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Phil
The Know youw Gear Podcast. Today's episode of the Know youw Gear Podcast is brought to you by Patreon members, Channel members and viewers who like and subscribe. Thank you for making this possible. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Know youw gear podcast. Episode 395. Almost. Almost 400 episodes. Uh, so I hope you guys had a fantastic week. And it's kind of like a half week if you think about it. Because it was a holiday and we did the pedal board build. Before we do anything else, I just got to say thank you for that. Not only did I not think it was going to be a big deal or anything, my Shawna was like. My wife Shauna was like, okay, you want to spend New Year's Eve building a pedal board? I'm like, yeah, it'd be fun. The turnout for that was so huge compared to what we thought. So I just want to say thank you for that. That was a lot of fun. I will definite do something like that again in the future. Something fun. It just was great. It's just fun. It was just fun. So, first episode of the year, we have a lot of subjects, a lot of things. I have some exciting stuff to show you. And I don't know, usually I have all kinds of like, prompted up stuff. I think we're going to do a little freeform today. A little fun, little go with it. See, Go with the flow. Let's see what happens. I'm going to do it. Randall wants to know, he said he got a digital house brand piano and he said wire. Basically our wire house brand pianos junk. I have no idea. I have no. I don't know why I'm even reading this. I appreciate you leaving it, but it's like I have no idea about pianos at all. Digital pianos at all. Nothing. No, I know nothing. So there. We're starting the show with there. I don't know anything. What a great way to start off 2025. Let's see. Let me jump around. Let me just grab. Grab some stuff. Now remember, if you're directing a question towards me or a subject, put a question mark first. That way it's easier to see. That's what's saying about the super chats. I see the super chats because they're just glowing in colors. And then of course, Amanda scoops and sends me some too. But you gotta understand, put some question marks in front of it so I know it's directed towards me. So when I'm scanning, it's easier to see. You know, a lot of you Guys are talking amongst yourself, which is fine. Dawn wants to know about more geeky stuff. Merch. We're working on that. I'm wearing a brand new shirt that's not for sale. Like I said, I tend to wear a lot of merch and we don't sell. This has the. The know your gear neon sign on it instead of the. The dudes. And this is. My wife made this. Shauna made this for me. This is to prototype out. I think I was wearing it during the pedal build, so I'm pretty sure I was. So. Because it was just in the shop right now hanging. It's like I do a little Mr. Rogers. So, you know, this is, this is why I started wearing these shirts on the show. I. I go to film and I put it on like Mr. Rogers putting on my. My shirt and then I film something and then I take it off and hang it back on the hanger. And that way I can keep using like one shirt instead of. Sometimes I can go through two, three shirts in a day just filming, you know, so it was just easier to do it this way. All right, let me grab one that Amanda sent. This is from Diego who says question, Phil, have you. Phil, haven't seen. Seen much videos from you regarding multi effects pedals. What's your thoughts on the best quad cortex helix? I'm thinking about purchasing, but I wanted to make a future proof. No such thing as future proof when it comes to anything digital. So get that out of your head. Like this is all iPhone stuff, okay? This is you. You gotta understand. The future of this is two folds, okay? One is you buy digital products and they're not gonna last. I don't mean physically like they break down. I mean just they're not going to be relevant or, you know, they're not going to last. It's an iPhone, it's a phone, it's a technology, it's a computer. So they're just not going to hold the value. Same thing with plugins and stuff like that. Maybe plugins have a longer shot because you can keep transferring them from computer to computer. But the whole point of that stuff is to evolve. You know, think about it just this way. Diego guitar amplifiers, tube amplifiers are going backwards. They're trying to make them sound like they did, right? So that's why they can stay relevant for a long time. A perfect example. So, you know, is. Is a perfect, absolute perfect example, Dego is just think about it like from. I create content for a living. So think about this. I make a video about a Tube Screamer pedal. Seven years later, that video, the video is still performing. It's still do. It's evergreen. It just keeps performing. Somebody's always buying a new Tube Screamer and looking up Tube Screamer videos and watching it. But yet my, you know, line six products, or, you know, Joyo products, or name it, whatever products from seven years ago, it's like they're not getting any views anymore. It's very rare. So they're just not that way. So don't think like that. It's not. Don't buy it. It's not against it. I'm actually for them. I'm just saying you really do need to come to that kind of like resolution with yourself. I. I tend to go with what I. What I like with this. Like anything else. I don't really have a. A preference like the sound quality. It's always about the user interface to me. I like Kemper because its user interface is good. I like Helix a lot because it's super user interface. HX Stomp is one of the most fantastic units I think, out there. Talking about a unit that's holding its own. I like the Axe FX, FM3 just because, again, if you notice, it's this needs. I don't need elaborate rigs. I'm not doing shoegaze music. I'm not doing things where it's tons and tons of, you know, three reverbs in a row running for. Through four delays, running through two amps split into four cabinets. You know, I'm not doing any of that stuff. Everything is just simple. It's as simple as I can get it, just. Just to get a good sound. So I like it kind of streamlined. So I would say when you're doing your research, a lot of people get really hung up on the A B sound quality, like, and do that too. I'm just saying a lot of people get like, okay, the Helix sounds, you know, not as good as the. The axe effects. And the axe effects. It doesn't sound as good as the cortex and so, so on and so on. What I will tell you is this stuff can lead to workflow problems, and workflow problems will kill the device for you. Imagine a world where if you got yourself a Hot Rod Deluxe, a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, and you spent 20 minutes every time you turn it on trying to get, you know, navigate the knobs and get something out of it, you're just going to stop using that amp altogether. It really needs to be simple as you turn on and play and you're used to the workflow of it. So it's just. It's just really about workflow. And for me, in my experience, the easiest, without a doubt is the. Now I'm forgetting the name of it. What is it? It's not line six. It's the other one that's like line. Head rush. Head rush is the easiest. I personally didn't love the head rush sounds compared to the other units on the market. But for ease of use, I mean, there was just. It was plug and play, touch and go. It was just super easy. I couldn't imagine an easier thing than that. But I would say. Then I would say line six for me. Then after that was probably Kemper. And then after Kemper. In my experience now keep mind. I am not. I've never tried the quad cortex, so I don't know quad cortex. When it came out, they reached out to me. I remember it was the 2020 NAMM show because I was super busy. Super. I had so many appointments. It was the busiest NAMM show ever been, was the last NAMM show I've ever been to and probably may ever go to because it was just so much workload. And I went there and they asked me to come to the booth and we set up some time to look at the unit. And then when I got there, you know, they were like, there it is. I looked at it for a few minutes and I was like, I'm. I didn't know what to do. I was just like looking at it going, that's pretty cool. I think they were. They hadn't come out yet. My advice is do a lot of research about the interfaces and try to see. Do your best, kind of like how you feel about the interfaces. I've tried Tonx as well too. Tonx is probably the best affordable one. Although I'm not a fan of Tonics interface for their computer. Their computer software was me and them. No Moss, no good. And again, this is. Keep in mind how I say it. It's not their system suc. I watched a couple reviews and they were like, their software is horrible. I'm a software designer and even I know it's horrible. I don't know anything about that when it comes to that stuff. I'm just telling you, it did not work for me. Right. Their software. So Tonx was eventually. And I've owned the Tonx unit twice and I've owned the mini Tonx once and it was same thing. It was just. I don't know, I didn't enjoy it as much. I thought it sounded a little better than the Helix in the HX Stomp. But again, interface always wins. I don't know why. It's not. It's not any product's fault. It's just sometimes you're just something clicks with you better. So that's my advice. And this will probably tie it into a subject that came up. But let me grab a super chat that was. That will tie into this so we can keep this thing going. This came from antique rocker who said Phil. He didn't say Phil. He says, in reverb's top 20amps of 2024, there is not a tube amp listed. Is the guitar market phasing out tube technology 40 years after everyone else? Okay, so this is a great subject. There's a couple of things I need to talk about that have come up in the past when discussing Reverb's top lists. Reverb who, by the way, the first time I ever talked about a Reverb top list, which was Guitar List, which I want to say was like, you know, three years ago, if you go to that podcast, Reverb responded to me in there. There's a long response from them about what I said, which I'm gonna be talking about right now, and that they basically took some of my advice and they made some changes in my statement. Then what I was saying was as uniquely enough, I know I'm a guitar nerd. This is a guitar channel. But like I said, I used to work. I used to work in risk management. I used to work in reporting. I used to create reports off Oracle databases for a Fortune 100 company, much less a Fortune 500 company. And I was. I was responsible for, like, the CEO of the company. Like every day, I had to create these reports for them. The management, you know, you name it, that's what I did. Or I should say I helped manage a team that did that as well. But anyways, my point is, reports are very tricky because that's why I'm telling you this, because I don't know what they're capturing. They've said they've made some corrections. What I mentioned the first time they did this was I said, look, if they're just correct, if you just keep the capture simple as, let me know every time somebody lists this word Stratocaster, you know, let's say American Stratocaster, and you go, okay, every time that happens, I want to, you know, I want to know every time that was listed and you're going off lists and not sales. So I'M assuming. So this is what I'm trying to tell you. I'm going to assume a lot of information because there wasn't a lot of information for me to find when seeing about this list. They say sales, but is it sales or listed products? So for instance, that's where it gets real confusing because sometimes some of us will list a product it doesn't sell, we pull it down and we relist it. So, okay, so one product can show twice because remember, they're not probably going by individual SKUs or anything. That's, that's so, so specific that the same item can't go over. They did say, however, from my last time I talked about this, that they do did correct a few things because they were doing exactly what I saying, which is churning. In other words, I buy this delos and then I sell it. Then you buy this delos from me, then you sell it. They're showing this one delos sold twice because it's churning. Right. So that's what was happening kind of on the first time with the silver skies. People are buying and selling things. So. So in this case, I don't know. I watched as much and I read as much this week as I could about this report because I was interested in it like you guys. And they even had a discussion. Unfortunately, even though I think the Ret Shaw and those guys did an amazing job on their podcast, they probably just, they didn't know to ask the questions I'm asking, which is fine. They're musicians, not so much like somebody with a, you know, reporting history. So there's a couple of things that I'm confused about. We'll go over that. Let me go to the actual report. So the question is, you know, are like tube amps dead? Because there was not a single tube amp in the Top 20 sold amps report and couple things that actually stuck out to me. So let me just go over what the top five amps according to reverb were that sold. Okay. In order. So 1 to 5. Okay. So this is the number one selling was the quad cortex. Now let me just read them and then I'll go back through them. Quad core test number one, positive grid spark number two. But it said positive grids spark. So again, if we're talking about the spark mini micro and the full size, the one and the two, everything combined, it kind of looks like they're just capturing by that sku, I don't know, line six Helix. Yes. If you're noticing they're using the amp modelers as amps as well. Universal Audios, Auxbox. Okay. Which is important because that's basically an attenuator and then the boss katana. Okay, so that's the top five. So let's talk about a couple things. First of all, again, reports are very interesting because we don't know percentages. Okay, so here's a good example. I saw on their top guitar sales report, it said like Fender was number one and then it was Gibson and then it was like Epiphone. And then it's like, I think it was something. And then Squire. Okay, now think about this. It's very possible that Fender alone was, you know, let's say it was 40% of all items sold on reverb for guitars. That's just in theory, right? So and then the next skew down goes to 20%. So by the time that you get to the end of the list, you could be talking about. It would be nice to know the percentages. Just that's what I'm basically getting at because it gives me like more reference. Like Quad Cortex sold the most, but I don't have a. I don't have an idea of like volume. How comparably different quad corte Cortex went to Spark. So in other words, did Quad Cortex sell one more unit than the Sparks combined and then the Sparks sold two more units in line 6? Again, that would just help you kind of understand where the value proposition is. There's a couple things I want to point out about that list before we go any further. I'm going to go to YouTube and I'm going to type in I stopped using amps, but that way. Okay, so here's what I want to show you. So we have Michael. Michael I met at Sweetwater. He was a very nice guy. He did a video called why guitar players stop using tube amps. This was two years ago. Okay. He did. Why players start using amp modelers. Oh, why start with amp modelers? We have, you didn't need a guitar amp. You don't need a guitar amp. Here's a video. You don't need a guitar amp. We have. We have Stay Metal Ray, which is Raymond. He's like, I stopped using tube amps. Stop using amp sims. Try this. Basically I want to go through, we need two amp purists. But let's talk about it. What I remember in the Last couple years, 13 reason why amp sims destroy real amps. That's by Glenn, basically. Basically, if we go through and then already it's off the rails because it's pulling Other data, more other videos. What I remember in the last two years was in a massive amount of YouTubers saying, I'm stopping using tube amps. And then I'm like, what's interesting is I'm not saying YouTubers created the market that you see here, but I mean definitely these are communities and your community, I wanna say leaders. They're not the leaders of the community, but they're definitely the, the, they, they get to grab the most attention and eyeballs. I saw a lot, I mean a lot of videos and I take notice of that because of a different reason than probably you guys. I take notice because I'm like, when you see every YouTuber going, I got rid of all my amps and I'm only using effects processors and they're getting massive views, you go, huh, well if I'd make that video, I'll get massive views too. Unfortunately, in my case, I couldn't justify that title because there's. I'm not in that place right now. So I think that's part of it. We talked about the fact that people are using modelers now more than ever. They're very useful and they're very good. I'm shocked about the quad cortex, although, because it's a $1700 unit, it's hard to see like think that the 1700 unit outsold, you know, a positive grid spark amp or katana. But it was the hottest thing and I would say whatever is the newest thing at the moment is going to get massive amounts of attention and sales. Or again, they could be churning them people buying and flipping their quad cortexes because they're frustrated with them. Those are all factors in this. And I say all this because I just want to make sure we're all on the same page with what we're talking about. I don't think, by the way, for the, for those that are curious, the only tube amp to make any list on there was the Vox AC15 was number 23. So no hot Rod Deluxe is no Blues Juniors, I would say. I think this falls exactly in line with what I've been saying for the last two years, which is, I think what's going to happen is high end tube amps, quality tube amps are going to become even more valuable. All Amplified Nation a la the new Hangwire. You know, Bad Cat, all, you know, Friedman amps, you know, you know, amps that are. And that's just a few. I mean we can go on two rock, you name it. Just keep going down your road where literally you're going to see players going, look, I can build a giant pedal board and throw it in front of a Hot Rod Deluxe and haul all this to a place. Or I can just take a Quad Cortex or a, you know, a Kemper or Helix. I. We definitely see that as a trend. It's because at some point it's like, okay, it's not how good is a tube amp versus a modeler. It's how much different is 15 pedals in front of a basic level tube amp. I was just talking about this literally before I even knew about this report. I was just talking about the fact that a lot of people don't seem to know that on a Hot Rod Deluxe the way it works, again from selling them. This is what I remember was they make two amps, the Blues Deluxe and the Hot Rod Deluxe. And the main difference between the two is the Hot Rod Deluxe has two power tubes and a preamp tube. Right? And so I'm trying to think what that's called. It's a phase inverter. I'm sorry. So it has a preamp tube for a phase inverter. Keep in mind, I'm not a tube tech, an amp tech, and I'm not versed in this stuff. I just, believe it or not, Fender put out a training manual on how to sell these amps. So I just remember it from the manual. The Hot Rod Deluxe has again, two power tubes and a preamp tube as a phase inverter for those two power tubes. So it's not aside to the preamp channel. Then it has one preamp tube for the reverb, and then it has one preamp tube for the drive side of the preamp. The second channel, the first part of the Hot Rod Deluxe, if I recall, and I could be right now, again, I could be incorrect, but I'm pretty sure this feels right because I'm doing on memory. The clean channel on a Hot Rod Deluxe does not have a tube in the Preamp. The Blues Deluxe, if you're familiar with that one, it looks just like the Hot Rod Deluxe, but it's tweed, has the same thing. It has two power tubes with a preamp tube as a phase inverter, one preamp tube for the reverb, and one preamp tube assigned to the clean channel. Interesting enough. And that was a big difference. So a lot of players like the Hot Rod Deluxe because it's really clean, it's probably because it's really like more solid state clean on that side, but it's running through a two Power section. And that's maybe how they're keeping the amp so clean. It's possible. But again, you know, if you're looking for that high end, you know, hand wired boutique amp, the Hot Rod Deluxe is a different kind of animal. It's great. It's actually one of my favorite amps, but it's a different animal. So this is what I'm saying about, you know, the players going, hey, do I really need this? If I can run, you know, an speaker and a modeling product? I'm not shocked about anything on the list. So, you know, I don't think I saw where, you know, Rhett and the guys were talking about. They think the pendulum can swing back and people will get into tube amps. I think that's not going to be the case. What I mean by that is I think there will be a smaller group, community, community who's into tube amps and they'll stay into tube amps and some people will kind of come back over to the fold. But these kind of things have an effect where they drive up the, the price of tube amps. Hand wired tube amps are getting super expensive. They're super small quantity now and they're super, super expensive. And this is only going to make them more expensive. Cause because I happen to know I'm going to tell the story that I just can't say who, but just trust me this in 2020, in January. So I'm going to give you as many. I'm just going to give you every detail I can. But the name that said it in 2020 In January, I got to interview Steve. I. And so this will kind of lead in a couple of things. And I was at this event and when I was at the event I was talking to a person I respect in this industry who builds tube amps, guitar amps, lots of them. So again, you can make all kinds of speculations. It won't matter who I just. He specifically, I'm going to tell you why I said, hey, would you do a podcast with me? I would really like to talk about the industry and tube amps and how your business model works and why it's working for you. And he said, no, I'm really not like into doing that. So that's why I'm not giving his name and stuff specifically. But what he said to me was really powerful considering was five years ago he said, look, the biggest problem in the tube industry, the amp industry right now, this is five years ago, is Marshall and Fender would come out with an Amp and they'd ride that design for 10 years. A Plexi, you know, sell that for 10 years, then when it slows down, make an 800. Sell that for 10 years. That slows down, make a 900. That slows down, make a 2000. Fender doing the same thing. You know, sell tweets, those slow down in sales, go to blackfaces, those sell down, go to, you know, silver face. Changing the design of 10 years. Famous builders like Mike Saldano build a amp like an SLO 100, and they ride it for two decades. You know, the R, the R and D in design, they could add a new model every once in a while. They can make a tweak to it, but essentially they're selling through. He says, In 2000. This is five years ago. In 2020, he said, the biggest problem, 2020. He goes, I have to design an amp almost every six months, and then I have to make a huge marketing blitz to promote that amp. And the amp sales skyrocket. And then just dead stop. And then I'm back to the drawing board. We're designing new amps again. And he goes, this is not the kind of product that is designed to do that. He goes, sourcing tubes is getting harder, harder by the day, much less the year and the decade. Sourcing parts is going to be more difficult. You know, he's like, shipping them is extremely expensive and difficult. He's like, everything about this is just choking and crushing the tube industry and the tube amp industry. And he's like. And just the fact that I gotta basically start thinking about the fact that I'm gonna have to come up with a product every quarter is just insane. And he goes, and that's his biggest obstacle. And in 2020, I thought that was an interesting conversation. And I really kind of like, stuck with me, as you can imagine. But to watch it unfold year after year, and now, five years later, looking back and listening to that speech, you can see exactly what the problem is, right? The only way they can really do that, you know, coming up a new product every quarter. You see the amp companies that do it, they're essentially repurposing products or just repackaging. I shouldn't. Repurposing is a good word, but repackaging. So it's. In other words, it's like, oh, it's the same product, but now we just threw a different color on it. Trying to do some excitement. Or the companies that are not true tube. In other words, there's a little solid state in there. Digital and they can keep changing that out. So that's the problem. And now if you look at the modelers that are out there, look at what they're doing, they're constantly going, hey, here's 20 new amp packs for you. Download these. Here were updates. More updates, more stuff so they can keep refreshing, so people can go, well, I didn't buy the, you know, Axe FX yet, but now that it has. Oh, I didn't know. Now it has the Mesa Boogie pack, or now it has the this pack. And now I'm interested. Maybe I'll buy one that's a product they. They've already developed, but they can keep selling almost as it's new. It's an update, right? Because it's getting updates. And then I'm not saying it's easy to make that technology, the modeling technology, by the way, I don't want anybody to take away any kind of weird thing just from one part of it. What I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is this is what's going to hurt the tube amp industry the most, is all the things I just said. And I think the way this will work is it's not that I think that they'll make less tube amps. Like each company will make less tube amps. I think there's gonna be a lot less tube amp companies. I think that the ones that do it the best, the ones that when you plug into them and you have a holy crap moment when you plug in that amp, like, to me, the death of the tube amp is I plug into one. As somebody who reviews them, let me tell you what the death is. It's almost. It's the worst experience you can ever have. I plug in the amp and I go, it's nice. It's dead. If it's not, wow, why am I playing a Kemper when this exists? That's the only thing that keeps a tube amp alive in this. In the current, in the future market, in my opinion, if it doesn't fly feel and sound and look amazing and doesn't inspire you on every way, then, yeah, I'm going modeling and I'm doing both. And I think everybody will do both. But I also think that's also what's going to drive it down. So where you see lots of. I'm seeing already where you see lots of not amp channels, okay? Like, you know, guitar amp channels that review, nothing but taramps. They always have piles and piles of amps, right? It's just insane. It's like my amount of you know, all the guitars behind me, but all amps. Notice, though, the channels that are not so much amp channels, they're just gear channels in general. Maybe they do everything, or maybe they do, like me, mostly guitars, but they also dive into amps and pedals. Notice how the wall of amps is disappearing to just the few that they really, really like. Because it's not that I don't want a lot of amps. It's just like I'm like, no, I need a few that can't be profiled. Right. Or a few that can't be. You know, I play my Axe effects or I play my Kemper, and they're great. And when I want something more, I grab something a little bit more. So that's. That's my 2 cents on the list for that super chat. And I think there was another thing he basically, he's saying is a phasing out. It is phasing out. It's been phasing out. I guess I could have started with that. I think that it's not. This report doesn't tell us where it's going. It already went there. And it's why you don't see, like, look at a guitar center. We talk about guitar centers now, loading up the walls with more expensive guitars. Notice they're not loading up the floors with more expensive amps. Notice that's not in that scenario. You can look at the video where I shot one of the new guitar centers. You can look at the new guitar centers you went in, and you can look and see, you know, rows of expensive guitars. But, I mean, you're lucky to see one or two nice amps. And a lot of times those are because they're used in there. You're usually seeing the major culprits. It's why I said. I said this years ago. And if we ever get the podcast going with Gabe, the CEO of Guitar center, maybe it'll be a discussion, which is at this point, I think if you want the kids market, you want Strandberg headless guitars running through Axe fx. And when I go to Guitar center, they don't carry either one of those things. They don't carry any of the things I think younger players seem to be interested in. At least when I do videos, I can see from the analytics the age groups that do it. And whenever I do headless guitars or whenever I do modern tech like that modeling, I see the age groups drop dramatically. Somebody actually put a question that really tied into this. That was from Canman, who says, why is The Synergy amp not driving the market. It's a good example. I'm going to be using my Synergy amp today. I really like it. It's expensive and I think it has. So as as someone who's really enjoying it and have a lot of great things to say about it, there are some serious critiques that I have for it. And I think their new Synergy Send 20amp is going to fix a couple of critiques, which is I think the Synergy amp needs to have more tech in it. So this is a 50 watt all tube amp with replaceable modules. I can load in the, you know, like today I'm using the Slo Saldano module and then a Fender basement and you can load in whatever modules. I have a, you know, a Vox and you have a, you know, a Dr. Z and I have a Friedman. You name it and you can load in different things. But to me it also needs to have like all of the IR ability, you know, a load box built in. Like it should just be an all in one recording unit. But I do love it and I love the preamp unit they'd sell. I think the Synergy stuff is a great product. And it's definitely like, I've told you guys, it's another reason why I've lost so many amps because I'm like, oh, anything that the Synergy can do as good as an actual amp. Like, in other words, if I have an amp and I ab the synergy against it, I think they sound close. The real amp's gone. I'll just keep the Synergy stuff. But there's a few amps that either Synergy doesn't do like bad cat, or there's a few amps that for some reason just they're so specific in what they do. Synergy just can't do it. I can't do the that specific amp. And I'll. If you ever want to talk about that, just. Guys ask me about that. Let's go to another subject. Thank you for bringing that up. I was really, really interested in that all week. I was watching a lot of stuff about these sales reports. It's. It's not the sales that I matter. It's not the market. It's like not like where we're talking about the stock market. We're talking about trends. The sales are the trends and the trends are going the way we think. We all seem to think. I don't know what this question is. Mike wants to know question. Hey, Phil, what is your favorite thing to Sit on when you are casual playing your guitar. Sofa, office chair in bed, et cetera. Love your show. I actually, funny enough, if you're a patron, you probably might know this because it was on a bonus thing we gave the patrons. I don't sit in office chairs. I don't own an office chair. So, you know, I'm fat enough. I don't need to get any fat or sitting in a chair. And I have to sit sometimes for long periods of time. And I have a standing desk. That's what I'm right now. This desk is actually up high, but I'm not standing right now. So I have a standing desk and I stand, but I have these really horrible stools and I usually. I could lean back right now and point at the one behind me because there's usually two in here. But the. It got pulled in the other room. So I have stools. I don't know how to explain it. Stools with really. They're stools. They're just like bar stools. They're horrible. That's what I sit at a desk at all day. Barstools. Not very comfortable. They have a pivot system in them. So it's because I have a broken tailbone. And so obviously I got to watch that because that never heals. It's been a long time, but. And so they pivot so my tailbone doesn't get, you know, too compressed. But it's not comfortable. And that's why I like it. I like them because I don't want to sit for too long in a day. So that's what I do. And that's what I also sit on. If I play guitar or I stand. It's just funny. I sit in videos to play guitar, but I'll stand in the room when I'm playing guitars. I don't know if they. If the question is, which may come up is why don't I stand when I play in the videos? You know, believe it or not, I. I stand when I do the guitar of the week now. And I kind of watch myself and it seems like, I don't know, silly. So I don't know. It kind of feels like you should sit because you're not in an environment where you're like on a stage or something. But that's what I sit on. It's the perfect amount of uncomfortable, but not uncomfortable. Does it make sense? So my other stool was. I have a really nice stool in the other room that is a. I forget what they call it, like drum. It's A drum stool. Drum sock? Is that what it's called? Rock sock. It's gotta be rock sock, right? Is it rock sock stools? Oh, my God. They're very expensive and they're very good, but they're so comfortable. Nope. It's like drum throne. I don't know. Let's see. Here it is. Pork pie. I don't know why I thought so. I usually have a pork pie. So I have a pork pie. Hold on. I don't know why it doesn't. Let me open it so I can show you guys. Well, do that. Here it is. This is it. Mine's not gold, though. Mine's just black. But I have a pork pie. It's very nice. It's really comfortable. And that's why I don't use that one very often, because I don't want to sit for too long, so. And then I don't really sit on the couch and play guitar and stuff like that. I have these stools, like, all through the house, everywhere. I might have to be playing guitar. I have something like that ready for me because, like I said, it minimizes how much I sit and play. So sometimes I'm like, I might as well stand. Just some guy says, hey, Phil, what do you think a zagger guitar is doing? Buy one, get one free sales. I thought I seen all the deals, man. There's been a lot of deals. That's a. Buy one, get one free is a super deal. I stick. I stay with what I always say about them. I hear good things. I've. I've worked on a few of their guitars. I've never, never. They're not bad guitars. Like I said, the confusion is sometimes it's implied they're made in USA when it seems like they're made in Indonesia or whatever. And. And that's been a little confusing over the years. And, you know, if, you know, everybody should buy whatever they like. I just. I just tell people to do your research about them and make sure you know what you're comparing them to. You know, a lot of times they like to compare themselves. It's like, you know what it is? They do this thing that movies do. They're like, it's the next Star wars is the greatest movie since Star wars, you know? Right. It's the greatest movie since the Godfather. It's like, I'm always weary of, like, you know, like, if Court Court Guitars made a guitar and said, it's as good as a Taylor, you know, four. Four series, you know? Or is it Martin D28. You'd be like, is it so I don't know, but pretty good deal. Sounds like a good deal. Buy one, get one free, you get one to a friend. Or you could sell one and cut down the cost of it. Huh. Let's see. Darren wants to know, hey Phil, what is the issue with using a guitar amp to play bass at bedroom levels? I know it's related to speaker, but it's just speaker, man. That's all it is. Guitar amp and a bass amp. For the most part it's the same. You can run them through bass players run bass amps all the time. I mean bass and guitar amps. Guitar players will run through bass amps. Essentially you can, you can blow a guitar speaker very easily with a bass. But keep in mind it just depends on the guitar speaker because some guitar players are playing eight strings, although still does not get low enough frequency. So if you're going to play your bass through a guitar amp, the thing you are putting at risk is the speaker. And even at low volume you can sometimes damage the cones. So it's on you. I did a video literally going through this where I played bass through a guitar amp and to talk about this. And that's basically the, the just of the videos. You know, you don't have to watch it. It just says, you know, if you want to use it at low volumes, you could probably get away with it. But just keep in mind that's what you're putting at risk as a speaker. So in other words, if you throw a bass speaker into a guitar amp, this is a bass amp. Now I mean, functionally speaking, I'm not going to say it sounds like a bass amp. They're going to be eq, different sound different. But functionally speaking it will work. And that's it. That's the main concern. And other than, like I said, you can damage the speaker very easily if you're not, if you're not paying attention. Litvay says, have you ever heard of the N6 Nuno guitar? Yes. There's an N5, there's an N6, and four, there's an X6 which is same. Yeah. So it's a specification difference. If I recall, the NX6 is HSS, right? Let's look that up, shall we? Wash burn in six guitar. And I'm pretty sure it is. I was called it. Look at that. So this is the N6. The N6 is a HSS. So that's the main thing. And it has a pick guard. Essentially the same guitar by design. They have other versions. And then I. There's NX6, I think is the import version of that guitar. So if that makes any sense. Like, the one I just pulled up was 300. So you can get an NX6. Let's do that one. An X6. Does one come up? One does not come up. But here's a good example of. What's the other one. I was thinking. Give it a second. That's. Oh, NX6. Okay, so NX6 is not the import version. It looks like NXX is the hardtail version of the N4. That's what I think I'm seeing here. So my. Yeah, so NXX, basically, this is the hardtail version of N4. Yeah. So NX6. So I don't know. I don't know what. Maybe. I think an NX3 is the import version because there's an N2, so you guys know. And then there's maybe NX4. There's N3 is still USA made. So I mean, there's different versions. Litvay. So you know, my first. Ah, here it is. NX3. This is my very first guitar. My very first Nuno. So I'm not. Not this. I'm gonna show you. Not this exact guitar, but this. It was an NX3. So this is the NX3. So the very first. This is what got me into the Nuno guitars. I was at a guitar center one day and this NX3 was sitting there. Mine was natural finished, and I believe it was made in Indonesia. Let's see at the back. Oh, made in Korea. Mine was probably made in Korea then. And I remember I paid 350 for it. 350 bucks. And I got it and I loved it. And about a year later, I was like, man, I love it so much. I got to get an N4. So I got a USA in four from American Musical Supply on 12 easy payments in ash when they were $1,000. The most expensive guitar I ever bought for myself or period, probably at that time. Thousand bucks. And that's what started me down the road. So, yeah, that's the different models is basically it. He likes naming them numbers based on the order they were made. So each model is just the next one in the. You know, this is the next one. Let's do this one came from Negative Negative. What? Let's see what is Negative Negative. Nope. Says I bought a Fender CS GT11 from Sweetwater. It's absolutely fantastic. I do my own setups, but I can't find a radius gauge. That's 11, 11 inch radius. There's probably one out there. I've never had to use one. So I'm pulling up the guitar so you guys can all see the guitar he bought. Obviously it's the jam. This is it. I mean look at the specifications because it's gonna say, right, 11 inch radius. There they go. You know, I mean, I don't know why you need to. I tell you, if you're going to radius the saddles, I would use a 10 inch radius. That's what I would go with. You could do the 12, but I would go with the 10. That would be. So I'm just telling you, if you brought the guitar for me to set up, that's what I'd be using. I'd be using my 10 inch radius gauges to radius your saddles. And, and, and that's what I'd be going off of. The difference are going to be so minimal between that. Look, we're really talking small amounts here. This is like the 9.5 strings. Like you know, there's a difference. But it's such a difference, small difference. So that's what I would suggest. You could probably go out there on the interwebs and see if there's a, you know, 11, 11 inch radius gauge of some sort. But I wouldn't do it. Use a 10, you'll be fine. Um, and I mean you could go. Also you, you could go 12. I'm just telling you I would go 10 just because usually that's my logic, for example, is let's say I had a guitar and it's, you know, let's say I have a guitar that's a 15 inch radius. That's actually a thing that you have to deal with with some Ibanez style guitars. They're not 16 inch radius, they're 15 because they're using millimeters. And then when you work it out, it just works out to 15 inch radius. I would use. In that case, I would use the 14 inch radius gauge, not the 16. So. But I talked to another tech once and he was the exact opposite of me. He's like, no, I use the 16, so it's just preference. Find what works. I've never had the need to buy odd tools for onesie twosie guitars that basically when I, when I check them are going to be so close that if they screw up just a little bit, it's already what I said. They screw up that 11 just a little bit, it's a 12 or it's a 10. It goes either direction. Alex says you've mentioned scams on Reverb but not what they are. I have. We went into detail an episode a long time ago, our buyers getting scammed or sellers or both. What should we look for? So my understanding, and again the information now is dated. Let's say it's a year old. So take it as a year old dated is that when we were discussing the scams that were happening on Reverb which there was a multi amount of them and there's more even now that Reverb is taking care of the customer in the situation. I reached out to Reverb when those scams were happening. I talked to somebody at Reverb who was really not suited to be the one talking to me. I think I was talking to a marketing person and they were like. Because that's who I have access to and they were giving me like the marketing side of it. But the just I got was they're taking care of the customers if they get screwed. And you know, I, I, you know, my good friend who's been in this industry for, since 1972 so a long time, he basically said, you know, they're probably aware of the scams and they're probably instead of telling you about them, the customer, they're just taking care of the customers. Because if you think about it, that's good business for them. I'm not saying it's good business for you, the headache and hell that you go through, but if they tell everybody they're scams, they'll lose thousands, if not tens of thousands of potential buyers because you're freaked out about being on their platform. Where if they take care of the hundreds that get scammed so the hundreds don't complain, then I think that's why they made the decision not to really talk about it. What I can tell you is in my experience, without a doubt, if you're buying online, Reverb has the least amount of scams compared to Amazon and ebay in my experience. And the guitar, just guitar stuff and I would say almost in that order. So it's like Reverb than Amazon, then ebay. I don't even go on ebay anymore. I can't even do it. I just can't. I can't. Like I go on ebay and as soon as I type in anything on eBay, 50 fake things come up first. It's going on ebay for me is like going on AliExpress and expecting to find a real strat or a real thing. It's Getting that bad on there. I don't know why it's so bad. It's just my. That's my experience again. I'm just telling you my experience. So I don't even do it anymore, which is really sad. And then. But reverb, like I said, if. What I will tell you with Reverb and the experiences I've had with Reverb that have been negative and positive in the last couple years is this is where you're at, okay, With Reverb, and I'm going to talk to you like a good friend. We're at a bar right now, we're having a Coca Cola, and we're talking, and I'm going to tell you, document everything, screenshot everything, photo everything, videotape everything, everything. By the way, as I say this, if you're like, oh, I don't want to do that, then don't, don't go on reverb. Don't sell on reverb. Don't, don't. Just don't. You're. You're not. You're not ready for the new world, okay? This is the new world. The reason why you screenshot everything, screen capture everything, is they can go in and change things. So everybody does it. So, you know, companies do it to me all the time. You know, I taught it to my wife. My wife actually didn't understand this industry for the longest time. I told her everything, every single thing, without exception. Screenshot it, videotape it, document it, every interaction. I'm talking about companies. Do you know, recently I had a company in the last couple months that I worked with, and they messed up, okay? They messed up. And I told her, I said, you screenshot. And what they did was when they messed up, when she sent them things saying, hey, you guys messed this up. This information is incorrect for the viewers. They went in and fixed it. Okay, then email her back and goes, looks good on our end. We don't know what you're talking about. And my wife's like, oh, yeah, she sent them a screenshot. She goes, this is what it looked like before. You just got my email. So it was jacked up. So in other words, you, you. Which is why, why that matters is is that again, somebody out there got the wrong information for a short period of time. And then, you know, and then that becomes a problem. So, yeah, you need to screenshot your stuff. You need to videotape your unboxing of your guitar when you get it, you need to videotape the boxing of the guitar. You need to take photos. You don't have to hold a newspaper. Luckily, stuff's most timestamp. But I'm gonna tell you right now, if you have and a lot of people here, there's 12, 77 of you. Trust me. Some, there's enough of you. There's gotta be 10%, I bet right now we'll tell you that Reverb. If you on reverb and you do any amount of sales, you are going to have problems. And if you have documentation, I have found them to be very easy to deal with when you have immediate proof. So, you know, it's really nice to go, here's my. Here's my video of what happened when I unboxed it. Or here's my video. For me, it's mostly when I ship stuff. It's like, you know, they get a claim and. Or something, somebody saying something, and I'm like, you know, and so, you know, it's not even damage, you know, it's stuff like people go, this thing's missing in the guitar. I'm like, what do you mean it's missing? I'm like, here's the video of me packing the guitar with it in there, you know, and in that particular case, what was great was, you know, Reverb's like, they'll take care of it. We'll supply the item missing. Right? So I would just do that. You know, document everything. You know, trust but verify. Document every single thing, as much as you can. And I think you'll. For the most part, you'll be fine. I haven't been stuck with anything too bad to be super upset with. And I also pay attention because I know, because I have a YouTube platform and I have a podcast and there's a viewership. Like, you guys, I know I can have a much more positive experience than you guys because obviously they don't want me ranting on a Friday show about it. And I take that into consideration. I always, seriously, I pay attention to all that stuff. And I'm telling you. But as a. As a customer, as a private customer, not a YouTuber, I've had. I've been able to resolve all my issues without flexing any kind of YouTubeness. Like, are you. You know, I'm gonna tell my viewers and, like, none of that stuff. I don't pull any of that stuff. So. So there you go. That's what I would. I would do. Robo Robot Schlomo says if I buy a guitar off Reverb, I always video the unboxing. Yeah, you Got a phone. Just stick it on a tripod and just, just film it. It's, it's, it's a good idea, unfortunately, but like I said, I find more, more so than filming the unboxings. When you get stuff, film before you ship, take pictures before you ship. Take pictures of the inside the box. Take pictures. It's just, it's just where we're at, guys. Sorry. And you know, is I will. You might as well. I just assume. Here's why I think I, I, I box very well. A lot of you guys have bought stuff from me. I'll do stuff. And I always, you know, I tend to double box or I box whether I take the time. If I don't have the right stuff, I go buy it. I'm not a cheap ass that way. I don't go like, oh, just shove some newspaper. Like, if I'm out of bubble wrap, I just go buy a roll of bubble up. It doesn't even make sense. It's like $60 in bubble wrap. I'm probably only making 50 bucks on this thing. I'll just do it because again, you know, because usually it's because if I, if I would have known I didn't have it, I wouldn't have listed the thing right now. But I was like, I did and now I'm committed. But even then, always taking the high road as much as I can. I'd say 20, 30 of the time there's some kind of issue and I've had them all resolved in, in a positive way. But it's because I'm always like, said documenting stuff, and I'm communicating with the, the buyer or the seller very, very much, I guess. Very much. So the pick says who's getting scammed. More sellers or buyers? Yes, it's both ways, man. Selling, you're more likely to be scammed, I think as a seller on platforms than as a, as the buyer. But it's still pretty bad. It's really bad. So there is also, like, you have to be in tune with the way scammers work. And there's a ton of them out there. You know, one of the ones I'm skeptical of, I'm skeptical of anyone who says they're selling something for somebody. Like, I love when they're like, American Fender custom shop strap. I don't know much about it. I'm selling for a friend. You're like, nah. Even if it's true, Nah. You know, also, I'm not afraid to ask questions before I buy stuff. And I think you Guys should too. What I've learned is ask the questions you need to ask. If they don't answer or if they have rude answers response, well, then you shouldn't have bought from in the first place. I do it all the time. I have to ask all the time. I ask very politely. I'll say things like, hey, can you give me the, you know, can you give me some more detail about the condition and the frets? See, again, it's about understanding what you're buying. Because I don't want to return something to somebody, especially somebody private seller. The most irritating feeling in the world for me personally, and maybe you guys can relate is when I'm selling something personally to get rid of it, they get it and they go, I don't want it. I'm like, well, I don't want to come back. It's not going, you know, I'm not like, I just, I'm trying to get rid of it. Like getting rid of it was actually half as important as getting the money for it. So the fact, So I like to not have stuff come back. So to make sure I never do that to somebody, I always make ask a lot of questions. I'd rather be the annoying person who asks lots of questions than the person who gets something and says, oh, I didn't know that the frets had been crowned so many times. Or I didn't know this. You, yo. Hey. The 11 says Walmart has rolls of bubble wrap cheaper. That's good to know. That's very good to know. It says, okay, I hate it when I, I sign for a pack. Wait. When you are asked to sign for a package you receive from the delivery guy has been received in good condition, the driver drop, the driver drops it and asks you to sign for it. Runs away. Yeah, I don't have to deal with that. I don't, I don't sign for anything. Everything comes, I have everything sent to me is like I have a third party handler that handles everything. So they sign for everything. The only frustration I have is companies, especially companies if they're my friend, always like, they'll message me at almost the most unopportune times. Like, hey Phil, I saw you sign for it. What do you think? And I'm like, I, it's not me. I usually get that like in a day later. So muddled. Burrio6174 says, thanks for the 10 Pierce Masterclass discount. Signed up, stoked to check it out. So you guys know, I will put a link. I put a link down in the, in the video. We're gonna be doing it for the next couple weeks. We did it last year, we did the year before. You guys really, really liked it. What happens is if you, if you sign up through my link to Tim Pierce's masterclass, which he just added a, a Dave Grissom lesson program much and a bunch of others. Okay. So, you know, in fact, I kind of feel bad if we don't. I just want to curious real quick because you think this is where it's like, okay, let's share. So it's the masterclass with 10 Pierce. It's normally 150. You get it for 104 you also get. So, you know, I think you get it doesn't say. But I'm pretty sure you get 10 days to try it. Okay. If I'm wrong, I will double check that for next week. But I'm pretty sure it says in here that you give. Tim's always done that where he's always giving you a few days to try it. So you get to try it. If you're not happy, you don't have to pay for it. Which is why I support stuff like this. You know, I don't support anything that's like, you know, tricks you into buying something or you buy something and then you're spending, you know, a week trying to figure out how to cancel it stuff. It's like you should be able to get in this and cancel if you don't want to do it. But he's just added the Dave Grissom course. He's got a beginning course. He's got a lead course, his blues rhythm music theory. I will tell you this, why I love his course and I've said this for years, is where I was focusing. And a lot of people talk about a lot of other lessons out there you can go to. And I've always said this, and I will continue to say this always. Nothing changes anything for me. To me, the best lessons are private, one on one. Okay. You're going to move the fastest with somebody because you have a tutor. I always say it's think of it this way, just at the very least having a tutor, someone there to critique what you're doing wrong, see it, interact with it. The best lessons you can could buy are one on one private lessons. Then after that I say a class, a group class. Then after that I would say a video interaction like this. And somewhere in there would probably be a streaming zoom call kind of thing. And then last to me is books. Okay. But some People do learn differently. So book learning is good for you, but for me, I'm a visual learner. So a visual class video is. So that's the order in which I've learned in experience, learned how people improve and do well is in those orders and so the money spent. But I will tell you, this is what's great about stuff like this. And I know it's going to come off sales pitchy, but it just is. It's $100 minimum to go get private lessons for a month. It's $100 for this course for the year. And you can use it, you know, as much as you want all year. And for me, when he first, he obviously, years ago, I told you this, he sent me a class or a course and he said, hey, you want to check it out? And if you think it's worth your sharing, share it. He's not the only one to do that. So, you know, I've had a dozen other people do it from everybody from vendors, corporation doing it to, you know, other friends, you know, people I hang out with, probably on the regular that teach lessons on YouTube. And although I can recommend them as I like them, my, My friends. Tim's literally changed my perspective of guitar. Changed everything about me. For me, what he, what he did for me, which made my videos better and made my playing better was I was always focused on as like, oh, impressing people. Like, I need to. I need a lick. You know, the May I help you riff. I need a, like a speed lick. I need to work on speed. And for some reason, just something. And that's how it works for me is some. He said something and it clicked. And one of the things he talked about was just vibrato. You know, as someone who makes music for, you know, he makes amazing songs. He's written so many huge hit songs. Just, just how soft my thing was. I was always out to impress. I was. And then all of a sudden it was like he was like musical. A musical note, just musical. And then. And then like when I started writing stuff, I started writing that just kind of finding a pattern and a melody and something that feels great, but it doesn't have to be technical. So that worked for me. If it works for you, give it a shot. What's great is he's giving you a discount. He kicked something back to the channel for me doing this, which is great. You know, he doesn't have to do it. I would do it for free. And I know people say that, but I would because I recommend it all Year. I told you guys. In fact, I think a bunch of you signed up last month when we don't get a piece. But that's fine with me. He's been super nice to me ever since I met him, and I like his course, so thank you. I'm glad you signed up for it. If you guys sign up for it. I appreciate that. Like I said, if anyone could, while we're here, just verify. I'm pretty sure it's. You get a 10 day trial. So Tony says, boomer bins are the best. They are the best. You know, I had was at a party, which is a big brag for me because I don't go to parties, but I was at a party with. With my wife and a bunch of friends. And funny enough, here's why it's funny. On the way, I had to go to Tucson for this party. And on the way I got a message. And the message was, this guitar got delivered. So this guitar got delivered and I told Sean. I go, look, I go, the Kiesel guys are really nervous about the new guitar and me singing it. I said, can we go pick it up? And on the way there. And I go, I know I'm bringing a guitar to this party. But I go, I just want to make sure I have it in case they text me and say, did you get it? What do you think? So we went and grabbed it and we drove to Tucson, and then we were there. Sean was like, are you going to show everybody your guitar? And I pull down and go, oh, look at this guitar. This is the new guitar. And this is the changes they made. And we were. And they go, everybody goes, where's the. Where's the top piece? They didn't even know it was called Headstock. They were, where's the top piece? And I'm like, oh, this is a. This is a top piece list guitar. No, it's a headless guitar. And I said. And they go, I've never seen that. I go, yeah, I think, like, people under 20 and 30 use this now. This is like the headless guitar thing. It's the end thing for them. And they're like, what? And I go. And I made the joke. I. Yeah, you know, you don't want to do boomer bends. And I did the boomer bend right the. And they were like, what's a boomer bend? And I'm like, I'd explain it. And they were like that. They go, you're. Your life seems strange. The people you talk to in your community seem strange. And I go, yeah, it's just a thing. It's a thing. Oh, my knees hurt. Says you get two weeks to try the course for free. So I appreciate if you consider it. Like I said, it helps Tim, it helps me, it helps you. Like I said. And you'll know, trust me. Go on there for a week, and if you don't like it, then you got to check it out. I can tell you right now, he won't hurt his feelings. He's really fine with it. Let's do Vim 69 says thanks for the fun on the New Year's Eve. Thanks to Shauna for us geeks, man. Thank you, vimps. Like I said, I had fun with that, the pedal build. What was really nice was we got to. You guys did something for us. You gave us the ultimate gift, which is data information. So the shop room. We've been tearing down this rig in here and putting in the shop room and doing a live stream, you know, kind of clinic for the patrons. The process is extremely agonizing and long because, you know, when you change everything, you know, you're physically taking monitors, computers, cameras, everything in there. And we've been debating, like, what will we, you know, should we invest? So you get the idea. I mean, look, we don't have to go in the numbers. That's boring. Let's just say it ain't cheap to double your cameras, double your monitors and stuff. We even thought about putting it on a cart and having it roll around, but just. And because of the massive turnout from you guys, from you doing that, we were like, you know, at the very least, we need to do that more often. And so we invested in new rigs. Now, some of it, we didn't have to. Thank God. Thank goodness. We actually have a. We just upgraded a computer. So the computer we were going to sell off, the older one, we'll use that for that room and then. But new cameras, a new mixing console for recording and stuff. And. And so, yeah, that's being done as we speak. So you'll be seeing more stuff like the pedal build from the chop room. That's good. Thank you guys for that. Because like I said, data was the most important thing. It's really scary when you buy stuff, you know, on YouTube and you're like, I don't know, will people even watch this if I do this? You know, I'm better off just making the same old, same old. It's nice to take chances, but it's better to take. It's nicer to take chances when you have a little like, oh, yeah, well, people watch it. Destructo says, hey, Phil, do you think we will see a slowdown of new products this year and a focus on cleaning out lots of inventory? Still hoping for more deals. I think a lot of the inventory blowout is over, like I said. So, you know, there's a product that I was going to buy and had it in my cart, like the day before New Year's Eve, and I procrastinated. They jumped the price up, $100 everywhere on that product. I'm not telling you which one, because I'm still trying to look for a deal, and I'll let you guys know when I get it. But I was like, holy crap, January 1st. Like, I saw a bunch of products already kind of launch up some price increases. I was. I really was hoping I was wrong on the whole, you know, they're blowing out what they excess, but once they blow it out, they want to firm up the pricing really fast. Man, I felt it. If you guys can't look, there's still deals out there. Don't get me wrong. There's a lot of people trying to get rid of some inventory, but the manufacturers look like they were really quick to, you know, like, literally firm up the pricing and drive pricing up. So I think that's kind of the deal. There's a lot of new products this year. I think what I get from all the manufacturers that I've been talking to about what they plan to release this year, kind of like the Kiesel rollout is a improvement. It's. Look, the cutting year prices. I've told you guys this before. I learned this from the last recession. As a retailer, discounting doesn't work if somebody won't give up their money. Now, keep in mind, I'm not talking about broke, okay? Like, I have a. Like, I have a funny. I have a. I have a funny friend. I do have a funny friend, but I have a friend who says a funny thing. He goes, look, people are broke during a recession. They're broke when there's no recession. There's people who just are broke all the time. That's. That's a factor. You know, like, everybody can relate to that, right? The fact that the rest of the country seems to be. Or the rest of the world seems to be more, you know, broken and then more like what your situation is and so on, you know, is. Is understandable. But I. His point was some people. His point was if there are some people who are always broke, even in recession, out of recession. And there's some people who are never broke in a recession. Out of recession. I was like, oh, that kind of makes sense to the, to the extremes. What I learned about in that last recession was I could keep dropping the price on something and just for some reason, like, no one. The people who had money were not gonna let go of it. It was like, okay, yeah, there was people who were broke and they couldn't afford it, and so it being a good deal didn't matter. But there are people that like, literally had the money okay, and their job wasn't affected by the recession. They were doing fine. Everything was great. But the mentality, like I always said, spending is a comfort zone thing. Their comfort zone was like, I'm not going to let go of the money. So I think, I think the 20, 25 rollout from a lot of the companies is. And they got to impress you, right? They got to get you to want to give up that cash. And I think that's why we're seeing a lot of improvements, a lot of things, like, because it's a lot easier to justify. Like, oh, I was thinking about it. Now it's even better. Maybe I should do it more so than now it's 20% off, but is it going to be 30? See the problem? That's the problem with the. When you have money and the deals come. Because like I've said, the deals are, you know, the money went out before the deals ever do. The. The problem is, is that when you see a 30% off sale, your brain goes, well, will it be 40? Let's wait. But if it's improved and better, then it's just about the improvements. And it's better now. And if you want it, you get it. So I'm not saying that's a broad stroke, by the way. Nothing I say is in broad strokes. I'm just talking about how a lot of companies are thinking. Some companies are probably still thinking like, they got a discount stuff because they've, they've. The prices are high. They're ridiculously high. Don't go through, dude, I did it. Don't go through your reverb history and look at what you paid for stuff just, you know, six years ago, five years ago. It's ridiculous when you look at your history, how much stuff has gone up. Mike says, hey, Phil, are you familiar with the JHS vintage guitars? You know, I feel like it came up once. I came across one today at Guitar Center. Played great, well built. Wilkinson pickups tuner bridge with brass Saddles, graphite nut I bought it. I, I thought I recall it came up J JHS vintage guitars. Well that's good. Thank you for the feedback. So what's coming up is vintage. The brand vintage and JHS but not JHS vintage guitars. So I'll look into it more. I was hoping to find a quick like a quick, you know, little thing on it but I don't see it. But thank you for the information. I'll check them out. Sir, I think it's. I don't know what that is. It looks like Togglebus. T T O G L L Sir. Sir. I'll just call you sir. Yes, sir says new guitar day traded my new Sterling Luke. I didn't love the V neck for a 2000 2006American Series Strat mint condition with a hard case and everything. Just paid $120 extra. That's awesome. The you know trading up is always a good move in my opinion. So Enrico says I think part of. Oh I think he says I think part of what shows the reverb data is people don't want to ship amps and would rather put them on a Facebook marketplace. You know that's a great Enrico, that's a really great thing. And they did talk about shipping amps. I will tell you. I talk about this. I've sold a couple of amps and shipped them and I had trouble with a couple of them. Like half the amps I shipped had issues where people are like oh it got damaged in shipping or something. I currently have a pile, I told you guys I have a pile of amps to get rid of and they're just down in my guest room and same thing. I don't want to ship them either. So you're actually, you're actually making a great point that probably not seeing a lot of shipping of ams on reverb. Just look, they ship so much stuff now. Not only the price is expensive which is crazy but that you know, the stuff just gets drop kicked and stuff it just can't take the abuse. So that's definitely a factor too. I, I definitely agree. I, I keep thinking my, all my amps that I'm going to get rid of are going to end up in some kind of trade to a music store or something because there's just no way I can sell them. I keep thinking about it but you know it's like you said, it's a pain. Rick says hey, the new PRSSE NF3 love it but the volume pot was cutting high end okay, so off the tech for. Okay, off to the tech. I'm thinking that's what it says. Off to the tech for a treble bleed. The first time he had done it. Now sweeps sweep is different. And cuts out before the lowest volume help. So the problem is I don't know what they did, what treble bleed they used. Here's what I suggest, Rick. First of all, with trouble bleeds, don't take it to attack the. There's. You know, I always tell this thing, I understand if people want to have their guitar restrung because they don't want to restrung it. It's like getting a car wash, right? And you can have a tech do that. I get that. But certain things like this, if you want to add a treble bleed to your guitar. Okay, treble bleed. Hold on. We are gonna find it right now. Stu Mac's got one golden age. Come on, Stu Mac come through for me. Say you still make them. They're not. Looks like they're not selling them, but that's okay. We can find one. So we're gonna type in on the Internet treble bleed. Okay. Somebody makes them. If not, I guess we're making. We used to sell them. So, you know, we had a viewer who is making them, and I would put them on the Blackstock website. How crazy. Everybody quit making these. Are you kidding me? Like, it was the coolest thing ever. I mean, we sold a ton of them. Okay. Looks like we're gonna have to start doing it again. I have to reach out and see if he wants to make these again. So let me go get one. Okay, I'm back. It's me. Okay, so let me share this with you. Let's see if we can find them online because this will be worth it. And this will solve your problem and have fun. The tone check. So the outback tone check was making these for us. And open this up. So what it is? It's nothing. It fell off the card. All right, so what it is is it's a treble bleed. That Stumac used to sell these too. It's a treble bleed that comes with two alligator clips. Okay. So I know it's big and cumbersome, but what's great is you can go inside the guitar, clip these to the two tabs on your volume pot, and try a treble bleed in real time. And you don't have to do any soldering. Just comes like this. These are easy to make, by the way. You just take a pre made treble bleed and you just attach two alligator clips to it. We used to sell a ton of these, or at least I thought we did. When he was making these for him, he would brand them the Outback Tone Shack, and then he would put black stock. I don't know why. It's out of focus. Blackstock pickups there too. But this is the one I like that he was making for us. And again, this is something I suggest. Here's what I. Here's my problem with your. Here's my problem with your problem. I don't know what that tech did. Like, I don't know what, you know, which capacitor or resistor he used. I don't know where he put it. If. Right where he is. I don't know if that was a. The NF3. I thought it was a tapered pot, but I don't know if it was a linear pot. I don't. I don't know any of the. Any of the issues that you're having. Scott says Stu Max sells it still, but I didn't see it in there. So if Stumac sells it, because that's where I went first. I saw Stumac sells the treble bleed, but not the treble bleed with a. With a clip. Just let me double check. I mean, I see their treble bleed circuits. I'm just not seeing, like. I mean, here's the. They sell this, and they even show. You. See, that's the one with the clips. This is what I'm talking about. This is how it looks. See right here? They just clip on these two terminals right here, your middle and your. And your input. This is where the input goes on the guitar, and this is where the output goes. So this is usually from either the pickup or switch. And then this goes out usually to the output jack, depending on where your tone controls in the circuit. But either way, this is an easy mod. You just clip them on there. So have a picture of this. Oh, that's soldered on, but this is the clip. So you don't have to solder it on if you're not solder savvy. Does that make sense? But yeah. John says Mythos sells it with dip switches. I have the Mythos dip switch one. I have not tried it. I literally have it in a box. I buy stuff like that, and I go, well, maybe I'll do a video. And I just haven't got to it. But, yeah. So like I said, I need to know what. What values your tech used. I need. There's a lot of information. So the one we did, we did a 001 and a ceramic disc capacitor. I'll read right here. And we did a 150k quarter watt metal film resistor. So that's what we used. Which I liked. The Outback Tone Shack sent me a bunch in fact. So you know, we plan to do something with it. He sent us all these really cool capacitors and resistors and all kinds of stuff. And over the years I've tried stuff and then we would sell them on our website. But then we just, you know, it's just, it's maintenance thing. Just they didn't have somebody maintenance. But yeah, Han says we used to call them roach clips. So you know, I literally didn't know they were called alligator clips for probably 10 years. My first 10 years I always referred to them as roach clips. So literally everyone, everyone I knew used them for smoking joints and that's what they were called was roach clips. And I, I remember the first time I called him that and somebody was like what? Like alligator clips? I'm like oh, is that what they're really called? I didn't know but. So Rick, I would say the only thing you can do is you can take a picture of your potentiometer, the inside of your guitar and send it to ask know your gear gmail.com and I like to say and then I'll take a look at it. That's not how it works. It goes into all those emails, go into just doesn't matter. It's going to be put in a folder and then somebody's going to give it to me and ask me and then they're going to relay it to you. I know that sounds like I'm super important. It's not that. I literally wish if I was important I'd have some, I'd have assistance and stuff. What it is is we're just group trying to handle all the volume we deal with every day. So. But I can definitely look at it and tell you what's wrong with it. If it's in the wrong spot, if it's the wrong values or if it's just the potentiometer itself. Sounds to me like it's the wrong values in the wrong spot. Sounds me worstest guitar player ever. Did a super sticker. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. And I like the name Worstest guitar player ever. Oh, in the world. I think it's in the world. It cuts it off. So you know, it cuts off and then oh, but you know what you taught me if I Have. If I hover over it, it gives me the whole name. Derek says, hey, everyone, delete the Honey browser extension if you have it. It steals affiliate revenue from Phil. So we won't go into that in detail, but we talked about that last week, that there's all these companies that influencers get. You know, they did. Honey was a browser extension that a lot of YouTubers promoted because it got paid really well to do it. And of course, yeah, it's stealing affiliate dollars. Believe it or not. I got approached by the class there. I guess there's a class action. Like, I got approached by some attorneys to give. They want to get on the phone and give me. Have me give them, you know, some. Not feedback. But like, what happened? Yes, like a lot of YouTubers, I saw my affiliates drop dramatically because of the Honey browser. So basically, if you guys. I put a link to stuff last week, I'll put a link now. So if you're curious, if you don't know what the Honey thing is doing, besides a ton of things which is really bad for you, let's just talk about what's really bad for you. What's really bad for you is that they've already been. They've been accused allegedly, not only not giving you a coupon, if you guys don't know what it is, if you don't have one, it's. You put it on your computer. And what it does is if you go to buy anything, it'll find. It'll say if there's a coupon or if there's a way to buy it cheaper, it'll let you know. And what they're saying, allegedly is, is that it's specifically not telling you. Like, companies pay them to, like, hide the coupons and the deals from you. And then why you're. While it's looking for this coupon that's pretty much not going to give you, allegedly, what it's doing is then if you, you know, if you would click the link that I would get like a 4% kickback on or a 1% kickback on. It steals that from me and other YouTubers, you know. You know, it's why, like I said, I know, I know you guys probably don't want to hear it, but I'm gonna say it's why I rather send you people like Tim Pierce. And, you know, it's not as lucrative as a big corporation and stuff, but I don't have to worry about what I, you know, I, like I said, I don't. I don't do Any of those. They call them integrations, by the way. This is an integration. So when I say I don't do any, I obviously do them. I did. I'm doing one for ten. Pierce, I'm telling you to check out his products and go to his site. But you know what? I trust him. And so if something goes wrong and I'm held to account for it, I'm going to honestly tell you that I vetted him as much as I can. I believe in what he does. I'm a customer of his product. And if it goes wrong for you guys, I will own up to it. But I just don't know how to do those integrations for all these companies that I just like. Like the honey thing, I'm like, I don't even know what this is, and I don't even trust what it's going on. So it's just how it goes. It just sucks. It's. You know what really sucks? What sucks is not that they're stealing all our affiliate dollars. What sucks is, is the fact that I. All these companies offer crazy money. The kind of money where I could take a month off a year, you know, easy, just from one integration. It's like a. It's over a month's pay. Well, close to it. A month's pay just to say, hey, check out this company. That's what it's worth to these corporations for me to do that. And I just don't trust them. I don't trust them. Sorry. So allegedly, the last thing I need is not only not work with them, but then get sued. Allegedly. All those things. I don't know how many times I got to say allegedly. Jitturo says, hey, Phil, just bought a Kaizen 7. I did a deep dive of that, but I haven't received it yet. I noticed that most Music man guitars have plain sawn necks. What's your opinion on the neck stability? And how about the HT pickups? So I did a deep dive of that guitar, but I did a deep dive of actually his prototype. So. So if you watch that deep dive video, you know, I did that on the floor of the Sweetwater at like midnight. I wish I was kidding. In their building, they gave me 24 axis. Funny story is they gave me and Dovidas 24 hour access. Dovidos went to their gym and worked out in their gym at like midnight. And I went and took guitars apart on the floor and filmed them. But anyways, the pickups, I thought sounded great. The guitar, I'm extremely impressed with I, I literally can tell you like in, in my experience, Music man is, makes some of the best stuff out there. So you know, like anybody PRs, you know, sir, you know, Music man, whoever, the top players are for quality. Yes, things can go wrong. Somebody can say, hey, I had a bad one. Yeah, but you are the exception, not the rule. I think I trust music bands quality. I think it's still one of the most impressive factories in the world. I think so. They make some of the most impressive instruments in the world. You know, I would do more music mans, but believe it or not, I've said this before, a lot of Music man guitars, the necks are really small and my hands are really big. So it just doesn't, it doesn't work out for me. So that's it, that's all. It's just a neck carve issue thing. So which. But the seven strings are fantastic. That seven string neck is fantastic. The Petrucci seven string neck is fantastic. So I think you'll be very happy with it. I almost thought about getting one. I just couldn't justify another seven string. I have two and that's one too many for me. I play seven string a lot. I just don't need multiples. Harmonic caster says. Hey, do consumers care if a review is compensated by the way Harmonica resolution channel here on YouTube unpaid. Okay, so this is a great question. I think, you know, it's funny is I'm the wrong. So let's start with I'm the wrong person to ask because I'm on the wrong side of the fence. So I'm not going to sit here and claim to be like unbiased on the issue. I'm extremely biased on this issue. So I rather just lean into the experience that I have and not my opinion on it. Okay? Because my opinion is going to be the totally opposite of you guys because I'm on the other side of this fence, right? It's like when I had a store and asking me a question and the consumer is going to have a much different answer than a store owner, right? A YouTuber is going to have a much different answer of whether or not compensated videos are good or not than the actual viewer. Okay? But here's what I can tell you. They everybody's going to. Their opinions are value valid, your opinions are valid and the way you feel is valid. Okay? And I mean that the things you say make sense to me, but you are mostly you are wrong. I don't mean when I mean wrong. I mean you're wrong in the Idea that you never seem to understand when things are compensated or not. Here's why I can say that if you look at my videos, if, if, if I went off what people say, you know, viewers, right. Without a doubt, the majority does not want a video to be a compensated, paid for product placement video. Right? They don't want that. That's definitely the consensus. So again, not. That's their opinion. And I, I believe that their opinion's right and valid metrics wise. Not even close to what's happening. The if I went into the idea of I do because I do both, which I find is even tougher because I think it's more confusing and I have to work harder at it. What I mean by that is it's, I think it's easier when a channel basically says like, I don't do anything unless somebody pays me. And you're like, okay, well then you know where they're at right there. If you were there, they're doing a product. Me, it's more confusing because I buy my own products sometimes and it's just a video about something I bought. I do videos unsponsored because you guys said you want it and you watch it, which is great. And then a company send product or sponsor the video, right? And so I'm doing all of the above. And so I try, that's why I try to label correctly and try to come at it correctly, but also standardize the way I kind of approach things for ethics. That's an ethics thing. But when it comes to the viewership, what you guys watch, you watch what you're interested in. It doesn't seem to matter if a company pays for it or not. I see people say, I see it in the comments. I'll see somebody going to not only mine, but other videos going. Started watching the video and as soon as I saw it was sponsored, got out. But, but, but metrics wise, if you have the hottest product, you are going to get views. So this is why this is a great harmonicaster. This is why it's a great thing you brought up. Because this is something I didn't want to bring up. Not only did I not want to bring it up, I have not. I went out of my way to not bring it up. It did come up on a patron private zoom call and I felt a little weird about it then. But luckily, because I got it off my chest and we talked about it, I kind of feel a little bit more open to talk about this. So let me, let me hit you guys with some harsh reality of the YouTubers, whether you seem to realize or not, what really matters in a gear community is that the newest gear is what you're going to watch. A lot of you will say, we all agree. We all are on the same page. We're all sick. I'm sick of making them, I'm sick of watching them. You're sick of watching them. Where 30 YouTubers all release the same product the same day. I get it, we're all there. But the reality is you guys want to see new product. I want to see new product. We talk about new guitars, we talk about new pedals. We're the NAMM show's coming. What's coming out? Youtubers having access. If you want to be a successful gear channel, you want the newest gear. I tend to do videos a year behind the average reviewer. If you look, just look at the history. Look at my last 20 videos and look at what I reviewed. Most of that stuff, everything I've reviewed has been out for a year, two years or five years, which is bad. Even though my videos are doing great, it's really bad. My video channel popped. Whether people realize or not, my channel popped because I got my hands on the very first mark 525. When that head came out, it was a big deal, a mini Mark 525. I had bought one. I made a video that day and I got mine out on time. It was my first video to explode, and it did so well that I made three more in a row. I compared it to other amps and it was huge. So to answer the question, not only is is do paid videos, do they matter? They do matter because people like to have unpaid videos. But the reality is getting access to the newest products is what matters the most, which is why it's hard for. It's hard. If the companies are not sending you the newest products, it's really, really difficult. They can actually stifle your channel by preventing you from getting the newest products. And I don't mean like the products you don't care about. I'm talking about the fact that I'm not saying this happens, but I'm saying if you're a channel and you're blackballed by, let's say, three or four of the biggest guitar companies in the industry who aren't going to not only send you product, but they always set it up to where everyone puts out their videos a week before anyone, even the customers, can get the products. Now you're at least a week to two weeks behind everybody to get A video out on that product. It's very tough because I'm going to. Not only do I have to buy the product when the other channels were paid for it. So think of this. Not only did they get maybe free product, that's fine, but they get paid to do a video. Now I gotta pay to do the video, but I gotta put it out after you guys watch 30 other YouTubers do it. So now you're not interested, and that becomes really hard. This has been my number one obstacle for the last few years is that so many companies, even though I think we've done really good job proving that we have a viable market for guitar reviews. Guitar reviews are dead. It's the most dead thing you can do. An honest review. Companies have spoke. It's my opinion, but it's my opinion. They want unboxings, they want smiles, they want you to push the product. They don't want you to critique it, they don't want you to talk about it. And not only will they not pay you to do a video that isn't those things, they will go out of their way to block you from getting the product if they can. To the point where I've had a major company stop a retailer for sending me a product. That's a thing. It happened. It's true. I had. I had. I'll even. I'll tell you. I won't tell you what company, but I'll tell you who was going to do it. American Music Supply was going to send me something and then a company stopped them from doing it so I couldn't get access to the product. They didn't. They basically said they didn't want me to do it because they didn't want a video. They didn't want me to do a video. So here's the thing. The point. That's my point. My point is, is that I think. I personally think people don't want to see paid videos, but I also think that people want to see product as soon as it comes out because they're excited about it and they want to know what the newest thing is and if it's any good. And whether it's paid or not doesn't matter. I literally think if you're first, you're going to get more views. I don't even understand, by the way, how we even do the numbers. We do. It doesn't even make sense, logically speaking. I did three guitars last year in 2024 that I did really great numbers. Maybe probably one of the most or one of the Top most watched videos. And I did my video a year or two after everybody had already saturated the market with them. It's. It's good, but it's tough. But you know what? We've been navigating it and I don't mind it. I. I just didn't. I didn't expect it. I didn't think companies would want to pay me to do, take a part. Guitar apart. I never thought, oh yeah, they'll love this. I just never thought that some companies would react in a way where they can stop you from getting product, which is. I never thought about that was going to be a problem for me. We've been dealing with it now for a couple years. It's been an honest problem. So dealing with that stuff. So that's my answer. I don't think people want paid reviews and demos. And I think also. But people will watch whatever new product comes out. I guess that kind of sums it up. So. So we're working on it. We have an idea for this year. So, you know we're going to be buying more product the second it comes out to get our videos out a little faster. So that's how it works. The good news is a lot of you guys that pay attention will see that we'll be immediately selling that product, because when we get that stuff, you guys know, we buy those guitars, then we immediately kind of flip them to put them back in the channel. So we'll just be doing that. And the good thing is we do get support from other companies. Some other companies do support the channel by doing sponsored content. And that sponsored content pays the bills. It lets us buy the. Sadly enough, the companies who do like the channel, support the channel, give us money. So we take that money, we give it to the asshole companies that try to block us, because that's really what you want to watch. The irony is, that's the irony you guys really want. And I'm no different. I want to watch those same stuff too. All right. Mukbang Fatty says, hey, do Kiesel guitars have a metal receptacle for the screws that hold the wire, the wiring cover? What do you call those receptacle things? Yes. So Mukbang Kiesel has a brass insert that goes into the. Into the back plate. So on this guitar, if you don't mind, I'm gonna take the strap off on this guitar. If I take these, I'm gonna take these out. So instead of having wood screws, they have machine metal screws which have flat tops. I know that's really tiny. You can't see that, but that's what that is. And then I don't know if you can see in there. Yeah, you can a little bit. You can see instead of seeing wood in that hole, you see brass. That's a brass insert. They do that so you can take the back plate off many times. I think the main reason they do that is because they don't know when you order a guitar. This is kind of interesting to know with these guys, because when you order any of their guitars, you can pick any kind of pickup combination, including active or passive. They don't know if active is going to go in there, so they just made it standard. To where the back plates. If they don't have a battery cover, you can take them on and off a million times. It's just about keeping things longer, I think. I think, if I recall, carbon did it. So I mean, a lot of the things are legacy things, like the family did it for a long time when they were carbon. They just keep doing it as Kiesel. So, yes, the answer is yes, they have those. What are they called? Brass inserts, Threaded inserts. My guess is what they're called. Somebody put a. If somebody has a better answer, put that answer. Nathan says, replace the saddles on my American Pro two. Oh, you know what? This is an important thing to tell you guys. If you do have a headless keisel and you have the old saddles from Hip Shop that suck and now they have new ones, they will sell you the new ones. I don't know what they cost, but they'll sell you the new ones and you can put. You can replace your old keel. They didn't obsolete your old bridge. They just replaced. They just modified the saddles, not the bridge, so that older keels can be fixed. I don't say fixed, but you want to say an improved. It's not fair to say and fix, but improved. So you can order those. They won't give them to you. Sorry. But you can buy them. So you're at least not sticking with an outdated guitar. You can upgrade your guitar. So Nathan's question was replace the saddles of American Pro 2 Strat with GraphTech block saddles. And I can't get it to fully intonate properly. Uh, know any advice on what to do so it's not the saddles that wouldn't be a factor for the intonation. So I know you're just giving me the all the information, but the saddle material itself has no effect on whether the guitar intonates or doesn't. It's there. There is factors though. Thickness, all this stuff will mean it will go in a different spot. Um, I have a video. I know I say this stuff, but I have a video on how to do intonation. And that video is the one I always recommend the most. There are some longer ones out there on the Internet, but mine's really short. And it's always about the thing to take away from that video is always measure the distance. Okay, so on your American pro Spatu, just measure 25 and a half inches from the nut to the saddle. I don't care which saddle it is exactly 25 and a half inches. Perfectly tune it up and then from there start moving back or forward, depending if you're flat or sharp, and then keep going. And the thing that I tell everybody every time, this is where everybody gets it wrong all the time, which is why I made the video so succinct and short is a lot of people are like, well, if I'm going backwards or if I'm going forwards and it's going sharp and then it keeps going sharp and it keeps going sharp. And then they're like, it's as far as it's going to go and it's still sharp. And they're like, I can't anymore. I'm like, go back to center again. Go back to 25 and a half. Start over again. It's just a weird thing. I just, you know what, it doesn't matter why. Just have to know that, you know, it's okay to go right back to the middle, the start and start over again. The process over. You just do it over again. Trust me, it'll do it. It always, it always does. You always just line it back up. Okay, we're, we're buttoning up right now. I kind of feel bad I didn't grab a lot of more Amanda's questions. So I'll kind of hold those for next week too. Old man Bird says what is coming out NAMM January 2025. Inquiring guitars must know. The only stuff I know is obviously Kiesel dropped all their new stuff. Bad cat is brought Mark Sampson back to design a hand wired amp and go kind of all in high, high end on a bad cat cup. Bad cat cub again. They sent one out. It's supposed to be here soon. I'll. Not only do I plan to do a video, they asked me if I would be doing interested to do a video. They, they spoke my language. So, you know, this is what's great about Bad Cat. They were like, we would like only one or two youtubers do a video of the amp. And I'm like, I'm sold. Sold. Not only do I get access to new gear, but I don't have to be one of 30. That sounds great. And I know. And they did the thing that I love, which I wish more companies would do, which is they told me who the other YouTubers are. So I know their style. So I can specifically kind of approach the amp differently than they will. Right. That's what's really great. So I'm not making the same video as them and so to speak, I can go, okay, well obviously they'll cover this. And they're. Because their videos always cover this stuff. I will kind of go a different way. I'll go, you know, something else. And so I'm going to do that. But also because I kind of wanted to approach this way, I said, hey, can we get a podcast with Mark and John? So John, the owner, Bad Cat and Mark. And so we're going to have a podcast going over the. The history of a bad cat and. And Matchless and how all that worked and you know, the whole story, the whole thing. So as for the other stuff coming on naming, they don't even want to send me. Most companies don't want send me stuff. They're not showing me anything ahead of time. I don't know. I'm hopeful that something's coming out in from Marshall. We'll see. Like I said, I'm still pessimistic, thinking they're gonna probably go all import. So, you know, I actually have a Marshall product on order, a Made in England product and it's been on order now for seven months, so still have it and it's every month it says so it says now it's gonna come here in January, but it said that in October and said in November and December. So we'll see. And we'll see if I get it and if it actually still made in UK. We'll see. Warren5 says hey, thanks. Thank you as always, Phil. And happy New Year. Renewed my annual Geek Crew membership for the new year too. Are they any new kyg merch I can get? Yes. So working on. See, I say yes, not yes. There's new merch. Yes. We're working on like geeky stuff stuff. New merch. You know, we don't sell a lot of merch. I know it sounds weird. We just don't sell a lot of merch. So I'm trying to make the merch more personal and cool that way, you know. Right. Something really more unique. And there was always this fear of, like, you know, how are we going to do it? And now I'm like, well, looking at last year, here's what's cool. It's going to sound bad. It's actually good. We did the contest last year where we gave away, you know, petals and. And pickups and. And. And string things and all kinds of stuff for you guys sitting in your pictures. And I thought, you know, look, I don't know. I don't know how many views and streams total, but millions. A couple million views and streams total on that. On that campaign. And we sold very little merch, like, comparatively speaking. Like, if you think about, you know, so, you know, this is why it sounds like I'm complaining. I'm not. We paid for all the shipping. We paid all the stuff, and we were net positive. We're great. However, my logic was, which was great, is if that didn't prompt a crap ton of you, you know, people to buy a lot of merch, then the merch isn't right. And the vibe's not right. Like, I don't go, oh, man, what's wrong with them? They're not. They don't want to buy merch and get free stuff. It's like, really? I just, like, I just want to make things better. And so that contest really. Let me see also, you know, okay, what are we missing here? And I think the merch sucks. Like, I think as a whole, it's just kind of stale and it's not there. So we had a whole discussion about how we're gonna make it better. And so to answer your question, we're working on that. The patrons will see it first because Shauna tests the merch with the patrons first because it's easier for us to sell things to them and then them give because she needs. Physically, she'll send it to you. A lot of you are. Patrons have done this. She'll send you the merch. You know, I think you buy it. I'm pretty sure she sells it to you for cost. But then she asks you to give her feedback on issues you come across with it. Cause she's trying either a new vendor or she's doing it herself. So we're on it. We're on it. It's a. It's a priority. Let me just put it that way. Deshawn says, hello. Are the hot rod series amps worth buying? Which versions? So I like the hot rod amps. Some people don't like them because they say they're not, you know, very dependable. I've never broke one, so I don't know. And I've done some horrible things to Hot Rod Deluxe amps. I like Hot Rod Deluxe amps. I think one of the best cleans on the market. One of the best pedal platforms for sure. It's almost impossible to not find a pedal builder who doesn't have a Hot Rod Deluxe as a test guinea pig for trying out pedals. So I highly recommend them. Which months? I don't know. I don't really have a preference. Like, they have the mark. One, two, three. You know, here's the thing. In my experience of them, the newest one has a better overdrive than the earlier ones and so on. But I. If I have a Hot Rod Deluxe, I'm not using the overdrive in it. I'm using it for the pedal. I mean, that's what I love about it. It's great clean, great reverb, nice big, throaty, boomy sound. Throw some pedals in front of it and. And just go. Mr. G says, what's your favorite inexpensive acoustic? $200. I don't know the answer at all. Like, I have no idea. But I do know that I'm going to be answering that question this year. So the new Deep Dive Geeky Stuff videos should be dropping in the next week. We have a new strategy this year. Since we're at the end of the show, I'll just share with you. I'm very excited about it. We literally, this year we're going to try. Try to hit as many different topics as possible. And I know that you're like, oh, that's great idea. It's. I think it's something I wanted to do. I think we did so well the last couple of years on the channel that we've kind of stockpiled the. The revenue to do that. Because you gotta understand, to be lucrative on YouTube, you really gotta do bangers, right? You gotta get out like, the hits. You know, just keep doing the same type of videos to get all the views. This year we're gonna be focused more on a really bigger, bigger sampling of guitars, more acoustics, more basses, more, you know, more categories. And so literally, we wrote down. That's exactly how we did it. We wrote down categories and we said, okay, we want to do X amount of guitars in this price range. X amount of guitars in this price range. X amount of acoustics. So we'll be doing all of that stuff. And also we're going to make sure that we put at least a dozen brands that have never been on the channel before on the channel. And I don't mean like small builders, we'll be doing that too. But I mean a dozen brands that didn't make sense that we've never had on the channel because there's a lot of mainstream, really good big brands. Just we never bought them either we didn't get it getting mentioned, I didn't buy them, or they didn't send anything out. So we're all, I'm on all that stuff. So hold on, I'm stealing some of you guys ideas real quick. By the way. So you guys know in the comment sections, a lot of I've. Sometimes people will send me messages, you know, go, you didn't see my comment. I see a lot of comments. And, and here's what's sad. I don't know what's the proper way to handle it, but how I do it is whether you realize it or not during the show and definitely when I'm indexing the show, I copy paste you into this little notepad I have. And it's not that I don't, I don't physically answer your question in the show. I do the video or I do the thing. So a lot of times if you've made me mention something in a show and you're like, oh, he didn't pick my comment. But then a couple months later or a couple weeks later, you see a video and you're like, oh, that's what I was asking him to do. And he's decided to do it. That's why I decided to do it. I'm actually pulling it from you. You know, that's. So I'm just letting you know I see more than what you guys probably think. Plus, I have really great moderators and they send me things that they're like, hey, did you see this? This is something, you know, you didn't, you didn't address it, but it might be work worth checking out. So on that note, check out the, this the Tim Miller. I don't know why I got. See two hours in, I'm done. Tim Pierce. Tim Miller is my other friend. Tim Pierce. Check out the Tim Pierce masterclass if you want to join up for that stuff and check that out if you guys are be ready for the new videos that's coming out. What else I come. I'm so used to having. We did the contest for so long, I feel like I'm mentioning contest stuff and I'm not. I know Susan's like Miller, the Tim Miller. So you know, Susan, the Tim Miller is my keysil Tim Miller guitar. And if you didn't catch it, I looked immediately to my left for a second and I'm looking at the Tim Miller guitar. It's a headless keisel. So when I said Tim Miller I was like Freudian slip. I like saw it and then I thought it. So. All right, on that note, I will talk to you guys next Friday and I want to thank you guys for what's going to be hopefully a great year. I think we got a lot of cool stuff coming and in the meantime, thank you for your time and Know your Gear the Know your Gear Podcast Today's episode of the Know your Gear Podcast is brought to you by Patreon members Channel members and viewers who like and subscribe. Thank you for making this possible.