 75% off discount. Okay, so the point of this is that they build this system and that's how they want it. And that's fine. It's fine. When I say it's fine, I don't mean I agree with it. I mean it's fine. Like we understand it now. We understand. Okay, but back to what I was saying. I don't even know where I'm going with this. Sometimes I get so riled up on this thing because always the pricing thing gets me upset. Basically what I'm trying to say, I don't even know. I'm basically saying that this is the system in which they've built. We're following the system that they built. They all do it. And I can tell you this, if you notice, and I say this all the time, if you notice, where the examples break down is when we talk about custom shop guitars taking two years and costing $7,000. But when we talk to companies that make guitars, high end guitars, and they don't do imports, notice their, their lead times are half the time or a quarter of the time. And when you ask them why, they go, well, if I took two years to make a guitar, I wouldn't make any money. And you're like, well, wait a minute, how does the company that's taking two years to make guitar make any money? They don't, they actually don't make any money off that guitar because they don't care because it's about the import guitar. And if you notice, that's why, look, SIR was going to do import guitars. They dabbled in it. They didn't like it, they didn't like the quality, didn't like the com, the way it was worked out and they didn't want to do it. So like I said, so if you want to not support that kind of mentality, the bigger company mentality, which I'm fine with, again, everybody's different. You can find smaller builders and, or smaller companies that are more vested. I use a perfect example. I've told you this before. It's not all about just buying high end custom shop instruments. Companies like Reverend Make a really good quality guitar. A fantastic instrument in every level. I've talked about this many times because of the fact that yeah, they are imported, they come from Korea, but if you notice they don't have a layer system to sell you. They're not trying to sell you a $5,000 custom shop and they're not trying to sell you a student grade instrument. They're just trying to sell a really good instrument and they really need that to work so that they focus on the quality. And that's where we're at with guitars and that's the market that we have currently. Now. Let's see. Hold on a second. I'm just looking at anyone's got feedback. Hold on, Hold on. Okay, This one comes off topic, but maybe on topic. This one comes from Spike Sparkle City Guitars, says hey Chinders and Chibsons, by the way. You know what's kind of funny? On a side note, when I was talking to the reporter for the Wall Street Journal, I use the word chips and chinder and she's like, what are you talking about? I had to explain it to her. And then I realized for the first time how dumb we all sound. I'm like, like chibonez genders. So anyways, the Chinders and chipsons will not stop with legal action. It will take customs doing a better job putting labels on the true offender, not 3x3 guitars. Sure, of course. You know what would really help stop it is everybody stopped buying them. That would really help a lot. What's funny is I've seen this. I really like the people who when they order those fake Gibsons and fenders and PRSs and ibanez's online, you can change the logo. You can just ask them to put a different logo on it when they're making new ones. I know the ones that are already made are tough, but it's tough. Yeah, but I mean, I mean so I mean that's, that's one thing that would help, but yes. Yeah, they're not gonna stop all that. Let's see, this one's from Garden Hoseband. Says in the past you said you're not a pedal guy. Yes, but I've reverted back. Now I'm back to a pedal guy. So the main reason I kind of got away from pedals was because I have so many nice amps that I would just play through the amps And I'm like, I really didn't need any pedals. And then what happened is, over time, I just like the versatility. I got a kemper, and I would use the kemper all the time for the versatility of it. And I found myself trapped in this idea that every time I was like, I got an amp that I thought was better than the kemper, I was like, yeah, it's better, but it. It's not as. It's not as the utility part's not there. In other words, I can't get the clean. I want with the overdrive and the gain and this, you know, the high gain, the mid gain. And so I always felt myself back to the camper, and I was playing the camper all the time. And then I'll tell you who ruined it for me. Michael Nielsen from the Big Area Guitars Channel was like. He was trying to get into an axe effects, and it wasn't working for him. And he was like. He was talking about pedals, and he's like, I think the pedals just sound better. And I said, yeah, let me. And then I. Of course, I'm like, well, maybe. So I got out some pedals and I started abing them, and I was like, you know, I really like the pedals. And I know there's arguments about pedals when you have bigger pedal boards, you know, you have issues where the cable. You know, you're. You have a cable that goes out and then your rig's down. And that's something I really don't want to do when I'm trying to perform. But I was like, but for me, personally, I'd rather just have the versatility of having all the pedals. So I'm back to all pedals again for versatility's sake. And that way I can just plug through an amp, which is really weird. Weird for me right now because I have these nice amps, and I'm not really even using them, really. I'm just using them, like, basically clean PA systems just to run pedals through. And I'll probably get sick of it and move back and forth. And I think that's part of this. That's important that we acknowledge the fact that you go through phases as it's artistic, it's a love thing, it's an emotional thing. Like, I always said, gear is emotional. Just, like, music's emotional. So I'm always gonna be changing it. See, this one's from Mr. Rowe. Says, Phil, why not have, like, a charity event where you would come and See, oh, we would come and see you on a Saturday this summer and buy the guitars you're trying to get rid of. Yeah, it could be. The problem is, you understand, the way it works for me is the week is the weekday. The way my schedule works is weekdays. I make the content for the channel. And you understand we have a second channel that's actively kicking ass right now, which is. I'm proud of. And, and the behind the scenes, it's the, you know, it's the old, you know, the iceberg underneath the, the water. Right. You don't see it. The amount of emails and conversations it takes to get certain things done is really tough. So I. All week, I'm, I'm done with that. I'm just doing that all week. And then a year ago, I started going to a trainer. My wife's like, you need to go to a trainer. She didn't say it like that. She just signed up for a trainer. I learned something about trainers. So, you know, here's what I've learned about trainers. Apparently I told my wife this. I said, I make enough money to go to hire a trainer, but not enough money to not go. The idea of, the idea that I waste the money just makes me go. Like, even days where I'm like, I'm so sore, sometimes I can't even get out of bed and I'm like, I'm going to the trainer today. There's no way. I already paid for it. So I realized, like I said, I have the money to go to a trainer, but I don't have the kind of money to not go to a trainer, if that makes any sense. So anyways, that's four times a week. So that's been a year. This, this month, I think it's been a year, something like that. So. So that, that's my week now. Reason I point that out is the weekends is when I do the stuff for the patron side. So, like, tomorrow is the live guitar clinic. And so there's prep for that. And then because I have to be versed in all the questions, they're gonna ask me, and then set up the live rig and go. And then that's gonna be a couple hours when I do the coffee hang. Sometimes they're six hours, sometimes eight hours long. On a Sunday, the bonus podcast is usually two and a half to four hours long. So. And that's again, would be on a weekend. And then when I'm not doing that stuff, there's other stuff which you're gonna probably learn about next week. And then there's just. I want to spend some time with my family. So. Yeah, I understand what you're saying. I'm just trying to figure out the schedule, how to get it in there. So. And, and, and just to get. Just that, you know, not to like, just so you guys know. I think maybe because it's insightful to understand. I spend a lot of time talking to companies and I've told you guys this before. Sponsored content is my smallest amount of content that I make when it comes to, like, paid content. But you gotta understand, I spent a lot of time trying to work with a company to get the video that I think you would be. Want that I think you deserve and not the video they want me to make. And so the opportunity for me is if I can make a video that is instructional and fun and good, but also get actually paid for it because there's a sponsor that's a win win. And so those are hard to make. I shouldn't say hard to make. They're hard to negotiate and most of it fails. I'd say my wife could tell you the real number. I feel like for every 10 negotiations we do, we're lucky if we get one or two out of it. Because companies just, at the end of the day, they don't. They don't. They really just want you to make a commercial for their product. And that's a tough one. So a good example of that is Sweetwater, which I haven't worked with Sweetwater all year. So think of this. This June, this is my first video I did for Sweetwater this year. I haven't done a single thing with Sweetwater all year. And it's because nothing really was really speaking to me. They would send. They send you things and they go, hey, how about this fractal thing? How about this? And I'm like, no, I'm not interested in that. Nice that, you know, I get it. There's, you know, they want to sell a product and I don't want to make a video just because they want to make us sell a product. It's not really interesting to me, and I don't think it's fair to you, but it's really just the combination, all those things. And so they pitched this idea, what if they put $2,000 worth of repairs? They didn't say like that, but I kind of got the gist in this guitar. And they'll send me the guitar and then have to send the guitar back and. And they'll let people check it out at the store. And when they pitch it to me, I was like, that's a horrible idea. I go, what is that? It's just a commercial for doing repairs. They do repairs and setups and stuff. And I was like, that's not a good video. So I actually said no. I was like, no. And then as soon as I said no, the next morning, I woke up and I go, oh, but it could be fun for me to see if I could figure out don't tell me what they are. I go, how about that? Send it to me and don't tell me what it is. Now, the video is interesting to me. Will it be interesting, you guys? I don't know. It's out this week. You guys tell me if you guys watched it. But the point is now. Now there's. There's a reason for the video to exist, at least in my mind's sight. You know, my. My mind is like, oh, okay, we can do it that way. So. And then that's great, because I make a video that I'm interested in. A video. Hopefully you're interested in a video that benefited them, which is good. But more importantly, it was a sponsored video, so now we could take those sponsored dollars. And I've said this before. In fact, I said it on a podcast I was on a couple weeks ago. We take 100% of sponsored dollars, we buy the gear that you see on the other videos so that the next video, I don't have to negotiate with a company. I don't have to go, okay, well, can I do a video about this? I can just go, you guys want to see a guitar? This guitar? And then we buy it, which is how we do most videos. So Dougal dog says, hey, were you expecting the sea to be a Pacifica? Yes. So Dougl Dog, so obviously watch the video. So this. They. They told me it was going to be a Pacifica. And actually, that's the another thing that kind of click for me the next morning, because it was the PA. Whatever, 12. I had already done a video of that guitar. So I was like, oh, I'm versed in it. See? Because one of the things nice about that is I go, the problem I had was what I pitched to them was send me the guitar. I do a. My Deep Divey thing on it. You know, check it out, then I'll send it back to you. Then you do all the mods, then you send it back to me. And that was. That was just too much time and money and aggravation. They were just, like, not gonna they're not interested in that. So I was like, oh. But then when I found out it's like a Pacific, I was like, oh, well, I did the deep dive of that exact model. So I've already had access to one. So, I mean, that's a reference point for you guys, right? I'm like, okay, I know what it feels like in place. Like. So let's just see what it. They sent me a. Obviously you saw the video. They sent me a. Another sample of a basic one just so I had it. But I really didn't need it because at that point, I already kind of knew what to expect. Expect. The model they decked out was fantastic. It was. Somebody said, you know, it'd be nice if you compared it, like, to one of their high end main Japan ones. That's a great idea. Didn't think of it. So I didn't think of it. If I would have thought of it, I could have pitched that to him, but I didn't think of it. But yeah, what I. Here's what I knew. I knew they were gonna deck it out. I knew it's gonna be ridiculous. And, and just so you guys know how complicated all this stuff is, my video was supposed to come out first, which is, what did they do? And then their video was supposed to come out like a week later, a day later, whatever. And then tell you what they really did for those, the keen eyes that paid attention. Their video came out last week and my video came out this week. That makes no sense. Luckily for me, I already released the video to my patrons. So my patrons understood that my video was first. So because they. There was a mistake. It was supposed to come out last month, and the last minute they're like, please don't put the video out. And I'm like, okay. And then they're like, they'll put it. Put it out. They, I think June 6th, which is tomorrow. I said, okay. And then I got a message saying, oh, we accidentally uploaded the video or something happened and it got uploaded and they're like, you can release yours now. So. So that's the. Yeah, too much. Too much of that talk. Let's go back to guitar stuff. Michael Crawley. Michael Cauley. Cauley. Why do I. I see an R, but it's not there. C, A W. But I see Crawley. Good. Mr. Crawley. It's Crowley though, right? Michael Crawley says, Phil, what's your opinion on your Amp Nation versus your two Rock? I prefer my Amp Nation amp. You know, I, I, I. Whatever reason. Let me just Tell you, I. I got. I had a two rock, then I got a new two rock. I liked them. I do. I like them. They're good amps. But it just didn't. Didn't get me. Then Amplify Nation sent me a bunch of amps, as you know. So I went through all the amps and I decided I like them, but I liked specifically the one I have now and the Wonderland overdrive. And then what happened is I did. What happens to all of us. Remember, we. It's all. We're all the same. We're all the same. I was watching YouTube late at night, and every person on there is like, two rocks, the best thing ever. Nations two rocks. Better than everything. So, of course, what I do, I bought a two rock. I got the two rock, and it's really nice. I like my amp nation better. So that's where I'm at. So now I have a two rock and an amp nation. And this is. I've owned two two rocks. So I've had two. Two rocks. They're both nice. I prefer the amp nation. This is what we call guitar math when we make jokes about the fact that the two rocks cost more than the amplified nations. So my logic was maybe I'm missing something. I'm missing something with the, you know, the amp, the two rocks being better. When I say better, you understand? I'm just saying I prefer. See, better is a hard thing to qualify, right? Are they better? I don't know. I can tell you this. I feel like the Amplified Nations. I don't know. They're less sterile to me, which makes no sense because I'm like. I'm a huge John Muir fan. So I'm like, oh, the two rock. It's John Mayer, you know, right? Get the John Mayer sound. I don't know. They're nice. They take pedals really well. They sound really good. I could see why, if you got one, you would never be sad or unhappy with it, other than the price tag's tough, but so are the Amplified Nation. At those price points, there's. I don't know if anyone can be truly happy, you know, because you're spending so much money and you're only going to get. You know, when you spend that kind of money, like everything, you're only going to get a certain percentage better. You know, it's a law diminishing returns. No matter how expensive the gear is, it's going to be better. It's just minimal amounts. So, you know, if you're okay with it, you're okay with it, but. But, yeah, I prefer my Amplified Nation to my two Rock. So I like out of the amp findations. I've. I've liked all the amps that they. They sent me. My. My favorite were the Ample Phonics and Gain and the Wonderland. So Wonderland Overdrive, those are my two favorite of the two rocks I've owned. I've owned the vintage overdrive and the Studio 35. So. And of those two, the vintage overdrive is way more. Has more. Hey, actually has overdrive. Has an overdrive that you can get out of it. That sounds really good. Everything sounds really good. The Studio 35 is really great for a pedal platform because it's super clean. It works really great. And I can almost argue that it records better when you're running pedals through it. And especially when I'm doing, like, the live podcast, when I do stuff to you guys, I can hear. I feel like whatever gets recorded through the interfaces and stuff and the mics. The. The two Rock is giving you the best version, in other words, of what's really in the room where. Some of my other amps, like the Magnetones and the Morgans, I think have more personality, in my opinion, when I mean personality. Just feel like there's a lot more stuff happening. It's just more. I don't know. I just feel like there's something, like I said, more. I don't know. I. Like I said. And I'm trying to think of the perfect way to put it, but I. Sadly enough, I think the way I only can put it is it's got more character. But when I listen to recordings, that coloring that gives it the character also makes it tougher on the recording. So in other words, like, you guys hear something a little. The recording comes back a little bit different than what I hear with the amp in the microphone. So, okay, let's do. Tim says, hey, Phil, I'm just doing basic setups. Nothing other than that. Do I need more than just the music. Nomad radius gauges. Radius gauges. Now for a setup, I don't even know if I. I don't think you need a radius gauge for a setup. You know, those are. Again, that was. That's a tool, Tim. That's a great tool to help radius your bridge to your fretboard. But ultimately I can still do it by sight, you know, and. And by feel. So I think the only thing really, for me, like, if I had. Okay, so here. Tim, you're not asking me this way, but let's put it into perspective. One tool. That's all I get to do guitar setups. But I. Right. I can make everything else work. In other words, you know, obviously you got to have some Allen wrenches and, you know, you know, something like that. I'm going to say string action gauge. I need some kind of measurement device for the action. Right. That's how I feel. The everything else I feel like I can use. I can use a string action gauge to figure out the radius of the bridge. I can make anything kind of work. But, you know, but I feel like. I feel like that's the one tool I need. Okay, so guess what? And now it's time for this or that. All right, so this week, this or that is actually guitar of the week and this or that. So let's. Let's figure this out. So we are going to do The Kiesel Mark 66 new version, which has the single coils and the new pick guard. And it's front routed against the mark 66 more, which is rear routed. Electronics, the back. And this has essentially their version. It's not a P90, but it's. Let's just argument's sake. It's going to be like a P90. We're going to compare the two guitars, obviously. What. These are both ash bodies. They are both roasted maple necks. Of course. This has rosewood fretboard. That has a maple fretboard. Both have stainless steel frets. Both use the Godot 510 bridge. Both use the Kiesel locking keys. This one has the tusk nut. That one has the graphite nut. Those are the factors in if it's something that you believe in, that all those factors are gonna change the sound. Fine. But we're gonna set these down. We're gonna start with this first. I gotta actually gotta figure out which one am I gonna pick. Okay, Have a sign. All right, so let's. Let's put the sign here. So we know what I picked. Now I'd like to point out first, part of what I picked is going to be tough for you guys because part of it's how the guitar feels. And there's just certain things about the guitar's feel. But I'm mostly going off pickup sound. Okay. That's mostly what we're going to be doing is the pickup sound. Okay. We're gonna do the poll, do this or that, and what we'll do is a clean and then an overdrive. Okay, that's fair. Right? So this is that clean. This, that. I like how it already said that. And it said duh. Like, nope, none. Okay, so. All right, so I have the guitar. We're this. Look at that. Why do I always do that? I don't do it on purpose. This or that. Okay, so we're plugged in. What are we plugged into? Let's talk about that. We're plugged into my pedal board. I have the flint reverb. I'm going through the Morgan PR12. Head into a 112 cabinet. Mic'd up so you'll hear that. Let's turn on those mics. There's two mics on it. There we go. Both guitars are plugged in so we can switch fast. So this is this guitar. We're gonna do clean reverb, making sure nothing. And I am going to tell you what pickups I'm on. Now this is what I'm gonna say. There's three settings we're gonna use on both guitars. There's the neck, there's the bridge, and then there's the middle. Okay. And so I will start with the neck. Let's start the pole. Here is this. Here we go. All right, now it's time for that. Here we go. Here's that. Okay, that. This is the neck pickup. Okay, now we're going to go to the middle. This is the middle position on the that guitar. And then we'll switch to this. Okay, now let's go to the this guitar. I hope you guys appreciate how complicated this is. I have, like, a routing switch on my feet. Okay. All right. This is the. This guitar. Middle position. It. Okay, now we're gonna go to the bridge position on the this guitar. Here we go. Okay, now let's go to the that guitar. And this will be the bridge. Here we go. All right. Let's see where the voting is. All right, so this is for the. This is for the clean sound only. We have 147, 155 votes. We'll call it at 160 votes. That's weird. Votes going up and down. 160 votes. We'll end the poll. Okay, here we go. We're in the poll. And according to you guys, the. This guitar won by 63%. 63% picked this. Whoops. Wrong escape. Wrong screen grab. 33% picked that. Why does it move so fast? It's like, I can't. Here we go. And 4% pick none out of 171 votes. So the winner is this for clean. Now let's do the overdrive. We'll start with this. Keep the okay for the overdrive. I'm going to be using the Blue Note by jrocket audio. We did this or that with that amp pedal and you guys picked that pedal. So we'll start with the neck pickup on this guitar and we'll start a new poll. And this is like the nerdiest thing ever. Okay. This, that, none. I wish I could preload these. I know. I say that every week. Okay, this is the this or that overdrive. Here we go. Starting with the neck pickup. Okay. And I dropped a pick. That's funny. Okay, now we're gonna do that guitar. This will be that guitar overdrive. Here we go. Neck pickup overdrive. Okay, now we're going to go to the bridge pickup on that guitar. This is the. The same one. Overdrive. We'll do that. Okay, now we're gonna go back to this with the bridge pickup. Here we go. Okay. And the last thing we're to do is the middle sound. This is the. This guitar in the middle sound overdrive. Okay. And now. Oh, we're on the. Okay, and then we're gonna switch one last time to this guitar. And this is the middle sound. Okay, here we go. Yeah, I think, I think because I didn't switch screens for that last one, you guys, like, I'm confused. It's a little confusing. So. But we're on the right now. We're on the right guitars. Okay, so let's do this, set this back and let's go to the main cam and to see how this works. And 215 votes. We're in the poll. And this is where even though it got a little confusing, I think we still know where we're at, which is overall, this one was 73% of the vote in the clean sound. This one on the overdrive sounds by 54%. So a much smaller margin that you guys actually preferred the this guitar. So what did I pick and which one's which? So I picked this. So I agree with you guys and that this guitar was the Mark 66 with the HSS top loaded electronics configuration. So you guys, you guys, I saw the comments, which is one of the things I shouldn't be doing reading the comments when I'm playing, but I was trying to. A lot of you said that you thought the Mark 66 with the P90 style pickups, we'll call it that sound a little darker. I thought so too. You know what it is? It's just something about the single coils and the humbucker in this. As much as I like the P90s in this. I really do like this guitar. And I'd say for a little bit more like just guttural rock sound. Yeah, I would definitely go with the dual. Dual P90s, but versatility wise, this thing really sings like it just really does. So that's why I picked this one. Overall, I just enjoy the HSS configuration more than the P90s, which is shocking to me because I really do stick to p90s as I sometimes find Strat pickups a little thin sounding. But the marks. But interesting enough, Mark designed both those pickups. Those are the marks. Single coils. And those are the marks. P90s style. I keep calling them P90 style because that's what. Because they look like P90s. It's gonna keep throwing you off. I didn't ask you guys. You know what, can we do one last poll? Which one did you like better? The way it looks. So looks. Looks wise. Okay. Just to keep life easy that way, you know, I know it's. I just want to. So we're gonna put it. We're gonna see. Which one did you guys look better? I'll hold them up. I'll do my little van of white. While you guys pick. Let's do a quick poll. Let's see if we can get 100 people to vote. Which one did you like better aesthetically? Which one do you like? The way it looks better. And try not to go off the fretboards because that's interchangeable with the guitars. Obviously, finish wise, they're almost identical. They're both ash bodies. So let's. One more time. Little van of white. Whoa. Here, we'll do this. God, this is really hard because you're. You know what's funny is the. Even though they're the same body shape, this makes this seem more offset looking than this one does. And I kind of like that too. Am I biasing the. I'm biasing the vote. I have Shawna and Shawna's like, I'm not going to tell you until. So interesting. All right, so I'm going to call it 208. 208 votes. So 62% preferred the mark. 66. With the look of the P90s versus the HSS, which I. I'm going to call it the Pick Guards. So. Interesting enough. So. So, you know, you can get the mark 66. You can get this guitar with dual humbuckers and then coil split them, or you can get one with humbucker and a P90 in the neck. So that's so yeah. Interesting. It'll be really cool if they're able to. To do. Nah, I don't know. I kind of like the way they are now. I was gonna say, I like that way looks wise. I kind of. I agree. I think I like. I think I kind of like this look a little nicer than the. Just over, you know, over the bigger pick guard. But versatility wise, I just really like having, you know, this position, you know, and. And the neck and in the bridge. I just like having that extra position since I don't really use the p90s in the middle too much. Okay, so that was this or that and guitar of the week mixed in. And I want to thank the guys at Kiesel because they had to overnight that guitar to us so we can have that today because, you know, because they just announced it on Wednesday. But I thought it'd be fun. I was like, I was looking for a good this or that, and I like that. Okay, so let's do one last question topic and then we'll end the show. All right. And I'm looking. I don't know the question. So let's try it. Deja. Deja. YouTube says notice that even War Moth has hopped on the Palo for limited run. So Pauloween is an ultra light wood. It's as light as basswood, if not lighter. It says they won't do a trim style body due to the super soft wood. Oh, yeah, that would make sense. Have we gone too far in the search of light wood? Tone wood? Yeah. I mean, look, it depends on how light you're trying to get the guitar. When I say light guitars, like A perfect World for me is like seven and a half pounds. That's perfect. Eight's fine. I. A lot of my guitars are eight pounds. Eight pounds. You know, just over eight pounds. I'm just not really big into eight and a half and ten nine pound guitars. It's not my thing. Definitely not into nine and ten pound guitars. It's again, not my thing. But. But yeah, I mean is, you know, you know what's funny is, is I don't. I don't really care about the wood. Whatever the guitar is made of, it's not. I don't have a preference. I don't have a profit. I just like the guitars not to be heavy. That's mainly the thing. And I always focus on that. It's not that my guitars have to be light. It's just. I just don't want them to be heavy. I don't want to pick them up and feel like what a boat anchor. So is the Paulowena going too far? I mean, maybe it's, you know, I don't know. I, you know, think of this. G L did a line of guitars with Paulowena and so did sir. And you know, I think that when you get it too light as a body now you're just, you're going to be dealing with the neck heaviness of it because, because it's, you know, just there's no way to get the neck ultralight. Steve O says, hey Phil, did you sell the Jackson with Flames? I did not. So I bought that guitar to do the video. And then what happens with those guitars? Because obviously I bought it. I thought it'd be fun to do a video because it was a time capsule piece. It was a guitar that had been in a case for 20 years. Basically they just sit in a row of cases. And then we probably, we get to a point where it works just like any business. We get to a point where we've run depleted the funds that we're using to buy gear for the channel. And then we're like, okay, time to, to dump. So we, we, we tend to, if we can remember to do it. I try to sell some stuff as we go, but sometimes I just don't get to it. And then what happens is we do like, oh no, we got 10 guitars, it's got to go. So right now I think when I looked, I think we have about five or 10 guitars that have to go. I can't tell you I didn't look, look. Because they just sit in a ca. In a row of cases and we're like, okay, we'll see what to do with it. So, but no, not, not sold it yet. Farmer Dan says, I hope Keisel keeps leaning to in to make more vintage style guitars. I, I agree. I think I like the idea that, you know, I'll just tell you what I told Jeff. Part of the conversations I don't think is private, which is I think he loves designing guitars. I think that you can see it in a passion for him is like he's always coming up with a new guitar. I mean if you think about it, Keel's coming out with guitars f most companies, you know, when it comes to new models like the Kyber or the Arrow or the Kira or whatever, you know, there's always a new guitar, right? New artist guitar or something like that. And look, the reality, no matter what everybody thinks is it's not illegal in the United States to make A Fender style Strat or telly. They're a public domain. And again, one of my complaints about Fender being so aggressive is not so much that they, I'm not talking about the right or wrong of it. I'm talking about the fact that I'm like, people have the, they, they can make a, a, a Fender style guitar that's a Strat and they can make a Strat. They can be jazz bass, they can make a telly. You can make that guitar. It's, it's totally legal. And, and the fact that it's, it's a, it's not a, it's not legally wrong. Okay, Is what I'm trying to say. And so if, if Fender does want to change that ruling and change it to where you can't, or they have to pay, get paid a license. I'm not even arguing whether or not, again, I agree or disagree with that. I think that's a big question that we could argue for hours and hours and get nowhere on. My point is you shouldn't treat people like. I understand treating some company on AliExpress is putting your Fender logo and making a copy, or not even a copy, I should say, not a replica, what's the word? A fraudulent style guitar because they're actually putting your logo on it. I understand trying to stop people from making, you know, fake guitars, but, you know, telling somebody to stop making a guitar, maybe you get a new ruling and you go, hey, you don't have the right to make this guitar anymore. That's fine. But to demand that they pay you some kind of restitution, to demand that they destroy their merchandise and they haven't even technically done anything wrong because technically you haven't even really won anything yet. Like, and again, I don't want to get too in the weeds on this. My point is, is what I was saying to Jeff was, you know, look, they got some, like, everybody, they got a Stratton telly style guitar, and that's great, you know, and, and it's not even like what offender stops you from doing it. It's, you know, is that where your passion really is? And, and you know, Mark, his father designed this guitar that's beautiful. And he designed the Arrow and the Kyber. And I think they're beautiful guitars. They're some of the nicest guitars I have. And I was like, you know, I just think, and I, I said, I think that's of kind. I love those more. I love them more than I like the Keisel designs as much as I like Any of the other Fender Gibson style designs that anybody does. So I like having a lot of different guitars, even though I guess they're all the same. I don't know. Look, that's my PRS single cut. So I guess that's a Gibson. I don't know. See how fun this is? We could play this game forever. But my point is, is that I think they. I think it's cool that they're trying new things. Things. And I think a lot of companies should. That's my. That's my point. All right, so. Plump Weasel says they demanded who they sold guitars to. Yes. So I've explained this. So, you know, and we'll end on this note with the Fender thing. When they. They asked for or demanded the. To know the. The names of the customers. I said this in a video. I said this last week on the podcast. They're asking for the vent. The dealers they sold to. These companies don't sell direct to consumer. They're not like Kiesel, like, if somebody asks Kiesel, like Offender asks Kiesel that, then they would be asking for a list of us. When they're asking a company like LSL or prs, they're basically saying, give us a list of your dealers you sold guitars to. My guess is so that they could document how many were sold and try to assess damages, financial damages. Because what people don't seem to understand is that, you know, that's part of this game too, is to get the damages. So I'm just want to make sure we're all clear. So. All right, on that note, I hope you guys enjoyed the podcast. I sure enjoyed it. You guys, if you're a patron, don't forget, tomorrow is the clinic. It's live. It's just like this. If you guys don't know what a clinic is, it's just like this. It's just in my shop. So when you ask me questions, like tech questions, we actually pull out the tools. We can pull out stuff and we can get more detailed. And we definitely just spend most of the time talking about repair stuff and mods, which is a little bit nerdier, that way different nerdy kind of thing. And, and everyone else, I just want to thank you for making it to the end of the show. As you know, that's a huge way to support the show. And on that note, look for new videos coming out. And if you haven't, check out the video I did where I. I evaluated the crazy amount of 2000s of dollars of modifications somebody did to Sweetwater did to a 250 guitar. It's kind of fun. Video. All right. On that note, thanks for your time. Until the next time. Know your gear the know your gear podcast.