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What Reverb Did About The Fraud Guitar / Boutique Guitar Builder Starts Import Line
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Phil
The Know youw Gear Podcast. Today's episode of the Know youw Gear Podcast is brought to you by Patreon members. Thank you for making this possible. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Know youw gear podcast. Episode 409. Ratchman Ratchman 5000. Ratchman 5000 says the video of the PRS return debacle was great. I appreciate that. That video did not go as. As predicted. If you guys didn't see that video. I sold a guitar on Reverb. I sold a few guitars on Reverb. I was trying to make a habit. I'm trying to make a habit of selling a guitar a week. So I'm trying to every week list one guitar, just one. Just not make it too complicated, right? And do that. And so what happened was I sold the guitar. I won't. I won't go into the store, but I do need to go into the Reverb side of this now. And I'll pull that up as we're. As I'm talking. And so what happened was sold the guitar to a interesting gentleman, to say the least. And, you know, he got the guitar. He gave me a positive feedback. It was. It was. You know, I was like, okay, great, you know, And. And then I got a message from four days later saying, hey, I love the guitar, but. And I'm like, okay, what. But what's going on? And he's like, it has a high fret. Which I thought was strange because, you know, I tested the guitar. The guitar was functioning. I test the guitar before it goes out, you know, so, you know, I tested the guitar before they pack it up and it goes out. So I knew I did that, and I was like, okay. But, you know, hey, things happen, you know, and so if you watch the video, it's a little bit of a mystery. He shipped the guitar. I basically, he said, look, you know, kind of like, hey, you know, make me a deal or do me a favor or something, you know, he was. He's like, you come up with it, but, you know, make it, you know, make me a better deal. And I think I said this in that video, and I'm pretty sure I did when I said, you know, most of the time, that'd be my avenue. You know, I'm like, oh, that sucks. You know, whether you're telling the truth or not, like, you know, I'm not here to fight it. Just go, hey, offer something, you know, reasonable, like $100 off or $50 off or whatever, right? Something to say, hey, here's some little compensation. Will that work. And then, you know, and then usually that works, and you go on your way. But what happened in this particular case, I was really concerned, as that guitar really did well in the video. And I had checked the guitar, and I was like, yeah, this doesn't sound right. Why don't you send it back? So I had Sean say, hey, send it back. And so he sent it back. And if you guys watch the video you saw over. I diagnosed the guitar, and it came in, and it was totally not the way I sent it. So we sent him a message saying, hey, could you explain? And here's the important part, the way we did it, we said, hey. We didn't say, hey, you. You changed this guitar. You messed this guitar up. You. You, you. You know, we came back at him with, hey, could you help us understand why this guitar is different? You know, we're seeing a different, you know, string gauge. We're seeing different things now. And he was very forthcoming, which was very lucky for us, I guess. He said, yeah, I changed it all. Which we're like, well, that would be something you think you'd want to mention as to, you know, how do we know now? You know, essentially, what's. Who did the stuff? So anyways, I made the video, and so, you know, I was really nervous, and I want to thank you all for this. I was super nervous about that video. Stressed is to say the least, because the fact that when I started the video, I thought, you know, hey, this is going to be a video where I made a mistake, and I'll show everybody. And, you know, it's embarrassing, but, you know, humility is not the worst trait to have. So I'm like, you know, look, we'll learn. We'll all learn together. Then slowly, it went from, I'm going to show everybody how I made a mistake to I'm going to show everybody how this guy's conning us. And then I know what you're thinking, like, that's better. But to me, that was much worse because there's a negative vibe now to it. There's the, hey, I'm accusing him. He's accusing me. How do you know who's telling the truth? Of course, in my case, I was very lucky that he admitted to everything in the messaging back and forth to reverb, and that's what matters. So let me explain what happened to the guitar and on Reverb. And this is going to be definitely very important for you guys. So what I did, I did all things you saw in the video. But I also filed a complaint with Reverb. I went to Reverb and I said, look, this buyer basically returned the guitar to me. He changed it. He said the guitar was not as described, which was. It was exactly as described. And he modified it. And then he's saying, now it's defective. And they said, okay, we can look into this. And the first response, you know, was they'll look into it and they'll switch departments or whatever. The second response was they wanted me to get the buyer to send pictures of the packaging. And I'm like, this isn't shipping damage. We're not filing a claim here with the shipper. I'm like, you know, look at the transcripts. He said, we violated PR or PRs. We violated Reverb's policy. We did not ship the guitar as described. And he wanted, you know, he wants compensation. We found now that he. And he's admitted it. You know, we found that he messed with it, and he's admitted it. So. So what happened was Reverb took a couple days, and they, I guess, decided to. I don't know what you call it. They, you know, awarded a verdict. Okay, so let me go to this. What's weird is. Let me go to this one. Let me go into my folders. Keep good records, everybody. Definitely keep good records. Okay, let's see. Upgrade request. Yeah. All right. Where's the verdict? Okay, so basically what Reverb says said was after they reviewed. I don't know if they watched the videos or not, but they reviewed our communications, me and the buyer's communications back and forth. And they said that basically he admitted that he had modified the instrument by changing the strings, doing some fret work, adjusting neck, you name it. Okay, now, why is this important? Well, something I didn't even know. They said that modifying the instrument voids the purchase, guarantees that they give on the product. So when you buy a shipping label from Reverb and you ship it to somebody, Reverb warranties it, they give you the customer. They give the customer some source of protection and that he avoided that protection when he modified the instrument. So in other words, what Reverb's saying is if you get an instrument and there's anything wrong, you shouldn't try to fix it on your own. You should report it first. Okay. And then I guess get them involved with the process of what's going to happen next. If you're going to mod or do anything or fix it or send it to somebody to fix, the buyer would have apparently been protected if he would have sent a message, I guess, to Reverb saying, hey, I got this guitar. It's not as described, but I want to keep it. I guess Reverb would have mediated between the two and then effectively did what this guy wanted, which is give him some kind of compensation for having the instrument modified and changed. But instead, because he modified it, he voided that protection, and they awarded me the favor, the case. So what does that mean? Well, what happened was. I'm sorry. Soil. Samuel says, oh, my. The capiche? Yes, the capiche. The. If you watch that video, a lot of people are like, phil, you got pretty pissed off. Why cursed? It's funny. I actually said the F word in the video, but we bleeped it. And the way we bleeped it, I don't think a lot of people caught that. I said it was just because it was not so much live, but it was just happening in real time. And I just got that. So, you know, capiche didn't make me upset. What made me upset was when he's like, no charge, Mike. No charge. You're not going to. Thanks for not charging me. But anyways, so what they did was Reverb wants the guitar, so actually wanted the guitar. It's past tense. The guitar was shipped to them yesterday. So they sent me a label. So Reverb's correction of this problem was they sent me a label, free of charge, to put on the guitar, which I did, and I shipped the guitar to Reverb, and Reverb reimbursed me what he paid me. So I got the full amount back or the amount he paid me. So I was covered. So they covered it. And I'd like to point out the reason I'm sharing this is because I know part of this could be like, yeah, of course they covered it. You're, you know, you have a YouTube channel and you made a video, and it got a hundred thousand views. That's not what I got from the vibe of this. The vibe I got was the guy copped to messing with the guitar, and therefore they were like, nope, nope. He admits. The guy admitted in our communications that he. That it was as described. Right. So in other words, there was no more. He said. He said in this communication. Because so basically, think about this. It was. It was our ability as to get him to admit to doing it that protected us. So the lesson in the video, of course, was, you know, documentation, film. Documentation, film. But also now, you know, make sure you're corresponding through Reverb. If you're talking to a buyer or seller and try to get them to admit to anything they're doing if you can. So give them credit for admitting everything. You know, he was boldly admitting it. So that that helped, I guess. So that's the final result. But the thing that I thought was most interesting was I never thought about the fact as, you know, even changing the strings might void your buyer protection. So be aware of that. So if you get a guitar and even if you're like, oh, I just want to put some new strings on it, maybe spend some time with it for a day or two, make sure that it is what it was stated and everything's fine, and then, you know, when you know you're going to keep it or you, you know, you know everything's fine, then maybe start changing strings. I know his was extreme to change it for tens and eights, but I think what I got from the reverb communication back forth was even if you just change anything, if you do anything to guitar, it makes it hard for them to tell again what was sent to you one way versus what you did. So that was the result of that. So you guys are all brought to speed. All right. And then Luke saying, did you get rid of the PRs semi hollow piezo? Yeah, I did. Well, I did because it went to reverb. So they did offer another option. So you guys know, they offered an option where I could have it fixed and repaired, and then I'd have to sell it back on their platform on Reverb, and if I got less for it, they would compensate me the difference. That was very reasonable, too. Keep in mind, though, when I was doing the time thing, I was like, thinking about the time it takes to do all this. I was like, let me get this straight. I could just put a label on a box and then the whole problem just goes away? I'd rather do that. After all, this was a lot of time invested into this problem. I'd like to move on. And I so, you know, for a second even thought, well, maybe I can make another video showing everybody this part of the process. But to be honest with you, I was like, or I could just make a video about something else that's maybe more interesting. So. Dr. Mob. Mob. Mob Ma. Man, I have no idea. Dr. Ma. Ball Zich. Oh, my Ball Zich. Ah, fanatics. See, I got it. Dr. My balls with a Z Itch. Nice. He says, so the guy is still made whole. No, no Cost goes to him. Yes, essentially, yes. That's how that works. I Don't know, you know, what repercussions if any were presented to him or given to him. I don't know at all. I have no idea. They, they essentially did what I think is professional to do. Reverb essentially separates the parties. That's what you'd want to do, right? So in other words, they talked to me. I think they were talking to him. I'm not sure. They kind of said they were going to talk to both parties and then they don't really tell you which about each other. Like, so, yeah, he's still out there, you know, Yay. So be, be, be weary. Unfortunately, you know, some people ask me, am I gonna like, hey, you're gonna tell everybody who he was? So, you know, to avoid him. I, I just, I can't at the, at the volume of viewpoint I have. In other words, you know, if it was a, you know, you just can't do that to somebody at this, you know, I can't. You can't trust the Internet to not to go crazy on somebody. That's why I said, I made sure, you know, that's why we, we blocked out his information in the correspondence. I don't need him to get hate emails over this stuff. It's. It's not the fixes. I'm made whole and Reverb. So Reverb took the brunt. So that's where it went. So that's how it ended up. Yeah. Okay. KDEB says it's okay. He has 37 years experience, so we can fix it. My favorite joke, by the way. There's so many funny comments and so many interesting comments both ways. You know, some people are like, you know, they, they didn't like it. Some people liked it, whatever. My favorite was the one where he's like, he's a master, master luthier. I'm like, oh, yeah, the master master luthier story. Charles wants to know, did I get the delivery feedback? I believe they are compensating him. Okay, so this is where it's. I don't know the answer. So what happened was we were sending him because we couldn't. Reverb wouldn't let us refund him above what he paid us, so we were sending a separate payment. So Reverb said that basically they're like, they're handling everything. So that's where that ended. So I'm whole, if that makes any sense. I'm back to normal again, and that's what matters to me. And like I said, I've learned a couple things you know. You know, hey, it's. Over the years I've adjusted how I sell on those platforms because of the. Because of situations like this. But mostly, you know, usually don't have too much crazy things. All right, let's go on to another subject question. This one is Amanda sent me Gina Short Gina. Hey, Gina. She says, do you have any recommendations for a single coil size humbucker for a tele style guitar for blues, single coil sized humbucker for telly, for blues. I like the Chopper. That's what I have in a telly that I like the, the main pickup that I use in my telly that I've put in my telly. I took it out and I put it back in. I took it out and it's back in and it's spent the majority of its life. It's the Billy Gibbons BG 1400. It's a stacked single coil, but it's a powerful single coil, but it's stacked. Like it doesn't make noise like a humbucker. It's not a mini humbucker, per se. That is my favorite set. I like the BG 1400. I think it's just because it sounds like a telly, but it just sounds huge and there's no noise and I just really like that set. But for a mini humbucker pickup, I really like the Chopper. It's just where I go. It took me a while. Some, you know, some people say this and it's. I understand because I feel the same way. Some people say I don't like the DiMargio mini single coil humbuckers because the blades, I don't like the blade look. It's too modern looking. That's why I moved away from them. I used to use them and then I moved away to the Seymour Duncan ones because I thought they looked cooler with actually having screws, you know, like the six screws. And I. And then, you know, a couple of my friends, one of them is Larry Mitchell, was using the, you know, the, the actual DiMaggio mini humbuckers. And so I got a bunch, you know, as you guys know, I've got a bunch of all the mini humbuckers. Had a mini humbucker shootout one night. And here's, here's the thing. There's a. There's a weird, interesting fact. If you don't know, which is when you think about a really great PAF pickup humbucker, that is when they are right. When they're dead, right? Not when they're a little hotter. A Little modified. Just when they're legit, to me they are a P90. Like if you ever play a great, you know, you, you plug into a guitar with some P90s and it just sounds, you know, magical and musical, right? Just, just, just everything feels good. There's a little romance there. I love the way it sounds. I love the way it feels. It's pushing the amp really nicely. It sounds good, clean. It just sounds great. And then you have the 60 cycle hum. You know, you ever play a really nice PAF pickup, it has kind of that same mojo. It's kind of very P90sque and for some reason the DiMaggio rail style pickups for the most part, like the Chopper specifically for me, has a very p90sque vibe. And I know that's not what you're looking for, but essentially to me, if you can get a P90 to sound really good, which most time you can, it's going to sound kind of like a humbucker. And a humbucker is going to sound like a P90, if that makes any sense. So that's why I kind of like the chopper for that. But you know, that's some recommendations. All right, let's refresh. Let's go. Here we have. What, what do we have now? Thank you, Alex. 241 for the super sticker. That's really cool. Thank you so much. Preston says hey, do you think Fender mod shop not production line resale is similar to keys? I expect a similar. I would imagine it have to be better than a keisel because Fenders resell is always going to be better than, you know, in my experience there's like, you know, as a generic, as a broad stroke as you can on a brand and say oh, this brand has great resale value. To me it's like Gibson, then Fender and then after that, you know, you could argue who's third place all day and probably come up with two or three up but there's nobody I think that can beat Gibson for resale value and then after that definitely Fender. So yeah, even Kiesel I don't think, you know, compare it even the mod shop compared to. He's all the mod shop's got to win. It's just got to. I expect a similar telly for both Came out basically the same price but the keys of quality is better. So interesting. We'll get to that. Says bought a key. Bought the keys a little. Sent you an email. Oh yeah, you did send me the email with the pics. I saw it so, yes. So to me, it's kind of like when I went on a tirade about the Ultra Teles or sorry, Fenders and saying, like my keys. All Delos to me is a. Is a better product. I just want to be clear. You're probably saying better the way I'm saying better for features to price. Right. Given that both are made in the, you know, USA and California in similar environments. You know, because that's what we're talking about. The same kind of labor cost environment, same rent or mortgage cost environments. I mean, same overheads. Right. For the most part. I mean, obviously they're different size companies, but we're talking about their same environment. Kiesel, I think in that and in my analogy to the Delos, which is yours also d. Your telly. Yes. Given that it's stainless steel, that you have more options cortisone next with, you know, carbon fiber rods. Yeah, you. You'll get more for your money. Which is why I usually kind of give them, you know, Kiesel, to me, as the. To me, it's the last look. It's not. It's not. How do I say it? The best way. It is the last affordable custom shop USA made guitar. And when I say it's the last, I mean, unless somebody comes up behind them, I. I don't know. But right now, if you're looking for a USA made semi custom, because they're all semi customs, there's very few full customs in the production world. Okay, so you. Now if you want full custom, you may want to go to a small builder, but keep in mind, even a lot of small builders, they won't go outside their own body styles, their own thing. But when you think of semi custom shop made in USA guitars, Kiesel is the least expensive by far. And that's because their lineage comes from Carven, which was always about being more affordable. And they can go direct to consum, and they save some money that way, which is why I always give them the accolade. That's all. That's all. The big push for me is that's the benefit to. Now if you want a custom shop guitar, it's really essentially the first line that you can try to afford one. And also in that vein, to your point with the mod shop, which I think is also very cool. The mod Shop, the important part is anytime you do, anytime you put the word custom in an instrument that you know, besides the name custom, like a custom US Ball, anytime you customize any instrument, you're going to hurt the resale value, because, again, you're looking for somebody who wants that color with that neck profile, with that. With that. And the problem is, is that if you try to get close to what they go for, new, everybody goes. I'll just order what exactly what I want. Right. I don't have to take this version of what you picked, so that's always going to be the case. But, yeah, I would say the Mod shop would definitely have more. A better resale value than Kiesel. But I think you picked a great choice. I think, you know, I don't know. When I say five years, we'll. We'll stick with that. We'll see if I'm still doing a show in five years. But in five years, I can't imagine we'll be talking about Kiesel as an affordable brand. And when I say affordable, that's not the right word. More obtainable. I like that terminology better. Because when you say affordable, people are like, $2,000. That's not affordable. I don't mean affordable in the idea that anyone can afford it. I mean that it's more obtainable than a $7,000 custom shop guitar, which already puts it out. You know, that's already ridiculously, I mean, expensive. No one can afford that. And then, of course, add, you know, 2000. 3000 is expensive, but you understand, at least if you're going to try to buy it, 2000 is easier to come up with than six or seven. Michael wants to know any updates on the Magnetone reviews? Yeah, so I'm hoping. And, you know, I told you guys, anytime you guys ask me stuff on the show, and then I say something, and then it doesn't happen, and I feel bad. But my hopes and dreams are to have the first video out this week. So I've had the magnetone amps. They came here, you know. So what do I have? Easy. So what I have is looking at him right now. So I have a. Some of you guys. If you guys watched my wah Pedal video yesterday, you probably saw one of the magnetones in the background. It was off to my right. Right, my right. So it's in. Obviously, it's not in this room. So I have the Magnetone M80, baby, and I have the Super 15 heads, and they're matching cabinets. And I think that's the video I'm going to do. First, comparing those two amplifiers, and then the whichever amp I like better of those two, I plan to then compare it to the other magnetone I have, because they have Magnetone, essentially Has like an American voice kind of brand product line and then a more of a British voiced. So these would be the two British voices amps that I'm talking about now. So I'm gonna pick whichever favorite British voiced Magnetone. Look, they're super expensive and they're really good. Of course they're really good. It's one of those things like, you know, everybody's like, my. My friends are asking me, are they. Are they good? Of course they're good. They're. They're twice as expensive as anything else. Of course they're good. The question is, what is interesting about them? What is, you know, what is the must have part of this? I will tell you. For me, playing the Super 15 and the M80 baby heads, I can totally see and in seconds, it took no time at all why Slash is with Magnetone now and why Billy Gibbons is Magnetone now. You could totally tell, like I was playing my. I grabbed my Les Paul, I shoved it in front of those amps and I was like, wow, this is that Joe Bonamassa, that slash that, you know that, you know, it's got the. It's got the blues, it's got the rock. It's. It's on the. It's that old, Old Marshall, you know, sound where it's a little bitchy, you know, right? Where it's like. When it sounds amazing, it's singing and then if you. If you mess with a little bit, you're like, I don't know if I like that sound. And you get it right back in the sweet spot again. And then you're just back in. Really, really cool. So. So yeah, I'll. I'll do that. That is on my list of the. It's not my next video, but it's the video after my next. And I should have the two out this week. Let's see. Sound music says. Hey, Phil, would you consider doing an episode on different types of strings and how they're used? That's a good idea. I think I'll. I can try and hit that. Let's see. David wants to know if we talked about the James Tyler Chinese guitars. I don't know what that means. Is he doing an import line or do you get knocked off? Nope. It looks like James Tyler came out with a line of made in China guitars. Yep. That's awesome. You know, I don't get it. So I'll start with there. I don't get it. My first reaction, you caught me right now. I just found out about it. I literally just Copy paste what you put out. Let me see if I can find the gear page is talking about it. Let's see where else China built James Tyler guitars. So, you know, this isn't. Okay, so let me tell you a James Tyler story that's probably a little bit different than what you guys think of. My first experience with James Tyler guitars was they were cheap. So here's why I didn't know what James Tyler guitars were. I'm talking about years and years ago. So for those that don't know, a James Tyler guitar is essentially a very expensive guitar. So. And this will help you. And this is my whole point. This is a great little subject to talk about because this is my. You know, here, let's open this up. Let's look at one of the guitars. USA finishes. Oh, they got a Japan line. No. Okay, so let's share this. So here's some James Tyler guitars. They're kind of well known for these. This really exotic look here where it's like they do multiple colors, right this. Multiple colors here stuff this guitar. I've said it once before on the show, and I don't think it's unfair to say that's one of the ugliest headstocks ever made in history, but so, you know, they play amazing. Let's just. Let's just start with. I'm going to tell this out of order, but it's important to tell it this way. They are amazing. They sound amazing. They play amazing. I think they look amazing until I get to the headstock. But as I've told you over the years, I've kind of learned just not care about headstocks anymore. Because I find that every time I just try to make myself like a headstock, I end up with a guitar I don't love. I'd rather just focus on, you know, the guitar I like. And if it has a ugly headstock, it just. It is what it is. But anyways, what's funny is the first time I ever played a James Tyler guitar was not this expensive James Tyler guitar. And then for record, for. For. Because I don't want to get it wrong, James Tyler guitar. I mean, I guess I could pull one up on Reverb. Okay. Oh, it went right to his Instagram. Let's do this. Let's pull. I just want to pull them up for price because I want to show you one. Okay. James Tyler. And what are they going for? Oh, cool. Here's a used one. Here's a new one. Let's go with a new one. All right, for those of you curious, you can buy this one right here from Wildwood Guitars. That's Steve's store in Colorado. It's an amazing store. I've bought many guitars from him. $6,610 for this strat. So I don't even think that's actually as expensive as I've seen them. I've seen them in the $7,000 range, I thought. But definitely, I mean, here's one for. Look at this. This one you can get for $9,000. So I just wanted to make sure we're all for those that are not in the know. Let's just make sure we understand. James Tyler guitars, very expensive. But my first experience with James Tyler guitar wasn't a $6,000 guitar. It was a Line 6 guitar. Because James Tyler designed the Line 6 guitars, the Variac. Variac guitars. And I remember picking one up and I'm like, oh, this is cool, right? And like, James Tyler made this. This is my line 6 rep, by the way. I. The first time when they came out with that line of guitars, I was at this special event before the show, and they showed me the guitars and he's like, james Tyler. And I'm like, james Tyler, the guy who sings the acoustic songs, he's like, no, that's James Taylor. I'm like, oh, okay. I'm like, james. James Tyler. Never heard of him. And they're like, oh, James Tyler makes amazing guitars. And I picked up the guitar and I'm not making this up. It had Fred Sprouts, this line six, right? Had Fret Sprout. If you ever played guitars the NAM show, you know, they like, they. They've been molested and have, like, baby goop all over them. They're just never like. Everybody thinks when they go to the NAMM show and you pick up guitars that they're going to be pristine and play great. Instead, they just. Whatever. The worst guitar you've ever picked up, Guitar Center. That's what you get at the NAMM show. So I pick up the guitar and it's just. It's not great. I was like, he made this. And like, no, these are made in Korea. Oh, I. I am so confused what's going on here I go, okay, so this guitar is not a James Tyler, but it's. He's like, well, it' designed by James Tyler. I'm like, oh. And so that's my first experience. And so I've told people this story, versions of these stories like this, where it's a very weird experience. To try something that isn't expensive, but then told like, oh, no, but normally they make expensive stuff. This is inexpensive. I always think it's a bad idea for all these boutique guys to do imports. I think that's why John Cerse stopped doing his import line. I don't think it's a great idea. Now, when I say that, I want to acknowledge what I've said for years on this show, which is Gibson makes its money off Epiphone. Fender makes its money off Squire, PRS makes his money off Ses. I mean, look, imports become the dominant thing, okay? That's just how it goes, right? That's where you're gonna get a much more volume, you know, much more money coming from those product lines. But in my experience, it's too like half you guys. Look, I saw that, I saw a bunch of you were like reacting because there's a thousand guitar players on a nerdy guitar channel on a Friday, and half you guys don't like, what's a $7,000 James Tyler? You don't even know. So you can imagine how in my experience, what's going to happen is you're going to go into a music store and they're gonna go, hey, here's a James Tyler. And it's gonna be like 1500 bucks or $1000 or whatever. And then you're gonna be like, oh, oh, okay. Oh. So it's a, it's a, you know, what is this? And like, oh, it's a James Howard's. Amazing. I mean, this isn't the James how it's amazing, but this, it's based on a James how it's amazing. You've never played that amazing guitar, but this guitar is like that. A guitar that's amazing. So that's where I, I, I, I always never get excited about a boutique brand doing a import line because I always feel like the import lines are more about, I don't want to say cashing in, but a little bit of cashing in your brand power. Because at the end of it. And again, this is just my opinions for whatever they're worth. At the end of it, when I play an ER guitar and I play a nice Squire, I mean, the value proposition is. The Squire is Disconnected Defender. That's the value proposition. There's no way that the Squire I come to any conclusion that it's so much better. It's essentially all mass produced. I mean, essentially, like, think about it like Cortek. Once all the guitars come out of Cortech, then they're all Cortek guitars. Right. The difference is, of course they do assign the levels of quality to each guitar. In other words, how well they want those guitars. But really a lot of it comes the brand power, right? An Epiphone has value because it's an Epiphone. Epiphone has built a brand. You would never pay as much for a Harley Benton as you would for an Epiphone. It's just how it goes. Even though both are essentially made in, well, Epiphone's China and I think Harley Benton's Indonesia. But we'll do tit for tat for this. We'll say two made in China, Les Paul style copies. You'll put a higher value on the Epiphone for a couple reasons. One, one of the things you think is, well, it's Epiphone because it's attached to Gibson. It will have a higher standard because they're a much bigger brand. And some people are going to make comments right now. No, no, I don't think so. But keep in mind, it's not even that they'll have a higher standard. Just ordering a lot more guitars gives you better quality. I mean, if you were a factory and you were making guitars, whether they own the factory or they're sublet subbing it out, when you order thousands of guitars, tens of thousands or hundred thousands, you definitely get better quality consistency because the factory wants that contract year after year. So. So my honest reaction to James Tyler doing a line of Chinese guitars, you know. Yeah, so, but keep in mind, this is the important part. I don't have one on my hands, so I don't know, you know, if I plugged it into an amp and played it and went, oh, okay guys, now I get it. I mean, that's the value proposition right there. So maybe I'll figure out how to get one in my hands and try it. Maybe that'll be a huge, huge thing. But I'm not excited about it. I don't know. Sometimes I get confused. It just happens when I tell you guys stuff versus when I tell the patron. I do these Patron Only podcasts and sometimes they get a little deeper than these. And so sometimes I'm like, did I tell you guys this or I only tell the patrons? So I'm going to tell you guys this. The first time I ever really met Jeff Giesel, okay, when I say really, I mean I met him once briefly for a few minutes at a NAMM show. But a couple years later, the first time I met him was at the Keisel Factory. And we were talking. I don't know to this day why he asked me. I don't know why he. If he asked everybody, he could ask every person he meets. I don't know within the first 10 minutes. And I'm being very fair because it could have been within the first two minutes of talking to him. He said out of nowhere he goes, do you think I should do an import line of guitars? And I said, no. That's literally, that's how fast I gave the answer, no. And he said, you know, that's the opposite of what everybody else tells me. He goes, why? And I go, oh, you'll make a lot of money. I mean, if they made a Kiesel Aries in Indonesia for 699, you know, it'd go against solar, you know, guitars, it'd go against all those brands. It would do really well, but you'd make a lot of money with it. That's what I'm telling him. I told him, I said, you'd make a lot of money and you wouldn't really care about these American guitars anymore. So it's. I said, every company I know that does well with imports and USA made guitars. The two. Slowly more and more, the factory becomes more and more a warehouse. That's my experience as visiting these factories over the years. More and more I go back and I go, hey, whatever happened in that area over there we used to do? They go, oh yeah, that's now where we store the imports. I go, I thought you stored the imports of there. Well, we still in there too. And over there, like, huh. So that's why I'm never excited about that, guys. I feel like there's enough of. There's, there's enough. I think there's enough amazing affordable guitars out there. I. Every time somebody new company's like, we're gonna get into that business too, I'm like, okay, all right. You know, okay. But James Tyler is a brand. So let me put it this way. James Tyler is a brand of guitar that I would one day maybe consider buying one. Because it's, you know, I have some high end guitars. It's a really high end guitar. Maybe I do it, but obviously I don't look at it like, oh, now they're making a Chinese one for more for. I don't go, okay, I'll get that one. I just go, okay, well, I don't know. So I don't know. That's. That's my thing. I wish, I wish they would. I hope, I hope them. I Wish them well. I hope it does well again. Let's see what you guys are saying about that. No idea what this. He's asking me. David says, hey, five Watt World's thoughts on beginner guitars. Like what do I think of his thoughts on beginner guitars? I don't know what. I've never seen a 5 watt world video. I know him. I mean, I've interacted with him briefly once and I know his channel, but I haven't really seen any of his videos. So I don't know. I don't know him that well. I may have actually, you know how I know him is or know him is he did a couple videos. I thought at least I thought I saw two. Maybe I only saw one where he was with Rick Beato and Rhett Shaw or he was with Rick Beato and somebody else. I really enjoyed that. I watched one of those ones but I haven't seen it. So I don't know what his thoughts on bigger beginner guitars is. My thoughts on beginner guitars is anything that gets you to start playing, that can keep you playing is, is a good idea. I used to have harsh and hard opinions about it. You know, for the record, I told, you know, obviously everybody's like, some of you guys know I had a store because we talk about that from time to time. What you may not know is that for the first three years of my business, I didn't carry any affordable guitars. Now when I say affordable, it wasn't like a boutique shop where I only did high end. I just didn't. At the time we didn't carry any guitars under $300. So at that time that was $300. Was, was definitely like now 300 is a lot of money, but it's not as much as obviously, you know, 20 years ago almost. So we didn't do any affordable guitars. I was really dead set against it at first. In fact, just so. So you know, I have to out myself. I was able to get away with it for four, no, three years. So three years, okay, that makes sense. Almost four. So for four years I was a Fender dealer. I carry Fender custom shop all the levels of Fender, including accessories and all the Fender sub brands. Like in other words, the Jackson Charvel. When I say sub, I mean lower. Just the subsequent brands, the other brands. But I didn't carry Squire. I didn't even carry any Squires. And this is why I'm saying I'm out of myself. So you guys know, and this is a different thought process. I have a different thought process than I used to. The only reason I carried Squire in my store, they Defender rep, who's very smart guy who now owns a really nice music store in California. He came in one day and he flat out told me, he goes, look, if you don't want, I know you don't want Squire. And I go, yeah. He goes, I gotta give it to your competitor down the street. He goes. And I said, oh no, I don't like that at all. And he goes, because, you know, Fender is very territorial. And I go, the problem is, I said, if you give him Squire, he's going to tell everybody he has Fender. And then people get confused. They're going to store and they'll go, hey, do you have a Fender Strat? And he goes, no, I'm a Fender dealer, but those suck. And just buy the Squire. And I go, go, it'll be weird if they side sell, you know, against me on that. I said, I don't like that. He goes, what do you want me do? And I go, I'll carry Squire. So I carried Squire, I bought Squire. And that's the first time I started trying that stuff. And let me explain my logic at the time, my logic at the time was I was very like, like, you know, I didn't want to sell a beginner like a hundred dollar guitar, two hundred guitar. And you know, I was like, they won't, they won't learn on it because I started on a cheap guitar, such a cheap generic guitar. My JB player guitar was not only an off brand, but it was a used and it was not in good shape. And so instead of, you know, my I trying to do like a thing you do as a parent sometimes, like, oh, I had this hard life so I'm going to try to keep my kids from it. And so, you know, is douchey as this sounds, it's so horrible when I think back at it. People would come in my store and they would look for a guitar like that. And I would go, yeah, I don't carry anything like that. You're gonna have to go. I would send them to another store. It wouldn't, I wouldn't even like try. And like, I'd be like, yeah, this is what I carry. If you, you spend a little more, you're gonna get a lot more. And they're like, well, we just want to get him into guitar. He's into sports right now. We're gonna give him some guitar. I'd be like, ah, go down the road to those cheap guys. I was Nicer than that. You guys get the idea. But I had to learn, I learned that, you know. So, so what's my philosophy on beginners guitars? Anything that gets a beginner playing is good. And you know, I used to have a different opinion but you know, I would like it in a world where everybody starts with a great instrument. But you know, the reality is that wasn't the reality then. I don't think it's reality now. Guitar Tabs Daily says, hey Phil, did you carry ESP ltd? I did not. I tried. It was one of the brands I tried to get over the years and I just, they wouldn't give it to me. So we did not carry ESP ltd. The way it worked Guitar Tabs Daily was, I believe the stores that had it was, I can't remember the name of store but it was in Scottsdale, Arizona. So how it works is in a territory that's, it's territory driven. It's not as much today because there's the Internet, but gotta understand the Internet was of course around obviously then and it was still pretty big and there was ebay and all that stuff. But it wasn't like it is now. Stores still could own territory. In other words. And just to be very clear, you have to be very clear the, the reason you even cared. It's not like I went, oh, I hate this store down the road. I don't want them to have a brand to have them. They were making you buy into these brands. The manufacturers, they're like, hey, you got, you want this brand. You, you not only have, you have to buy in. And you have to understand not some brands would make you carry product. I think it's very reasonable, right? So like they come in your store and they go, hey, we want at least 20 pegs to be. You're like, oh, okay, that makes sense. But sometimes they come in your store and they go, yeah, you need to order 20 more guitars. I go, why stuff 20 guitars on the wall. Yeah, but it's the buy ins now. Otherwise you're not a dealer anymore. You have to keep buying in. So one of the things they could hold over you is hey, you're going to be the only one. So I was not able to get ESP LTD because there was a dealer in town and had it. And the same thing as they were able to keep it from me. But it was a brand I wanted. In fact, I can tell you the only two brands I never carried in the store that I wanted to was Music man and espltd. That was the only two brands that I could. I wish I could have got. And Music man had nothing to do with a territory. There was no dealers that carried Music Man. The guitar centers carried some, but not much. Music man had a deal where I kind of wish my wife. Hey, hey. She's. If you're watching Shauna, text me and I'll tell him the correct answer. Cause she would deal with this stuff. I thought it was 10 years. You had to be in business for 10 years. So basically I reached out amusement and said, hey, I want to be a dealer. And then they sent back saying, hey, we don't sell to dealers unless they've been in business for 10 years. It might have been five, but I thought it was 10. And then what happened was, you know, okay, that was into that. And then whatever that was, I think it was 10 years later. Ten years later, they literally came to me. They. The sales rep remembered me like they came in, he goes, hey, just so you know, you've been in business 10 years now. We'd like to sell you the brand. And I'm like, oh. But we had loaded up, we had so much other stuff. It just wasn't good timing. So we didn't do it. So we never became a Music Man. But Espl. Musicman be the only two guitar brands I think that I never carried that. I wish. Oh, she's sending me a message. What was it? It was five years. So it was five years. Thank you. So five years. Music man wouldn't let us sell until we were business. Five years. And then at five year mark, maybe it was five, six years afterwards. But anyways, they came in our store and said, hey, would you like to carry it? And I was loaded up so heavy at the time. I was like, it just doesn't make sense, Phil. Why didn't guitar magazines praise cheap guitars? And you know what's funny is. And he's. So he sent me this nice message. I enjoyed it. Basically saying, you know, YouTubers are always like, oh, man, this guitar is $99. Blows you away. This guitar is $190. Blows you away. How come, like, the guitar magazines never did that? And I was thinking about that going, you know what, can you guys even remember guitar magazines showcasing cheap guitars? I don't mean an ad, okay? I don't mean like, yeah, there was a. There was a vester ad here and there. There was an Aria Pro, which again, wouldn't even be considered cheap. Cheap guitars, you know, but yeah, you really didn't see a whole lot of like really inexpensive guitars being highlighted in guitar magazines. And you know, that got me thinking on this subject, which I thought was interesting is. And by that, by that measure, neither, neither did fixing or modding guitars. In fact, I would almost say that the only modification stuff you really read about or saw in guitar magazines, for the most part, for the most part, there's always going to be like somebody's going to point out like, no, there was an issue where they did this thing. Like I'm talking about mainstream often was really the artist. I never really dawned on me that almost all of the modification education I got early on in life came from actual rock stars. Like they were talking about it. Like you wouldn't see a guitar tech getting a whole five page tutorial on Guitar World. Like this is how you mod a guitar inexpensively. Like, you didn't see stuff like that. You saw parts, you know, you see the all parts ad, you'd see, you know, DiMargio pick up Seymour Duncan pickup ads, you'd see parts ads, Chandler parts mirror Chandler and you. Stuff like that. But you, you never saw like mods, but you would, the, the musicians would talk about, oh, and I did this to the guitar and mod. And now I think about it going, yeah, all the modifications I've. I started out doing were inspired by an actual artist telling you this is what they, they did. And so, so I was like, yeah, why is that now? Why is the focus now? And I think, I think that guitar magazines, and I'm not here to indict them, I'm just talking about this. As you guys know, I'm a huge fan of guitar magazines from back in the day. I'm thinking that they were more about selling the dream of something than the information. And what I mean by that is, look, I get it, you know, corporate shills, the whole nine yards. YouTubers are out to sell stuff too. Look, I'm not saying that's not the case. What I'm saying though is it's a different kind of sell. Like, like I think about, like, yeah, never thought about the fact. Why isn't there a guitar magazine? Like there's always guitar magazines. There's tabletures, makes sense. They're talking about artists, they're interviews, but not a really so much a repair magazine. I was like, that's kind of weird. I never thought about that being missing. And then literally, literally, you know, it's YouTube starts and that's a lot of the content gets to about, you know, sharing tricks and tips on how to fix things and how to mod things. And I think it's because it became a selling of practical information versus the dream. There's no dream to sell. I can't sell a dream to anybody. I can't be like, one day you'll be like me alone in a bedroom with a camera. Like there's no, like, you know, it gets a lot easier to sell the dream as. Look, one day you'll tour the world and you'll be on stage and millions of people will love you and want you and want to be you. And you'll get, you know, your own guitar. And that's a dream you can sell in a magazine. I think that's why they did that. Where I think guitar YouTube channels literally, literally had to be like, okay, I can't sell the dream. I can sell the information, right? This is how I do something. This is how you can do something. And I think that's why it kind of. So to answer your question, which is why they didn't highlight cheap guitars back then. Well, first of all, cheap guitars probably couldn't pay to advertise. Look, one, two, again, you know, it's not part of the dream. Selling the dream. You know, there's a reason why so many people wanted that gear that was highlighted in those magazines forever. So it's funny. I want to look at your guys comments too, by the way. From my experience. This is from my experience. Cheap guitars in the 80s and 90s were junk. And these new cheap guitars are built much better. You know, that's a great point too. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Why highlight. The fact is. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Most of the guitars from, most of the guitars from the era that were cheaper, really bad. I mean, that's why, you know, it's funny when I love now, I love it when now there's this, this angle put on it. Like it's snobbery, right? I watched a, an influencer the other day. I say influencer because they were like, I don't know, they're on Instagram and they were like talking about like people being snobs about cheap guitars. Like, oh, they're snobs. And you know, people are snobs. And I'm like, well yeah, now it's snobbish. But back in the day it wasn't snobbish. Like if you walked into a music store and there was an ad and it says looking for a guitar player, no drugs, must have transportation and pro gear. That wasn't because they were snobs. I mean it could have been. It was because without a vehicle, you weren't going to get to. You weren't going to get to your. The rehearsal and. Or you're going to be bumming rides all the time. And who the hell wants to do that? Drugs were always a problem. That was just the thing of the day. And no, if they showed up with crappy gear, they sounded horrible, right? You know, so it's not like pro gear. Doesn't mean they have to be expensive gear. Never. I've never saw an ad that said must have expensive, expensive gear. It just said had professional gear. And oh, let's back up. Let's really back up. I once showed up to a band rehearsal once or band audition and they, they literally looked at me like I was crazy. I showed up to. It was early on, I'd been playing for about a year and a half and I had my CMC amp, which was the first amp I ever got. And I did right before I got my PV rage, I had my CMC which had a 8 inch speaker in it and it was gray carpet, I think, and an 8 inch speaker. And I think it had a volume and had a tone and gain. Three knobs. I don't know what those. Maybe it was just volume and treble and bass. I had three knobs and I showed up and a band's like looking for guitar player and I showed up with that amp and they looked at me like I was literally in the wrong place. They're like, where, where's your amp? Like, this is my amp. Like I had a lantern. Look at this. And I go, I put it on a chair. I'm not, by the way, not making up any of this. Not even this part. I'm about to tell you. I said, I proudly point, pointed at it and said, I put it on a chair. Like, like I was explaining, like, oh, you don't think it's loud enough? Oh, you don't know about chairs. See, you put it on a chair and it's higher up off the ground and. And then, and here they are with like hashtags, right? They're like, yeah, no. So I didn't even get the audition. They sent me away. They were like, no, like, you're not allowed. You gotta need a real amp. I'm like, oh, I need a real amp. I taught them. I got a PB Rage. So. So, yeah, so it was a sign of time. So I think it's a great point to point out that the Jeep guitars were pretty garbage back in the day. That kind of explains why, you know, I, I once, I, I think I, I love this. Once had a friend say, because, you know, he's like, you know, what I do is so strange now he's like, because he's me for so long, he's like, man, you make videos so weird. And I said, yeah. And he goes, why do guitar players love cheap guitars? He's like, every time I see a YouTuber pushing cheap guitars in a video, it's like everybody watches. Got tons of views. Why do they love guitars? And I go, I don't think they love cheap guitars. I said, I think everyone's curious about them though. It's not a love thing, it's a curiosity. You're so curious. And if you have any age behind you. There was just a time where that this is like a crazy thing. It's like, it's like to me, it's almost like a really good guitar at $200. It's almost harder to believe that I have a, you know, have a GPS and a, you know, and a computer in my hand. Like Star Trek, you know, walking around the phone. To me, it's, it's easier to believe that I'm walking around like if you told me six year old me go, hey, Phil, one day you're gonna have a computer in your hand like Star Trek. I think, of course I will. And they're like, oh, and a really good guitar. Be like 200 bucks. Which with inflation would be like $90. I'd be like, you're insane. Stop lying. I'm not Gonna buy no $90. Good guitar. Yeah. So it's funny. And I think also you get to a point where you want to make sure you're not duping yourself. I've definitely got to the point where I'm like, I know sometimes what I'm buying now when I buy the expensive guitars, it's like what I showed you today, it's a piece of nostalgia, it's a piece of art, It's a piece of something to have. But it's not relative to actually need of quality. I already, quality can be to me, I can find it. For me, my Sweet spot's about 500 right now. If I find, I can find guitars that I can absolutely, absolutely love for 500 with no questions and find no faults in them. And that's just from reviewing so many of them. But yeah, it's really good. Okay, Crankshaft said. What's wrong with the PV Rage? It's, it's my Mississippi Marshall. The PB Rage was My first real amp. So that amp I walked into there was. Store was called Guitars Etc. I walked in, I plugged into a. I got. They had Ibanez. I picked up an Ibanez. Let me pick it up. I picked up an Ibanez, which I was like, oh, I can't believe I'm touching this. And then I plugged into a PB Rage and I hit the distortion and I started playing in the. They had an amp room. And I just remember, like, I never want to leave. I was like that. I don't even know if I've ever had a better. A better experience than that my entire life. That was. Whatever that was. I was like, this is what I was trying to explain to everyone. Like, why doesn't my stuff sound like this? Why does this have so much cool distortion? Had just distortion. Just lots of distortion. And so the PV rage was $99. It might have been $89, but I think it was $99. And I went home and I saved for it, and I got it, and I got a $99amp and I loved it. It was fantastic. So, all right, this one came from Amanda. This is from Mason. It says, hey, the volume pots on my guitar are either off or full volume. Is there. No, there is no taper. Is there a fix? Do they need replacing? So, yes and no. They could need replacing. First of all, I'm not looking at them. Hold on a second. Move my mess around. So the first thing we have to do is decide whether or not they're wired correctly. So that problem could be a bunch of issues, a bad potentiometer. Possible. I would say least likely scenario, but still very likely. Okay, first scenario that's probably correct is something is not soldered or wired correctly to the pot. So let's go to. I don't know what we're gonna go do. We're gonna go to this. Hey, look at that. We're gonna draw. Remember I said I was gonna have a drawing thing? Now we're gonna have draws, okay? So I'm gonna show you this potentiometer right here. And so this is what I want you to pay attention to, Mason. So your potentiometer should look like this, okay? That's your volume pot. And you're gonna have three tabs. And if you're looking down, it will always be like this. Okay? So how. If this is your volume pot, we're not even gonna talk about tone pots or anything. Just isolate this. What should happen is you should have. Essentially, I'm going to do this way just make life easy. You're going to have a pickup and it doesn't matter if you have a pickup or a three way switch. It doesn't matter what it is. So in other words, if it goes to the switch, we'll call this the switch. And then you have a wire off the switch. It doesn't matter. The wire is going to go to this first lug. That's where it goes this way when you're looking down on it. So you're looking at the potentiometer. It goes right here, the center lug. This wire will go to the output jack. So that's your output jack. There you go. And this lug should be soldered either with a wire here or bent in. And it should be soldered against this outer shell and grounded. And then essentially there should be at least one of the ground over here. Right. That's like. So I'm drawing a pool of solder. If it makes more sense, maybe I'll just draw the ground sign. Right. Something like this. Right. But there should be a ground. So I would start there with something like that. Look at that. Using technology. Look at that. And that's. And that's the first thing you have to do. You have to make sure those are done correctly. If they are not soldered that way, that would cause that problem. So for instance, if you're. Or. And back to this. Whoops. Go back here. If sometimes what happens is somebody does the soldering and I want you to see the pot from the side. Oh wait, let's draw this. It's like art class, see? All right. So here's your pot from the side view. Okay. All right. And then here's your. This first tab. What happens sometimes is when you run the wire through it, you melt the solder and the solder melts and melt. I'm making a big mess, right? It melts down this and it runs towards the pot and then it touches here and grounds out. I'm not saying that's the case right there, but it could do that to anyone else. So you have to make sure that there's nothing. So you understand you have to start with a clean. All clean connections has to look good. That's the first thing you have to have. I know. High tech. I know. I like this so much. I like. I said I like this way better than the Microsoft paint and all that other stuff. So you know, I love this so much, this thing. I just gotta tell you, I bought six of these boards with erasers and markers and I, I Put them everywhere around the house. This is great. So it's. I love them for sketching ideas. This is the greatest idea ever. As I don't even care about for this show. I just like having them around. So. So that would be my first thought of what's causing the problem is something like that. It's just something wired up incorrectly. You could also have it connected to your tone pot incorrectly. But that's where you want to start. Let's see. Bill says, this also came. Amanda says. Bill says, hey, Phil, how can I tell the year of manufacturer on a K335 with no serial number and no labels inside? Oh, I don't know. You know, one thing I do. And again, this is, you know, not going to be great advice, but it's just some generic advice that will get you started. Two things you can start. Two starting points. You can always look to see if there's any forums dedicated to your brand or type of guitar. There's all kinds of people out there that, that are literally become very specific experts. Like I said, I always think of myself as a general generalized expert of things like guitar. Like I know all these things and I can help with some stuff. But there are, there are people out there just get hyper focused on learning about one subject, one thing, and there's just no way I can, I can, you know, know as much as. As that about that one subject. So something like somebody who's really into those guitars. You might be a forum out there where somebody's really going to be able to help you without doing that. One thing I like to do is go on Reverb and ebay and look for those guitars and just look for one and, and, and that's how you'll find it. You know, when I did the, the video of the, the. The Hagstrom PV hybrid, right? The IKEA caster. That's how I found out what year that Hagstrom was. I went on Reverb and I started looking at Hagstroms and then I found two identical ones to that. There was one that was similar, similar, really close, but not the same. And then there was two that were dead on and they were both, both labeled as being like a 65. So I was like, oh, okay, cool. So it'll get you in the same ballpark. So that's one way you can do is use that as a reference. Let's see. Next. What do we got next? Hold on a second. Oops. Okay, here we go. Let me grab this one. Refresh. I need to Refresh my screen. So I'm looking the same thing you guys are looking at. We have clan of house cats who says, hey, been repairing guitars for six years. I was yelling at the monitor about the problems that were popping up when you were checking that return guitar. Yeah, you know, it's funny is. Is when you go through and you diagnose a guitar, essentially, it's always easy when you already know what is wrong. You know, everybody's like, Everybody's like, oh, of course it's this. Right? But when you're diagnosing something like, remember I was diagnosing that guitar that was returned on reverb with the information from him that it. He didn't modify it in any way. You know, I mean, he. He said he did do some stuff, but he didn't say he changed it to eights, which is a pretty thing. Pretty important thing to tell you. And so that was the first thing, like, okay, I'm not looking for that. I'm not looking that he changed the strings or I'm not looking for that. So you have to kind of like, just kind of go through it. And what I've kind of learned over the years is, is the same thing you saw in that video. It's like, okay, I'm going to go through this. Doesn't feel right after a while. What's nice about strings is that I'm at the point now, obviously seen that video, where I can bend a string and almost tell you what gauge it is just by how, how, you know, it's. It's like. It's like lifting weights. You know, you lift up a weight and you go, oh, yeah, that's £5. Oh, yeah, that's £10. Oh, that's 20. I can tell the difference real quick. It's how it kind of feels to, you know, to. To do it. My. I'm more in tune with it, actually, more so now than I was when I was just guitar teching. Because. Because I have to review so many guitars that I, you know, I'm very. I try to play the guitars as they come out of the box to give the best assessment, but it's really tough sometimes when they're not strung up the way I normally play. It's like I'm fighting them and then that becomes a really tough issue. So, yeah, yeah, it was. It was interesting. It was interesting thing. I'm glad it went over well. It was. And hopefully, you know, I'll keep making content like that. You know, I like to. I like to use my channel Kind of like this podcast as a blog, you know, over the years, if you notice. Like to share experiences and share good or bad, not just like, oh look, I know this stuff and let me share you what I know. I like to share when I don't know or when I'm learning something or when I'm experienced something. Because I, I like said it's the stuff I like to watch. I like watching it. So I figured maybe people will watch it too. T size says, hey, happy Friday, Phil. Best less Paul style guitar for the money. Okay, let me think about that for a second. I've been looking at Gibson Standards, heritage and Kiesel CS6s for the price. I don't want a headstock headaches like the Gibsons. Oh, well then you've kind of killed that. I've never played this the Keysil CS CES 6. So I don't know anything about it. I mean, I like Keysls, but I've never played that one. When I think of Les Paul's best for the money, I mean again you're talking, you mentioned Gibson Heritage keys, so I'm thinking you're talking about spending about $2,000. Ish. So best $2,000 Les Paul style guitars for the money. I mean I, it's tough because like I said, the neck is a huge driving point. I can go, hey, this is a great quality guitar. But if you don't like that style neck, it's too thick, it's too thin, you know, whatever. I really like the S2 single cuts from PRS. I think they're really, really good to guitars. But again, it's gonna have a different neck than some of the guitars you mentioned. Unless of course you were looking at the, you know, the. More the 50 style necks. So I don't know, I'm trying to think what else pops. I mean, in that price range. I mean there's a lot of, you know, the problem is there's so many good guitars. Like I, I always know it's a good, it's a good answer. When it's like, I'm thinking of a brand right now because a lot of you guys like, what about this? What of this? I'm not, it's not that I can't think of a brand. I'm thinking of so many. I'm like, I don't want to not mention them. So like, I think Eastman makes a fantastic guitar in that price range. I think Prestige makes a great fantastic single cut in that price range. I think ESP LTD make a great single Cut in that price range and lower price range as well. You know, again, unless we're talking about strictly, you just want to stick with a made in USA instrument. I think for single cuts, the ones that stick out the most to me are going to be the prss. But I still think Gibson, you know, heritage is really good, especially if you pick them up used. I mean, they're, they're really good used and, and neither's still a deal. But man, you know, heritage really just a great instrument used because there's a good amount of them, a lot of people. It's funny, here's why. Heritage is a brand that on its merit of its quality, it does well. But what's funny about the brand logic is that a lot of people are just insecure. They're just, you know, they, the brand is part of their security, you know, versus insecurity. So they get a heritage and then they, they feel wanting like, oh, I don't have a real Gibson. I, oh my, my friend said, oh, it's a heritage, not a real Gibson. And they get rid of their heritages. And I, I was like, you know, I think the heritage are on par with Gibson in every way. In some ways better for quality and you can get them for a little bit less and also hard to get here in the US but my Bach is also really good for single cuts, as, you know, I really like those. Trying to think who else pops in my head for single cuts. I mean, I really like nags, but nags, you would have to definitely buy used and nags. I tell my friends this all the time when they buy because I have a friend, I'll go, I got a nags and they're getting used. I'm like, you know, the goal for nags is you try to get them under $3,000. They're very expensive, but their resale value is not very good. So you got to kind of buy them when you buy them if you're going to try to experiment now again, I always like to do this as a disclaimer. Everybody's like, why are you guys always talking about resale value like that? It's not that you want to sell it or you want to make money. It's that when you're experimenting with buying, like I said, the whole buy before you try concept versus try before you buy, whenever you're buying things to try them, you're trying to make sure you're not, you know, just throwing money out the window. And that's what's great about guitars. Sometimes you can buy them and, and not hurt, you know, hurt financially so much. So, so that, that's why we mentioned that stuff. So let's see. Alex, 21, says. Phil, Heritage versus Gibson. Is there magical pixie dust that comes on the Gibson logo? Well, it's not magical pixie dust. It's just, it's about as legit of a brand as you can get. You know, say what you want about Gibson and I got a lot to say and you got a lot to say and there's a lot of love, hate there for that brand for a lot of good reasons for both. The reality is Gibson is. And even if you're not into Gibson's, I understand that if you're not into Gibson's, but Gibson has done what very few brands will ever do, which is they've kind of set it as. They're iconic, they're the, they're the thing to have. You know, it's as legit. In fact, it's so legit that it doesn't even matter if a company's way more expensive than Gibson. People still will perceive the Gibson as being a thing to have. Give you example is like a Collins guitar is amazing instrument, I'd say superior to Gibson in almost every way and the quality of it. And in price wise it's definitely more expensive than Gibson. And if you had one, most people are going to be like, oh wow, you know, the Collings is amazing instrument but, but most guitar players will still recognize that the Gibson is. I guess. Actually, you know what, this is probably the best way to put it. I think if you see a guitar player with a Gibson and a guitar player with the callings, you don't think, oh, the Gibson guy didn't have the money to buy callings. You think the Gibson guy picked the Gibson. That's what Gibson brings to the table. They're not only expensive, but when things are more expensive, people just assume you pick the Gibson just by choice, not because of a lack of money. And that's where I think they've really, you know, they have that and that's important to, that's what's really important to understand. Max. Max says I despise Gibson for what they're doing to other brands, guitar brands. Well, remember what they're doing is to most my friends. So I mean, yes, I understand, but that doesn't change like my feelings of their, their actions don't change what the market sees the brand as or what the market has decided about the brand. And that's my point. I Try to be, like, very fair about this stuff. Even handed with it. It's just a reality of it. You know, I. Look, I. I don't have a relationship with the Gibson guys. I. All the Gibson people I know are employees. Not in the hierarchy of Gibson. And I've never worked with Gibson in any way, any capacity. And I have. Have worked with Epiphone briefly. It didn't go very well, but. And so you gotta understand, like, I'm the first one to say, like, I could sit here and bash Gibson all day, but that's not fair. If I'm just like, oh, yeah, I don't like them, so their guitars suck. That's not relative. That's. As a guitar tech, that wouldn't be the way I would approach it. I try to approach every instrument as. Based on the merits of its. How it's quality and then based on its merits of its resale value in the market. That's. That's why the bone box says, I like my Les Paul's, but I hate the frets they use. Yeah. Gibson, to me, is like a hit or miss on the frets. It's like, you know, when they're right, they're. They're just. They're. They're fantastic. When, like, my sg, the frets are just perfect. I feel like they're a lot of meat on them. Everything feels good. But, you know, I'll pick up another SG just like it. And I feel like this. The frets are so low, I'm just rubbing the fretboard with my finger and I don't like it. So I don't know. Okay, sorry. Jay says Gibson needs to bring Epiphone back to the usa. Well, it would just be Gibson's, which is Gibson's, you know, marked with, you know, they would be Gibson's, marked with Epiphone, I would imagine. But who knows? Let's see, what else? All right. Oh, Darren, you know what? This is a personal question, but I'll go for it. Darren says, hey, Phil, how do you split your time between playing bass and guitar? And which one gives you more satisfaction? It's easy for me because guitar playing is not only just for me as a My. As a joy. It's my work. So I'm always doing it for work. So it's pretty much at this point, anytime I'm not working, I'm gonna be playing bass. So that's how. That's easy. So that's how I divide it up. Otherwise, I would normally like. Back in the day, I played mostly Bass and very little guitar. But now it's definitely flipped. I don't mind it. I like both instruments very much. But I, but yeah, work keeps the me playing guitar. For sure. For sure. Okay. And then we have Travis. Hey says, what are your thoughts on multi scale guitars? I just bought a Legator Ninja 6, the Poplar Blue resin. Oh, okay. I know they had issues with quality control in the past, but I heard he goes, I heard a lot better things recently. So I've never really played any legators that were bad. But I had heard like you that they had some issues in the past. But the ones I picked up were always kind of nice. I mean I don't have a whole lot of intimate experience with them always like at a NAMM show or an event or maybe a friend and pick up their guitar. Really cool thoughts on multi scale guitars. You know I have a couple and I like them. I just don't have a need for them. So I'd like to put it in the category of don't mind it. Any guitar that's multiscale, obviously the, the, the Kaizen behind me right there just, just in frame is, is a multi scale like it, I wouldn't prefer it. And the reason I say that is because when I've ordered keys, you know, they always have the option to do that. And I've never really said okay, I want that option. I, I, you know, Paul Smith was talking about baritone guitars once and he made this comment that he thinks a baritone guitar should not be a longer scale. And then I don't know what convinced me to try that. I was like oh yeah, it's interesting thought. So I took one of my PRS single cuts and I tuned it up like a baritone. Like the Tremonti baritones are actual 25 and a half inch scale. So I took a 25 and a half inch scale PRS and strung up baritone and I was like oh yeah, this sounds good. And so you know, so I again I like it but I don't necessarily seek it out. And then this is from Dr. My balls itch. The way he does phonetically is just I gotta get. Look I, I'm 12 year old humor is, is awesome. But this just the phonetics of the M A B A maba and then I Is that L my ball? So it's M A ma B A L bal ma ball and then zich Z I C H my ball. Zich is just. I know some of you, some people love and hate the, you know, the crude humor but that is just give them credit for that. That's a good one. All right. So it says any, any way to know how many of a guitar were made? I have an Epiphone Rivera Nick Valenci signature from the Strokes. Oh, okay. And he says they were only made for a few years. You know, sometimes you can call the manufacturer, although, you know, who the hell knows? They don't. You know, I don't know. I find that sometimes it's super confusing. Fender does not do sequential orders in their limited runs because they don't want people like scalping them. So that's like a policy that Fender does. And I think that that translates through all the brands right. Of fender. So like EVH and Jackson stuff. So if they do limited 1 out 100, they will not ship the serial numbers in an order that makes you go, oh, I have 00. So when somebody goes, oh, I have 000. I have the first one or 001. That doesn't. That could be number 28. They don't ship them, they don't make them and ship them in the order. And I've seen other companies do that too. You know, I used to believe that maybe companies kept records, but I've learned from the, from the years that most of them don't. In that case, you can try and contact Epiphone Gibson to see maybe they have something. But even Paul Reed Smith is double duplicated serial numbers on guitars. So you know, that's, that's a. Of all the things that could happen that happened to two YouTubers. Two totally. Two YouTubers who don't know each other bought. They didn't even get. This isn't even like they got shipped a guitar for like promotion. They both bought a prestigious PRS guitar and then found out actually a viewer figured it out. A viewer saw a video. That's what's great about the Internet, right? So what happens is, I'll just tell you. So you guys know it was Trogli and the Tone King. So they, they both had made videos of the same. Of same. Not the same guitar, not the physical same guitar. What happened was they did a video of the same model, you know? Right, the same model. And what happened was I guess Trogli sold because I guess Trogli flips all his guitars, right? So he sold the guitar off to somebody and then somebody who bought it saw, you know, this other YouTuber with that same serial number. Because again like a lot of YouTubers like me, that's the way I like to do things. A lot of YouTubers like me, I just show you the serial numbers in the videos one, because I always think it's kind of cool that maybe someday if somebody owns it, they'll go, hey, is that my guitar in that video? Like, I don't know. That's kind of cool. But also to show that there's no, you know, like, you know, a company sent me a weird, you know, off the, you know, off the, you know, secret guitar, like a special one, right? Because think of this. I say that because maybe it doesn't sound odd to you, but, you know, we already know rock stars do that, right? They have a signature guitar. And then you find out later that they're not playing that they're playing these custom shop one of a kinds that was made specifically for them. So I always want you guys to serial. Serial numbers in case a guitar company sends me something. I don't want you to think that they made something special like an SE PRS that was actually made in the USA or something like that. But it is. What happened in this position particular case was this person bought the guitar and then they were like, they sent the message to the YouTuber and go, hey, you have a guitar. It has my serial number. Like, what gives? And they didn't know. They were like, what? And so they reached out to actually me. That's how I got involved. And I said, oh, I have a contact. I had to contact the PRs. I go, here's how you should contact PRs. They. They didn't. So, you know, they didn't ask me, you know, like, hey, Phil, can you fix this? Or hey, Phil, you know, can you get this hookup? They. They just wanted to know if I had ever heard of this. Because before. And I told him, I go, not really, but I mean, it's so crazy out there. What happened. So what ended up. What happened was PRS accidentally duplicated the serial number. So that's. It's actually what. So I think the fix was one of them got re. Re. Serial numbered. And it was a limited run guitar, by the way. You guys are all going to come with some theories on that. I'm not here to disparage those theories or add to them. So, you know, so if you want to say like, oh, they weren't gonna make a hundred, but you know, there was a duplicate out there. You know, could it happen? I don't know. You know, I'm not into accusing anybody of anything. I don't know. Of all I know is it just happened, right? They did. So to answer Your question? I don't know, but I would reach out to them. But reason I tell you all that stuff is to know if you reach out to them and they act like no, they don't know. Don't think they're lying to you. They probably don't know because it's weird. You think these companies would have it more dialed in. But I would say in a modern world with a company like Gibson Epphone that's that big, with a modern inventory system, they should be able to tell you exactly how many were made and where and when. So I would reach out to them. Daniel says, we're button it up now, guys. So no more super chats. We're going to do Daniel. Daniel says, hey Phil, I'm about to start Luthery school in May at Gallup Guitars here in. Is it Michigan? Yeah. I also considered Roberto Vin. Okay. That's in Arizona, where I'm at. In your neighborhood. Oh yeah, yeah. Do you, do you, do you have any knowledge or opinions about either of these schools? I do not. I don't know the Gallup one at all. So I don't know Roberto Vin. I know a guy named Joe and he's a, he goes and helps there a lot. He's a really smart guy. So I've met a bunch of people at the Roberto Ven. One obviously over the years, Luther schools, you know, it's. I don't know much. You know, it's like it's, I don't know, no experience, actually trying to think like of any insight to give you other than, you know, I think you'll learn a lot. It's really nice. It's nice that they have courses like that now. The part of my, part of my thing is, you know, it's like it's a lot of money to go to these schools and the industry, it's just not a heavy paying industry. So it's a little tough. So just be smart about it. Right. You know, try to, try to learn as much as you can. And that's the, that's the main thing, is just trying to learn as much as you can. So when you go to those like really get your money's worth, learn everything you can because it's going to be expensive and you don't want to come out. You don't want to come out. And here's actually, this is my. What I mean by that. I want to be really finite when I say learn as much as you can, learn as much as you can, not as much as they can. Teach You. So I have met people over the years that have come out of these schools, and rightly so. Some of them are in this industry and they build guitars now. Right. You know, so Ballaguer, I believe, is a Roberto grad. I think, I think I. I think I remember that. But my point is, don't go. And if you, you know, don't go. And in other words, don't come out of that school and not learn every single thing you can from every single person. And don't let them decide what you learn and don't learn. Learn more than that. Because, you know, it's not only because of the cost of it, it's just because that's going to be the one opportunity to be around that many minds for that, you know, that are going to willing to share once you're outside of it. You have to understand, once you get outside of that learning environment, you're now going to be in a competitive job market, and not only a job market, but a competitive business market. So in other words, I think a lot of times, you know, as much as we like to all talk about this industry being very, you know, we like to share and we like to help each other, so it's generally true, but it's as true as not true, if that makes any sense. For every person or every two people that work together and is nice and polite to each other and shares information, there's two people who will not share. This industry has more stories of two people who hate each other's guts, who do the same thing than they are friends. And that's an absolute fact. So that's what I'm saying. Get in there, get all the information you can understand. You're in an environment where every single person can teach you something and learn something every minute you can. Because once you get out, it will probably start locking you down. And the worst thing that can happen, which happens a lot, is if you go to work for a lot of these bigger guitar companies, which is where a lot of these graduates go for at first, because it's where you can actually get a paycheck. You'll find that they will isolate you into an A section real quick. In other words, it's a factory job. You'll be just, you know, it's not like you're going to be a chef and you're going to go to a restaurant. You're going to learn to, you know, work underneath an amazing chef and learn all about the restaurant and the kitchen. You're going to flip burgers all day. And literally no one's going to teach you anything else. Right? So that's why I said, take that opportunity to learn as much as you can in there. And I think that's. That's my advice to that grumpy. My guitar says, hey, for the tone jar, and why not? See, I read it. He says, I've forgotten how much I love Morley was. Oh, yeah, the Morley Waviddle. Thanks for reminding me. Just picked up one from Sweetwater using your link. Thank you. I appreciate that. What's funny about that is didn't. I didn't think about the fact I should have mentioned that there's other versions of that wall. Some people are like, well, you can't do the cocked wall thing. You can on another version. Just. I don't use that version. And that's okay. I learned, too. And what I learned from that video is I'm going to adjust the next five of my favorite pedal videos to talk about that, you know, maybe a little bit outside of my realm of what I like. That video was really cool because, as you guys know, I came with this idea a year or so ago. Like, hey, I'll do my top 10 favorite petals of all time. So here's. Since we're at the show, you guys, somebody might find this funny. It's not funny, but it maybe is. I don't have 10 favorite petals. I just pulled the number 10 because. Out of my ass, like, oh, 10. Here's my 10 favorite petals. And the criteria being in my head, like, 10 petals that I absolutely love and use all the time. Time. First of all, I walked in the first wall. Somebody's like, a lot of you guys were on the show going, hey, why aren't you finished that video series? I'm like, well, it's because most the pedals I picked, they don't make. I didn't think about that at all when I started the series, right? So, like I said, the first one was the Supro one, where I was like, yeah, they don't make this version of the Supro pedal anymore. So I had to reach out to Supro, and I go, can you send me this pedal? And then when I get to the Morley, I'm like, they don't make the Maverick anymore. I'm like, not this version. I'm like. So I. I reach out to Sweet Bar, I go, can you send me a Morley pedal? And I know some of you guys are gonna go, you know, for the record, for the record, when I say, have them send me a pedal, you Gotta understand, I. I need the pedal that you guys can buy because I don't wanna. I don't wanna. I don't have the power of Josh Scott by any means, but I don't need to make Morley pedals. $300 for two months. Like, that's not what my agenda was, you know, so I'm trying to find the version that everybody can get. And. And then I have to put the time in it. So you have to understand, I don't want to willy nilly go, oh, yeah, this is as good as the thing I already like. I have to actually put time into it and go, okay, yeah, it is. It's cool. And the new. Morally, I like it so much better. Just the form factor alone made it already better. So that was kind of cool. But, yeah, so I will be doing the other five. I have three more. I just don't have the last two because I didn't have 10. I just thought, oh, I gotta have 10. So I said my 10 favorite pedals of all time. And then I'm like, the way I'm doing this series is thinking in my head, like, I want to look back and be able to like, yeah, I still love that pedal, you know, years and years and years from now. So I'm like, so I'm so. Yeah, I'm glad you liked it. I'm glad you got a Morley. I really like the Morley stuff. I like Crybaby. I like. I like everything, but I just use the Morley. And I think that was the point of the series. It's like the enhancifier petal. There's a. There's a better pedal out there. There's a cheaper pedal out there. But for some reason, I'm drawn to this pedal. Right, The Morley pedal. A lot of people, you know, had some critiques, like, like I said, oh, it doesn't do the Cocked Wall. Oh, I like this one much better. That's great. It's not that the Morley is the best pedal in the world. It's just that's the pedal I keep using. I don't know why I keep going back to it. I just go back to it every single time. And so it's like when I did the M5, which is now the one, because that's what happened. They don't make the M5 anymore. In fact, little. And this will end this on a little fun behind the scenes. Fun fact, the video number four, which was the M5. And then instead I showed you guys the HX1. I made the Video. I screwed up. I made the video of the M5 and it kind of worked out. My screw up worked out perfect. I made the video in five and then I waited. I sat on it for a month or two, which worked out great because I went to go to release it and I go to look and they discontinued it. So if I would release it in. In real time, in the time I did it, it would have been discontinued. So I was able to use the HX1. So I will try to pump out the rest. My goal is before July. All five will be done before July. That's my goal. So we'll see. Although I still have to figure out the last two. So it might just be eight and then I'll have to see what happens for last two. I don't know. We'll see. Mike Adams says Morley makes good stuff. I love the tripler. It's a great pedal as I agree. And I use the. For multiple amps. It's called the ABC Pro now. Yeah, good stuff. I mean they've. They've always done really good stuff. The. It's late in the show, so in with a story because it's crazy story. I was told this story. This is rumor time. Okay, so this is a morally rumor time story. But it's. I'm not going to tell you who. Just say it rhymes with Smorley. Just kidding. So it's a. Here's a morally story. So I was told in this industry, sometimes you're having industry talk. And this was the talk I was having. I'm a huge Morley fan. And what happened was I had mentioned to someone at Morley. I don't know if they're there anymore, but I mentioned something at Morley years ago. I said, hey, I said, I really like Morley pedals. You know, I've been, you know, obviously you guys saw. By the way, I should point out, I said in that video that I've had that morally since 2011. It came out in 2010. I actually had it since 2010. I finally figured it out, but I just wanted to be safe. But before the Maverick, which I had from 2011, I played the bad horsey for like 10 years. So I've had a Morley now for. For like 25 years. Something like that. Right. So. So keep in mind that's a long time to be playing that. That pedal. Okay? So Morley fan. We've established that I'm a Morley fan. So what happens is I made the comment about Morley's to the somebody at Morley about the fact I really love Their pedals. And it's really cool. And I said. And I said. And I interviewed Steve. I, as you guys may know, on the channel. And when I was interviewing Step I, he had the. He had the morally volume, but he did not have a morally wah. Pedal. That did not get in the interview. It was not filmed. It was something earlier in the. In the communication. He was using at that time a crybaby, which I thought was weird. I did ask the vi why he was using a crybaby. He says he switches him out from time to time from the Morley. The crybaby. I said, oh, okay, that's cool. I mentioned the Morley guy. I said, hey, yeah, I interviewed Steve. I. And he was using the crybaby and not the Morley. I'm a huge Morley fan. And he goes, yeah, sometimes Steve, I uses the crybaby, sometimes the Morley. I said, oh, yeah, yeah. I said, that's what he said. And he goes, yeah. And I go, oh, I didn't know that. I thought he always used the morally. Because Steve Vai is really kind of like a guy who uses the one thing, like the vibe, the gym and stuff, right? And he said, yeah. And he goes, well, he. He put us on the map. You know, he made morally what it is today. I'm like, oh, that's really cool. And I said, yeah, it's crazy. I go, I can't believe you guys got him. And he goes, well, when we. We came to Steve, I. He's like. We went to him and we're like, what does. You know, what does it take to be, you know, to get you to be a Morley artist? And he said, Steve's like, well, I. I guess. I guess Steve, I had been talking to Dunlop, and Dunlop's like, we'll pay you to, like, not play morally, right? This is the story. Okay? Again, this could all be just not. You know, the industry does like to tell stories, but this is a story I did hear. So I'm just sharing this rumor. Maybe one day it'll get confirmed or not. Anyways, so any. If anyone knows this story, like, if there's any kind of, like, actual video of this conversation or anything like this, share it to me. So the story goes. He says, Steve Ice tells him that Dunlop basically told him that they'll pay him, like, 30 grand to not play Morley just to play Dunlop, you know, or not play Dunlop, just not play Morley. So I guess Morley was like, what's it going to take to play Morley? And Steve, I was like, pay off my house. And so they said, this is what somebody told me at Morley. They go, so we paid off Steve I's house. This is like in, you know, obviously the 80s, 90s, right? So he goes, yeah, we paid off his house. And he goes. And he's been like, it's been the biggest thing we've ever done since. And I'm like, I. So I don't know if that's. But I always think about that when I think of Morley. I always think of that story. So anyone hear anything? Anyone can put in the comments, anything that kind of validates that. I've never heard that story since. I've never heard another version from anyone else, but it seemed like a credible source at the time as someone who worked at Morley. So who knows? Maybe it's just a story they tell you, you know? Okay, on that note, thank you guys for your time. Till the next time, Know your Gear. Today's episode of the Know your Gear podcast is brought to you by Patreon. Thank you for making this.