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Phil McKnight
Today's episode of the Know youw Gear Podcast is brought to you by Patreon members. Thank you for making this possible. Hey everyone. Welcome to the Know youw Gear podcast, episode 390. Someone asked me, they said, look, I know you've talked about it a couple times in the past. I'm just really curious what guitar pick you use. And this is the question that I like to get every six months to a year. Because it's like, well, has anything changed? Nothing. Still hasn't changed for so many years. I use three guitar picks primarily. I'm going to tell them to you out of order and. But I'm going to tell you in the order of least to most that I use this one. I use the least. This is the Black Mountain pick. That's a three in one pick. This is literally what is on a, in a pouch, like a pick pouch on my key ring. And wherever I go, this is what I have. I know I don't bring any picks with me other than this. I always have this. I find it's just easier to keep a hold of. I travel with these. I love this immensely and it's just nice to have three different pick sides. The next pick I use is this Dava pick that I've been using for quite some time. This is a rubberized pick. And again, I like this too. It's really nice for certain stuff I do. And I would use this maybe about 20% of the time when I'm at home to 15% of the time. The main pick I use the Hurco Flex 75 pick. Why do I use the Hurco Flex pick? When I started playing guitar on YouTube, in other words, when I started making YouTube videos, I did not use a pick. I am a bass player. I play guitar my whole life I play guitar, but I play guitar or at least for then until the YouTube channel kind of, you know, I don't want to say took off but you know, grew the size of this. I play guitar the way some guitar players play bass. In other words, I'm a bass player that sometimes plays guitar and some guitar players are a guitar player that sometimes play bass. So I didn't really play with a guitar pick very much in this music store. I would use one sometimes if I was demoing a guitar, but otherwise I didn't use a pick ever. I just always like using my, my hands. And I got to do this amazing party where I got to see Eddie Van Halen. I got to meet him at a meet and greet for the Wolfgang party. It was a private party for the. The launch of the Wolfgang. My son went and Shawna went and Ralph went and my buddy Frank and my buddy Robert. We all went. I got them all in. It was like a big deal. We got to meet Eddie Van Halen and we brought, like, something for him to sign. When we got there, they told us, look, he's not going to sign anything. And we're like, oh, okay. We're a little bummed. But then they said, he wants to shake everyone's hand. And then they made the announcement. That was so cool. They're like, Eddie has brought in a photographer. He's going to shake your hand and hang out with you and talk with you for a minute. You're going to take a picture together. They're going to print the picture. They actually print it, like on photo paper, frame the picture in this little cool insert and give it to you with a grab bag before you go, or swag bag. So he did that for us. So I have a picture with Eddie, my wife does, my son, and so on and so on. So anyways, the, the reason why the story's funny is when they got the swag bag, there was a tin, like a little, like a mint. You know, you put mints in a little tin, right? T I N of picks. They were EVH picks. Now if you go look at EVH picks, they look different than this. But if you notice, I'm going to show you one right now. I'll tell you guys, this looks like I'm holding that same pick again. See how this one says evh, right? Nylon. See, if you look at the back? Same picks, right? But then look at the fronts. One says Herco, one says EVH, and they're exactly the same. So EVH, Eddie Van Halen gave us these little 10 of picks. There was like 12 of them in there. But my son doesn't play guitar, so I got his 10, which was like. So I had 24. And my wife's like, I don't want any of this stuff. And she handed me her bag, too. And her bag, I think, had two tins in it for some reason. So I got like 48 of these Eddie Van Halen picks. So I would just use them because they were given to me. It's like, it's kind of like when you go, you know, to a, to the, to a car show or something, and you get a Ford hat or something or a Chevy hat or whatever, you get some, you know, you get some sunglasses or something, free stuff. You just Use it. I just use these picks for years because they were free. That's it. After I wore bunches of them down, I kept a few, obviously, because I'm like, oh, these are pretty cool. I should keep them for the sake of the story and the cool, you know, the moment. But essentially, I just started buying in bulk or bags of 12. Whenever I need them, I buy, you know, these. And you can see I have a devopic in this pile too. So that's why I use Hercopics. What I like is I always tell people they feel like a cat's tongue. They're very rough, like sandpaper. I have very dry skin, dry hands, and so it holds my hands really well. So that's why I use a Herko pick. Let's go to the next subject. I have a big one to talk about. I know you guys sometimes like guitar store stories and stuff. I got these two questions that are gonna definitely do a story. And so someone, and I want to point out, they did this very cool. Like, they weren't trying to, like, upset me or throw me under the bus or any of that stuff. A few episodes ago, whenever I. I made a comment, maybe quickly even, that I'm not really into guitar flipping and I'm not a guitar flipper, and I don't. I did. I. I probably said I don't care for guitar flippers. I. I know. I remember saying something like that. I was talking about. I made the comment again. I'm trying to do off my memory, too, but I'm obviously. I remember what I said a couple weeks ago. It was something to the effect of, I'm more interested in sharing how to save money on gear than make money on it, as that's really what I care about deeply. And I made the comment that even when I had a store, it was like, my least favorite thing was the profit angle of the business. Okay? So the question they had was they had an honest question, and they said, honest question. What is the difference really between, like, a guitar store selling stuff and somebody flipping it? They took it as the morality of it. Not the. What is the physical differences or what the, you know, financial differences besides, like, the proper permits from the city and, you know, the proper taxes and all that stuff? That question came in so that. So hold that question right there. And before I answer that, still tie into this one. Somebody sent me a question who obviously used to go to our store and said, I remember you mentioning a few years ago that you guys only did trade and you didn't do Buys. And they said when I used to go to store, I remember you didn't buy any guitars, you only did trades. Could you tell me again why? I don't remember what you said. Why? So I thought, you know, this is a great way to tie those two things in to me. If you flip guitar, by the way, I'm never disparaging anything anyone does. Anything that you do to make money that's legal is fine with me. If it's legal, it's ethical, just do it. If I say I don't like doing it, well, there's a lot of things I don't like to do. I'm just going to say the truth. I don't want to do them. But it's fine if you want to do those kind of jobs. There's things I do that people wouldn't want to do. So my point is on flipping guitars, I look at a retail business and again, my least favorite thing of the retail business was the selling part of it. I like the repairing part more, I like the lesson side more. I like the interaction with customers and I like the education side, which I think is why I was drawn to this YouTube thing. As it grew. My point is I looked at everything as like transactionally, like, okay, I sell a product, I give a service, and I do it over and over again. And everybody gets the equal, same quality care and service, and I get the same kind of profit margins. Flipping to me is always in the concept of it, looking for an opportunity, which sometimes to me is looking for a sucker. And I don't think it's always that nefarious because an opportunity doesn't mean there has to be a sucker. But in most cases, in my experience in this industry, if there's an opportunity, there's a sucker. And that's where I kind of lose a little bit of this. So I want to tell you a story, two stories of why we didn't buy guitars at our store for 13 years. We only traded. So, you know, I can remember buying guitars at our store less than half a dozen times. I was going to say a dozen. It's not even. It wouldn't. That's not even one a year for the 13 years. Here's what happened to me. So I'm going to tell you the story half as crazy. So there's a music store in town in Arizona, in Phoenix. It's a well known music store. It's been there for a long time. The owner has passed away. When I got to meet the owner, he was outrageous, crazy, Crazy, outrageous person. I had heard all these crazy stories about him. And when I had the store, I went to a breakfast one morning where I was invited by a wholesaler, as you will, invited all the music stores in town to this breakfast. And I went and the other music store owners were there. And I saw him and he came up to me and he was very intense. And he was like, Phil McKnight, I hear your store is interesting or whatever. And he was going on this tirade. He would tell us these crazy things. We had heard thousands of crazy stories. My wife Shawna said to him, I heard crazy stories about you. She just said that out of nowhere. And he says, they're all true, honey. So one of the stories we heard was that he had bought a 65 or a 64 Fender Strat for 25 bucks. And every story, of course, was outrageous and had get blown out of proportion. So he tells me the story, and this is the story he tells me. He says, yeah, this lady came in my store and she had a 60, and I can't remember what it was, let's just say a 65 Strat. And she wanted 250 for it. Okay, now you can think how crazy that is now, even 20 years ago, that number was crazy. And he says, I'll give you 50 bucks. He's like, I really don't need it. He looks at the wall, he goes, I got a lot of those on the wall. Whatever, I'll give you 50 bucks. She's like, oh, I can't sell it for that. Could you do 100? He's like, no, I can't do a hundred. And so she says, okay, well, I'm gonna. I guess I'll leave and I'll see if I can get more money. He's like, well, I could do 150. She's like, can you do 200? He's like, no, I can't do 200. So I think the story goes, she takes the 150. So he buys the guitar and then he laughs. Hahaha. Evil, menacing laugh. Haha. And I sold it for like 14 grand. And I know right now some of you guys stomachs are queasy, right? Because mine was too. When I heard the story, like, I just. It was so disconnected from the world of musical instruments sales that I knew, which is, you know, everything's like a 30% margin and you're giving 10% off that. And it's just like I said, you're not thinking like, oh, I'm going to try to figure out how to get something like that. But I had to ask the question. I'm like, why didn't you just give her the 250 bucks? Like, the thing that made me crazy in that story was not that he stole this guitar from this lady. It's like, why not even give her the thing she asked for? Why can't you give the thing that she's asking for $250? I mean, it was totally worth it. So I had to ask, I said, why didn't you just give her the 250? And he says to me, if you tell him any portion of the truth, they're going to leave. They're gonna go, oh, well, if I didn't know it was so valuable, I'll go and research it and sell my own. He goes, you're lose the buy. That should mean nothing in my head. Took up no mind share until a few years later, maybe two or three, I can't remember. But here's what happened. A guy came into our store with a 62 Les Paul. So if you know that's a 62 Les Paul's, like an SG comes in with SG and this is what he says. He just comes, right. It's like that thing you hear about, you know, in music stores and pawn shops where you're like, you know, one day somebody's going to come in with this dream guitar and want to sell it to me for a nickel. This guy comes in, he goes, my dad passed away. He paid $1,000. This, I'd like to get $500. Could you give me $500? I look at the guitar. We didn't do a whole lot of vintage stuff, but we have a vintage reseller that we deal with. I'm not telling him this. I'm just telling you guys this. I look at the guitar, I check it out. Obviously I know it's real. I look at it, it's good shape. I say to him, I think it's worth 10,000. So, you know, I mean, if I sold it, I'd want to get eight for it. Now keep in mind, when I tell him I can get, I want, I ate. I'm not going to sell it to another person. I have a vintage collector reseller that you deal with. If you're a music store, you tend to have. You tend to connect it to other stores that do the businesses. You don't. So I said, I think I go for eight. I'd like to be into it for four or five. So like, I'd like to give you four But I can give you five, because I'm just going to give it to this person and they're going to sell it. And that's where you're at. He just goes, oh, I had no idea it was worth so much money. Oh, I don't. I don't know. He's like, I can't. I can't sell it. He's like, I gotta. I forgot what he said. I don't think he said he was gonna do research. He's like, I think I'm just gonna hold off on selling it right now. I didn't know it was so valuable. And I said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally valuable. Great guitar. Thanks for letting us see it. He leaves. It was a Saturday. Me and Ralph were there. The phone rings. I answer it, and it's the manager of this music store. Not the owner that I was talking about earlier, but the manager of that store saying, hey, Phil, there's a guy in our store. He says that you were gonna give him $8,000 for this 62 or 61 SG. I forget which year it was. And I said, no. I didn't say I'd give him 8,000. I said, I think it's. I think it would sell for 10. But I go, I'd like to, you know, be out of it at 8, because, you know, I don't want to sit on it too long. I said, so I think I offered him four or five. And he goes, oh, I didn't think you offered him that much. Yeah, that's. Oh, that's crazy. He gets off the phone. I've never done this, but for some reason, maybe an hour goes by. I just call the store, that Mews store, and I asked for the owner. They get the owner on the phone, the one I was talking about earlier. He gets on the phone. He's like, what's up, Phil? He always called me Phil McKnight. What's up? And so I said, hey, so that guy. Yeah, he came to your store, right? He goes, yeah, he goes. He told us that you were gonna give 8,000 for it. So we called you. And then when we got off the phone, we told him that you said that after you left, you did some more research and you found out it's only worth two. So he sold it to us for $2,000. And I was just. My everything sank, like. Just like that lady in the 250. But everything sank in my. It was exactly what I said. Sometimes flipping things like that, the opportunities are the suckers. I don't Think that. I'm not saying the guy was greedy for not taking the four or five I was asking for are going to give him. What I think is, is that he knew I told him he could get eight to ten tops. He could have done his research, but. So he went and lied to them and they took advantage of him. But what I learned from the story was not that I would condone those kind of activities. What I learned from that story is those activities are how those things happen. And you have to be okay with it. And I'm not. So that is why I kind of mentally look at the transactional business of just selling gear to, you know, as a store is not so much as the same as flipping. So, you know, some flippers literally are not like that. But in my experience, if I say 6 out of 10, it's just because I'm trying to be as nice as I can be to say six out of 10 are not up to that. They're usually always looking for the score, and sometimes the score has no sucker and. But most of the time it does. So that was interesting. The funny thing about that is that why we didn't do buy guitars at the store, only to trade. That was one reason. The other reason I've told the story before is that one day a kid came in our store with a marsh lamp. It wasn't a high dollar marsh lamp. It was some kind of maybe solid state thing or hybrid Mosfet thing. I was helping a customer, so I could not help him. Shawna came up to me because she was helping him. She came up to me and said, you know, I. She was not as good at buying the gear at that time. This is early on the store. She said, he wants like 150 bucks or $200 for this amp. And I said, I said, you know, I think it's. I think we could sell it for 140. I said, so I wouldn't want to be into it any more than 80 to $100. You know, that's like the range. So Shawna, being her first time as a buyer, went back to him and. And I didn't know this by the way, she goes to the counter, she talks to him, and some of the numbers are gonna be off. So if you go back a couple years ago and tell the story, the story will be exact. But, you know, I remember, I'm trying to remember the numbers, but I remember these numbers were felt like this kind of numbers, percentages. I see the kid take his amp and leave, so obviously he Wasn't happy. I go up after I helped the customers. I go up to Sean. I said, oh, what happened? He, you know, happened. She goes, oh. I went back and I offered him 60 bucks. And I go, oh. And he got insulted and left. She goes, no. He said, he'll take it. And I go, why'd you offer 60? I thought it's 80 to 100. She goes, well, I figured if you wanted to do it for 80, I should tell him 60. And he'd say no. And then I'd go 80 and then he'd do 80. And I was like, yeah, so why didn't you do 60? He just said 60. And she goes, well, yeah. I said 60 and that. He said, yeah. So it was stolen. I said, what do you mean it was stolen? She goes, well, if he's gonna take the money that low, money that fast with no problems, it's probably stolen. So I didn't want it. So I was like, you know, so there was a couple experiences early on I did not enjoy that. What I would call the pawn shop side of the resale business of guitar stores. So that's why we. We didn't engage in it as much. Trades were so much more easier to deal with. First of all, very few stories of somebody saying, I'm trading this for my uncle. You know, most people are trading their own guitars and it just. And it was easier to be give value. And of course, you're dealing with, you know, someone in. Not in a desperate need. Usually people are not trading because they're in need. And I just did not like that part of the business. So that's why we didn't engage in it, and that's why I don't have a love affection for that side of it. But I'd like to point out again, there's nothing wrong for the people that do they enjoy that. I also agree with some of the things they say where it's like, hey, you need to educate yourself and you need. You know, they. They will sometimes say it's not a victim business because the victims should be more informed. I don't disagree with that sentiment either as a whole. It's just like I said, that's why I didn't partake. But that was. That was a lesson learned a couple times. They're not the resale thing. The lesson learned was that vintage guitar story, which is, by the. By the way, I have a kind of a more of a negative feel on the vintage vibe of things. It's like I said, I find that once Something is vintage. The value is seems to be the highest priority of it versus everything else. Amanda sent me Michael. Michael says hey Phil, any are custom shop heritage Gibsons worth the premium? What do you think? I don't think they are. So as you guys know, Heritage made me a. Well, you said Gibson. So let's just start with this. I am not a custom shop fan of Heritage, of Gibson, of Fender. I bought a Gibson R9 custom shop. I have it. I have a Les Paul Classic that's a classic gold top behind me, behind me that I changed some things on. And I love it. It's eight pounds on seven and a half actually something like that. I love it. It's absolutely my favorite of the Gibson Les Paul's that I have more than the Gibson R9 by any means. That was less than half of the Gibson R9. I mean half. I bought that from Carter's Vintage Guitars and it's a 2000. I can't remember what year, but it's not that old. I'll do a a guitar of the week on it, but think it's 2000s. It's in the 2000s a year. I have a Fender custom shop Strat, as you guys know, I have this copper one that was made specifically for me. But I bought a cus. I bought two Fender Custom Shop 61 like Journeymans, both of them couldn't stand either one. Sold one, I'm got to sell the other one. When I say can't stand, it's. They're fine, they're great. They're not that much better than what I can buy an American Strat for. As you know, Heritage made me this custom one with my frets on it. Comparing this one that they made me to a production Heritage for the cost of this being 4,000 versus that being 2,500. For 2500. Here's the sucky part. For 2500 I would definitely refret it with the jumbo frets that are on this one on the custom shop. And their pickups I think are much nicer than the Seymour Duncan's. Sounding wise to my ears than what's on their production ones. But would I be okay with the Seymour Duncan Duncan ones in the production one and a refret? Absolutely, if it was my money on the table. In other words, if I was buying a Heritage, I would not buy the custom one. I would buy the production one and just refread it myself or even have somebody like Sweetwater refread it before it shipped out. And even at that price it'd be, you know, I'd be saving fifteen hundred dollars. So that's where I'm at with that. And like I said, I hate that. Pains me to say that. I mean, that was a gift from Heritage, essentially. You know, they sent that to me and it's a amazing, perfect guitar. And I got nothing bad to say about it other than the honesty of what I'm telling you as someone who's played well the custom shop stuff, bought them for the purpose of learning about them so that I could be better informed. Because, you know, to you guys, you see Friday show and I'm just talking on my ass. But I try to be as versed as I can on all these questions you're asking me. They're all over the place. So I try to learn as much as I can, go to factories as much as I can, learn about the products as much as I can. So that the question I. So the thing I answer can have some merit of experience because I find in my. The only thing I can really tell you that I feel is truthful or heartfelt is experienced. You know, theories are great. I have a lot of them too. But I like to experience in my experience, Custom shop is something, like I said, I was curious about. I've now owned a couple, both Fender and Gibson. And I'm not going to say they're bad. That's not what I'm. Don't, don't construe that with what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, is that they are the, the, the. Not the least. They're the first to go out of my collection of guitars, comparatively speaking. And if you like your custom shops, please, they're great. But you're asking me, do I see the value in that price jump? I just don't. I just don't. It's just, that's just where it's at for me. So that's the answer to that. I think if you own a American made or USA made, Heritage, Gibson or Fender, I think you've arrived, as my mother used to call it, you have arrived. In other words, you have the thing, you have the grail. That's what we want. We didn't even want custom shops that we weren't kids. The thing about custom. Let me and just be very clear, be very, very clear because I've been very consistent over the six years of doing this podcast. I believe super expensive guitars, and I've said this since day one, are about having something that no one else has. That's what it means. To me, I think it means that for a lot of people, too. I think a lot of people are. Don't have the guts to say that they like to stay in the. Oh, but it. The sound, the feel, it's just like nothing else. There's just something cool about showing up to a party with a thing that no one has. It's. And like I said, that thing can be a custom shop guitar. That thing could be expensive, or it could just be something you modified or something you built. I mean, nothing's gonna be more unique than. And that, like I said, but. Which is why I have this affection for Kiesel. I've told you guys for a long time, I'm. I have an affection for things that I can get that are different than everything else, because to me, it's like, it's. It's fun. It's fun to have something like, oh, wow. If you notice, like, if you notice, like my guitar collection, it represents that tremendously. Like I said, when I buy something versus when a company sends me something, I will try to get it outrageous. That I wanted the bright red, cardinal red Gibson right here that I'm pointing at, right? The Firebird. I just want it because, again, it pops. It looks different. So I like the things that are a little bit different, and that's just my mentality for that. But I have not experienced anything where the prices go. When you get to the, what I consider the premium tier of guitars, which is not even a price point. It's just a factory. So when you get to the core of PRSs or the production Gibson guitars or production Fender guitars, when you get to those production guitars of the USA stuff, I think you've kind of hit not the best it's going to get by far, but you've hit a level where you're like, it's just good. It's good stuff. And there's no reason to go above that. And if you want to go and have that journey, please do it. I did it on my dimension. You could do it on your dime, too. You might come to a totally different result than I gave. But I can tell you right now, if I had to thin this collection in half or pare down to half the guitars immediately tomorrow, there's not a single custom shop guitar that I have that would make the list over any of the production guitars, especially the custom shops that don't look custom because again, they look very production too. They're just, you know, better piece of wood or better fit and finish, which I Just fit and finish all my own guitars so they all feel the same to me. Holster says, hey, custom shop is only worth it if you don't have the time and skill to model yourself. You know, That's a good observation. One thing I'd like to add to that Holster Holstar Holster, is that, you know, at the prices Custom shop charge, you can pay somebody to mod it. I mean, realistically, as expensive as that sounds, you're still coming in way, way, way less. So Mike says, hey, have you ever played a Nux acoustic amp? I bought a used one yesterday. Great amp with lots of features comparable to Fishman Loud Box. I'm a huge fan of nux. As you guys know. One of my favorite pedals is the Atlantic I'm looking down at right now, which is a reverb delay I have. I like it more than anything. It's the pedal that gets me the most grief. So, you know, every cool guitar player I know loves to tell me how crappy that pedal is. And my. Their Strymon is so much better. I hear it all the time. Anytime we're jam with somebody, they're like, oh, use that new egg, the Nuxt pedal. I'm like, yeah, have you tried the Stryman? Have you tried this? I'm like, I love this pedal. I love it. I love it. I have no. I care. I care less what it costs. I just like what it does. I think it does it really well. I like it, so that's why I use it. So, yeah, I like Nux a lot as a company. I think they're just one of those companies where they make some stuff and every once in a while I'm like, yeah. So I have no doubt believing the amps pretty good because I've liked a lot of stuff I've tried from them. Old man Fran says, hey, Phil, PRS standard 24 SE output jack loosens up. What's the fix? You can use Purple Loctite. This is what I tell you guys all the time. Threadlocker Loctite. This is what I use. Purple Loctite on Amazon. It you can find it for. It looks like $9.89. Every time I mention this, every single time, somebody in the comments is like, no, the red one. No, look. This stuff is the weakest loctite I have found, which is why I lock it. I like it. I lock it because I like it. I like it because I lock it. Anyways. I like it because I hate it when you guys glue the crap out of things. JB weld stuff. I mean, people come up with weird things and if you repair. I don't care if you repair guitars or cars or whatever you repair or you're a plumber. If you've, if you've ever experienced when somebody has wish went a little crazy and you get to spend. I wish. I wish I could charge people for when I'm cracking off stuff off of something and breaking stuff and cutting into stuff to get into something that I should only I should be able to get into in a second. Like an output jack or trying to save a part. The purple is great, that's why I use it. However, what I recommend better than that is get yourself a quality output jack for free. $5 and replace it and you'll never have that problem again. A good out output jack by Switchcraft will last a gazillion years. And it's my favorite soldering project. Everyone in the world that wants to do soldering should go buy some high quality Alpo jacks from like Pure Tone. Jacks are great. It was about 10, 12 bucks or some Switchcraft ones. Buy some quality ones. Get yourself a soldering iron and replace your output jacks on your guitar. Here's why. You have a 50, 50 chance to get it right. You can put the ground on the hot and the hot on the ground. And here's what happens if you plug into the guitar and nothing works. Just reverse what you just did and you're fine. No phone calls, no phone a friend, no researching on YouTube to figure out how you fix the problem you've created. No burning out the output jack. I would love to see. I'm sure it's possible. So I never say nevers. They say. I would love for you guys, any one of you guys. Look, I won't share your name or anything. If any of you have successfully used a soldering iron to burn up an output jack, you can burn up a potentiometer like it's nothing. Especially certain ones, you can overheat them. But to burn even the board, the little fiber board, whatever in the output jack, any of that thing to burn it up, you'll burn your hand. Don't get me wrong, that, that you can do. But to burn the output jack, I don't think, I don't think you can screw up an output jack. I just don't think it's possible. I mean, if you try. So, and I always say this because again, I try to be a sensitive soul. If you have screwed one up, you know, don't beat yourself up, because I'm just going outrageously about this, but I really think you can't. So that's the project. It's easy, it's fast. You'll learn the soldering, you'll learn the tricks. Demar, he says, will Reverb and Sweetwater crush guitar center in 2025? They will crush Guitar Center. No, I, I don't think so. Here's why. So I, I'm excited to tell you guys. I have an announcement. I wanted to make it into the second hour of the show for all the, the people who faded out. They didn't. They're not gonna hear this. So a couple episodes ago, I, I called out Guitar Center. I, you know, maybe you don't see it that way. Maybe I didn't see it that way. I said some things. I still mean all the things I said. There's a couple of things I would have backed off the tone a little bit on in hindsight. But all. Everything I said said came from the heart, came from my, my feelings. Well, those fine people, Guitar center reached out to me, and not with a cease and desist, because trust me, that was my first thought, was, in fact, when I told Sean, I go, guitar center wants to talk to me. She goes, cease and desist. I'm like, it's not a cease and desist. They just want to talk. So I have talked to the folks at Guitar Center. They had watched the podcast where I critiqued them, and by the way, the name of that podcast is why I think Guitar Center's new plan is going to fail. Guitar center asked me if I would come to California or they would come to me. But I, I said I'd rather go to California and meet with the CEO Gabe of Guitar center and have a one hour, ish podcast discussion with him of my feelings and their, their thoughts of their future. And we're going to discuss. So we're going to do that to you. It's going to be a unedited, honest discussion. And if you watch that episode or if you are a viewer of this channel, you know what I said? Basically, that goes to this question, which is I feel that the future of Guitar center, in my opinion, is mostly going to be that all these guitar players who bought so much stuff during COVID really need to get rid of it. And selling on Reverb and ebay has become more problematic than ever with the scams that are out there with the 1099 forms you get now for selling your gear and then tracking what you spent on it. I Told him. I said, this is what I'm interested in. I'm interested in going to California. I don't want to be paid or anything. I said, here's what I would like from you in return. I would like permission to videotape in one of your stores. I've been trying to do a video in one of your stores for years. And so you guys know, when I did, the Sam Ash store was unsponsored, but they gave me permission. When I did Sweetwater store unsponsored, but they gave me permission, I just. As a YouTuber with 400,000 subscribers subscribers, you don't want to go in somebody's personal private property and videotape and put it on the Internet and hope that it all works out. It's. I mean, I know people film it every day and put it on YouTube, but, you know, I just don't need the headache of that. They gave me permission to film the video that I wanted to do. It's an instructional video, as far as I'm concerned, on what I feel they do, good and bad. And not only is that that video is done, by the way, you'll see it by Monday because the patrons are all seeing it and giving feedback on it. And I'm just answering more questions, the patron questions. But. But to answer David's question, here's what I will tell you. I. When I deal with guitar companies, small businesses that reach out to me, and we do like a consult and, you know, to help them with their social media or help them get, you know, get out there, I always say, you know, you're already 90% better off than most of the companies that have even asked for help. You know, you're out there looking. The fact the guitar center is interested to have a discussion and talk, it's not about me. This is never about me and what I think. And they should listen what I think. What's smart about that is they understand that people who watch this channel, we're having a conversation here, and they're listening and they're paying attention. They see your comments, they see what's going on. So I think that's great. I think, like I said before, I think their angle for the future is what Sweetwater can't do. Sweetwater is really trying hard, as you guys know. I even did a video where I tested it and did. I bought and sold some stuff on the Sweetwater U site. I gave Sweetwater personal feedback on that experience, much less the experience I gave. The feedback I gave to you guys, which was Ultimately, there's just not enough stuff on there. The process is not as easy. It's not that they shouldn't do it, but, you know, go ahead and compete with Reverb. But my point is, is I think Guitar center has an edge on them in the future, in the trade environment, is what I think. I really think that's the advantage. I really would think that, you know, some of you guys right now are thinking the same thing, I think, which is like, I got to get rid of like 10 guitars. And just the experience of selling 10 guitars on reverb is a nightmare. I am. Yeah, I had it. I sold an amp recently where UPS hit the box so hard that the tube exploded inside. It didn't fall out, hit and crack. It just. It exploded from the force. I had stuff in there. The. The guy, I want to thank him so much. The guy who bought this amp from me, by the way, went from Arizona to California. He was so nice. And. And I got a reverb credit too, because what happened was we. We. He filed a claim or with the shipper and then they denied it. Yeah, Reverb denied it. I don't forget why. Oh, I remember because the time elapsed. He had some surgery so he couldn't immediately tell me the problem stuff. It doesn't matter. The thing that matters is he said, look, I know you packed this thing well, he sent me a very nice email. He said, hey, I know you. I packed it. Well, I can see how well you packed it. This is like double box foam brick. It's like it's packed. And he goes, I can't believe how hard they had have dropped this or what happened. And so he went and bought a couple tubes, stuck them in and the amp. Luckily, he did tighten a few things and it worked. It's just the tube. And so the important part of the story is I said, okay, let me do this. And I just sent him a refund for what it would cost to buy those tubes. And then this is where I got to give Reverb credit. I guess Reverb was monitoring the situation. And a couple days later I got an email to them saying, hey, we're going to send you what you refunded him to cover the tubes. So that was really nice to Reverb did that. Keep in mind, for disclaimer sake, I don't know if they did that because I was a customer or because I'm a YouTuber. I don't know what the angle was, but I didn't feel like they did it because I'm a YouTuber. I don't know. I just need to tell you guys that because I just don't know. But my point is, is that, you know, those kind of experiences suck. So yes, I did get a little bit more if I trade, you know, than if I traded it. But also maybe I don't want to sell the next amp, you know, ups that way. So with expenses, shipping expenses going up, damages going up, you know, scams going up, I think mom and pop stores that do trade, I think Guitar center does trade. I think that's an angle that they have that's going to help them and I think they should focus on that. So we'll see what happens when we do these interactions with Guitar Center. I think it'll be fun. I think it'll be. I mean, I obviously have a lot of things I want to talk to him about. He has a lot of things he wants to tell me. Obviously to rate basically probably relay to you guys. But there's some. I have some criticisms. In fact, just being in their store recently, I have some other criticisms now. So when I say criticisms, they're just critiques. It's like, hey, as a customer, I'm more of a customer if you do this. I'm less of a customer if you do that. So really, really cool. But. But yeah, it'd be interesting. So that's. That's my answer. So I don't think that will. I don't think they'll get crushed in 2025. My. I did say in that episode that I feel like they'll probably close some stores after NAMM next year. I still feel that way. I will know better. We'll know in a couple of weeks when I do this interview with him because he'll. I'm sure he'll lay out more of their. Their thinking and we'll know more. But I still think that it's possible they'll close some of the lower performing stores. I would in this current market and really focus on the higher performance stores. But keep in mind, they did open five stores during COVID Maybe their philosophy is they'll still keep opening stores. We'll see. We'll see. I think now is. Now it's time for Guitar of the Week. So today's Guitar of the Week is another super rare guitar. It's a guitar that some love, some hate. I'll tell you why I wanted it and why I got it. It is a 1999, the year my son was born. Steve I Gem Floral Gem if you will, in pretty much mint condition. I mean, this is pretty sick. It's got a little teeny bit of pitting on the back plate. I mean, this guitar looks like it's been sitting in a case its whole life, because it has. We'll go over that story. I think I'll play it first, and then I'll talk about it and how I got it and why I have it. Okay, let's go to Clean Channel for those that want to clean. So the story on this guitar is super simple. As you guys know, I'm a VI fan. As you know, I got a universe finally. I always wanted a gem. Like, everybody who looked at Guitar World magazines in the. I'd say the 80s, but for me, it was like 89, 90. Just thought this was great. This particular guitar story is funny because it's one of those, like, was it meant to be? Was I meant to have this guitar? In 1998, my. My wife was pregnant, and we're like, oh, she's. We're gonna. You know, we're gonna have a baby. We're Have a boy. And so at some point in 99, when he was born, I had decided that we were never gonna have money again. And all our money is gonna go to diapers. And I need one last guitar. One last guitar. Just one nice guitar to last me my whole life, because the whole. Will never have money again because we have kids now. We have a kid. So I got on the phone. This is 99, remember? And I got out the phone book. Almost forgot what that book was called. And I started calling music stores in town, and I'd be like, oh, do you have a gem? Do you have a gem? This music store in Phoenix that's still there today goes, yeah, we have a gym. I go, what kind? And they go, a floral gem. And I go, oh, how much? They go, 9.99. By the way, that was 999 in 1999. Brand new. This is the last year of production of this guitar in the US So this is a thousand dollars. So I. I go to the bank. Well, first I get permission from Shauna. She agrees. I go to the bank, and I pull out $1100. Because in 99, I think sales tax was 5.8 here. So I was like, okay, so that's $1058 plus what's left over. That's. That's lunch. I'll take you to lunch. Let's go get the guitar. We go to the music store. We walk in. I'd Heard things about this store when I moved here. I moved in Phoenix in 97. I had heard that it's like a hardcore store with, you know, like, don't touch anything. When I walk in, there's don't touch signs everywhere. There's a gentleman behind the counter, he's helping some customers. I see the guitar and I go, okay, let's buy it. And you're gonna notice a weird trend. This is almost like a universe story, right? Except for this one's a little different. So while we're waiting for the guy patiently, I see a Washburn used bass guitar for 1:49. And I think, oh, my buddy wants to. My buddy Jim wants to learn to play bass. I can teach him bass. This would be a great bass for him. I pick up the bass and I play the. May I help you, ref? And the guy comes over, he takes the bass out of my hand, he puts it on the guitar stand. He goes, can't you read, man? No, no touch. Don't touch. And I said, oh, I'm so sorry. And so he goes back over to the counter, and Shana goes, okay, let's go have lunch. And I go, oh, no, we're gonna get to the tire, then we'll go to lunch. He goes, yeah, let's go have lunch. So we leave the store. And she's like, I don't think you should buy a guitar from those guys. She's like, that vibe was not good. And I'm like, yeah, that was kind of douchey. And so we go have lunch. And it was a little bit of a mix. It was like, yeah, that wasn't a pleasant experience. And maybe I don't need a thousand dollars guitar. So fast forward to a few years ago. 2014. 15, maybe 15. My buddy Joe. You guys know Joe. He's been in a couple videos. He was in my Sam Ash video. My buddy Joe and I were talking and he was teaching at my lesson academy. And one day I said, oh, I always wanted a gym. And he's like, yeah. And I go, a floral gym. And he goes, I have a floral gym. I said, you have a floral gem. He's like, yeah. And I go, where's that? He goes, oh, it's in a guitar case. And enter my bed. He goes, I've never played it. And I go, you've never played it? And he goes, well. He goes, it was a gift from my parents for my wedding. And it just reminds me of my ex wife. I don't need to tell you any more than that you guys know the story now, right? It's a wedding gift to his ex from his, you know, from his parents, and he's got an ex wife. I said, you should sell it to me. He goes, I don't want to sell it to you because, you know, I goes, if you, you know, if you give me money, there's nothing I want right now. And then my fridge will go out, and that's where the money goes. And I'll just be like, oh, I sold the guitar for a fridge or something. He goes, I'll let you borrow it for a month or so. You get it out of your system. So he lets me borrow it. I have it for months and months. A couple months go by. He comes over for dinner, and I said, dude, I'm still in love with it. I want it. He goes, yeah, a little longer to get out of your system. A couple months more go by. I've had like six, seven months now. Eight months. I tell him, I go, joe, I'm telling you, I love this thing. I love having it. Let me buy it. And he says, well, trade me something. And I said, what do you think it's worth? At the time, we thought it was worth 25, 2,500 bucks. And I said, it's worth 25. I'd like to give you two. He's like, well, what do you got to trade? I said, well, I have a Gibson Les Paul and gold top. And because he loves Les Paul, loves him. And he's like, I need a small practice amp. I go, and I'll give you a small practice amp. So I gave him a small practice amp and a gold top for this. And we traded, and I've had it ever since. Now, here's why the story's funny. When I bought it or when I bought it from him, Joe does something that's really cool. He keeps everything in mint condition. He loves his gear, by the way. He's an amazing player, and he plays crap of it. So no comments about, like, he doesn't play it. He plays. He just didn't play this. He keeps everything. He keeps everything. He has every receipt. So he shows me the receipt. It's from that store a month later, after I was there. And we figured out this is the guitar. This is the same guitar. This is the guitar that I didn't buy. So it was meant to be. It's kismet. It's here. How could that, right? That's a crazy story, right? What are the odds of that? So we got the guitar so you guys know I love this guitar. They've gone up a ton of value. I. I have no plans to ever sell it. Like I said, my kids can sell it one day. I don't play it that much, but I play the universe a lot. Because it's a seven string. I don't play this as much because I have other guitars too. And obviously this guitar is. I, I don't know, it's just, it's more of a special thing to me. I'm not a real big 80s shredder kind of guy, so it's not a, you know, not a thing that way. I just love the, the guitar and I always love the story and yeah, so that's the story behind that guitar. It was really crazy. If I would have bought that guitar in 99, there's no way I'd have it now. Through my life from 99 till when I bought this guitar. So many things that happen, ups and downs. I, I bet you there's no way at some point I would be like, I don't really need this. So it was really nice to get it. Now where I'm in a position where if, you know, if I get rid of guitars, this is the last on the list, or not the last, but it's on the tail end of that list. Mr. S says, hey, eagerly waiting. My diamond telly. A lot of you guys bought that diamond stuff last night. I don't know if you guys saw, if you're curious, the owner of diamond responded to that podcast, like within 30 minutes, maybe an hour tops, maybe. And I'm rounding up an hour within 30 minutes of me posting that podcast. He had already put a very long response. I pinned that response, so it's right at the top. I responded to that response, he responded to my response, essentially explained the whole details of the story and what happened, and there's so much stuff. And then I basically said, hey, long story short, that once they get through this batch of guitars, they're going to hope to get a better quality batch and start over. I'm paraphrasing, so. But I basically said, let me know if we can help on the channel. We'd love to help you get the word out and maybe do some deep dives on those new guitars or whatever. But a lot of you guys did buy some of those guitars. Like I said, there was a lot of good deals there. Even if they have blims and stuff, it's. It's a pretty good deal. So it looked cool. I think we helped him out A lot. I think you guys probably bought a good chunk of those guitars. But it's always crazy to see how many companies are watching the podcast or listening to it because of how fast they respond. It's just gets makes me more nervous each week. But, you know, I can't change. All right. Piero says, hey, I moved to a new apartment and my guitars are picking up a lot of hum, even on battery power. My Strats don't hum in pickup positions two and four. That's hum canceling. That's why that would happen. But my PRSSC DGT is not canceling the hum. Any thoughts? There could be a grounding issue on your dgt, that's for sure. Especially on battery. The, the little, I mean, think of this. Battery is to me the safest thing to do. I used a Rolling Cube battery powered Cube, by the way, for 15 years as repairing guitars. Because of that reason I could, I would keep it plugged in, but I would always have batteries in it. And if anything, anything happened, I would unplug it. Because once I was, you know, on battery, most likely you're not pulling any, anything from the, from the walls. Because look, your Strat's doing what it's supposed to do. It's supposed to hum until it's in positions two and four. So that's fine. The DGT though, sounds like it might have an issue. So, you know, one of the issues with your DGD could be, not only could there be a ground issue, but sometimes. Doesn't happen often, but I have seen it. They miswire your coil split so it's upside down, so you're in coil split mode and when you pull up, you go to humbucker mode. So maybe pull up and go into coil split mode and see if that cancels it. Because they put the wrong. Because all you got to do is solder to the wrong terminal. There's again, that's a 50, 50 chance too. You can be on the wrong one and all of a sudden your, your pickups are always split and then like I said, you're in split mode at all times. I would try that and then of course look for a ground issue. That would be. That would be my main thing. Only because everything else you're saying to me the concern is, is that you're running on battery power and your Strats not doing it in tune four, which tells me that it can be canceled out because otherwise you would say no matter what you do, all your guitars buzz. Dario says, hey, thanks for everything. Phil, can you recommend a builder like Kiesel that does more vintage builds? I prefer spec, like thicker necks at 20 frets. I wish, I wish, I wish. I mean, there's a ton of builders out there that I think are great, that can do all kinds of guitars, but I don't know that are like the Keisel setup, where it's such a variety of what you can pick and there's. And the speed and the timing. There's a lot of great builders out there that do what you're asking for, but uniquely. But, but you know what? Let me know, guys. I mean, you know, people I love to know. I. I cannot think of a single builder in the United States that will build semi custom guitars as, at that price point that fast as Kiesel. It's their thing, man. It's the thing that Carvin did, you know, Carvin did, now Keisel does. It's very unique. Everyone else, it's going to be a little slower or a lot slower and a little bit more, A lot more. Um, so. But I would love to hear thoughts. A lot of times people give me suggestions of companies and then I, as soon as I do a little research, I'm like, yeah, but there's their year and a half waiting list or yeah, they're $7,000. So we're talking about. To me, most, most the Kiesel builds I own are in the $2,500 range to just sub $3,000. So to me, to get semi custom sub $3,000 in under six months is pretty crazy. So like I said, so when somebody asked me, like you're asking me, that's what I'm thinking you're asking for. So that's what I'm telling you guys. Those that want to give suggestions, please sub $3,000 under 6 months. Who do you guys know out there doing vintage style stuff? Enrico says, hey, when do you think some of these vintage guitars will need to be retired from playing and truly become just a collectible art piece? I think most of them are already that now, from the playability and mechanical standpoint at least, I believe most vintage guitars are not being played. Obviously they're mostly are collectible. First of all, let's start with the fact that most of vintage guitars that I've seen, which is not a huge selection, but a big selection, they're. They don't play great. They usually play pretty crap. They usually need a lot of repair. I mean, a lot of them got abused, so, you know, they're not even that great. So A lot of players don't play them. They just own them because it's just cool to own something cool. And they know it goes up in value. Something like that. Amanda sent this from Ryan. Ryan says, hey, did you ever get your marshal order? Are they still made in England? I know you were researching it. I'm still waiting, man. I have not seen any. Marshall is like a wasteland of goneness. It's just gone. I don't see any of that stuff. Let's take a look. So for those that don't know what we're talking about, I mentioned this a few months ago, that I've been trying to get my hands on a certain particular piece of Marshall kit that's made in the UK and the prices dropped. And the problem I'm having is, is that they don't seem to be stocking them. And I think that's because it kind of feels like they're gonna move production to, like, Vietnam or China. December. Now it's estimated to be December, so we'll see what happens. I mean, just waiting and waiting. So if you're in the States and you can't find UK made Marshall, my theory. So you guys know my theory is that Marshall is moving UK production to Vietnam or China or something. Ampeg did this same thing. So first of all, let's just start with that. It's Ampeg did this. What Ampeg did in, I want to say, 2009 or 10 or somewhere on there, right? So let's say after 2007, before 2011. That's when it happened. I remember what Ampeg did was they blew out all the Ampeg. All the US Ampeg. Okay? So all the dealers. I got a smoking deal as a dealer. We bought as much of it as we could tolerate. We were maxing out credit cards. We were putting every. Every penny I had was going into Ampeg, which is tough because, you know, selling base gear. But we sold so much of it because we were buying it for nothing. And. And then what happened was all of a sudden, you couldn't get Ampeg for about six, seven months. Sound familiar? I mean, there was just none to be have. They just didn't have any restock the employees. There was no, like, story. Like, they closed the factory. Cause no one knew anything. They were just waiting. And so what happens is, like, all of a sudden, one day like that, the warehouse in the US Is full of Ampeg, and it's all from Vietnam, and bam, there's no more USA Ampeg. And now you got to buy all the main, the, the same Ampeg you bought before just all made in Vietnam. And then they shit canned all the employees, right? Like then it's like just all done. And so I'm not, I can't say, you know, that Marshall's doing this because that's not fair to say that. What I'm saying is, is it feels like that same experience, right? You have a company. And by the way, just like Ampeg, they were bought. Now Ampeg is owned by Yamaha, by the way, but at the time they were owned by Loud, so Loud, it owned Mackie and Crate and Ampeg. So it was just the kind of same thing as what's going on with Marshall. You have a company that, you know, acquires this company and the brand becomes the asset. We've talked about this before. They buy the name, they buy the designs, and then the manufacturing of, the legacy of the manufacturing is not the thing that's important to them. But I'm so don't want it to happen that I'm totally good with eating my words and being wrong and being. I guess I'm just a pessimist because that's how I feel right now. I'm just being a pessimist. So you guys know the reason I talk about this is I really would like to get a Marshall 1936 cabinets, a 212 cabinet. I don't want the V31 because I already have the speakers I want to put in that cabinet. I just want it because I want this cabinet. But here's the thing that's funny about this. That cabinet was up to $1,000 during COVID street price. They dropped the price now. Now it's 629. You can't even find them used for 629. Okay? No one wants to sell theirs for what the new ones are going for or less, which is even crazier. You can get the V31 for 899, which again, it was at some point it was up to $1,400. So the cabinets have dropped. So same thing with some of the amps. Some of the prices have come down dramatically. Especially the 20 watt studio series. Prices come down dramatically. That's great. And they said, oh, it's cause they got new distribution. They told the whole story what made the prices come down. But then there's this. They sell all that out and then there's no more. So we're just waiting and waiting. So I've been watching and it was supposed to be October. It's supposed to be November and December, there's some kind of problem. There's. It's weird to me that there's no product that you. United States, there's no product here. This is where Marshall sells a lot of good of their product. A good amount of the product is sold in the States. It seems weird to me to not have product. They haven't had UK product being delivered to dealers since April. Let's say May to be nice. I mean, that's June, July, August, September, October. It's five months going on six months. I mean, this is fourth quarter. This is when people are buying. Black Friday is the biggest. You know, it starts the biggest sales season of the year between Black Friday and Christmas Eve. They don't have any Marshall in stock. Seems weird to me. By the way, for the record, I've reached out to my friends at Sweetwater Stuff and they said they've heard nothing of what I'm saying. And they hear that it's still going to be in uk. They're just waiting for deliveries. So I'm like, okay, maybe we'll. Maybe we'll see. Now, granted, they're a big parent company now and they got lots of money and this isn't a financial thing for them where they're going to lose, you know, go out of business. That's not the issue. The issue is why would they not want to be selling right now? Like I said, right now is when I want to buy. I'm ready to give Marshall a thousand more bucks for product as soon as it comes in stock. It's just not coming in stock. So that's why I say I wouldn't be shocked if it. If they change manufacturing and flip on us because it just seems weird to me to drop your prices and then be out of stock and then not restock. I would love to have more information. Like I said, just a theory. It's just a theory. Normally sometimes I'll tell you guys if I have inside information or if I have. This is literally just me going off a gut instinct of what's I've seen companies do in the past. This seems like that same play again. I could be totally wrong because I have no reason to believe they're doing this other than this looks like what somebody else has done in the past a couple times and it wouldn't be shocked if it happened. Al, just an old guy says, what's your thoughts on trading a guitar to a store? Basically, and they want to charge me for a setup on the guitars I'm trading. I've Never heard that. Here's why it's stupid. Tell that store to watch to send them the link to this part right here. And I'm gonna help them out. I went to a restaurant a couple months ago, a restaurant I used to go to on the regular. So I walk in one day and I get the menu and I notice they, there's a new, new information on the menu and it says they're not gonna charge me to run my credit card. There's like 3% they're gonna charge me to run my credit card. And here's why I'm pissed. Don't tell me that. Just raise the damn menu 3%. I wouldn't have noticed. It's an $8 sandwich. We're going to say 24 cents. You're going to raise it. Race, raise the price 24 cents, right? It's all of a sudden it's 923. Maybe I would think 923 looks weird, but I wouldn't have been like this is ridiculous, I'm leaving. Why I was pissed is I'm like, I don't want to think about that. That's all I could think about. Me and, me and Michelle. That's what we talked about at lunch. It's like, oh it's, it's less if you use cash. And I'm like why would it brought cash Now I bought a card because I get, I get points on the card but now the points are negated by this stupid thing. It's a talk about stupid. Just, just change your prices. The reason I tell you this just old guy is they should just discount out of your price what they're going to charge for the setup if that's their thing. And then you'll just go, oh well that's too low, I don't want to do it or that's fine and I'll do it. You'd make your decision, you'd go on your day. Now you got to think about their business problems. Like you know I said you guys before, 80% of the people don't care about your problems and 20% of the people are happy you have them. If you don't know that saying as a business, if you don't, as you're, if you own a business, you feel every day people, customers don't care about your problems. I've been in self employed business now for 20 years. No one cares about my problems. It took me a while, not 10 years, maybe three years to figure that out. They don't want to hear your Problems. They have their own problems. Let me put it this way. You go to work and your boss gives you crap, and then you go somewhere, whether it's a restaurant or a music store, so that you can now have a positive experience because now you're paying. See, your boss was shitty to you because they were paying. Not saying you want to be crappy to anybody. You're not saying that. You're just saying, I'm not here to have a bad experience because now I'm paying. I want to have a good experience, and I'm willing to give you money for it. That's why I'm giving you money. And the last thing you want to hear is like, oh, it's, you know, whatever their damn issue is it. Yeah, that's weird that they would do that. But it's weirder that they tell you. They don't need to tell you. Unless, of course, let's give them the benefit of the doubt, because this is what's great. Because remember, I don't have pre rehearsing this stuff. This stuff you're hitting me with in real time. I would say this if they did say to you, hey, we charge $50 a setup of guitar. So if you go home and set them up yourself and they play great, then we won't charge you that. That, I think is fair, maybe, But I would say I would offer it as a discount. Not that I'm charging you more. It's that I will give you more if you do this service or if you do that. That's just my suggestion. All right, guys, on that note, I'm gonna let you go. And. Oh, and I'm losing my voice. Army training, sir. Okay, on that note, thank you guys so much, as always. Thank you so much for your time and Know your Gear, the Know youw Gear podcast.