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The Know youw Gear Podcast. 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 live episode 388. Thank you for joining me this week. Um, today's show is going to be a little like this. A little. Little off the rails for a couple reasons. One, it was my 26th anniversary and I'm trying to remember all the numbers. There's so many numbers. Remember, I've been married to this amazing person for 26 years. We have been together. I want to say 30 to 31 years. That sounds about right. I'm doing everything off memory, guys. And we have been friends for. I know the number. So why don't I just get a calculator? That's how sad it is. You know, after a while you need a calculator. We have been friends for. Wait for it. 37 years. Okay, so we've been together for almost 30 years. Been married for 26 years. Been friends for 37 years. And she got me an amazing gift, guys. We're going to be sharing it this week. Usually I'm not a big on the show and tell thing, but this is a show and tell with a great story, great meeting, humorous. You'll be laugh. Lone Wolf Gray says. Hey, are volume pots the same as tone pots? That's a great question, Lone Wolf, and a lot of people probably don't know the answer. So let's give the answer. They are all the same. Yes. The thing that if you notice, if you buy a lot of companies like Fender, if you buy a potentiometer, just a, like a 500k or 250k volume pot, it still comes with a, a, A resistor for. Or, sorry, capacitor still comes with a capacitor to make it a tone pot. So essentially, adding the capacitor makes the volume pot a tone pot. So that's how it works. And that's it. That's the only thing that makes a difference, is adding that component. So, yes, all potentiometers are essentially volume pots and potential tone pots. So, yeah, you know, and that's funny. That's one of those things. I think it was one of the first things I ever learned. I was like, oh, I remember going into music stores and asking for like a. I need a tone pot. And they would give me one and I'd be like, oh, I need a volume pot. And like, no one ever corrected me when I was a kid. Like, it's the same thing, kid. You know, it was always like, oh, here's your volume pot. I'm like, oh, okay. So yeah, they're different. So it's kind of funny, but they're the same. They're different only because, like I said, we add the capacitor I'm going to dip into, if you don't mind real quick. Amanda sends me stuff from last week and this week and I'm going to. I try to scoop up some. Plus, I think actually you know what I'll do first? As my wife was saying that somebody missed. I missed a super chat last week and here it is. It's from Antique Rocker. Okay. Antique Rocker says do pedals react differently to solid state modeling amps versus tube amps? Why no demos using low cost solid state amps like a Katana Spark? When I demo things, I tend to line up the products or I try to go very hard to line up the products. So if I was demoing a $99 pedal, if you go in my $99 pedal videos, I'm usually using some kind of inexpensive or price affordable amplifier like a Katana or Spark or something like that. I tend to do that. Or maybe a Blues Junior or something like that. And then if they're expensive, like if it's a $300 pedal sticking it through a $300amp, I don't think a lot of people relate to that as much. But to ask your to answer your question, do they react differently? They do react differently. It's not a bad or good thing. It is different tube amps. A lot of people ask the same kind of question, but differently. Like why put a essentially a solid state pedal through a tube amp? And it's because they work well together. You know, the tube amp has the warmth and the fullness and then the pedal adds essentially the tone, right? And then the. And then it's intensified or like thickened up and made to sound fuller and more dynamic. With the tube amp, I can actually say it works the opposite as well too. Some pedals will make a solid stand amp modeling amp sound better as well or work together really well with it. I run pedals through solid state amps. Like I said a couple weeks ago, I run a compressor pedal in front of Katana. One of my favorite pedals is the enhancifier pedal. It's rather expensive, but it's on that board right there that I'm pointing at. And that is not only do I like it through tube amps, but I use that to basically Fix what I don't like about like a spark or a modeling amp or a tube amp. Not that again, that they're bad. Just something dynamically is missing for me, you know, a little bit of that compression feeling. Like tube amps to me have this very, like, you know, you hit and there's a sponge to it. Like, it moves, you know, the sound feels like it's not so harsh and so instantaneous, you know, And. And so, yeah, you can absolutely do it this. There's no rules in this. You know, guitar players have been doing stuff. Guitar players plug straight into mixing consoles. Guitar players plug straight into rolling amps. Guitar players have played through bass amps. It's just how it works. Whatever you find that works for you works. That's the whole know your gear kind of speech is, you know, learn to use what you got, make it sound the best you can. And more importantly, you know, kind of learn to use it better than just the idea of just buying something more expensive is better. You can just use what you have a little better. So I. And then you didn't ask. But I always add into what's my preference. My preference would probably be pedals through a tube amp. So I. Nothing against solid amps. I just kind of like the way tube amps and pedals sound. For instance, a good example is the Tone Master series by Fender. When we look at the Tone master, like the 65 Deluxe Reverb versus the real one, I noticed when the pedal show kind of reviewed it, they went and decided they AB'd them and they picked one and they picked the tube amp one. And I really think it's because they're the pedal show. And so when people ask me what I think of the Tone Master amps, I personally, for me, in a gigging stage situation, hey, it's lighter, it's easier, it's a functioning tool. But in a room, a being them against the real one. Every time I use the real 65 versus that amp, I don't notice a big difference in sound. And even the way they feel, like, give them props for that. But. But pedals through the Tone Master series did not sound as good through the real tube amp. And especially like fuzzes and light overdrives to me sounded a little less. Like I said, I was waiting for that experience where I said the pedal and the tube amp kind of work together and make the sound a little bit better. Right? Right. It's like this peanut butter and jelly, right? Like a good sounded pedal and a good sound tube amp. But now it's better. The combination. I found the Tomester series was a little lacking on that. Just. And also keep in mind, I'm talking about comparatively. So I'm not saying like plug it in and I don't like the sound. I'm just. If I a beat it, if I took a light overdrive or a fuzz pedal and I run it into a tone master digital 65 deluxe reverb versus the real one every time the real one won. But like I said, direct into the amps without a pedal, the differences were much, much less. If that gives you some insight, hopefully. Okay. Amanda sent me this. Bitmatt says, Phil, have you seen the liquid finish from ESP Japan? I don't know that finish by name, so I could have. Let's take a look. Let's see what the. Let's see what Google thinks that is. Here it is. I'm seeing. It's a blue liquid metal. I have seen this finish. It's a fantastic guitar. But that price tag of $5,799, it's a little. Woo. It's a. It's a lot. But it's a. I mean it's a beautiful guitar. The ESP is a guitar that. I would love to have one again. I used to have an espresso and it just. I mean, I've had a couple and every time they were great guitars. I just didn't hold on to them. You know, that's how it is. Like certain guitars are just fantastic, but you just don't hold on to them. But that finish is amazing. I think. I don't think they do that finish on the E2s, but you know, it's. It's the. I've said this before. I wish ESP would just give up their current idea. I think it's time, you know, look, every business runs their self their own way and obviously they're successful. So who am I to say anything But I would really enjoy ESP if they just adopted Paul Reed Smith's scenario. It would be a perfect scenario for me. Like in other words, what I would like to see is ESP guitars. I don't care where they're made. I don't care if It's Japan or USA. I don't care. Just ESP. Okay. And then instead of E2 ESP. E2 like Paul Reed says PRSS. S2. Right? Like, yeah. And again, those are made in Japan, right? Okay, great. But they say ESP and then ltd. I'd like that to go away. And I'D like it to see ESP LTD. Right? Like, you know, so it's like peer SSE, peer SS2 and pure S core. Like, I like that idea. It's like, it's a. You guys may not know this, but a few years back, many years back, I made a video that stirred. I was going to say I was going to curse. It stirred the pot. It stirred up some S word. It stirred it up with prs. What happened was I did a video. I was just pontificating as I am now in a video, and I made a comment. I did a video of an se. You can Google and find this video still to this day. But I did a video on se, Paul Reed Smith se. And I just made a comment in the video that I thought at the time was innocuous. I said, you know, PRs, SES, Paul Reed Smith. SEs don't say Paul Reed Smith. They say PRs. And then if you flip the guitar over, it said, made for prs. PRS by. And at that time was World Factory in Korea. And so my point in the video was that a prsse doesn't say Paul Reed Smith anywhere on it. Where the American ones do say Paul Reed Smith. But then to add to that, the PRS letters are only on the truss rod cover. And my point was you could take that off and it's like nowhere on the front of the guitar does it say even PRs. And I think I might have. You have to walk back in the video. I said, I think I might have said something silly, like maybe they're ashamed of them. I don't know. Right. It said something like that. What's funny about that video was I put that video out. It did really good views, you know? Right. It was a good video. I was proud of it. It was just me going through. And I think I was comparing. It's a comparison video, right? And it probably has a good amount of views. So I'm comparing PRS cores to SES and I'm explaining the differences. And that's one of the differences I pointed out the PRs, Paul Reed Smith people and Paul Reed Smith himself said it never occurred to them that somebody would come to the conclusion. I came to, like, they were like, I was. They were in shock. They were. They. They were like, I just never thought there would be some guy one day going, yeah, they're. They don't even put their name on these guitars. And then what happened was four months later from that video is when you see the very first SE that says Paul Reed Smith on the. That's when they made the announcement. I remember when they made the announcement, because you know how I found out? Because I was getting all those comments on that video because it was still moving and going, doing well. And people are like, throwing. Phil, you're wrong. They say, paul Reed Smith now. And I was like, oh, well, you know, they didn't when I made the video. My point is, that's why I think about esp. I wish ESP would. Would just put ESP on the headstock on everything. I think we're at a point now. Look, Squire has built itself a brand. Whether that'll eventually be labeled Fender, I don't know. Epiphone to Gibson. But I just really like the idea of, like, Ibanez, you know, having Ibanez. Geo Ibanez, you know, premium Ibanez, Prestige. It's just an Ibanez. So when somebody says, do you own an Ibanez? You get to say, you own an Ibanez. You don't have to say, like, I owe a, you know, a Jeerback guitar. Like, what's that? It's made by Ibanez. Right. You know, I really. I don't think of myself as shallow. I don't think myself as, you know, someone who's really into material possession so much. I mean, I'm really into guitars, but it's not so much anything other than just I have this passion for music and. And guitar. So, like, that. That materialistic part of the guitar part of my life doesn't bleed into, like, any other facets of what I care about. But for some reason, when I bought an E2, which I did a video, and I praised it because it was great. It was one of the best guitars out there for sure, for quality and looks. I just remember the first couple times people who. Who asked me what it was, they're like, what's E2? And I'm like, oh, it's ESP. And, like, oh, like. So it's like a sub brand, Mike. Well, it's still almost $2,000. And then you're like, yeah, I guess I would be a little upset, in theory, if I bought a $60,000 BMW and said, what is it? And I said, it's an LT5. What's that? It's made by BMW. Oh, so it's like a cheap BMW? No, it's still freaking expensive. It just doesn't have the BMW logo on it. Right? So that was my whole thing. So esp. Come on, man. That's time. Do it Ltd, you can still put Ltd, still put E2. Just put the ESP on the front. Like you're proud of those guitars because you should be. Ltd's are fantastic. E2s are fantastic. You have a great line of guitars. You're not going to damage the brand, I promise. People understand this. I think it's been explained now with prs. I think it's been explained with Fender. You know, we know there's Mexican made Fender, there's American made Fender, you know, Right. There's custom shop Fender. We understand the hierarchy now. Just give us the brand names. Yeah, Brian says E2 equals S2. I agree. Just put ESP E2 and I'll be like, yeah. And I'll gladly. I'll tell you what, you know how they say, you know, put your money where your mouth is. If ESP puts esp on an E2, I will buy one immediately and do a deep dive video on it. I will buy one. I will buy one. No questions asked. I will, I will buy one. I'm a buyer. And if they put ESP on an ltd, I will again buy one immediately. Now on ESP Highang, I'm not going to buy one immediately because I would already buy one of those because they're. They say esp but it's just expensive guitar right now. But I would love to have an E2 that says ESP. It would really fulfill a childhood dream to, you know, to own the guitars that my idols owned and play it. It's just really cool on top of the fact that it's a great guitar. So, yeah, Bitmat said I never wanted to spend five ground until I found liquid blue. I understand, man, I get it. I'm a sucker for the colors. I am. I'm a sucker for just a finish on a guitar. It's just something about that, you know, it's a. I'm a generation that was branded by guitar magazines. Like, you know, you'd open up those ads and those articles and you'd see that stuff and it was just, you know, it's like I have a cousin and I remember one time when we were early teens, you know, and I went into his bedroom and he had a poster. It was framed, I think, but it was a poster on the wall and it was like a picture of a house like on Malibu, right. I don't know if it was a, like a drawing or an actual photo. I can't remember. But I remember had like a white Lamborghini and a red Ferrari and something like that. And it Was just a picture of all these cars. And I remember he was explaining to me, like those one day he'll own one of those cars. And I remember thinking in my head going, God, like, he wants a 200,000. Well, at the time, I think that's what it was. $200,000 car in a. In a million dollar mansion. And I just want a really cool color guitar. I just remember I couldn't say anything. He's like, yeah, what car would you get? I was like, oh, I don't know. I think I said something like, I'd get a Jeep. But I was thinking in my head going, I'd get a cool Strat. Like, all right, I got. All right, let me get back. Let's get back on task, shall we? Okay, here it is. Refresh this. I have to refresh my screen, which is a good time to drink some water. Here we go. We have. Alex says, hey, why would the $450 squire vibes have a nice wooden truss rod carve out while a $900 plus player 2 series have a ugly black plastic ones? I have no idea what we're talking about. A wooden truss rod carve out, okay, while the $90 player series has and ugly black plastic ones. Well, I would imagine whatever we're talking about, I think what you're talking about is like you're talking about the piece of plastic or piece of wood that's in the truss rod at the top of the headstock. It doesn't really matter because I know the answer. No matter what it is we're Talking about, the Player 2 series is not a premium line, okay? But the classic Vibe series is a premium line. So you have to think of the hierarchy in which the brands are considered. What we're just talking about with the. In the scenario of Ltd, E2 and ESP, a squire classic Vibe would be a premium squier guitar. So you would expect the best feature sets on that squire where the Player 2 series would not be the premium of the Fender series. Right? So that's what. That's a strategy. That's just all BS marketing. That's how they get us to buy the way they get us to buy. Right? Like I said, they can make everything kind of more universal. But there's a reason that, look, it works. We. We do it, you know, so they, they basically make it to where even though they could make level the. The. The items all the same, they just go, okay, well if you want to get into the Fender brand, here's the lower price points but you lose features. And as you buy up, you get those features back, and it's squier. Even though the top end of the Squire is at the baseline of basically the Fender fender line. You can get premium features at Squire, where you get no features at. You got to think of it like, again, I hate car analogies because I'm a car idiot, but at least it makes sense to me when I say it out loud. You got to think Toyota, Lexus, you know, you got to think Honda, Acura, something like that concept, right? Cadillac, you know, Chevy, whatever, where they're essentially the same company and essentially making almost the same products. You expect, you know, you could get a fully loaded Toyota, right? And then maybe the analogy doesn't work now, I think, because I think the Lexus would come with features, you know, I mean, the same amount of features. But you understand what I'm saying, right? They're thinking Squire. You're walking up the brand. Then you go up the fender and walk up the brand. So that's the answer to your. To your question. Clan of house cat says Majesty needs more routing for new DiMargio covers. Yeah. Why? Let's see. Because they're direct mounted. They don't fit the. They don't fit the new chrome covers. Are you asking me, does it. Let's back up. If you're asking me, does it need it? I don't think so. I have done a couple pickup installs in Majesty's, and I think the only. I have. I do remember one in particular where I took some sandpaper and I had to sand the walls of the pickup route, and then I retouched it up with shielding paint and then put in a covered pickup. And that's the only issue I had. And I remember it was only on one of the routes, and I don't remember which one. It was a little tight, but it was not so tight that they didn't fit. So, I mean, you have to do your own research. But I found that some of them fit. Mr. S says, Happy anniversary, Sean and Phil. Yeah, yeah, you know, happy anniversary. I'm excited. Last year we went on our honeymoon vacation because we never had a honeymoon. So we did this big, extravagant vacation. Ironically, what I'm going to show you today is on that epic level. Talk about trying to oversell something, right? I don't think I could oversell anything I'm about to show you today. So it's a. It's a epic level. Thank you for the well wishes, man. It's fantastic. It's Fantastic. Two things are happening. So many things happening this weekend. By the way, we had our anniversary, which we're celebrating on the weekend because just been a busy week. And then on top of that, tomorrow is our puppies as a Puppy, our dog's 15th birthday. She's turning 15 tomorrow. Tomorrow we're gonna have steaks. At least I'm gonna have steaks. Shauna's gonna have fish. Anyways, we're gonna have steaks. And Shauna's grinding up a steak into a patty for her because she's 15 years old and she has a little trouble chewing the harder, you know, meats. So she's gonna grind it into, like, burger, because she's got a grinder thing. And then I'm just gonna cook it, like, rare, right? And she's gonna have a steak burger on her birthday. And then a Monday is Veterans Day, so it's like. It's like, let's have some fun. So it's not all parties this weekend because we have to. We're draining the pool and because we have to drain and clean the pool once a year. And you got to do it when it's not hot because the pool can crack. So big exciting things like that. Okay, Steve Wright says, hey, Phil, what is the V type speaker is like a V30? What is a V type speaker that is like the V30? I don't know, Steve. I have no idea. I'm sure if I was going to say what V type speaker is like the V30? I think it's the Red Coat by Eminence. The Red Coat by Eminence is. See how my answer See how unsure my answer is? So it sounds like a question. I think it's the Red Coat. Like, that's my tone. That's like, I'm answering your question with my uncertainty question, but I'm pretty sure the Red Coat by eminence is a V30 or something like that equivalent, as the speakers go. I have done a lot of speaker research, research over the years, done speakers, but not to the degree of guitar stuff. So, I mean, I can. I can get you and point you in small directions. I would say if you're looking for a V30, that's not a V30. I would say, oh, you know what? Good thing I keep talking, because then my brain can keep going. Two speakers out there, warehouse, makes a speaker that's really good, like a V30. And so does Eminence. So you can check out both of those. Mike in Tennessee. Hey, what's up? Mike in Tennessee. Says what? What's a guitar manufacturer that you believe is underrated and doesn't get the love you think it should? If I tell you, you did a huge super chat, I feel like I want to tell you, but I want to tell you secretly without the audience. Okay, so I'll tell you what. I'll give you two and I'll explain why. Because the first one that came to my mind I really believe is, is the one. And then I believe the second one I can come up with is also the one. But I think it'll make people happy. I think, I think without a doubt, the first thing that came to me for underrated guitar manufacturer is Kiesel Guitars, which is also used to be carving guitars. I know. You know, I promote Giesel a lot. Obviously I have a signature guitar with them. Like I said, though, they don't pay me. I don't have a paid agreement with them for that. But I've said this before, I'll say it again, you can't. Well, perfect example. A couple weeks ago on the guitar of the week, I did a Jason Becker guitar that I traded some gear for, I bought it used, and I made the comment, know who makes a guitar in the USA for less as an artist guitar. An artist guitar made in the USA for less than that guitar. And you know, thank you everyone who sent answers in the comment sections. I really appreciate it. So, you know, I took all those answers and I went and researched what you guys sent me, and 100% of those answers were not accurate. Very good answers, though. Somebody said, hey, the guitar player from Pearl Jam has a Strat that's only $1,800. That's actually made in Mexico. Somebody mentioned another guitar that happened. Oh, Tim Henson, which is actually, that guitar was made in Indonesia. So an American made artist guitar sub $2,000 is, you know, it's a. It's a perfect example of like they're doing something no one else is doing. The comparatively speaking, the Nuno Bitten court, which, as you know, I'm a huge Nuno fan. Nuno Bitten Court N4 is 2499. So $2,500. And essentially is made the same way. It's not finished, you know, unfinished wood. But even the Jason Becker Sino is more expensive just because of the painted knob, the painted tuning keys. The more pickups, I mean, it adds more cost. So if you look at apples to apples, we're talking a fair fight. We're not talking like, hey, an epiphone is a great value compared to a Gibson for what you get, for what you pay. We're talking about a Kiesel guitar. Compare it to something. You're comparing that guitar, feature wise, not only what features are on it, but where it's made and how the employees are treated and paid. You're comparing it to sir. You compare it to Tom Anderson. Those are the comparatives on that guitar brand. Okay? It's not compared to Fender. Fender is a mass produced product that is way more mass produced with limited features. It does not pay his employees as much as Kiesel does. It does not do as much for its employees as Kezel does. That's not me guessing and that's not them me shaming them either. I'm just saying, comparatively speaking, there are SIR employees that work at Keisel, there are ex Keisel employees that work at sir they're comparative in how they pay each other and how they treat each other. But like I said, sir is a $5,000 prospect to Kiesel's $2,800 prospect or $3,000 prospect for the comparative features. So very underrated for that because of the fact that there's a lot of reasons, a lot of you guys have a lot of reasons why you don't want to buy a diesel hell forever. I didn't like Carvens because I thought it was like, eh, you know, the catalogs are cool, but I just never was called to, to like the carbons as much. But my point is, is that if we're talking about for value, it's really underrated. The next brand I would say is underrated. I'd probably say G and L's next. And again and again. So, you know, I always say everybody's biased. People who say they're unbiased are just either not really thinking it through or they're trying to trick you a little bit. I have bias. I've. I work with Kiesel and I work with gnl. In other words, they've sent me guitars, we've done videos, stuff like that. I've been to their factories and I like the people. So there's my bias. Take that in, you know, filter that as you want, okay? But GNL is another brand. Same thing. If you look at what you get for what you're spending, they are giving you the same feature sets and quality. Now again, we could talk about brand value. By the way, I never argued that Akiesel's brand is as strong as sir. It's not. Sir is a premium brand and they've earned that Giesel I think is working towards that, but it's not there. It's not. It's not Porsche, it's not Ferrari. It's just not yet, you know, because part of that, I hate to say part of that premium is the pricing. And that's one thing holds them back. But same with gnl. Gnl, for some reason, is like they. They basically build the same quantities as like Fender custom shop or less, and they put them on same, like, machines with same kind of like, feature sets and. And they still price them at what vendor? So those are two brands that I think are very underrated for the quality. I could put heritage in there too, kind of. We know that. Again, I'm. By the way, I should go back to your question because I kind of feel like I remember I'm, you know, I'm an American. So of course I think USA made stuff. So maybe to. In your question. Let me. Let me read it, because I don't think you actually said what manufacturer country. So you said what guitars manufacturer that you believe is underrated doesn't get the love that you think it should. So in fairness, that's just my American pride coming out. And I'm picking American companies. Okay, let me go offshore. And I'm. The first brand that comes to my mind is Cortek. I think Cortek makes guitars that obviously they make everybody's guitars. They make the guitars that you drool over and then they make court guitars. But somehow court guitars are seemed as, like, lesser than. But feature set, usually more. That's a different argument where I argue that Kiesel and Sir are giving the same feature set. I would argue that court, when they branded a court brand, it's more features than what you're getting from the brands they're building for, and you're paying less. So I would definitely say that's one in Canada. It's definitely Godin. Godin is super, super underrated, without a doubt. You know, fantastic instruments. Again, their prices, by the way. You know, what's really sad about Godin is this is why I preach my preach about the Kiesel guys is that if 388 episodes in. If we went back to episodes the first a hundred episodes years ago, somewhere in there, I guarantee you I was talking about Godin and saying, wow, you know, you know, better than for what you pay. It's amazing. Amazing. And if you go back then, I know not. Not even factoring the inflation. Everybody. Everybody's done. If you just go back and look at that time, Godan Guitars were less than half of what they are now. They were a much better deal because as they did get kind of more known, they. Their prices have come up not only because of the inflation, but just again, as a known quantity. So I think eventually that's what happens with Kiesel. I think Kiesel and Godin eventually, one day, are as expensive as everybody else. And then you'll ask me, and I won't say they're underrated. Cause they'll be as expensive as everybody else. Another underrated company. Let's do one more. Underrated companies. Because I didn't hit enough countries. An underrated company. Underrated. By the way, please don't take any offense that I'm not picking any small builders. That's just too. Too niche to say, hey, this guy in, you know, Italy who makes seven guitars is underrated. Of course he is. But we're talking about known things that you can find right now in stores where you're at. I would say an underrated brand, because again, I'm thinking of a brand that everybody knows and sees, but just doesn't think, you know, that much of. I would say sire guitars. That's another brand. I think they're getting their due now, you know, from a lot of guitar players. But they. They are another brand where, you know, you compare them and stuff, and they're great. Let's see. I'm trying to. Now what I'm doing is looking at brands. You guys are saying Schecter is underrated. I don't. Dangerous. Dangerous. I don't know how to say it. Dangerous. I think it's dangerous. Os. Dangerous. Dangerous, phonetically, is how you're putting it. Schecter's underrated. I don't think Schecter's underrated. I think the question was, if the question was, Phil, what's a great brand out there that's more obtainable or more affordable? I say Schecter. I always say Schecter. In fact, right underneath that Horsehead Bookends is saying Yamaha. Yamaha. I don't know how to say Yamaha. Apparently, we're country folk, I guess. Yamaha. Schecter, I would put up there, is absolutely dollar for dollar, fantastic stuff. But I think they're not underrated because, again, I think people know that they're good for the money. Like when I was just talking about Kiesel and was talking about Godin and was talking about gnl, I think not everyone understands. I. I, like. I did a podcast a few. Few months ago, and I made a comment about Gnl that Fender makes more in the first week of production. More guitars in the California plant, they make more that week than GNL will make for the year. And then so many people are like, are you sure, Phil? I don't think that I'm like, yeah. And then they do some research and they go, oh my God, that number is real. I'm like, yeah. You think, like, people don't understand, you know, GNL is not at the, you know, they're not the same level at. As size, but yet they're well known and well respected and not that expensive. Comparatively. Comparatively. Anthony Zach says Siegel. Siegel is Godin. So I would, When I say go down, you know, Godin is more than just Godin. It's Norman Le Petre Arts and Luthery Siegel. All fantastic, fantastic brands. So if I didn't say it, I apologize, but I really mean to encompass all of the Gaudin family of brands as being a seagull's definitely a guitar. That's amazing. Paul says, Vola. Vola. Here's my deal with Vola. I. It's not that I think, I don't think they're underrated. I. My thing with Vola is they push the. They're made in Japan and that's why they're a great deal. If Vola was made in Indonesia, those prices wouldn't seem so exciting and the quality would be the same. So that's my whole thing with Vola. I'm really glad that they lowered their prices. I've said this before. It's great that they lowered their prices, except for if you bought one before they lowered the prices because that sucks for you guys. But luckily for me, I sold mine before that happened. So I mean to, for reference, what I paid for my Vola, if I didn't get rid of it before they decided to go direct, I would have lost about $11,000 on the resale for a guitar. That's great. I would have been like bumming considering, you know, that's a lot of money. I think I saw. I almost thought about buying that guitar back again because I was looking at the prices of it and I was like, holy crap. I think I sold mine for twelve hundred dollars and I can see them now for six, like six hundred bucks used. They're good guitars, but like I said, the pitch is that they're great because they're made in Japan. They are great. But there's Indonesian guitars that are less than Volas that have more of a brand name power and it's just as good there's just no way they're not as good. I've. I've had my hands deep into both guitars, and they're. They're equalized out. Let's see. Fgn. Okay, so Black Hat Jester. Unfortunately, I have no. Very little experience with fgn. It's just a brand. I reached out to them. I never got a response back. They're one of those brands that just. What happens. So, you guys know, I'll put a list of brands together that I want to put on the channel sometimes because, you know, companies get used to working with the channel. They're sending the same guitars. Like another prs, another Keys, another, you know, Firefly, another, you know. Right. Because it's just. It's. It's easy for me because these companies will go, we'll send you a guitar and you can do a video. And you're like, oh, okay, great. And then after a while, I'm like, I'd like to get some new fresh blood on the channel. So I. I grab brands and I kind of look for that stuff for. For instance, I bought that flaxwood, you know. Right. I'll just buy some guitars and put them on the channel. And FGN's one that I've almost bought one, two or three times. Like, I'm like, I'm about to do it, and then, you know, some other brand or some other deal comes up where I'm like, okay, that's a good deal. I can get that guitar and put that on the channel, and people will dig it. So. But FGN will eventually get on the channel. I'll just. Eventually buy one. Just. There's a small part of me, it's like, I hope one day they reach out. Like I said, every once in a while when a company reaches out, I'm like, oh, cool. You're a brand I would really like to highlight and talk about and look at. Why are you guys putting out brands? Fernandez. Fernandez is gone, John. They're gone. Let's see if they come back. Rant says, how about Michael Kelly? I think. I don't know what the status of Michael Kelly is. I have no idea. You know, Michael Kelly sent out a guitar to the channel. I did a deep dive of it. And they were part of the Sam Ash bankruptcy. I know that because every four or five days, I got another certified letter because I was. We were some of the people they bankrupted on. It was very minor. But it's funny. If a company owes you even a couple dollars or, you know, whatever they owe you if they owe you money. They had done a sponsored video, obviously series with us trying to get some excitement about Michael Kelly and Sam Ash. And then that was right when it all tanked out for them. So they were trying at the end. Okay. Jeff says, hey, Phil, I love the videos. If volume is not an issue at home, how much wattage of an amp would be loud enough to have the headroom for pedals? You know what? Don't think of it that way. Wattage is not always the same. It's not always. It doesn't always. Well, first of all, they don't always tell you the actual wattages of amps. Sometimes they tell you something's 20 watts and then it's really 5. And sometimes they tell you something's 5 and it's really 20, and so on and so on. You know, I found that every. That question can't be so unfortunately, broad stroke painted across so many different amplifiers. For me, I like having 5 watt amps, and I don't like having anything above 50 watts. Those are where I like my amps. I have 100 watt amp. Amp that obviously works really well at bedroom quiet levels. But essentially everything else I have is 50 watts. And below, just where I like to stay, I have a lot of options when I get an amp. Like when I got the amplified nation amp, this, the Wonderland overdrive. It comes in 100 watt edition. It comes in a 20 watt edition and a 50 watt. I pick 50 watt because I think the 50 watt sounds a little bigger sounding than the 20 watt. And I didn't need the extra 50 watts. I didn't even barely need these 50 watts, so that's why I went with that. So. So. All right. Okay, let's. Let's do this. Hold on a second. Am I ready for this? I am ready for this. All right, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. You know what? It's. Now it's time for guitar of the week. Awesome. It's time for guitar of the week. All right, so guitar of the Week. This week is my present. I received a 26th anniversary gift from my lovely wife. This is crazy. If I can get through this without crying a little. I don't know why I don't think I was. But all of a sudden I'm like. I feel it like I'm welling a little bit. All right, I got a move my chair. I gotta position my thoughts right? So this all happened really fast, by the way. I got this guitar yesterday. Okay? So, I mean, this is gonna be crazy. I'M gonna do a secret reveal. Reveal, reveal. That's right. I'm gonna play it and then I'll tell you the story. And for those that don't know won't recognize it. Some will recognize it. It's one of those guitars. I think a lot of you gonna be like what? And then some of you gonna be like what the hell is this thing? And but at the end, I promise you, at the end of the playthrough, we'll have it. All right, so this is the guitar for those that know what it is. Enjoy. For me, I'm going to show you a little bit more. That's about as much as I can do without getting copyright strike. Let's, let's go to the clean channel. You heard the. Let's go ahead and switch. What am I using? So you guys know I'm using the Engel Steve Morris amp. Morris amp. And I'm going to go and start with the. Go with the neck position. Here's the clean with the neck position. Here we go. That's your neck. We're going to the middle. Okay. And of course we're going to do the neck and middle position. All right. I made it through kinda. You know, funny thing that happened to me today. I feel like a comedian now. Funny thing that happened today was I've been doing the guitar of the week using these M Audio monitors that I bought a couple months ago and they broke. The power section crapped out on them. So thanks M Audio. But so I had to use headphones. And just like right now when I was playing, I tested it but I guess it's not working right. I barely could hear the drum track so I think you guys could hear it fine. But I had trouble hearing it. So let's go ahead and share this thing. This is, if you are an Ibanez fan, the holy grail in my opinion of Ibanez. This is a 1991 original Steve I Universe 7 string guitar. The very first 7 string guitar ever put in production as a mass produced solid body guitar. This is a swirl. If you can't tell. It's in fantastic condition. It's got. It's got like a little ding right there, you know. But it looks like, see, it looks like part of the look. Okay. There's little pitting on the, on the back plate. These are. If you're into these guitars, you know how, how breathtakingly rare this is. This guitar is probably so unique. Just to give you a reference, there was 1800 50, 1959 Les Paul's made. There was only 1083 of these guitars made. There's less of these on the planet Earth originally. Much less, who knows now than the 59 Les Paul. That's how rare this particular model is. I have wanted this guitar since I was 16 years old. My wife knows that. So, you know, I have not wanted any guitar as much or as long as I've wanted this guitar. I said I would never buy this guitar because they kept going up. I'm going to tell you some funny stories about this one. It's even got the crazy. If you don't know, it's got the crazy output jacks in the back. Look, see in the right there. So if you have a, you know, for us cool guitar players that have wireless systems, you can run it through the strap. Everything is original on this. It even came with essentially not an original case, but the 1991 pink case. So it has the original case. Like I said, some people love them, some people hate them. I always love the disappearing pyramid inlay on it. Rosewood neck, two piece maple. This was bought. I think somebody will get a kick out of this. This was bought originally from Sam's and not Sam Ash. It's. This is Sam's music. Let's see if I can. Gotta get more light. Yeah, Sam's music. So here, look at that. Sam's music. Very, very good condition. I want to thank my wife for, you know, she said she was doing this so, you know, I was a little involved in the process. She had to work out some stuff. I mean it took so many. Basically my wife is like most women that know how to coupon shop. My wife made sure she got a smoking deal on this. We did get a smoking deal on this. It was a once in a lifetime deal for sure. I just want to let you know in case any of you get crazy enough to Google these and you're going to see crazy prices that will probably shock you to your core. Nowhere near that. Not even close. Not even half of those prices you'll see is what she paid. But still a crazy penny. Pretty penny. The story behind this guitar goes like this and it's 100. You've. I've told versions of this story or pieces. I shouldn't say versions. Pieces of story. Over the years of doing this podcast. In 1991, I walked into Guitars Etc. On Speedway in Tucson, Arizona and there was actually this guitar was sitting on the wall. I literally had the Wayne's World moment. I walked in, I saw this guitar. I don't know why? Probably because it was on the COVID of Passion Warfare. And I just thought Steve Ive was the coolest looking guy I've ever seen with that album cover with the. The demons and the. The devils and the angels on his shoulder. And just the whole thing just kind of spoke to me. And I remember seeing this guitar, and it was $999, brand new. $1,000 to give you a reference. That means the dealer cost this in 1991 was like 650 bucks. That hurts my soul. Okay, to say that out loud, this guitar was on the wall in 1980, or, sorry, 1991, $1,000 was the equivalent to me of $1 million. I'm not exaggerating. I was paying weekly for my car insurance at a. At a that only had liability. I had to go every day. I would get my. Every day. I get paid at the end of my. My day, and I would take and go and pay my car insurance weekly. You know, I remember getting my check and I'd get full tank of gas. I paid my car insurance that week. And, you know, I had a leftover for, you know, a Jumbo Jack dollar. Jumbo Jack, you know, Top Ramen. Just. This was just unobtainable. Then you fast forward to I get a corporate job. My wife and I are doing well. We have our first child, which my son were in Vegas for the first time. I've never been to Vegas. She took me to Vegas. I was in my late 20s. Okay. We. I said, hey, while we're here in Vegas, even though it's basically like a honeymoon thing, right? Or honeymoon, you know, anniversary thing, I said, can we go to Ed Roman store? We went to Ed Roman's store. This is when Ed was still alive. And they were closing the store. Right? As we walked up, they saw us and they said. They said, if you know what you want, you can come. Come in. And I go, oh, I just wanted to see the store. And they go, you can run through the store real fast if you want. We walk in the store, and Roman was there. Guess what was on the wall? This guitar. Not this exact one, but one like this. Again, I don't know if it was new or used. I don't know. I just know that he wanted a lot more than $1,000. At that time. I had just gotten my first platinum credit card. I'm not exaggerating. I was like. I looked at it and my wife knew when she saw my face that, you know, this is the guitar. He's just won't stop Talking about. My wife actually made a comment, I think a week ago that I. She has thought, she thinks I brought. Have brought this guitar up at least once a week for 30 years. So anyways, Ed, Ed Roman. I look at her, she looks at me and I get the nod, you know that nod, like, yep, not go ahead and do it. It's. I'm not gonna be upset, you know, I mean, it's the passive permission, but it's there. I take it. Just kidding, by the way. I like the joke of that. My wife's like, you go ahead, do it. She go, I go, I'll take it. Ed Roman goes, all right. And then my wife goes, but make sure. Have you ever played one? I said, no, I've never played one. By the way, yesterday was the first time I ever played one. So she said, I think you should play it real fast before you buy it. He says, well, the problem is. He stops her right there and he goes, the problem is you can't play it unless you buy it, because the guy who buys it will appreciate that no one's played it. So my wife's like, yeah, that's a lot of money for us. And she didn't say it to him. She said to me, she's like, I just can't take the chance. And I obviously couldn't take the chance either. So we left and then fast forward. I had a Music store in 2010. They reissued this guitar as a limited run of 100 pieces, 60 only, available to us. Even though they had the wrong neck, which is the wider neck, it's still, at least I could get it and swirl on to me on those words better than these, at least cooler looking. And the story with that was the night before the NAMM show announcement, I was, I was leaked. A friend of Ibanez leaked me the information that was coming out the next day. So I went and called my Ibanez rep that night and said, I want to order one. And he said, they've all been sold out. All the big dealers got them first. And so this has been going on and on and on and on and on. And I don't know what possessed to happen, but apparently my 26th anniversary, I now have. This is it. I don't have another guitar. I think a few months ago somebody asked me, is there a guitar that I've been wanting my whole life? And this is it. I don't have any other guitars that I've ever wanted as much or near as much as this guitar. I don't even Have a second runner up. I don't even have, like a. Oh. And if I ever got this, I'd get something else. I mean, don't get me wrong, as I like to say, I'm loyal to my addictions. There's more guitars in my life coming. Not because I've always wanted them, because I'll find things I love, but. But yeah. So this is it. So now you've heard it. Ibanez Universe. For those that think it looks like baby puke, you're right. For those that think it looks amazing, you're right. I've always kind of reminded me of, like, a planet like Jupiter or something, like, kind of crazy and out there. Oh, by the way, I should show you the back swirl. Look at that. This is actually technically the less valuable of the Swirl guitars. This is a mister. It stands for mustard. M. Mkr. Mustard, ketchup, relish. And then there's the other ones that are. That are a little bit more valuable, but I don't care. Now, I know what you're thinking, because a friend asked me. He goes, are you just. Are you gonna never play it? Oh, no. I've been playing the hell out of it. You know why? This neck is amazing. It sounds great. I'm gonna play. I don't even care if I nick it. This is never going anywhere. So I'll play it. I don't even care. This will be the guitar. In fact, I'm going to sell off a bunch of other guitars just because I don't need them now. And so that's my guitar of the week, 26th anniversary. For me, that guitar is 1991. Look at that. And this goes up. So, you know, and then I'm going to go into my little tirade that I always do, which I have said many times, because technically, in my opinion, it's just my opinion, this is considered a vintage guitar. And I've said before, vintage guitars are a scam. Here's why they're a scam. And again, not to be a. Now I feel like I'm esp. Now I'm bitching. Ibanez. You could just make this Ibanez. I've this. If you made this in Indonesia, I'd have bought that Ibanez. I would have bought it. I don't need it to be the original one. I don't care. I just wanted it. And you can reissue it. And that's what I said. That's why it's a scam. Here I am, you know, my two choices. I can have someone make one, which they can. Or I can find original one and pay too much for it, which is what I did. Or my wife did, although she got a deal. It's. In my opinion, it's too much. Because I think this guitar, realistically, in my opinion, Indonesia, $3,000. That's what it should be. That's. That gives them some meat on the bone to pay Steve and, you know, make it. But I can tell you right now, for those that don't understand it, there are 1093 of you hanging out right now. I guarantee you there is more than enough of you right now going, nodding, going, yeah. For high, high 2000s, low threes made Indonesia. I'd always. I'd get one of these too. Something funny, though. I shared this because obviously it came yesterday. I was told it was come before because obviously my wife had some questions for me. She's like, we're doing this. Here are the questions. I just realized that when I said I've never actually touched a real one before, I've never touched it. All my friends, like, all of them said the same thing. They've never physically seen a real one in person. I'd seen two at least before, so that's how rare they are. That's the Ibanez universe. So there you go. Yeah. Quilted Maple said, kiezel could do it. Keezel could do, I think, a better guitar than that. Just in my opinion, like, if I got a kiesel 7 string and it was swirled, it would be a better guitar, and it would be swirled, but it wouldn't be this guitar. You gotta understand my attachment to this. Is this. Like I said, it's a moment in my life. It's a thing I just. Like I said, I've always, always had. Here, I'll show you. Oh, I don't have it. I guess I'm not gonna show you. I say I've always just had attachment to this. This guitar. So I would really want it to be an Ibanez, and I really want it to be like that. That's what I want. But, yeah, if I wanted a cool swirl seven string, I could get one from Kiesel. That's that, I think plays better and sounds better, but. Or at least, you know, I think it does. Okay, let's see. Any questions before I go on anything. Miguel says that guitar seems 80s. Well, because it is 80s, buddy. The passion Warfare album that this guitar is featured on came out in 1989. That would be 80s for sure. So, like I said, if I Understand some of you guys, I want you guys to know if you think it sucks. Somebody. I think somebody called it unicorn puke. I'm like, that actually made me so you know, whoever said that, I actually. I'm like, yeah, that could be. I might call it that because it's funny because like I said, I'm very realistic about this. This isn't like a classic car or a classic, you know. You know, Gibson Les Paul. This is a very. Look, they couldn't sell these guitars. I don't know if you know that. That's why they only made 1083. It makes perfect sense. They came out in 91. How many people were looking for a unicorn puke 7 string guitar? Even with Steve, I. It wasn't a whole lot. And then grunge came by 93 and that's why they only made them for 91, 92 and 93 in these colors by then. Plus they were very expensive and very hard to make. So everything was going against it. All right, I feel like now that I've had my moment, let's go back to you guys. Let's highlight you guys and talk about what you want to talk about. Mr. S says, hey, US ESP boss at NAMM. Yep. Is that Jeff? No, I don't think Jeff's with ESP anymore. But it was. Jeff said that they've been putting ESP labels on the. On less guitars because Japan ESP means premium. I agree with you. But Japan says sorry, Phil. Yeah, we know why they do it. This concept of the brand ESP should just be held premium. I. I get it. I guess, I guess, I guess, like I said, I get it like 10 years ago, I get it. But I think in the current climate, I think it's an. It's a dated type of marketing and sales in my opinion. Mr. S also said E2 price point used to be called ESP in the US only I know and wear that as well. Japan was getting us labeled ESPs and created E2. I know Ltd is an awful name like Radio Shack brand was realistic. Yeah. Again I'm. We're on the same page. Alex says he disagrees with the ESP on LTD guitars. Sucks searching for ESP because everyone lists LTD as esp. Funny story. Alex, I actually agree with you even though what I. By saying that I'm contradicting what I just said and I'll tell you why in a second. He says, imagine if ephphones came when you search for Gibson. So funny story. Every time somebody traded ESP to Us at the store, they would call us up and they go, hey, I want to trade in a guitar. And I go, what kind of guitars? And they go an esp. And I'd always go, oh, ESP or ltd? They go ltd. Everyone who has an LTD calls it esp. Which is why I say, you know, just might as well do it. Now you're to your comment, Alex, that epiphones were called Gibsons. Imagine how it was searched. Well, that's why you would sub brand it. When I go on Reverb and I look at PRS, I can put PRSSE or PRS S2 or PRS Core. I don't look at PRS private stock. But you understand. So I mean you. That's the whole point, right? It's like when you go on Carmax or whatever. Carvana whatever. And if I put in a car for say, or a truck, I can do it by brand or I can do it by model or I can do it by whatever you call the. The badging is the layers, right? So for instance, you know, like on like a BMW, right? There's a three series, a five series and a seven series. You can. You can filter that way accordingly too. I understand people still will mislabel them and it's frustrating, but that. That's just because they're. They do that. That's not the company. But I like I said I see your point, but I also still like my idea better. But thank you for the. I like that because I like the pushback. Always push back. You never know. I might have went your way 100%. I. I see your point, but I'm still. You didn't change my mind this time. Clan of House cat says all. All the inner corners will not fit in the new covers. All the. Okay, so I know we're talking about the Majesty again, but I understand what the inner corners will not fit the new covers on your. So it's got to be on your Majesty because like I said, I have installed. I have installed in Majesty's chrome cover pickups. Absolutely. More than once. So it's like I said, I'm not saying it's easy, but it can be done. It's not that far off to where you have to do a new route. However, keep in mind you want to be certain that you want them in there because what changes you will make will look a little weird when you put the exposed bobbin pickups back in. Brandon says, hey Phil, Happy anniversary. Does scale length on the acoustic effect playability like it does on electric guitars. Is this knowledge useful when buying? Yeah, of course. Scaling affects sound dramatically and feel on whether it's electric or acoustic. Of course, on acoustics, one thing that can happen with scale that's different is actually change how loud the guitar is. Obviously more tension is more loud. That can be counteracted though, with string gauge. So for instance, if you are playing a shorter scale acoustic, by putting larger strings on it, right. Heavier gauge strings on it, you could get back some of the sound. Sound meaning volume. Right. You know, decibel volume, how loud it gets. You could put some of that back. So does it matter? No. You know, the way acoustics really matters, if you get a shorter scale and then you put little strings on it, your guitar is going to play great in my opinion, but it's not going to be as loud. And that just depends. For me, someone like me that pretty much never plays acoustic acoustically, I'm always usually running it through some kind of amp. It doesn't really matter to me. I'll just amplify what it's missing. Fox and the Hound says, hey, Phil, did you see that? Guitar center was completely flooded when a car accident hit a fire hydrant and the water shot up. And the collapse the roof. I didn't see it collapse the roof. Oh, crap. No, I saw the footage of the flooding in the store. I remember thinking, like, I swear I think I'm a good person. I do. And then sometimes things happen and I question my own thought. I saw the footage of Guitar center all over, like, Instagram, like, oh, it's flooding. And instead of thinking like, I hope everybody's okay, I thought, well, I wonder what they're gonna do with those guitars. They gotta get them out of there. And I'm like, are they gonna let people get like, waiters, what they call hip waders, boots, Right? You gotta get in there and get those guitars out. Like, save the guitars. Like, I'm not kidding. I went right to that in my mind. And as I'm processing, exactly about the same time I just said to you guys, like, oh, no, the guitars. I thought, oh, people, I'm sorry. Yeah. Hope everybody was okay, but I have. I have a problem. I admit it. Okay, yeah, I saw that. So, yeah, I got flooded and stuff. That really sucks. But, you know, I'm. That's what they have that insurance for, I'm sure. So. Well, we. Interesting. Obviously. My. My thought is definitely they gotta. They gotta use their insurance. If a car hit a fire hydrant, there's no car insurance. You'd have to like, I think we have an umbrella coverage and even that, I don't know, could cover a whole store maybe. But yeah. Yeah, that was crazy. So, yeah, if you guys didn't see that, you should go online and check it out. It was really crazy. I thought at first I thought it was like footage from one of the floods, you know, from one of the hurricanes and stuff. But then it was like, I saw the same thing you said. Like, said, oh, a car hit a fire hydrant and it flooded the guitar center. I was just like, that's crazy. Grumpy digga says, good day, Phil. Seen artist guitars. 500 Australian dollars. 62 strat type with ratio tuners and looks great. Love to see what you think. Artist guitars for 500. Is that a brand of guitars? I don't know what that is, buddy. Hold on while I'm switching. I'm gonna see if the person who won the hills guitar. No. Just in case, you know, you never know. Guess they responded. Artist Guitars. Yeah. Look at that. Let's look. Take a look at them. Artist guitars is a brand. At least I found a website accepting all their cookies. So of course, course, now I'm looking. Let me share what we're sharing. Here we go. We go to the web. This is a brand. It's called artist guitars. If you can't tell, There it is. Artist guitars. Yeah, 349. Look at that. 349 for that one. Really cool. $99. All right. For a bass. Kind of very glary kind of thing. Yeah. This is what I would call a repack. It looks like where they're taking instruments and repackaging them. In other words, there's a. That's essentially what glary and a lot of these brands are. You know, I was talking about a lot of these brands the other day with some friends about a lot of brands will just go, hey, they. There's manufacturers that make an instrument and they go put our logos on that. And then it's all a marketing system. Unless they have a way to make themselves look distinctive and unique. So looks pretty cool. You know, it's one of those things like I would. I would share, you know, if they like if I could get a hands on one, maybe I do a video or something like that. But to me, there's a. Like I told you guys, it was a lot easier for a while. When the off brand started popping, they were selling exclusively on Amazon. And one of the. One of the benefits was I could feel a little bit more comfortable sharing the brand. With you, you know, the worst. The worst is it doesn't happen very often, but it's happened half a dozen times. I might be rounding up, so maybe three or four times, which is not a lot in all the years and thousands of videos. But there are a few times where I have to get involved, where I do a video about a brand, and then, you know, I get a couple of viewers reaching out, going, man, I'm having a bad experience with these guys, you know, and then I have to reach out to them. And now I'm involved in them. Like, you know, I'm. I don't get paid by these brands for that, but I'm like, I want to make sure that if I, you know, if I. Even if I. What's funny is, a lot of times my videos, I'm not even really endorsing them so much as I'm explaining all the mistakes in them, but I understand. You guys are just like, okay, Phil says these are the only problems. Let's give it a try. So when they're on Amazon, I feel better because then it's like, well, just return it. You're like, I got one, and it's not like what you said in the video. Well, then return it. Just return it. I always respond wrong. Just go ahead and return it. Like, you know. You know, I. I try to get a sampling of stuff. I try to get well known with the company. I try to get involved and understand what I'm. What I'm going to be potentially presenting. But, you know, it's. It's tough, man. It's tough. And so, same thing with this with artist guitars. I'd have to learn more about them. You know, look, look, see what they're doing. And of course, I'd feel a lot more confident if they were available on something I could trust as a website you can trust for returns. If there's. If for some reason there's a problem, but I'll look into it. Thank you for presenting it to me because, again, puts it on my radar and lets me look at the brand and see what's valuable there. The prices look fantastic. Ray says, hey, why don't you cover acoustics? The pickups and amps much. And the pickups and amps much. Here's what it is. I've said this before. I have so many videos I want to do a year. That's just videos I want to do, do. So I just do them, okay? And then there are videos that I know that if I make, you'll watch, which ultimately is how I make my money on YouTube. You understand? Like this, this is the podcast, this is sponsored by Patreon. Patreon, for the most part the majority of patrons pay by the year. You don't have to by the way, you can pay monthly and you could be a free patron. Like I said, you go on Patreon, you don't get much for free. But trust me, I think it has value because it's free and I do things like I'll tell the free patron stuff that you know, I'll give them heads ups on stuff and share stuff with them but, and by the way that even though you're not paying on Patreon, I feel that support. I feel it like emotionally feel like, oh, people are digging this and, and I can pass ideas and stuff. So anyways, my point is the podcast is that's how the sponsorship works on YouTube. You know, the videos is how I make my money. Which means I gotta get views and to get views I have to make a great video. Like it has to be good. You have to, has to, you know, so has to be good. That's the end of the way to say that. So I, I make videos that I think will do well and that's fine. But then companies reach out and say, hey, we'd like to send you some product. Which is great because then I don't have to think about how well the video does because I'm not looking at like this is what it costs me to make and this is what I'll make. It's just I make the video and if it does well or doesn't do well, it's not a, it's not, it's, there's not really a net negative in that situation. So to answer your question Ray, is that a lot of companies don't like Deep Dive videos. It's not that they hate me. I just had this conversation last night, so I'm going to kind of keep it short. I don't know of any companies that hate the way I do the Deep Dive videos. I just know a lot of companies that don't see the value to them. And for you guys, you constantly say like, yeah, but we love them and we buy stuff and that's what they get. That's great. But you have to understand they're not looking at me as the sole source of getting to the, to you guys. So you guys know I, I, I, I, you know, I always talk about this. I try not to do the YouTuber talk too much, you know, about the YouTube side of business versus just talking about guitars. But I can go right now in my analytics, and I can tell you exactly what most of you. What 10 videos you guys just watch this week? YouTube lets us see who crosses over. So how many of you came from Rick Beato to me? How many of you left me and went to, you know, Glenn Fricker or whatever the hell it is? Right, well, whoever's out there. So what my point is, is companies are the same way. They know, like, oh, okay, well, why would we. Why would we interact with Phil so he can just basically take things apart and then mention that our frets suck? And. But. And if we want to get to Phil's audience, There's. They're watching three other YouTubers because we can see from. From YouTube what other YouTubers you're watching you argue in your head, which is fine, but. Yeah, but I trust Phil a little bit more. They don't really care. They're just trying to sell their product. So the point is, a lot of companies just don't really see the value in the channel. That's fine. That's fine. The reality is, a lot of companies do see value. I'm more than busy, so we're nothing to complain about here, but I'm just explaining why certain products don't get on there. What's great about this show is that, Ray, you say something like that, and then I go, you know what? I need to do more pickups. I need to do more amps. I need more acoustics. Like. Like I said, sometimes I go, okay, yeah, yeah, I. You know, I'll. I'll do that. You know, it doesn't matter because sometimes I'm waiting for a company to reach out for something, and I think it's gonna happen. In my mind, everything is like a week long, and you guys mentioned it, and I go, oh, I guess it has been six months since any acoustic companies have reached out, so let's get some acoustics on the channel. So I'll make that happen. So, Ray, that's as simple as this. I. I make the decisions here. So here's the decision for you. I will literally make that happen within the next 30 days. Simple enough. Luke says, hey, a take. Take on Philadelphia. Luther abr1bridges. Also, what file gauges? What take on. Okay, also, what file gauges for saddle slots gonna get them from Stumac? Love the show. Okay, it says, what file gauges for saddle slots gonna get them from Stumac. Let me look at the. At the kit. The panda. Actually, you know, What? Luke, let me do this. I'm gonna save. This is horrible. You're gonna have to watch show. Stumac is reaching out to me again and asking us to do another promotion thing for them. You know, the promotion where we give you guys the free shipping deal and all that stuff. I'll make that a priority this weekend to. To get that to them so we can do that next week hopefully. And then I'll give you a list of all the tools because they're. Ironically, Luke, Stumac has been begging me for over a month to give you a list. Get a list of tools so they can make a landing page or stuff like that. I'll just do that. You know, I'll take your push to make sure I do the thing for Stumac and then I'll bring this question back up and we'll talk about it. So that's how we'll do that. The panda says, what is the best marker to use to get the black off Nitro finishes headstock signed by someone. The best marker. I just use a dry erase marker. Nitro is always a pain in the ass. And you have to understand that when. Especially when you're dealing with nitro, Any finish particularly could be problematic with Nitro specifically if that signature has been on there for some time. You have to understand that even though I believe if you trace the marker, the sign signature on the guitar with a dry erase marker and then wipe it off and then whatever's not that keep doing over and over again, it will work. I know it will work. But I always warn when it comes to nitro, you have to understand that if it's been there for a length of time, you might have where the finish. Where the finish is a different color, usually going to be darker or lighter. I don't know which one, probably darker. And you'll see the signature lightly because it. Because the sunlight didn't fade that part of the finish. It's like imagine if you just put a blanket over half of a Les Paul and let the sunlight hit it for 10 years. 1/2 will be a different color than the other half. So same thing. So just be aware of that Panda. I know you're the panda, but I think we're friends enough long we've been. You've been on this here on the show long enough. I'll just call you panda, if that's okay. I'm sorry. Just kidding. So, yeah, that's all you need is dry erase marker. But like I said, I caution to just be, you know, be aware of that Jose says, congrats on the guitar. Thank you, man. I appreciate that. My favorite performance of For Love of God is Vi with Holland. Oh, yeah. The Holland Metropolitan. Is it the Metropolitan Orchestra? Yeah. I mean, you know what it is for me, Vi was more than a guitar player when I was a kid. There's guitar players like, you know, I've said this before. When I. When I think of my favorite guitar players, I don't know if I necessarily think of five. A Vi in my top five. I mean, he's amazing. There's so many amazing guitar players. We're talking about the people that, like, inspire the way you play. I just liked Vi. I don't know why. It's like, part of it is. So, you know, actually, you know what? Let me explain why. Vi is the greatest guitar player in my mind for a personality, right? So, like, be clear what I'm saying. I'm not saying he's like. He's my favorite guitar player. He's my favorite guitar personality. Because Vi was in Crossroads. As silly as this is, growing up, Crossroads was a big deal to me. So, you know, like, there's a ton of stories like this. John Mayer said that he took up guitar because he saw Back to the Future. He. Right. I mean, think of how crazy that is. And I. I didn't take up guitar because of Crossroads. But, you know, my joke I'm going to tell you right now is they make movies about everything. Think how funny that is. They make movies about football players. Football. They make movies about movies. Just take sports. They make movies about basketball. They make movies about baseball. They make movies about race cars. They make movies about golf. I mean, there's. There's movies about golf. There's movies about ping pong. There's not a movie. There's movies about ping pong. There's movies about everything. Right? There is not a lot of movies about a guitar player. There's movies about a band, but. And the music scene or our producers are pop stars. And not a lot of those, by the way, but a movie about a guitar player, that's not a weird cartoon or a parody, but an actual legitimate made movie about a guitar player even. Especially since a guitar player making a deal with the devil, so to speak. But just a guitar player. Just a story about a guitar player. There's not a lot. Now, now, of course, you guys are gonna be like August Rush and things like that. Yeah, of course. Now. But we're talking about When I'm a kid, right? When you're a kid. Hey, Brian somebody Google when did Crossroads came out? And post it for me, if you wouldn't mind. But to me, it's not even the Steve. I seen that. So the coolest thing that happened in Crossroads to me is when he's telling Ralph, Ralph Macchio in the pawn shop that he's playing a beat up acoustic guitar. Because the way it looks, right? Like in other words, he's calling a poser, right? Something I totally am, you know, at that age, I'm like, oh yeah, poser. And he says, and I'm probably gonna mess up a little bit. But the just of it is, you know, why don't you play electric guitar? He's like, you know, Muddy Waters invented electricity. Let me tell you what happened when that happened. This is not Google time. This is not like I don't know who the hell Muddy Waters is. I'm a dumb teenage kid. 1986, think about this. So really put this in perspective. I'm not even a teenage kid, right? So I'm watching this movie and I don't know who Muddy Waters is. Like, why would I know who Money Waters is? Like, I barely know who like the more traditionally well known at the time. Blues players are, right? But I get the reference in the movie. Oh, must be like a blues player, right? And he must play electric guitar. Like I caught the. Caught the reference. But anyways, the whole movie, like it really drew me in. And then the scene with Steve I battling the devil with playing the guitar, right? The whole thing. And it was, that was it like, it was like, you know, it was like, look, when I watched the movie Top Gun, I was so I saw Top Gun like six times in the theater. This is so weird to tell people that are younger now because they don't understand. Like movies were in the theater for like a year. So Top Gun, over a period of year, I went and saw it six times. Like I didn't see it six times one weekend. I just. Throughout the year you'd go to the movies. Like, you know, a couple months later you go to the movies, you're like, what do you want to see? And like, let's go see Top Gun again. But after Top Gun, I'd watch like Iron Eagle, right? You'd watch all the not as good JET movies, right? What was it? I think then I watched like Firefox, right? Wasn't that with Clint Eastwood or something like that? You know, and I think that was older movie, but again you'd rent it. So you'd watch all these movies about jets after I left seeing Crossroads. There was no like, now I'm gonna watch a movie about this guitar player. There was nothing. So I think it made Steve I kind of bigger than life for me. Because Steve, I was essentially something that no guitar player was to me. He was a movie star. And then Passion Warfare comes out. And that album cover, I look at that, I'm just like, wow, that's such a crazy looking album cover. It was different. And then a seven string. I'm like one more than six. Like kind of like a Spinal Tap moment. I didn't know what a seven string was, by the way. When I tell you the story, I walked in a guitar, six, etc. And I was like looking at seven string. I wasn't like, oh, I always want to play seven string. I didn't know what the hell. I barely could know what the hell do with six. I didn't want seven. I just knew seven seemed so like, you know, not cool because it was cool. But so like I'm. Excuse my language. I'm the like, that's the guy, like, right? That's the person's like, I can. I'm better than everybody. I can beat everybody at this. I'm doing right. You know, like Michael Jordan is like, I'm not just gonna make it in the basket. I'm gonna leave the planet Earth for a few seconds and put it in the basket. Right? And it just seems so big. And yeah, Amanda said hot shots, right? See what I'm saying? We can go crazy talking about Jet movies, right? But that's so that's why Steve I is to me, it's. It's not just his music that I go, oh, it's cool because there's a lot of bands. I love music. And again, I would, you know. But it was just a. It's just that was a big thing. It was a big part of that for me. And it didn't make me learn guitar, but when I did learn guitar, that it was probably a little bit in my psyche, you know what I mean? That movie. Because it was just like, ah, be so cool. So there you go. And think about this. I'm not talking about success in the box office, but you know, you know, they made a lot of karate movies for those that remember that time frame. Man, karate movies are out of control. Like all. I've probably seen every karate movie because my friends wanted to. But there was again, no guitar movies. So that's my. That's why I. I just really spoke to me unplayed video game Says, hey, Phil, how much different can the same pickup model sound in different electric guitars? What is the variance from pickups? I'm just sorry. The variance from pickups to pickup and guitar to guitar. Look, the way that you really want to think about pickups is not just a tone, right? It's not just a high frequency or low frequency. How much more frequency? How much more mids? How much more highs? Those are very important. That's where. Think about this. There's a knob that's missing in the theory of I can EQ like a pickup, okay? That's the best way I would use this. And again, I'm not saying pickups are all important. As I've always stated on this channel. Over and over again, I go off the theory that everything matters, and then we'll assign how much of it's. How important each thing is by percentage, so to speak. So in other words, you know, a speaker is probably more dynamic in making the sound than a pickup. I agree with that for the most part. But pickups aren't just sound. Here's what I mean by that. On an amp, if you said, okay, this pickup's louder than this pickup, but I can go to the amp and turn the volume up. You can. This pickup has more bass than that pickup. I can go to the amp and turn the bass up on the amp. You can. And, and vice versa. You can turn down bass. You can turn up mid range. You can do that. You can EQ the amp. So that one pickup that has a certain sound now has the same sound as another pickup by adjusting it. But pickups also have an attack. In other words, when you hit the string, some kind of. Are instantaneous. Like I said, I like this. I'm going to use this analogy right here because I'm next to a microphone, which is. Some pickups are going to feel like a smack. It's just going to feel like this. It's smacking. Some pickups are going to punch right. Some pickups aren't going to have any of that. You know, you just go, your string, your. Your pick goes right through the string and there's no snap to it. Because the sensitivity of the pickup, for example, is. Think about Eric Johnson, what he's trying to do. He doesn't want pick noise, right? So, yeah. Is that his technique? It's 100% his technique. But his technique is not just his hand movements. He also finds the pickups like a single coil. That doesn't necessarily make it harder. A good example is a great guitar player Picks a pickup the way a great vocalist picks a microphone. Yes. And just like a singer, most guitar players are going to use the same microphone because most guitar players. Am I saying that right? You understand what I'm saying? Most guitar players are going to pick up, pick up like most singers pick a microphone. And most singers are going to use the same microphone because let's face it, SM58 works great in almost every situation, in my opinion. A PAF or a JB or a Super Distortion works great in almost every situation. Right. But there are singers that are going to, over time, going to learn. Like, this microphone is just a little bit better with my voice. Pulling the microwave microphone away from me because I'm so loud is just better for my voice. In other words, I hit really hard, maybe backing the pickups down. That's why when you guys ask me like, what's the pickup height? I'm like, that's only one thing to ask me. And that's what's tough about doing a podcast where I'm talking and we're not talking about like a live clinic where you're hang, hanging out with me. And I can use illustration with, with, with, you know, actual tools. Right. The pickup height is not just, you know, the sound. It's again, you know, sometimes if you hit really hard, you should back that microphone away if you're going to scream, back it away. One thing guitar players can't do is they can't instantly adjust pickup height like a singer can with a microphone. A singer can take the microphone, like this microphone I have right here, and they can literally pull away, right? So they can go, hey, I'm getting louder, and I'm getting louder, but I'm backing off and. Right. And that way they can push to get a tone, but not necessarily overload the microphone. A guitar player doesn't have that ability. When you start hitting hard on the, on the pickup, if the pickup's too close, it's going to be a problem. So that's why sometimes you can't adjust instantly adjust height. So you might want a pickup that's got a softer magnetic field that isn't. So when you do hit harder, you know, it's not a problem. So that's why it's. There's a little bit of a magic to picking a pickup that works with you really well. The reality, though, is we make way too many pickups when it comes to choices. Just like we make way too many guitars and we make way too many amplifiers and way too many pedals and we make too many stuff. Look, 90, I don't know, 90% stuff. Let's be fair, let's be honest and say 70%. Seven out of 10 things now don't need to exist, right? I mean, look at pedals, right? I mean there's a bazillion pedals, but really you got tube screamers and you got clones, you got fuzzies, you got a few, a row of few truly unique pedals and then tons of variations that. Same with the pickup, same with guitars. But isn't variety the spice of life? Right? And sometimes, you know, life is not just about playing the guitar. Not for me, sometimes. I love to play guitar every day. But then when I'm, when I'm watching some show my wife likes on TV and I love spending time with her, I like watching that show. But I also like looking at guitars because. And so when somebody goes, you shouldn't look at guitars, you should go play guitar. Well, this isn't play guitar time and see how I snuck in. Look at guitar time with something else. So my point is, is that's exactly the scenario you have with this, with the pickups. You know, how much different can they be? In most cases, very, very little. Difference is very little yesterday. So, you know, I don't know if it would be an interesting video, but I actually have, as you know, not only do I have the Sonoma guitar, I have the, this new John Petrucci pickup that I'm holding in my hand right now, but I also have the CVI Utopia pickups that I just showed you guys on a, on a Guitar of the Week a couple weeks ago. And I was actually comparing these two pickups and here's what I can tell you for me, okay? I didn't look at specs, although I kind of know them, but I was just interchange by myself in my shop for about an hour, right? These had more mids, these just have a little bit more clarity and punch than the Utopias. And I was like, man, I really like that. I would hit it with the string and the note would just snap and it feel like, you know, just feel great. It felt great. Like just hitting, you know, hitting a hard spring and feeling it just vibrate underneath your, you know, in your, in your guitar. And I was, I was playing them, I loved them. And then I'd switch to the Utopia and I'm like, ah, the Utopia's a little dark and a little scooped. Like I was, I was like, literally like they just mid scooped just a little bit. And I'd Play them for a second. I go, oh, the protrusions are better, but after a second or two, I'd play them. I go, but I really like how the scooped and the darker sound makes the distortion sound a little bit more aggressive. And I was going back and forth, and in my head, I knew the whole time I could just adjust some eqing on the amp. Especially with two pickups like this that are actually voiced very, very similar and constructed. Very similar. Both use a ceramic magnet. Both are using about the same kind of wire, same winds of wire. So they're very similar in design, but it was fun. But my point to that is, what's the difference between those two pickups? It's very minor. I think if you had the Utopia pickups, I think a little eqing, you could get to these pickups and vice versa. But that's. That's your point. What's the difference? In some pickups, it's very little to nothing. But I bet you, Steve, I and John Petrucci really enjoy having a pickup that's voiced a little bit more to their liking. And saving. I like the term. I've said it a thousand times on my video. Salt to taste. You know, you. Salt to taste. You know, somebody's like, do you need, you know, what's the difference between this and that? A little bit less. A little bit more salt. That's it. All right. I feel like sometimes just pontificating things. All right. I want to do. Oh, you know what? How are we doing? We're doing good on time. Amanda sent me Martin. Martin says. Oh, Martin says your podcast doesn't seem to be on Apple podcasts anymore. I understand. Martin. Two things happened. This is excuse time. I'm going to make excuses. It's just the reality of things. When Shauna, my wife, had Covid, she had it for a week, and then she was felt cruddy for a week after that. So she wasn't, you know, she obviously, like, get better, get to work. You know, she couldn't get a lot of stuff done, so a lot of stuff didn't get done. And some stuff, I did some stuff and then some stuff just because it didn't get done, you know, kind of put me in a, you know, behind a little bit. And then I told you guys. So in other words, what I'm trying to say is I didn't strip a lot of the audio for the RSS feeds. I am going to fix that again. I know I'm behind. I get behind. This happens. See, that's why I said I knew it's excuse because I've gotten behind a few months ago and obviously she didn't have Covid then I had another excuse for that. I always have an excuse. It's really tough. I, you know, it's, I'm spinning a lot of plates here. That's basically what's happening. It's like, you know, I'm like oh yeah, I got to do the audio podcast. Oh yeah, I gotta give this to the patrons. Oh, I gotta get this video out for this, you know, company. Oh, I gotta get a video out because I want to do it. Oh yeah, I forgot I haven't posted on Instagram. You know, it's, you're just spinning a lot of plates and it just got pushed back. Thank you so much for bringing it up, you know, because I already knew it was a problem that I hadn't got it done. But when you hear that it's like oh yeah, I know. Then you're noticing too. And that means it's even more important. So I'll get that done. Self buttering toast says. Phil, what are your thoughts on war moth bodies? I love warm off bodies and, and next. We talked about this last weekend but something to add to this that is I, I, I think I've said this before. I love war moth quality and I highly recommend it. No question about it. I, I feel pretty good saying that. But I will tell you when it comes to bodies, I also am a big fan of buying these off brand inexpensive bodies and sticking really good warmoth necks on them. So to, to the point where I just recently did this that exact same thing. I don't know if it'll be a video. I promise at the very least it'll be guitar a week. But I just bought a inexpensive guitar body. It was on sale, it was 99 and they gave me 15 off coupon online and I bought it. So I bought a guitar body for then they added shipping but it's like 90 bucks. So I just bought a hundred dollar guitar body and I plan to put a very expensive guitar neck on it and make a guitar out of will either be a video or guitar of the week. It'll be something I'll share with you. It's. It really has to do with. So you guys know, you're like oh, some of you guys go I'd like to see it. Look, it has to do with how interesting the video is. So if it's an interesting video I want to do it. If it's not an interesting video, video you know, why do it? But I'll get there. But so you know to, to that to your self buttering test. Warm up body's great. There'll be less stress because you know, when you go inexpensive, you get what you pay for. Sometimes the bodies, maybe the cuts aren't very clean. Maybe things don't line up. Maybe things don't fit. You have to take that in consideration. Me, I don't have to worry about that stuff. I'll just, something's off, I'll route it. If something's weird, I'll sand it. You know, I'll get through it. But I'm a big proponent for inexpensive guitar bodies with nicer necks and I've had great success with that. Amanda also sent this. Jesse says, is there a reason why there aren't many Les Paul shapes equipped with a hip shot bridge rather than the tone of tunomatic bridge? Well, one just, you know, part of it I'm sure is just because that's the way it's traditionally done. So do that. But also angles are a problem with certain bridges. You know, you got to get the height the way the, the when you have a set neck guitar and design like a Les Paul, if those, if you can't get enough height for that angle, you could have problems. And those problems could be extremely, extremely bad news. So I would imagine the concern with. On certain bridges they can. If I'm thinking the same bridge I. You might. I'm thinking you're thinking like a hip shot, like a, a hardtail bridge. But yeah, nothing. Plus, you know, same reason I'll put Floyd Rose on them again. People will like what they like. Which is basically this person's name, Socks. That's hilarious on this channel, right? Socks says. Hey Phil Hell, long time viewer here, finally catching it live. I got a dunnable DE yeti in black gold yesterday. Have you tried any of the DE series? I just needed a pickup swap and I'm in love. I have not. I hear nothing but good things. But no, I haven't personally tried one. Did I miss these ones? Oh, and then these three also Amanda sent Mike in Tennessee. Oh, we did that one. Darkstar Texas. How do you deal with glossing on a matte finish? I don't. I'm not a big fan of matte finishes. Like I said, I don't do finish work. It's always like a tough question when you're like, hey, how do you fit? I don't do finish work. So when customers would bring in matte guitars that had buffs on them. I would either send them to somebody who does finish work, or I tell them, tough luck. I'm not. I'm not a fan of trying to sand the finish back to satin because, again, you can burn through something so easy, and then you have a bigger problem. But that's why I don't like satin finishes. They don't stay satin in for most cases. In Most cases, Rad Furry23 says, is it me or do the trim or do trimbucker f spade pickups? F. Oh, my goodness. Hold on a second. Is it me or do trimbucker F space pickups? I can't say F spaced. F spaced. It's too fast. Pickups line up with tom bridges better than standard. I guess it might be the only graphtec tom bridge, now that I think about it, could be. Essentially, I think Those pickups are what, 52 millimeters versus are 51 millimeters versus 50 millimeter. Space. Right, space. So it just depends on the bridge. You know, they use the term trim and they use F for, like, Floyd or our fender style bridge. But essentially it's a. It's a measurement, not a style of bridge. It's the best way to think of it. That's how I would think about pickups. It's not. We just. We just know that those tremolo bridges have a wider spacing. So obviously we're going to call them trim buckers, like tremolo buckers or F space buckers. But essentially, if a bridge has a wider stance, wider space, then the pickup can have a wider space, too. I don't follow that for any reason. So, you know, I don't literally worry or care about any of that. I never have personally. You know, for customers, you always do the right thing, whatever they want. But for me, if I have an f space pickup and I want to stick in the neck, I just stick in the neck, and vice versa. I could care less. I cannot hear the difference. Some people say they can. Good for them. Because, like I said, I get. I get to live in a world where because I don't hear the difference, I don't have to pay the difference. That's what's great. So. But, you know, whatever they claim sometimes, because if the pole pieces aren't directly underneath the strings, sometimes you lose the stain. By the way, there is a ton of. Of evidence, and I'm not exaggerating, that the whole spacing thing was just for aesthetic, that the. The builders and manufacturers, some of the people I've interviewed, some of the people I'VE talked to some of the historical people. The people who have. Maybe they didn't do it, but they were involved in the process, have told me personally over and over again from different angles that it was all for aesthetics. It's just like, hey, the customer buys and like, why are these off? And it doesn't look right. So they would just literally change the spacing to make it aesthetically look right underneath the strings and not off and that's it. So sound wasn't even considered at the time to say now that it did affect sound probably is accurate, but it wasn't their thought when they did it. That's what I'm trying to say. The person I trust the most when it comes to pickups, not only because he's a friend, but because on a private phone call, I don't know why he lied to me. And hanging out, talking, says it doesn't matter. And I literally can tell you this, I trust no one more than that when it comes to the authority of things. And it says it doesn't matter. So. Which, by the way, I already came to that conclusion before he said that. So it just made me feel good, reassured me. Ray wants to know, have I tried drums? Other than other instruments, like bass are based. No, cahoon. I bought a cahoon kit. Kahoon kit. I was like, I was going to learn that stuff and then somebody broke my brain. And I'll explain what that means in a second. And when somebody does that to you, when they break, literally break your brain is the way I call this. I'll tell you in a second. It no longer happens. So there was a point where I was like, I want to learn other instruments. And I'm like, maybe the banjo, maybe the drums. And I got a cahoon kit. And I'm like, maybe piano, a little bit more piano, kind of expand myself. And then just when I was going down that road and I had bought my cahoon kit, which I no longer have, I still have a cahoon. I just don't have the kit anymore. I saw Victor Wooten talking. If you don't know who Victor Wooten is, he's one of the greatest bass players of all time. Fantastic musician on every level for sure. Comes from a family where all his brothers play instruments. It's all super talented as well again. And they were talking about other instruments. And he said, look, I don't spend any time on other instruments because that's time I can spend on my bass. And he's like, instead of Learning piano. I learned how to play piano on my bass. He goes, instead of learning the drums, I learned how to play drums on my bass. That sounds silly, but then he would demonstrate it, you know, obviously slap bass or, you know, like, when I was playing, you know, tapping, right? You know, learn to tap, like, instead of playing the piano, maybe to learn to tap on the guitar. Instead of learning, you know, drums, maybe learn how to, you know, kind of do that August Rush smacking on the guitar. And I was like, you know what? Yeah, yeah. The saying is you shouldn't serve. Serve too many masters, right? I was like, yeah, I, I've done. I'm backed off the fact that I already play bass and guitar. Those to me, are so similar. They're, like, in the same vein. I'm like, that's where I'm going to stay, and that's the lane I like, and that's where I stayed in. So, Ray. That's why I didn't learn any other instruments. By the way, though, for those that can play multiple instruments, that. What I'm saying takes nothing away from you. You've already done it. Fantastic. I wish I was you. But at my stage in my life and my age and everything else factored in, and this was 10 years ago, I was just like, yeah, I'm going to. I'm going to stay in my lane and focus on what I do. And for my instrument, which is right now is guitar and bass, and that's where I came with, that way. So Amanda says, are we doing a giveaway tonight? Let's do one. Okay. So here is what happened to me. I didn't get to pick any. It's so much going on this week. I had a famous, if you guys follow me Instagram, you know what hell happened? So for those that don't follow me on Instagram, then. I don't know, let's do this. Let's pick a winner. Okay, first, let's start with the easiest part. Let's start with the best and easiest part. Whoa, what a cool name. All right, are you ready? I want to share this with you. The person who won the Hills guitar has emailed me, and I am going to butcher this name because, like I told you, I, I, I read in phonetics, Zettel, Z, E, T, T, E, L. Zettel is the person. I apologize if I'm saying it wrong. Normally, I would put it on the Internet and ask for the phonetically, you know, to translate to how I say it. I'm gonna say Zettel, but I promise if I mess it up, I'll correct it next week. He's responded to me. He won the Hills guitar and everything. And. Congratulations, man. Congratulations. Thank you so much. So that's good news. Let's do that. Um, let's pick. We're gonna end the show. No, we're not. We're gonna. We're gonna pull up. Pull up a winner. So what happened was I'm having. Having trouble finding. Nope. Funny. I'm going through my emails. I. I'm excited. I just got my shipment of. I ordered a bunch of DiMarzio pickups and cables off the DiMarcio site. And. And they said they shipped. Very excited about that. All right, contest pick. Here we go. Somebody sent me a picture, and I lost it. So let me go into the main. I know. See, this is where it gets too, too tough. All right, let's do this. I'm going to. Because we talked about doing random winners. Let's do that. Since I didn't get time to pick any pictures, I'm going to randomly pick two winners right now, share them with you, and then they won. Okay. All right. I'm doing it by random. I'm doing it by random. I'm doing it randomly. This is Tom. Tom just won. Let me share this with you guys. Give me a second, because I need to make sure. Obviously, whatever I'm sharing, you guys, is. I can't share their email address and stuff. Obviously. Okay, ready? So let me share this with you. Okay, here we go. This move. There we go. All right. This is Tom. Tom. You just send me this picture. It's. You got some cool guitars there. There's a cool Yamaha guitar in the center. And I don't know what are the. There's a mose right on the right that looks really cool. It's got the Ventures logo. Really cool. I don't know what the 12 string on the end is. I could probably zoom in on the headstock, but I don't know what it is. But anyways, congratulations. You just won a Stumac restring kit. We have a. It's a restring kit that's really cool. And so I will reach out to you. Hold on. More importantly, though, I have to put your name now in a new folder. Otherwise, my wife will go, how do we find him? Okay, the next one. Ready? Again, I'm just scrolling. I'm trying to scroll and then not look at them. And then. All right, I have no idea what this is, but it makes me laugh. But it's not why I'M picking it. I just happened to when I opened it. So hold on. I screen. So what I'm doing is I'm screen screenshotting so that there's no personal information obviously from the person. Okay, here we go. Let me move that over and we'll share this one. Here we go. This is. Let's move this. Oh, hold on a second. I didn't get the person's name. This person is Charles. Like Charles in charge. I know he probably hates that joke. That's right. You probably had enough of that comment joke. Okay, so Charles sent this. It's got a little know your gear sticker there. And that's a stormtrooper. And I have no idea what the hell this is. Man, this is cool as hell. I just love it. I don't know why there's so much going on here. It's like, I love the leather jacket. I like the stormtrooper. I love all of it. It's crazy. So you just won. So we. Those are both getting stumac restring kits. Delete that out. And real quick, Charles. I gotta make sure Charles goes in the right folder. Tada. Okay, let me. Let me do this last thing and then. Okay, Indy RPM says, is it too late to enter? Is it too late to enter? No. So I don't know specifically what you're asking to enter, but here's what I can tell you. It's too late to enter the hills guitar giveaway because we gave it away, but it's not too late to enter the DiMarzio protrusion pickup giveaway that you can click in the link. I'm pointing to my crotch. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I'm pointing the link down below. You ever wonder that when I'm in a room and I'm like, point down below. And I'm like, I like you guys think I'm pointing to the description, but I'm really just pointing to my pants. I'm on a weird. Anyways, that's where I'm pointing to the description. So for those that want to know and you can enter that, win that. And yes, you can still enter to win our weekly giveaways of merch for showing your know your gear pride, so to speak, right? You're like, you know, happy to be part of the know your gear people crew. Don't have to buy merch. You can actually make your logos do whatever you want. Be inventive. Doesn't matter. And like I said, we're picking random ones. And Then also ones I like, you can enter both those are links in the description down below and you can definitely enter either one of those for sure. So they. All right. And on that, let's see if there's anything else. Did I miss anything? Let's go back to one more check before I. Okay, hold on. Okay, I think that's good. Those are good. I got most of Amanda's. She sent. I appreciate that Amanda. Appreciate all the moderators for taking care of me and you guys. I really appreciate that so much. Thank you guys for that. That do the. That become Patreon members and channel members. I appreciate that a lot. And of course, I appreciate all you guys hanging out live on Friday and watching the rebroadcast. Otherwise there'd be no reason to do this. We'd just be sitting here alone by myself talking to a camera. So I appreciate all that. I. I just want to say thank you guys. Like I said, obviously this was a lot for the show. That my new guitar, a lot of stuff, cool stuff going on. And I just want to thank you guys so much. You guys have a fantastic weekend. I have a. I know every week I go, I have a cool video coming out to this week. What happened was the demar. The demarzio video was supposed to come come out on Wednesday through an issue with the giveaway. Because Sweetwater is doing the giveaway. That's why they sponsored to do the giveaway. I'm not doing the giveaway. So what happened was a link issue. I couldn't put out the show the video on Wednesday and I put it on Thursday because when on Thursday I did not put out the other video. So I have another video. It has a guest on it. It's fantastic. I promise you. Not only is it instructional. Instructional, no, it's great. But it's. It's also hilarious. It's absolutely hilarious. You're gonna love it. I. I love it. So I would imagine you might like it. All right, on that note, thank you guys so much. I will see you guys next Friday. Please, like I said, submit into any of the contests you wish and play some guitar, have some fun, get some vitamin D, and I'll see you next Friday. All right, thanks. Know youw Gear, the Know youw Gear podcast.