The guitar Secret You Can’t Unsee

The Know Your Gear podcast. Hey everyone, welcome to the Know Your Gear podcast episode 443. I feel like that just a little bit. There you go. Episode 443, what's the date today? February 20th of 2026. I hope you guys had a fantastic week and is ready for a show. Mike says, hey Phil, great video on the PIRAS Hullabody 2 SE. So that's the new, made in Indonesia Hullabody 2 that I did a deep dive on. He says, am I currently gig with one of the ones that was discontinued? And I pair it with an acoustic IR. That's pretty convincing. I actually prefer it to the Fishman system in the JP-15. I use the piezo and the, oh, I use that piezo, the entire three hour gigs. That's over the entire three hours of the gig that they do. He says, you made a point in the review that there is no middle ground between the SE and the $6,000 core. Yes, there's, in the PIRAS realm, there is nothing in between the full Hullabody Carvetop SE. Keep in mind, Mike, what you have is a great guitar. I've reviewed that one as well, but that is not like the core. So when I say there is no middle ground between the original PIRAS SE Hullabodies in the core, they're not even like the core. The cores are Carvetop and Bax. They're made totally differently in the way they're constructed. It's a much more expensive process. So the new SEs that are made in Indonesia, the ones that are $300 more, are now made more like the core ones are. And yes, there's nothing in between that model and the core. So yes, $6,000 core or the $1,900 SE of your two. If you want a full hollow carved back and top Hullabody PIRAS guitar from PIRAS, right? Like there's other carved, you know, top back and top guitars from other companies, but with PIRAS. He says, is it odd that PIRAS has no S2 or CE guitar with a piezo system? They do have a both, I think they have piezo systems. I don't know if the CE has one, but I think there's an S2 with the piezo system, I believe. But the piezo system, they have it in, I thought in core, definitely SE and I thought there's an S2 that has it. The main thing with this is that the main reason there isn't like somebody said they should make an S2 hollow body, they're never going to do that. They, the reason I say they never will do that is I don't foresee them keeping the hollow bodies in production. What I mean in production, I mean in any kind of scale for a long period of time. I think they'll probably continue to decrease the amount they make. I don't currently know how many they make a year. You got to understand the way PIRAS works is a dealer orders a guitar and then they're just in time manufacturing, which means they don't build anything in theory unless a dealer orders it. There's exceptions that because we talked about that when they're slow, they might want to keep the workers busy with doing some projects, some guitars. But ideally they don't build anything that's not ordered so it won't be paid for it. So they're not building anything that they won't have sold. The hollow bodies, carve top and backs are extremely expensive and extremely time consuming. It's all the things that are bad. It's a small market of players, an extremely expensive guitar and it's extremely hard to make. It's a triangle of crap when it comes to the scenario you want in business, right? You don't have a big customer base, it costs a lot to make it, which means it costs a lot for the customers and it's not easy to make, which is why it costs a lot but that's another factor, right? I think the drive to do the SE is to basically open up that market to players that want the hollow bodies but just the cores are becoming unattainable. The cores, whether you realize or not, have been decreasing in the varieties. I have a single cut core, hollow body too. They don't make that anymore. They used to make a hollow body core, not a hollow body too. We just had the maple top. To me, that was great because one of the problems with the maple top and back is it's very expensive to get two pieces of maple but it's even more expensive when they do a 10 top because they have to do a dual 10 top on that guitar. I have a hollow body too, PRS core and it is a 10 top, which means it has a 10 back. It's twice the expense. If you guys don't know, if you order a PRS core guitar and you add a 10 top to the cost, it goes up like $600. On a hollow body too core PRS, it goes up $1200 because you have to buy two 10 tops. They want one for each. Even though you're buying a 10 bottom, you still got to pay two for 10 tops. That's why I don't believe they'll ever do a version of that as an S2. One of those things, never say never, they can do it and I'll be wrong but I just don't see it happening. I think this is definitely the way that they figured out to get the hollow body carve top and back to you as an SE and think about this, it's $1900. So when I did that video, a bunch of people said, well, for $1900, I can buy an S2. You can but remember this is if you want a hollow body slash carve top and back. No one really asked why they do it that way. The main reason you do a carve top and back versus a bent top is it resonates more acoustically. It's louder. It vibrates more and that's mainly it. I mean, that's the only reason I know of why you would want that. Like I have both bent tops and carve tops and the carve tops are, oh, they're lighter too. I should point that out. So they're going to be lighter and they're going to be more resonant and louder acoustically. So some players want that. I play my hollow body PRS a lot acoustically. We're not plugged into anything. So because I'll just like an acoustic guitar. It's just not very loud. It's not as loud as an acoustic. Just so. All right. I hope I got that. Was there another part to that? I kind of feel like there was another part to that. Says as an exact same. Okay. So I'm in the exact same market for a 2000 to $3,500 American May guitar with a piezo system, LOL. They do have a solid body or semi hollow piezo system guitar. Kiesel was doing piezo system of their guitar. I believe they've stopped. So again, small market, expensive components, a skill set that you have to have the employee train to do. They are more prone to damage and breaking just as they work. Piezo systems have a lot of delicate parts in them. So I mean, they don't take abuse as well. As you guys know, if you've ever owned an acoustic guitar, you know, a lot of those transducer pickups don't make it. The electronics go faulty. You know, you're talking about something like a perfect example is one of the reasons Parker guitars was successful and at first was when they started doing the piezo system of their guitars, they were, their saddles were known to at first corrode from people sweat getting in them and then acting up. And then they kind of made a way that that wouldn't happen anymore. They sealed them. But that's like said, just the sheer destruction of just the body sweat and the stuff that's coming off of us is really bad for those systems. So, but there's a ton of affordable piezo system guitars on the market. Shector still makes one, I believe. Let's take a look. Shector, let's take a look. Yeah. Okay. Let's take a look. So, Shector is currently still making two and these are in the 999 and 1499. I didn't even know about this one. I'm not sure what's different about it. Just it's satin vintage, but this is the one. This one, if you look used, if I'm guessing, I'm saying they're probably out there for $600 to $500. Look, this was 12. It's been marked down for it. And I believe this is made in Korea. Yep. This is from South Korea, which means this will come from the world manufacturer. This is probably one of the best deals on the market for a piezo system guitar. And they're not heavy. Look, this one's six pounds, 14 ounces, seven pounds. These are pretty cool guitars. They come in one color, brown. What do they call this color? Cat's eye. But of course they vintage, vintage, palim for 1500. That must be because it's a new model. I wonder if that's on clearance. That one's on clearance because this one's replacing it. And that would explain why it's not going to come until March. So it's very possible. I would highly recommend this guitar to a lot of you guys. I owned one of these a long time ago and I thought it was great. Don't know why I got rid of it. I think I switched to a Godin and because Godin has some features like that. I think the way it kind of worked for me is I had that one first. I know for a fact I had that one first. And then I went to like a Godin and I probably went to the A6, which is like more of a hybrid acoustic with a guitar pickup in it. And then from then I went to them from that I went to the Multiac. And then from that I went to a Taylor T5. And I kind of decided that in my mind, the Taylor T5 does acoustic amazing and electric okay. The Godin A6 does electric great and the acoustic okay. And the same thing with the Shector does electric great and acoustic okay. And I can say that about a lot of these guitars. And so I was looking for that perfect mix of the thing. And what I play now is I play the Zeus Kiesel acoustic. That's what I currently have now. If you want, maybe we'll do that for next week for Guitar of the Week if you guys are curious. Guitar is a very, very cool guitar, very different guitar. And I've been using it and beating it up. I have dents all over it. It's like I've been destroying it, traveling with it. So that's a really cool one. But again, very expensive for what it is, you know, as just a basic, that one's just acoustic. It doesn't do, it doesn't do electric at all. Producer man says, how about I use Korean Parker? I'm sure there's some Korean Parkers that have the piezo system. I've never owned one. I've only owned the Korean Parkers that were not piezo. The reason is, is I used to repair a lot of Parker piezo systems. And I'm very sketchy on having Parkers in my personal collection that are not 100% pristine, perfect works of art. You know, Parkers are like, I don't know. I don't have an example that I feel is fair. Like I could call them the DeLorean of guitars, but I don't think that's very fair to say. What I'm basically trying to say is Parker guitars, now the Korean ones are generally fine. So, but I'm talking about the USA ones, they are either built perfectly and never have an issue or they're prone to have tons of issues because there's so many components. There's so much going on. There's so many things go bad. So I try not to have, like I said, I try not to willy-dilly and just buy any Parker off the off the road off the street. So and with the Korean ones, I'm pretty sure they got to have like the, maybe the P38 has a piezo system. I don't know. But but but I currently have one Parker my collection, which is usually what I always have. How about one Parker? I keep one because like I said, they, they are, they're great instruments. As you know, I have a huge passion for them, but I'm not looking for problems. Let's see. Brian says, Hey Phil, could you visit all the Parker variations in which ones to stay away from? Well, right now, the way you would do it now is you would make sure again that you're buying a guitar Parker that is in perfect condition unless you're going to do work on it. Unless you're, you're prepared to do work on them because like I said, there's a lot of stuff going on. It's, it's how it is with every guitar with a piezo system. You're essentially adding electronics, like from an acoustic and electric guitars. You have all the problems you have with electric guitar, which isn't a whole lot, but you have them. And then all the problems you get with electronics from acoustic guitars, which is, so you're just doubling up the problems. Does that make sense? It's not a bad thing. You just need to be prepared for it. So I mean, that's just, and also, also as much as I love Parkers, like in Mike's comment, if you notice, he was saying that the hollow body PRS hollow body, SE acoustic sounded better than his Petrucci guitar. I would say in my opinion, so, you know, take, take it and, you know, get upset or whatever. I have, I have a, I have a Magdia and a JP music man. I'd say some of the best acoustic sounding piezo electric guitars on the market. I would, by far, I feel tons better than Parker, tons better than that Shecter, tons better than most all of them. Just they sound really good. Just in my experiences for my ears for what I like. And I own, and currently I own all those other ones too. So I'm not like saying, oh yeah, I got rid of them. They're not great. I'm just saying, like, if you made me go, okay, Phil, rate all your piezo guitars, because I have quite a few, which one's the best? By far the best one is the PRS SE hollow body. That's my hands down favorite piezo sounding guitar. Now I have the new carve top one now, but that's just because, you know, I liked the idea that was carve top and I was excited about it and I was at the factory, but the hollow body one was fantastic. After that piezo hollow body, and I really don't care if you have the, the, the old bent top style or the new carve top, to me, it's not so much a sound difference. They sound almost identical. It's just like I said, it's just more like the core. Then I would say after that, my next favorite sounding piezo sounding electric guitar would be the JP 15 or the MagT, either one, they're both the same. Then after that, I would say, uh, the, which is not fair as the Kiesel because it's just a piezo and it doesn't have a electric guitar magnetic pickups in it, but I would say that's next. Then after that, I would say, uh, probably my core PRS guitars after the core PRS guitars, uh, probably the Taylor T five, cause I still have a T five somewhere around here. And then, and then, uh, and then I'm looking just to see, cause I know I'm missing another one, but I'm trying to do off memory. And then I would say last would be my Parker, uh, for sound wise, the Parker sound the thinnest. And so you know how I rate that, how I'm rating that is, how much I have to beef up the sound when recording it. Um, so I would say the, the Kiesel and the hollow body of those two, even though I said I do think the Manchese are actually in the JP is better than the Kiesel. I would say the Kiesel, uh, Zeus that I have and the hollow body PRS SE, the import one, I can almost plug those straight into just a mixing console and record straight acoustic and no one could tell. Like I just feel like it's rough. It's just, I can EQ it out and just make it sound great. So that's really, and when I'm playing acoustic, uh, recording, that's what I'm after. I'm after a fast plug and play. So yeah, uh, Brontis says my majesty has a great piezo pickup. I think literally I would, until, until the PRS SE came out, hollow body. And again, I'm not taught. I've done the PRS custom 24 and I've done a bunch of other PRS's that have piezos. They're all great. I don't know what, well, actually I know, because if you watch the podcast on the second channel, you know, I sat with, uh, with, uh, um, uh, LR bags and, um, and, uh, and the guys at PRS, and we talked about what they did, uh, to basically make the PRS SE's a better. And as funny as they actually took some features away, there's a, another bonus podcast I did that's, uh, we'll be out soon. And it's us talking again about the new, uh, systems and how basically they're less expensive than the core systems, but they sound better, at least in my opinion, and they kind of agreed with me. So, um, so yeah, but piezo systems, um, you know, it's up to you guys. I just, the only thing I can tell you right now is that no matter which one you get, if you get yourself a really good acoustic amplifier or acoustic preamp, it's going to be night and day. So even if you go, Oh, well Phil says this one, this one, he likes better and I don't have that one, or I'm looking at this one. Keep in mind, I'm talking about just straight plug and play acoustic sounds. Um, all of them could sound equally as good with a good preamp or a good acoustic amp. So that's just my, my thoughts on that. Um, okay, let's go to the next question. This one is ATX guitar dude says question, what do you think will happen to the value of USA G and L guitars in the future? By low sale. Hi. Uh, I don't know. Let's get to the rest of the question. He says, I have a studio. It's like a, it's like a raid commercial Roche motel. The guitars come in, but they never leave. Okay. So now it's, I get it. You don't get rid of stuff. That's cool. Uh, he says, so the future value will be left to my son as an issue. Yeah. You'll have to deal with it. Uh, still can you still, can you think of similar business that failed and what happened to the value of their guitars? Uh, I guess that is, I get, my guess is the future value will drop significantly. And yet, uh, I purchased another G and L today. What a fool. He's basically saying he's a fool. He's not talking about me. Maybe he's me. I'm just kidding. He says, what can I say? I love them. So, uh, so now since they are, I love them and I love them. I, he's basically loves them more than now that they're gone. He appreciates them more. I should say. Okay. Couple of things. So let me address this in like a couple of parts here. So if G and L is all speculation, everybody's going to speculate like what happens to G and L? In fact, I saw a couple of people, uh, and even a friend of mine saying, Hey, G and L, you know, their prices have dropped. This is what always happened with all the other brands too. When, uh, look at a new, no Ben courts left Washburn and he started the new Nuno line. If you go and look the Washburn, Nuno guitars, there was a guy I was looking at buying another Washburn in four, cause I'm an idiot. And luckily I'm not that much of an idiot because I found one and I liked it, but the guy had the price a little high and I said, Hey, you know, you want to, you want to make a deal? You know, cut a couple hundred bucks off and he was like, no, and he basically said, no, no, they don't make them anymore. And I'm like, he's right. But what he doesn't understand is that's the five year play, not the five month play. So he's, he shouldn't be listening to for sale now. If he wants to sell it, he needs to sit on it. No one's going to pay more. What happens is in the past, we're just going off other brands and there's a lot of brands. There's Hamer guitars. There's, uh, you know, uh, well, I said Parker, uh, Washburn now for electric guitars, at least. There's a lot of brands we can look at and go, what happened? And what happens is the same story. So will G and L, G and L follow that fate? I don't know, but isn't the history something we should look at. They all did the same thing. They dropped in value as the drive and the demand went down. In other words, they weren't marketing anymore. You saw, that's the first thing you have to understand. No one's talking about G and L in a, Hey, look at my new G and L. You should buy one too. That's the FOMO thing. It's people juiced up and going, right? Same thing happened in the past. There was no more guitar world ads. You know, you open guitar world, but you weren't seeing those guitar brands. So when a brand disappears first, the first thing you're going to see is a huge decline in sales or in the prices because the demand drops off immediately because there's no big push. That's what happened in the past. What then happens though, is like I've said before, the demand, the demand curve only drops so far. It doesn't go to absolute zero. Look at all the guitars that, that are collecting now that make no sense. Silver tone guitars. I'm not making fun of anyone with silver tone guitars. I obviously did a deep dive of one and I was really cool, but I just need you guys. No, it is crazy that they have any value whatsoever. They're essentially junky guitars that people got as a booby prize when they started playing guitar. I'm saying that so you know, from all of my friends' stories, every friend has a story. Jack Higgumbotham from PRS first guitar was a silver tone because his mom worked at Sears and because she worked at Sears, she got an employee discount and he got it on Layaway. And if it wasn't for the employee discount on Layaway, he wouldn't have got a guitar. So he's very appreciative, but it wasn't the guitar he wanted. He probably would have done, you know, anything for a Fender or a Gibson or, you know, what his heroes were playing. The point is, is that everything eventually doesn't go to absolute zero. Okay. There's just a demand and it's low, but what happens is as the inventory disappears, as people collected them or hold them, or they just break down and get destroyed, people take them apart, especially when people don't have a lot of value of something. They just start destroying it. We saw that with eighties guitars after grunge, right? Everybody started sanding down. You know, I have a universe of swirl and there was only 1800 made. No, I'm sorry. There was only 1300 made, but no one knows exactly, but there's theories out there. There's a couple hundred, if not a few hundred that were destroyed. What I mean by destroyed, I mean, sanded down, painted black, you know, the one wanted a pink and green swirl guitar. So the point is, I don't believe the demand goes to zero. So if the demand doesn't go to zero at some point, the inventory that exists goes below the demand and then the prices have to go up because the demand now is higher. You see how it works. So I think G and L, what do I think of a G and L? Look, we're not playing the stock market here. I'm not giving stock advice. I'm not telling you to go out right now on reverb and buy a G and L and put it away for 10 years, you'll make money. That's the last thing I'm saying. I'm talking to anyone who's interested to hear what ATX guitar do is asking me, which is he's saying he loves G and L. He has no plan of getting rid of them. He's just curious, what do I think is going to happen to value? The value ultimately does go up. That's how it works. They eventually just go up. Now, what does up mean? I, no one knows. That's why I said, you know, I don't play the stock market guitar speculation game. Right. That's just not my thing. But we've seen it before. Parkers now are worth a fortune compared to what they were five, 10 years ago. Hamers are worth a fortune compared to what they were five, 10 years ago. Just think about when even a brand doesn't go away, just when it gets replaced out, like think about how original Kramer's got replaced by it because they got bought by Gibson or, you know, Jackson guitars get bought by Fender now. Right. And so old Jackson's, I mean, and so there's all kinds of markets for guitars, as you know, there's all kinds of forums. So that's what I think happens in a G and L my suggestion. If I was giving advice on this is if you want a G and L and you love G and L's and you should buy one now before later, but if you're buying one now, because you think you're going to make money on it, that's on you. I don't think anything about that. In fact, let's go back to another thing you said, you know, it's funny is good ATX guitar dude. You said, uh, it says, uh, you said, guitars come in. They never leave. So the future value will be left up to his son. Perfect example. You know, I've said this before, if you guys don't know this, uh, when I die, uh, which hopefully it won't be anytime soon, when I die, uh, my family's instructed exactly what to do with my guitars. They know exactly what to do. You can ask any of them right now. This is what they tell you. They say, what are you supposed to do with your dad's guitars when he dies? They said, pick out any, this is what they'll tell you. Cause that's what I've told them a thousand times. Pick out any ones that they just want to keep. If they want to keep any, take everything to guitar center, whatever guitar center gives you, take that check and go. Um, everyone's going to have a different opinion about that. Okay. Some people are going to be like, no, they're going to rob your kids. I don't care. I told my kids not to care. Um, I'll just tell you guys, so you know, both my parents have passed. I had different relationships with each of course. I love my mother and my father and I were a different story. Either way, what I can tell you is after someone passes away, if you have to have to clear out their stuff, it is a very horrible experience on both ends of it. What I mean by that is having a amazing relationship with my mother was horrifyingly horrible situation. Having a horrible relation. My father was also a differently, but equal horrifying situation. Um, and both cases, I can tell you that getting rid of their stuff slash giving some away slash selling it was a horrible experience that I would rather not wish on anyone. So just, and cause I collect and I have so much stuff, it could take, and I'm not telling you guys from a guess, I'm telling you from experience. When I closed my store, we did not liquidate because we didn't go out of business. We just said, I'd sit, you know, uh, you guys, you guys know, my wife said, I think you should stop coming to the store. Just do the YouTube stuff. The edge, this, this is getting, you know, this is too much work for you. And so then eventually, uh, her and Ralph decided they don't want to do the store anyways. So we liquidated the store out later. It took over two years. And that was working to liquidate the store from that experience. What I can tell you is, is that a lot of you guys, and I mean a lot of you, there's 13 out of a year and I'm 10, 13 out of a year. I would say not all of you, not even half you, but a lot of you are sitting on collections that could take your children and your, and your wife or your husband. Two, three, four years to sell to actually get the real value out of the stuff. And that's, if they, if you want to do that, it's good for you. I'm just giving you what I'm telling you and not, I'm just, I don't even know why I'm telling you this, other than it's just, I feel like I should tell you, cause that's just the truth of it. So, um, so back to the GNLs and stuff, none of this stuff, am I collecting to go, Oh man, this will be a huge value one day because what I figure is I'll probably keep it one day I'll die and then they'll take it to guitar center. And, uh, I even told them, I even gave them some stipulations because so you know, guitar centers won't take everything sometimes. Um, with this collection, the way it size it is, I actually instructed them, you can reach out to a guitar center manager at one of the stores and ask them to drive to the house with a truck. They'll come with a little truck and, and, and, uh, pick out whatever they want and then whatever they don't want, take it to, take the other stuff to another guitar center and get, like I said, just dump it. And they can also choose to keep it and sell it slowly, see what they can get for it. But I'm not putting that on them. Uh, this is what, for me personally. So, well, I feel like that was a bummer of a thing. Let's go, let's go. Let's, let's, uh, let's, uh, let's talk about something else. Uh, uh, let's see the real Phil McNugget. Uh, so, okay. He says, uh, do you think acoustic players have a higher tolerance for expensive guitars than electric guitars in bluegrass Martin D 18, D 28? They are gold standard and I see less people saying they're overpriced. Um, well, they have no, they have, there is a debate. Uh, so, uh, so you're trying to think how to put phrases in the acoustic world. The debates are the same. They are slightly different. Just actually, if I was, if you're looking for an, an analogy or scenario that is much different, it would be the bass player market. The bass player market is cause they buy a lot less bases than guitar players. I mean, you know, even bass players that have 10 bases on average, they're going to have way less bases than people have guitars, but they tend to spend more per capita on bases. You don't see a whole lot of bass players with like 30, $300 bases. You'll see more like they have eight and they're $1,000 bases or they have six, $7,000 basis, right? It's a, it's just how it works. The bass players just tend to spend more money on average. And that's, uh, that's not just my guess. That's an industry stat, a stat. So just, you know, um, acoustics, acoustics are different because even though they have the same thing that we have, which is they have overseas guitars that are very good for the price, you really can't get around the design of a good acoustic. In other words, like an electric guitar, you can buy an electric guitar, uh, that shape like a, you know, a starfish and go, yeah, this is cool. Look, and I look good on stage on this. And you don't really argue whether or not how well it sounds compared to a strat. In other words, some of like your guitars are just literally stage props. So because of that, that's a different on only guitar. Acoustic players don't usually play acoustic that sounds horrible because it looks cool. It is, it is happened, but it doesn't happen very often. So what I'm basically getting at is the construction of acoustic is very defined. In other words, a Martin sounds very good. It sounds very good because of the way it's made and the materials it's made of. And yeah, you can make an import version of that. And there is tons of like recording King is a brand. So, so you understand, um, to your argument, I bet you without even trying, we could find a diehard Martin acoustic fan that collects high end Martins like a D 45 or D 28 or even a D 18, you know, it just has a bunch of those. And even they will go, yeah, I play the recording Kings. They're very close or they're, you know, they'll say they're not as good or maybe they'll say, no, they're really good, but they like having their Martins. But there is that. But the important part is it is in the construction. So a recording King is a good acoustic because it's constructed in a similar way, similar materials to a Martin. It's just not look doesn't look aesthetically that way. I would argue like fireflies are great for the price, but they aesthetically look the, the, they aesthetically look like what they are more than they physically are it. In other words, when you break down what materials are made of. So acoustic players are like us, but they can't get around the hard part. And the hard part is this, um, you can get a squire strat, put it on stage. And I think you could remember your job is to convince the audience that there's something good happening. Right. That's, that's why when I, I don't like the argument that the, the audience can't tell the sound. I'm like, well, it's the artist's job to convince the, the, the audience that they're hearing something good. Right. Um, it's the same way as like I said, I like the chef analogy. It's the same reason a chef is supposed to present food to you that tastes good. And then, you know, and if you go, well, he doesn't have fresh tomatoes today, cause maybe the tomato truck, I don't know if there's a tomato truck, but in my world, there's a truck and it's, it's got tomatoes and it just shows up at restaurants anyways, he doesn't have fresh tomatoes or she doesn't have fresh tomatoes, so they get canned tomatoes. Their job is going to go up. Uh, well, I'm sure some of them do go throw a fit saying, I don't have real tomatoes, so I can't make food today for people. Their job is to figure out how to make the stewed tomatoes or the canned tomatoes taste as good as the fresh tomatoes. Musicians job the same way. Let's say your guitar got stolen on the way to your gig and somebody's like, I got a squire, you can borrow. Your job is not only to, to play that, but it's to make the audience think it sounds good, manipulate it everywhere you can. Do you adjust the tone knob? Do you put more distortion on your guitar to hide some of the thick? Do you EQ it a little bit? Do you, you know, right? Do you, whatever, right? Do you, you know, you just get through the gig and you make it sound good. Um, and my point to that is it's a little harder to pull that off on an acoustic guitar. So I would argue that if you gave a difficulty test to a musician, I think telling them, Hey, instead of playing your $4,000 custom shop strap, play the squire, can you pull it off? Yeah. I think they can pull it off in most cases, but if you took a really nice acoustic that you are miking up and said, Hey, here's a $99 student grade acoustic. Can you pull it off? Sure you can, but again, it's going to be a little trickier for them to pull out the nuances of that guitar. Um, so, uh, my knees hurt. Hey, 83 93 says, Phil, do you eat ketchup? I do eat ketchup. So I know we talk about sauces. Um, I do eat ketchup. Uh, I do. However, um, I just don't know what it's called. I eat a, uh, I don't want to say a special ketchup. I just eat, um, what does she buy? She buys some, I don't know, expensive ketchup. It's probably organic. I don't know. It low sugar. That's right. It's low sugar. Like it has real sugar, no corn syrup, but there's less sugar and it's organic. I don't know if that's actually true. I just know that the ketchup costs that she buys, uh, costs more. So I do eat that. I'm just my thing. I don't really, but I don't care if I was at a restaurant and they had like those little packets of hunts or whatever, Heinz. I'd probably use that, but I don't need a whole lot of ketchup. Ketchup to me is like, uh, with tater tots. Like if we air fry tater tots, we're doing ketchup for sure. Um, but just so I can lose some subscribers real quick, I prefer mustard. And when I say that, I mean literally what I'm saying, I would put mustard on anything that you would probably put ketchup on and be, I'd be totally happy with that. So I'm not, I'm not exaggerating at all. I have no problem. Uh, and, um, and the ketchup to me is also same thing. I don't put it on a hot dog or hamburger or any of that stuff at all. It only goes on tats. Um, uh, the, um, everything else, eggs, uh, everything. Else that you can think of or whatever else you think you might put ketchup on. Uh, I use Chalua. Okay. So you guys are saying Mayo on tots. I know don't do Mayo on tots. Okay. Um, yes. Tell your driver says Chalua. Yes. Chalua, Southwest ketchup. What we use here, everybody uses Chalua. So, okay. Um, you guys love to get into these, uh, these, these areas of the fun. Let's, um, let's do this. Let me grab that. Let's see what a man has grabbed for us. Uh, this is from Brian who says, Hey, Phil, I have quite a few guitars and you have, and you have 10 times more than I do. Okay. So if I have 10 times more, you have two. Okay. So you have two guitars or let's go on. Uh, have you ever ran across a guitar that you forgot you had? No. Uh, cause I can count it 20. Uh, but, uh, I have forgot. I think once I forgot, I had a pedal I had, uh, but, uh, no, no way. I forget what guitar I have. Um, there is the only exceptions to that. Uh, no, the only exception we've had is sometimes I forget, um, and not often and not, and not many times, right? Um, I forget what all guitars are here for video content, like, especially after the content is over. Sometimes I think, Oh, we, we, we, we got rid of that guitar. We sent it back or we sold it and it's still here. And so sometimes I'm like, Oh, I thought I got rid of that. Um, that's probably more like it, but no, I wouldn't forget. Um, cause here's why all my guitars, I mean, you know, they're first of all, um, my personal guitars, although I mix a few in here on the wall, as you see, um, there's a few here in the mix, but mostly they're in these racks right here. So I just know where my guitars are. That makes it easy. Let's go back to, there's more to the question, I'm sure. Um, says, have you ever run across guitar that you forgot you had and then fallen in love with again? Uh, no, no, um, I have, I have, uh, had guitars and amps more so amps than guitars. Absolutely amps, some guitars, but a lot of amps that were slotted to go away. Like I'm getting rid of it. I'm just not using it. It's, you know, I'm just done with it. It's not exciting anymore. And then I do the last dance, uh, with the, uh, the amp or the guitar. I think a lot of you guys didn't know what this means. Like, you know, it's like, oh, I'm taking it down to sell it or I'm going to, I'm listed it on reverb and you pick it up and you play it either to play the amp or you play the guitar. And it's like I said, it's like a last dance with it. And you're like, oh, I can't get rid of this. And, uh, sometimes that works and you keep it. And sometimes a week later and you go, well, I still haven't played it since that moment I decided I didn't want to sell it. So, uh, yeah. So that's the only time, but yeah, but that's, but I, I have lots of friends and I've seen lots of people on YouTube say that they, oh, I didn't even know I had this guitar, uh, never, never, never happened to me. Not even once did I ever go, oh, I forgot. I have, you know, there's a Les Paul here. It's never happened. I kind of wish it would happen. That kind of sound fun. Like, oh, it was like I found a guitar. Um, plump weasels says, Phil, why are ESP guitars labeled as made in Japan when they are actually constructed in China by merely finished in Japan? Uh, well, I don't know. Do you have proof of that? So that's a rumor that I've heard, but I've not seen any proof of that, that they are made in China and then finished in Japan. So I would have to see the, the, the, see this is, this is, um, so, you know, I, uh, this is why I will fly anywhere. I proved that last year when I went to Indonesia, right? I will go, I'm going to two factories this year. Um, I, you know, these things are extremely, extremely brutal on your body, your mind, my timeline. They, um, are, and, uh, and, and think about this, even when I do something like the, the Cortex video, when I get 1.3 million views, breaking even is a optimal situation in that. My point is I will go and do anything to see it for myself, which is why I hung out at Sweetwater for eight days and I went through all their, their, uh, 55 point inspection. I went and interviewed the CEOs of those companies. I'll do any of that stuff to get a sense of what's really going on because there's so many rumors and I'm not saying anything. I just haven't seen any definitive, definitive proof, proof. My comment to everyone always is like, when we talk about guitars and somebody says, Oh, those are slave labor guitars, which by the way, we used to call them sweatshop products and now it's kind of slave labor, which I understand the content, but I think sweatshops really more appropriate statement in some cases because there's even sweatshops in the U S. But my point to this is I'm always looking for the proof and not the rumor of it. And, um, because of that, because not because I, I want to defend it. I really don't care. I don't really have any skin in that game. I just rather know for sure. There is all kinds of rumors about things being made places, you know, like they're made here, but then they say they're finished here. I have no doubt, by the way, there are guitars that are made in China and then finished in Japan or made in China and finished Indonesia. I'm, I'm no doubt that there's some scenarios like that for sure. I've seen even pieces of that in other words, that scenario, but, um, I'm never, I've never seen anything. So I always go in a world. Okay. And this is just my point. And this is what I'm saying. There's 1416, it's for 1400 of you, almost 1500 of this, you know, the show's average 30, 50,000 views, right? So I'm talking to a good enough audience right now. You send me the footage, right? Um, you know, there's a plan. I seen planes crash. Plane crashes. 10 minutes later, there's 18 angles of the plane crash with video. So I'm always like, where's the video footage of all this stuff? I'd like to see some video footage of it. Um, and then with that, I could reach out to a company because I think at this point in the platform, which is how I kind of, look, it took me almost three years to get Cortech to let me see their factory. You got to understand, you can literally go to these companies and say, Hey, look, I have this, this is what people are saying. Let's, let's see, show me, you know, right? Let's figure out, explain it to me. So again, by the way, I'm not saying again, you're wrong or right on this. I just don't know the answer, but, uh, to the question, why are they labeled in Japan when they're actually constructing China? I don't know. Um, I mean, think about this. Um, it's a, it's, it's illegal to do that. So they would be in a lot of trouble. So that's why, and that's why also I'm very cautious about what I do because I'm not going to accuse, you know, a G, uh, not, you know, uh, you know, uh, ESP of committing a crime. So, uh, if they, maybe we'll find out, I don't know. Um, but, um, Brad says, Hey, I have an orange crush 35 RT. I want to trade it to, for a boss Katana. Okay. Would I be better off taking it into a guitar center and trading it or selling it off and going to buy the other? Okay. This is an easy, easy question with an easy answer, Brad. It's really about your money or your time. That's what you're valuing. If you go to guitar center, just like if you go to Mama pops, you're going to be basically giving away all of the equity of what you have in your, your guitar or your amp. So in your case, you're going to go to guitar center and keep in mind, guitar center sells probably more Katanas than anyone on the planet earth. So they have very little value to their, to them. Okay. There, they have the least value. They'll take them, but they're going to want to give you next to nothing because they're buying those in huge bulk and they don't care. So you're going to get next to nothing. What you will get though is no headaches. You'll walk in, you'll slap it on the counter. If they don't tell you, they don't want it. Cause like I said, they get so many and they sell so many, they might even tell you, they don't want it. So I might even call ahead at a guitar center and say, I have a Katanas in great shape. If it is, and are you interested in it? And they'll say yes or no, right? They're on the phone. Um, and, uh, and, uh, and better yet, if they don't, or if they give you any crap, then you already know not to go to them. By the way, I would also wait, you don't have the Katana, right? You have the, you have the crush. Oh, it makes it easier. They have lots of Katanas. So you have the crush. So same thing. You take, to take the crush into them and say, you know, uh, you know, what will you give me? They're going to give you half of what they can sell it for. And they're going to want to be aggressive what they sell it for. So, you know, like I said, you'll lose half of what you, you know, cause remember, you can almost sell it for what they can sell it for in theory almost. Um, so it's up to you. Um, I will tell you how I do it and how I've done it in the past. And this is the strategy I've used and it's very, very, it works for me. It works very, very well for me. I take things to Guitar Center that are very good, but not highly desirable. See Guitar Center has a huge customer base. They have high traffic in their stores and they have high traffic on their website. So for instance, let me give you an example. Let's say I have, um, uh, just pick on AmpliNation. Let's say I have an AmpliNation if I want to get rid of it. That would be something I would consider trading the Guitar Center. The reason why is, yeah, I can sell it, but it's, it's a little, it's a little time consuming and I don't want to deal with the time and the headache of dealing with people. People have gotten even worse and harder to deal with over time through the internet. But a Marshall, like a high quality Marshall or like a Fender or a Gibson, I'm probably going to just sell that on my own or maybe go to a smaller store who gives me more higher value because it's something that, you know, is easier. Um, so that's what I would think about as well. Um, there's a couple of people saying they're basically going to give you next to nothing for the Crush 35. They're probably right. So just think of it like, you know, there is something else you can do too. Uh, if you notice I did a video where I went to Guitar Center and it was an independent video and I traded in some stuff and I got a better guitar. That's kind of like the trade up kind of thing. Um, I did that because I actually do that. But also the other thing that's really cool to know is, um, when you do that, sometimes you can still get a discount on the product. So like maybe they have a guitar and they'll give you a deal. You know, one thing Brad, you can do to make the experience a lot better for you is you can also go on their website and see if there's a use Katana and get a use Katana from Guitar Center and then trade in your product. So now you're going to get a huge hit on your product, but there, your, their Katana you're buying is discounted and you have 45 days to return it. No questions asked on a used piece of gear and it doesn't have to be anywhere near you. You can pick a guitar center, you know, across the country. If that's where the Katana is and buy a used one. So something I would consider that way too. The other thing too is keep in mind it's going to be, it's going to be futile, but you can always do it. You can go on the crags of the Facebook offer and see if anyone wants to trade you. I have very, very bad luck with that, but maybe you're in a different area than I am. Most of the time when I put out something, all the people who are willing to trade are insane and just, I just bring the insane people out. Like if I was like, Hey, Mexican strat, I'm willing to trade it for an Epiphone Less Paul equal value about $500. I'll get 10 responses like, I will trade you my broken glaring guitar right now. We'll all meet you into it. And by the way, even if they say that the truth, they're not going to meet you. Um, so, uh, so there, um, uh, Cassie Lisa says, I have both. I prefer the 35 RT. So there, there, keep that in mind. You might not even, so maybe, well, I'm assuming you've tried the Katana and you like it, but you can, you can try it out. I, I've, it's funny about the Katana for me is I've tried all of the Katana S campifiers and come to the conclusion for some reason that all of the Katana S amplifiers, whether it be the catalyst or the black star ID 50, um, you know, uh, the Marshall equivalents, the fender equivalents, the, uh, you know, orange, like everybody who makes a solid, steady, multi-effect type thing. I could almost argue with myself now with you guys that the Katana was the weakest link. They were all sounded better than the Katana. And yet I'm back to owning just a Katana again. And I keep coming back to the Katana. And I think it's because I've just, I've decided as much as I thought, and I thought the black star ID 50 sounded way better than the Katana, but I kind of just come to the conclusion that the Katana is just bulletproof, dependable. I know what I'm getting. I throw some pedals in it. I'm never fully happy with the sound, but it's going to work. And for me, and this is why it's important to say this because, because I'm my usage is what I do is, uh, I'm going to probably play any of my other tube amps. Yeah. If I'm really playing for, you know, sound quality, like, Oh, I want to play through a great amp. I'm going to play through this AmphiNation amazing amp here. So the, the, what I'm trying to say is the Katana just becomes a tool and that ties in. So, you know, we can tie into another question. Uh, I got a question and it was from, um, I don't know where it's from. Where'd it go? The question was, hold on a second. I just lost it and I would do a great tie in. So the question, I can't find it. I apologize. I grabbed it and just scrolling right now and I can't see it. The question was, um, they were asking about, cause I have the AmphiNation, uh, and this one right here is the overdrive, uh, Wonderland overdrive. Okay. And they said that I've tried all the, the AmphiNations. This is basically true. There's one left to do and I have a video coming soon on that. Uh, I've tried them all, uh, like the Phoenix Fury now is what it's called. And the, uh, Amphifonix and Gain, you know, uh, the Stillstring singer, singer is now called something else. Right. Um, so I've tried them all. And the question the person had was, why did I pick this? And they said, because they feel like the Amphifonix and Gain had the most versatility, versatility in its sound. And it's absolutely true. I would say the Amphifonix and Gain, if I only had one amp and it was going to be an Amphifonix Nation, I might have just kept the Amphifonix and Gain and said, stick with that. Okay. Um, cause it gives me like a Saldano high gain sound, a Marshall tone thing. It takes me because it's got the basement sound, takes me into the clean, but the important thing to understand, and this is why our conversations like this are great on podcasts is I didn't pick this because this is the best Amphifonix Nation amp. I picked this amp because this amp is fits in my collection of amps, the best. In other words, it offers me something the others don't have. Um, you know, so if I'm not playing the Saldano or the Friedman, I'm looking over here, the Magnetone or the Engel, I'm looking, that's what I'm looking at right now. Um, you know, this is what I'm after this sound. And so that's what I was looking for. So this amp specifically is not my favorite Amphifonix Nation amp. Like I said, I would say the Amphifonix and gain is probably my favorite. This is my second favorite. Um, it offered me a more Dumbly, if you could say a thing, John Mare Bon Amasa sound that I don't have with those other amps that I liked. And that's what I was after. And that ties into this, uh, to that we're talking about the Katanas and stuff. The Katana, I kind of learned that's where I sit. I kept thinking I wanted a better sounding amp than the Katana, but the reality is even if it sounds better than the Katana, I find I'm not using it. If it's not Katana time, in other words, I'm using something that's just, uh, the reason I use the Katana, as you guys know, is two reasons. One, I use it for, because it's light and I can take it somewhere and I don't have to worry about it. It's a pretty durable amp. Um, but also because I use it in videos when I'm playing guitars that are under $400 so that you guys, uh, have more of a reference to what the guitar sounds like. You know, I, uh, uh, over the years, I, I agree with you guys when you say, you know, hey, why are you playing a $400 amp through a $2,000 or $400 guitar through a $2,000 amp? Like, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So, um, but, uh, paddle, paddle, paddle effects. What's up guys? What's up, paddle, paddle? He says, Hey, uh, this is, I'm sure it's a Luis. Luis says, Hey Phil, what I want products. What products do you recommend to clean and polish a guitar hardware and clean the guitar finish? I use music nomad or I use, um, Lizard spit products for everything. I prefer, I think I prefer lizard spit as a whole, but there's a couple pieces in the music nomad stuff that I, I like. Um, I use the F one oil. I use their frying stuff. I use their polish. I use all that stuff. I like it. I bought it all. It's not a sponsored, uh, you know, they, they sponsor me and that's why I do that. Um, uh, that's not the case at all. In fact, if anything, uh, I could probably be sponsored by some of these companies, but I just, it's what I buy. And, um, I buy it all from sweet water because I have an affiliate link. So I can use my own affiliate link. Kind of nice. Um, Oh, my niece heard says I have a Katana bass amp. Too many options for me. I just want to plug into play that. I totally understand. I don't really get into my Katana's features too much. I just dial in the three sounds that I can use and go and go and keep it easy. Okay. Uh, uh, soil sample says, I could have sworn we did episode 444 already. It's possible. It's really confusing. So the episodes are not aligned because technically the reason is just you guys know, it's, oh, it's never going to make any sense on the real, the real, because the majority of people listen to the podcast, not watch it. I know that sounds crazy, but that's actually where we get most of our, whatever viewership, whatever streams, um, and the audio. And the problem is that the audio, the way we sequenced it was all like the bonus podcasts where you get like, you know, interviews and stuff like that. We put them in a, not in a medical order. So it throws everything off. It wasn't a good idea, but we didn't know. Uh, when I say we, I mean, I didn't know, I didn't know. Uh, I didn't know there was going to be 440 episodes of the podcast. I didn't even know there'd be 40. Even when there was a hundred, I wasn't even, I did not know there would be 200. I wouldn't had no idea. Um, and, uh, I thought for sure we would have covered everything, done everything and be done now. So instead we just keep going. So yeah, never, never saw it coming. Uh, clan of house cats said new guitar day comparison, Michael Romeo. Very good quality. Oh, very nice. I've played a bunch of care, Paris and comparison guitars. Um, very nice guitars for sure. Uh, in Cortex says, Hey, Phil, I would love to see a review of a court G. B. Short scale bass. It seems like an awesome bass. I don't think I've played that one. This, this did G. B. Short scale, but that might be cool. I'll have to check it out. Uh, I'm a blue llama. I'm pretty sure I read that right. It says, Hey, Phil, a new guitar day, 2014, 60th anniversary commemorative strat. Uh, had one years ago that I had let go because of life happens. I know, been there too. Glad to have finally have one back in my stable. Uh, only real strat I've ever jied which years. Yeah, strats are a love hate relationship with me. I love strats, but man, when they're not great, I just do not like anything about them and when they're great, I don't know why I play anything else. Um, I'm going to say cave, KV prod. I'm just going to read it out. Says, I'm an Ibanez blazer guy. That's old school. Uh, I gave the trust rod a turn after a month. Oh, I'm the Ibanez blazer guy. So we talked about his blazer and his trust rod issues. Okay. So he says it gave the trust rod a turn after, after a month alone and it works. Awesome. See, that's great. I'm glad that worked out. Okay. And Fitzclips did a sticker and I appreciate the sticker. Let's go here. Where are we on time? Oh, you know what it's time for? Now it's time for guitar of the week. It's time for guitar of the week. This was a question. So about, uh, the guitar of the week and, um, this, uh, this was actually two, two parter. So somebody was asking me, um, they said, uh, when you do guitars, when you do reviews, what happens to the guitars? And this, this is a two part question. So just let me go through it. And, uh, the question was what, what happens to them? Well, there's essentially like three or four outcomes. Sometimes guitars are left, uh, as compensation. They say, Hey, look, we're going to send the guitar to you. You can keep the guitar for doing, you know, for your time and effort in this. Um, that is probably the most common thing you're going to come across. When you see somebody not doing that, that has a channel of significant size like this, it's cause they're just being paid out, right? Cash, like, you know, Hey, we'll pay you and then we want the product back. Cause we're giving you physical compensation, right? Um, and, um, and so anyways, so sometimes they just leave it. Um, if they leave it, it's going, it's going to be sold immediately. Um, I don't keep anything for even a day. So if a company sends a guitar and they say, Hey, you know, will you do a deep dive or will you do a video? And they sent it to us and we complete the video and everybody's happy. Uh, you know, that, you know, I, I, I released it and everything. Uh, I mean, immediately we get rid of that guitar. Um, and the reason is, is because I just, I used to try to keep and hold on to certain guitars. It's just, you can't, I do too many videos. Last year there was 97. That's a hundred, almost a hundred guitars. What would I do with a hundred guitars? If they were all, they weren't all left here, but you understand, you get the idea. Still in the same amount of guitars. Okay. That's one to the second scenario, which is by the way is equal. In other words, we do as many guitar videos, um, where I buy the guitars, uh, last week's video where we did a Gretch as another one I bought the two that you're going to watch next. I don't know what order there. I bought those guitars as well. We buy the guitars. Okay. Cause we, uh, cause sometimes, you know, I'm sick of, uh, the, the, the content we're creating. I'm like, you know, what happens with all the channels, you see it, um, they get in with a company. That's what happens. The company likes your content. They like you and you like them. And that's really cool. Cause you know, and then you have a relationship where you can actually talk to each other. And the problem is, is then you go, well, this channel is always doing a guitar, like this brand. So I try to keep it fresh cause it's a guitar channel. My logic is if it was a car channel, you'd want to see different brands of cars. Same thing. Right. Um, it's kind of like, it always goes to where I see a lot of YouTubers talking about like they don't work with Gibson cause Gibson doesn't work with YouTubers or something like that, but we put a Gibson's on all the time. Cause I think they're good guitars and, or if not, uh, if they're not good, we still want to share what the experiences of guitars. So I buy those guitars. If I buy the guitar, again, we're selling that guitar immediately after we're done. Okay. It's just going to go. Uh, cause again, we're going to churn that money right back into the kitty so we can buy another guitar and continue on. Um, and then sometimes the guitars are, they, they are not leaving the guitars. Um, that always falls into two categories. So you guys know they're either paying us financially or we're doing a borrowed guitar because we really want to do the video. So, uh, I'll give you a scenario where that makes sense. Um, I just bought a Novo guitar to do this video. Um, the math on this makes no sense. There's no logical sense for a channel, even with a, I'm kind of like 400 something, sell 1000 subscribers, no matter what you think, no matter what some dumb ass in the internet is going to say, there's no math where I can make that situation, make financial sense for me. I'm basically making a video at a huge loss just to make the video. Um, because I'll buy the guitar, the guitar was $4,200. And now the guitar is going to be sold at a use price. And so the video would have to make enough to cover that difference just to break even, and then I'm just done two to three days where the full work for no reason. So again, uh, that guitar gets sold off. Why? So we can put that back and churn it. Okay. But what I'm basically saying is, is like, if Novo would have said, Hey, we'll loan you one, I'd be like, hell's yeah, that's great. I'd rather not spend $4,200 to make a video because that really chops into the amount of videos we can make if we were doing high end guitars like that. Um, okay. The, the, the next option is sometimes there's what's called, uh, like an indefinite loan. So, uh, for instance, uh, there's a guitar like Emerald guitars where I really like the guitar and I go, you know what, uh, send, send a guitar. Um, this is what I'd like built. I'll do the video and I'll keep it. And if I never want it, we'll just send it right back. So it's on loan, but the loan can be for a extended period of time. It could be years even. And then, uh, the last case scenario is, uh, what? Um, oh, last case scenario is sometimes the manufacturer, uh, will either pay us or, and, or just loan us the guitar because again, that scenario makes sense. And the, the guitar is going back, but Shawna, what she started doing, which was really smart was saying, Hey, how much, now that this guitar has been taken apart, you're not going to sell this new, are you? Right? You're not going to take a guitar that feels taken apart and, and then put back together and had it for weeks, if not months, and then try to pass it, pass it off as new. By the way, some of them do, some of them go, no, no, we're going to run it through our, our team and it's going to be just like brand new. And we're going to rebuff it and all that stuff. Um, but Shawna said, Hey, if you're going to, you know, you're not going to do that. And if they go, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to sell it as like a B stock or a blim. She goes, well, what's the price if we buy it? And then what we can do is then sell it. So let's say their price is like, we'll, we'll take 400 bucks for it. And we go, well, we can sell that for 600 in a minute. So then we'll sell it. And that, again, that money goes in the kitty and buys more gear. Okay. So that was the question. What do we do? So the other question is, uh, the, the last scenario, which ties in, which is why the story goes, this is, I buy stuff for myself. I'm a guitar freak and sometimes I buy a guitar, uh, for myself. I just went to a store one day or I was online and I bought a guitar and because I bought the guitar, which by the way, I'm going to try to get a lot better at, I'd say 90% and I'm just making up a number, but it feels good. Feels like a, the number in my gut feels right. 90% of the guitars that I personally buy, I never make videos with. I don't know why. Everybody was a, you know, uh, so, uh, sometimes I buy a guitar and I make a video. This was a guitar that I bought to make a video I bought for myself. Sorry, bought for myself. And then I made a video. The question somebody had was, do I still have it? And the reason why I'm telling you this long, boring story is cause maybe insight helps you understand the YouTube world that you are seeing because everybody's got different philosophies. Remember the problem with YouTube is, is that all these channels operate with totally different business models. So what I'm telling you works for me, but yet you could go and onto another platform, oh, another channel and say, Hey, Phil McKnight said, this is how it works. And they go, no, it doesn't work like that. Oh, this is how it works for me. Cause again, everybody has different styles and figured out different ways to function in this environment. So anyways, um, so this was a guitar I bought. I fell in love with and the question was, so I still, do I have it? Almost all the guitars I bought for myself, I still have. So they don't go anywhere. So what's the guitar? It's a, it's a rather famous guitar. It is called the IKEA Caster. Now you guys name this, the viewers did. What is the IKEA Caster? Uh, so this was a video I did, I think a year ago, it might have been two years ago, but it was a while ago. I was at Zim's music and he wasn't there. And by the way, a little fun, fun thing. If he ever sees this, I loved going in there and just telling his son, like when I'm, when he's not in there, I go, Hey, tell your dad that I just told you a bunch of cool internet secrets and then just make up a bunch of stuff and tell him. So, uh, but I don't, I'm only reason I'm telling you that is cause you think, well, he's going to hear you now. I don't think his son ever does it. But anyways, uh, this guitar, I was in Zim's and, uh, Bri at Zim's was like, Hey, you want to see something funny? And I go, what? And he goes, we bought all these guitars from a lady and I guess it was her dad's. I assumed he passed away. Brian, uh, Brian didn't, Brian didn't say, and I, you know, we didn't know. Um, anyways, this was one of the guitars. He goes, I don't know what we're going to do with this. It's just like parts shoved together. And so you guys know when I say parts shoved together, I just want to be very clear about this. Like literally, if you watch the video, there's a full detailed deep type on this. There are just plastic acoustic bridge shoved in there. This is a PV T 60 neck from the eighties. I think actually PV reached out. I think they, they told me the exact year and I know I felt bad. I need to find that email. Um, I think they said it was like an 81 or 82. Let's see if I can, I'm pretty sure it's an 81. They said it was an 81 T 60 neck, uh, maple. And then he shoved it on a Swedish Hagstrom body. And then when I say shoved, I mean he shoved it in there. It's smashed in there. It, he, he screwed the new screws. He shoved in these plastic pieces to fill it in. Right. And, uh, he made this work. Uh, the Hagstrom is all original, original pickups, original stuff. It's all hollow. And, uh, and, uh, I picked up and I played it and I fell in love. I was like, I love this guitar. I love the good, the way it sounds, which is kind of over this weird, nasally weird sound that I love. I love the vibe. I love the fact that people will pay thousands of dollars for stuff that looks like this and this is something real. This guy, this guy, by the way, this is part of the update. I'm going to give you some funny updates about this guitar that no one knows from that video. So if you watch that video, you'll even see stuff you don't, you didn't see in that video. Um, anyways, this guy worked it. He played and I love this because this is a, I think this is a time gone. What I mean by that is, you know, he had some parts, he put it together and he made himself a guitar. Now you don't see a ton of this, uh, you know, because of the fact that you could just go into any music store and buy a good guitar for a hundred bucks. You know, if you've got a hundred, you know, this back in the day, you buy some parts, you shove it together. It's what you got. You're just on a budget. Maybe he wasn't on a budget. I don't know, but this has been shoved together. It works. The intonation falls in and out, by the way, which is a kind of weird thing that happens to this guitar on a good day. The guitar plays amazing on a bad day. It's got this weird sour where it's moved. It's flexed. So sometimes it's not great. Um, I think it's pretty good, pretty good today. So we got a good shot. I'm a, I'm running it. Let me switch to camera too. Uh, I'm running it through the tone king imperial pramp pedal. And, uh, so that's what it's what I'm running through. So I'm this into that. I'm using the stock IR, somebody asked me about the IRS. I haven't messed with this thing. I just loved it out of the box. And that's what it is. That goes right into my, um, this, uh, road, roadcaster. That's what you're hearing. Okay. So this is the funny part of the guitar. Okay. Let's switch. Let, let's move some stuff around. I kind of, sorry. Do this, do that. Switch it here. Look at that. Switch to this camera. Turn on the volume. First we'll start with, you'll hear my volume for my mic and this. Okay. So why this is funny. So there's some funny stuff going on. Um, I'm like, what is that? Like what is, what is that? Uh, so the, uh, the cool thing about the guitar is I've been playing this guitar so much, I just love the vibe of it. Um, and by the way, I paid $100. I said, how much do you want for it? And he said $100 and, uh, I had that feeling like, I think he'll give me a deal, but I was like, I don't know. I'm done. A hundred dollars. I'll take it. Absolutely love guitar. And I've actually figured out over the, the last year or so, what, what the where marks are. So, you know, I try to cheat. Let's go. Right. I try to cheat and I asked some of my friends on YouTube who are these amazing music theory monsters. And I said, what, where did he put, what did he play? What keys is this? And they just couldn't tell. So I sat there insanely long hours to figure out what he played. And I figured out something about his playing. Obviously he was playing cowboy chords, but he was doing a lot of vibrato. And I figured that out because a lot of the where marks don't line up with the actual note, um, like this where mark right here, right? That where mark, it needs to be like this one, this where mark right here that I'm pointing at, this first one looks like it goes to this string, but it's actually this string and you're like, wait, that doesn't make any sense. And I figured it out because he was, he was bending into it. So let me show you. Let me show you something funny. And when you see the where patterns and I'll, let me tilt the camera just a little bit that way. So you guys can see the first where pattern that I thought was awesome was something that makes total sense for this guitar. Okay, ready? He was doing this, that note right there. See it? Now watch no where part here, open string. So it's. Yeah. Right. Right. So you're like, right, what was he playing? And then what he was doing when he was playing his, obviously he was playing E and A and D, but what he was doing was wiggling a lot. So it was like, right? Remember I'm trying to make the, uh, I don't want to trigger any kind of a copyright strike, but bending. Okay. Right. And, um, I just thought that was awesome. So, uh, let me give you a run through. This is the bridge pickup. I'll play some stuff for you, uh, in the way I would play and we'll see how they go. And I love that bridge pickup, that twang. Okay. Let's go to the neck pickup. It's going to warm up a lot. Okay. So let's go here. I got a couple of questions. Let me switch camera angles. Uh, Steve Cassidy from Steve Cassidy guitar channel says how heavy is it? It's super light. The neck weighs more than the whole body because it's full hollow. This is actually a full hollow. There's no center block in this. Uh, it looks like a trussle bracing. So it's like a, uh, just a piece of wood. I'd say about this wide right there. So full hollow. Uh, I, I, you know, if I was going to say it's in the six pounds, it's probably in that deep dive video, the exact weight, but think of it super light. Definitely under seven pounds. Um, not necessarily neck heavy because the body's so big. Let me go back here to this, uh, not neck heavy, especially in the lap because the body's so big, but this neck is way heavier than this body. So it wants to neck dive. It's just not. And then of course my favorite thing is they, he glued on the Hagstrom logo over the PV, send the PV off, put the Hagstrom logo on there. Um, and, um, you know, you know, it's funniest, it's funniest. I got a bunch of comments and it made me laugh. And, uh, I love it when people like, I love that, uh, you know, how different guitar players think I got some emails and comments about this guitar when I, when I showed it, which was, uh, wiggle the jack there, uh, you know, about how it's a, you know, a piece of history, someone's history and it's amazing guitar and it's an heirloom and it's great. And I, I, I felt the same way. I'm like, yeah, it's kind of magical, isn't it? And then somebody were like, so you know that, that triangle things were 30 bucks and those pickups and that thing is worth a hundred. That's like $600 with a parts, even the back plate. The back plate alone is worth 50 bucks. And somebody was adding up like, you could just part it all out. I was like, oh God, if I parted it out, I think I'd die a little inside my soul. So I just love this guitar. And I think it's because, like I said, you know, look, it's not, you know, it's not on the level of like that main Japan Gretch right there. But is it? I don't know. It's got its own vibe. So yeah. And I did spend an insane amount of time working out. I've worked out some of the stuff. So obviously he was, obviously he was playing cowboy courts, but obviously it was the Johnny Cash stuff. And then believe it or not, I think a lot of Elvis stuff, which would make sense because I think Elvis also played a hag strum. So a little bit, a little bit of that looks like, so he looks like he was a Johnny Cash, uh, Elvis fan in my mind. This guy, right? He liked the old country, the old rock and roll country blues. So that's kind of what I think. Um, and then, uh, hold on a second. His, um, he says, now I need an off brand Bigsby. See, I just can't, somebody said I should sharpen my accent, like mod it up and make it great and fix it. I just can't, I just can't mentally get, like I got to leave this thing alone. Right. It's cause I, whatever value it has, the value is the, is the, is the mojo. You know, um, I kind of feel sad. I, I maybe I need, you know, I feel like I need to write a song with it. Like this thing deserves to have a song played on it and made a song and recorded because it's so crazy. Um, yeah, the where marks, like I said, the where marks threw me off because like I said, his playing, he was definitely coming at an angle. Um, and that's what I said. What throws you off. I got to move the thing. I'm sorry guys. Um, it's like I said, cause he was doing so much vibrato. So that's what he was doing, obviously. Because these, these are deep guys. These where marks, they're not just through the poly. They're into the wood. They're super deep. You can feel them. And these frets, by the way, all the frets are dented as hell. Oh, this, this guitar, this guitar, if it was played heavily, would not have a lot of time left on it without some serious, uh, well, at least a refret. And again, I, I, you know, there's just, there's a whole saying. I don't, I don't want to write. Don't, don't mess with it. It ain't broken. Um, somebody asked me about the pickups. I don't know. You can look online, uh, the model. I, again, I have more stats on the deep dive. These look like gold foil pickups to me that have tarnished over time, but these are the original pickups. I can tell you this, this bridge, this, uh, bridge, sorry, the tailpiece, the bridge, knobs, pickguard pickups, all original to this body, uh, from when I, when I did some research and, uh, just really cool. I'm going to do the, now I'm going to do the, hold on a second. Okay. Ready? What? This isn't a Gibson. This is the, this is my thumbnail. It's famous thumbnails now. Um, and then like I said, everybody came up with some great names, but I just couldn't get out of my head. Ikea caster because of the whole, the like he hodgepodge together. So to answer the question, the core question is, do I still have it? I still have it. And that's essentially why, how I think. So, you know, uh, like the guitar Nathan made for me or this, I tend to stick to guitars that just, I don't know, you know, they just, they mean something to me personally in some way. They have to connect that way. Um, otherwise I won't play them. Or it's just something, you know, I mean, it's just a cool guitar, you know, but those are never going to stay the long, long time. But yeah, but yeah, the answer to the question is I still have the Ikea caster. I still love it. No interest in selling it, getting rid of it. Um, in fact, I tell you right now, uh, you know, how to say never say never, I'll tell you this, I'll never get, sell it because I paid $100 for it. And so, uh, I'll give it away. Like if I can't find a use for it anymore, it's just, it'll, I'll give it away. Right. This is a guitar, you know, I would rather not be, but yeah. And this is what's cool about stuff like this is, you know, you would never find this, you know, in a, I hate to say this in a guitar center. Um, the little, there's a horrible fact about stores, guitar stores, uh, that most people don't know, which is sometimes they take stuff like this trade, not gyms. I'll go, I'll get into that in a second. Guitar center would have probably told the, the woman who brought this stuff in. I'll take that. I'll take this. They cherry picked out the best stuff and then they go, we don't want that. And that's probably what they would have done. But sometimes not only them, but other mom and pop stores will say, uh, they do the math, cause sometimes you, you read the situation, you go, you know, you don't want to, you know, you don't want her to say, no, so you go, I'll give you this for all of it. And you know, you're just going to throw some pieces in the dumpster. You know, this is true. Uh, the guitarist is one, he was probably the first one where I saw somebody actually going behind a guitar center and finding stuff that was in guitar center bins. And when he did that, I was like, yeah, you know what? I, I know that's a thing because I'd seen kids do it, you know, all the time. They would go through and get all the cool stuff out of the, out of the guitar center, uh, behind the guitar center and, um, and stores like a tar center now even have crushers now to crush stuff because they don't want people getting that stuff. But I remember like you'd see other, there's another YouTube channel. I forget the name of it, but it's not a guitar per se channel, but he does. And he finds cool guitars and amps and stuff that cut, you know, people are tossing and it's, uh, it's because like said, something like this, they would look at this and this just has no value. The, uh, so, um, and the, and Zimz, uh, the Zimz guys, what they were doing was they were either going to part it out or they, you know, sell it, but they didn't know they just put it away. And then he wanted to show it to me because he thought it was so crazy. And, uh, my reaction to it was, I don't think it was what he predicted. I thought he was, I think he thought I was going to be like, what? That's crazy stupid. Instead I was like, that is just cool. It's Frankenstein out in all the right ways. Um, like I said, and I'm glad it behaved today because it, it was, it was acting bad about a week or two ago in the worst. I couldn't get any chord. Everything was souring and it was just like it was in flux. I don't know what it was doing, but, uh, so that's the, uh, guitar of the week, the Ikea caster. Um, it's pretty cool. I like it. Um, and I even got a little bit of inkling and I talked myself out of it and I'll never do it again. I thought, well, maybe I should get a real Hagstrom holobody, just like it and play that. And I went to do it and I was online. I'm like, no, I love this. This is what I love. This is different. I like this. So, uh, so that's the story on the Ikea caster and of course, uh, some more backstory about how this works, how we do this. I know it gets confusing. Like how do you guys figure out what, you know, how does this all work? You know, basically you work your butt off and you hope it all works out. So like I said, that's why we keep some guitars and not others. Um, so it's a strange world out there. It's a strange world of, of guitar influencing or whatever they want to call this. Right. Um, I'm just pouring some water or vodka. Really, you'll know in about 20 minutes. Okay. All right. Okay. Um, let's see. Uh, Kevin Kraus Kraus, Kevin Kraus says, Hey, Phil, go into Japan in October. That's, uh, that's a, that's a place I want to go really bad. Says, are there, are there any must buy guitar things there? I hear, uh, from, uh, you know, Pete Thorn mentioned this to me, uh, once that, you know, they have all the coolest guitars there. That's where they all are. I've seen tons of videos like everybody else. So, um, uh, he says, I noticed boss pedals are cheaper there. I think I've told this story, you know, um, there is the reason why there's so much great stuff in Japan is, um, they buy it all and they ship it there. And I don't know if this still happens. If anyone was watching today that still has a guitar store, like, you know, cause I, right, uh, let me know, um, if this is still happening. But when we had the store all the time, like once or twice a year, so definitely once every year, sometimes twice a year, some Japanese guys would come in your store and they would just look, they went to every store. They, I'm sure they, they went from either, uh, you know, west to east or east to west, like that definitely they were hitting every store. They were, they were every music store and they would go in your music store and they would specifically be looking for major pan boss pedals, um, certain USA guitar, certain major pan guitars, certain things. They definitely had things and sometimes they would have lists and so, you know, sometimes they didn't speak English. They would just have a list or they just pretended they didn't speak English cause they didn't want to talk to us, but they would have a list and they'd give it to you or they'd tell you their list. I'm looking for these things and they'd have a list of things they were looking for and, um, a couple of times, you know, cause obviously that many times over the years, uh, we would have some of the stuff. I go, Oh yeah, we got a couple of major pan pedals over there and we got this and they would always do the same thing. They would buy it. Okay. Cash and then they would have you ship it to, I believe Long Beach and it, and they put, and, and I always thought that was weird. And then I was a friend of mine who's a, an actual vintage guitar collector said, Oh yeah, they're shipping it to a container and I'm like, what? And he goes, yeah, they fill up that container and once it's full, it ships it to Japan. And I'm like, really? And I said, yeah, cause it's and, and I would talk to other friends that have me stores and they go, yeah, yeah, always. And I, and that was for a long time. And then the reason I say, I don't, I don't know if it's still happens today. And that's why I'd let me know if it's still happens today. Um, I kind of feel like that faded out before, before 2015, 16, I feel like by the time that, for some reason it just, you didn't see them anymore. Um, you know, coming in, if anything, I remember like the opposite. They were trying to sell you stuff from Japan. Like, they, we got stuff to send you. But, but yeah, they were buying up and they would buy up anything that was collectible USA, but anything collectible made Japan and it was shipped to Japan. So, um, yeah, uh, Greg McFadden says they would come and fill up cargo boxes with tons of USA guitars and shipped them back to Japan. Yeah. And I'd heard, by the way, I'd heard this story so many times, you know, they buy up all the stuff in the ship in Japan, but it was like physically I've sold it to them. That's how I'm like, you know, everybody's got a story, but I'm like, I was like, not once, but multiple times to the point where we would even sometimes set stuff aside and go, I bet you if those guys come, they'll pay top dollar for this. Um, cause they were, uh, and, and so, you know, not even just boss pedals, any kind of really major pan pedals, um, made, made in USA guitars, but only deals. If it was in a USA guitar, had to be really cool or a deal, a really, like a really good deal. And, but they would, and then they would pile it up like a yard sale and then throw a number at you and they'd pay cash. And, um, yeah, it was crazy. All right. Next, what do we got? Does Amanda grab this? Um, this looks like it's Mikal, Mikal Dean? I don't know, probably butcher your name. Sorry. This is Phil. Do you ever review old, older guitars? Yeah. Limited editions. Yep. We do. Uh, I have a 94 Gibson Les Paul standard Sentinel 100th anniversary. I believe they made 100 of these. Yes. We did, uh, like we did the Silver Tone and we did some old Parkers and we'll do some old guitars. We do, um, the deep dives. We kind of, uh, I have a strategy with the deep dives that's like, I'm really trying to, uh, um, the deep guys are their own unique monster. Uh, it's, uh, what I mean by that is even when sometimes when I get bummed out, I was pretty bummed out less this last week about this week's video. Um, thank you guys all versus who watched it and supported it. I appreciate it. The fulfillment was great. In other words, you guys all who watched it loved the new Gretch, but, um, you know, it, it, I don't know why I'm acting like this. It did great, except for the fact that, you know, like I said, we self sponsored it. So it failed to make back what it costs to make the video, which is fine. Um, but the point is when I do these, what we've learned with deep dives is that when newcomers come to the channel, they binge watch a lot of these, um, at least 10. So if you know anything about analytics on YouTube to get somebody to do an average of like two and two and a half videos, like under viewer, viewer average, you are watching two and a half videos, that's pretty good to see some, a new viewer office and go watch 10 of your videos. Like it's a Netflix binge watch weekend. And so, um, we had, uh, we were just talking about this. We had a video that's from two years ago go re viral, uh, this week. It got 134,000 views in one week because, uh, it was so obviously I think what happened was something I made a couple weeks ago, people binge watch back new viewers. And then they found that and then that because it got a lot of activity got re launched out to the world. So my point is, um, we strategically try to make them as eclectic as possible. So I'll do acoustics. That's why we do acoustic, high and acoustic, a cheap acoustic, high and guitar, you know, electric guitar, cheap, electric guitar, used guitar, new guitar, something crazy, something very common, you know, like that everybody buys. And the, uh, it's sadly enough, I, as much as I love the community that we have here, and that's why we do the channel and that's why I do the podcast. And that's why I do all the thing. But essentially we've kind of learned on the deep dives, you know, this is how we even taste the new, new viewerships. So, um, that's why I do it that way. So the answer question, yes. And then, um, you'll see, uh, we're going to do something really fun, the next couple of deep dives. Um, we're going to take them a little bit, uh, a little bit out of normal range, which is cool, which is some stuff, but, um, Rexumatic says, Hey, Philip McKnight, he says, any suggestions on what to look out for in the electronics of a Parker P 38? Um, corrosion is a big one and somebody who's already worked on it and you want to look at, um, look for anything that doesn't look like it's factory done, factory fresh, uh, because then even, you know, that's the problem. So obviously corrosion is a big deal because you'll be swapping parts, which is fine, but you're going to be prepared for it. But just understand that even the basic factory worker isn't going to have blobs of, you know, solder and cold solder joints and stuff like that. So when you go in there and you look and you see stuff that isn't, you know, doesn't look tightened up and neat, um, especially guitars like that, those are either made in Korea or in Indonesia and they're done pretty good. So, so, um, and your advert says, Hey, Phil, have you tried throwbacks, pure nickel core strings? I haven't. I've talked to John and those guys about them. They have those made for specifically for them. And, uh, I was going to buy a set, um, but I'm still buying, I still like my, uh, I still buy the DR pure nickels. As you guys know, I pretty much use Ernie ball and didario. I've been didario forever and then I had some bad batches of didario and I switched to Ernie ball, but I'm still using it to do a little bit. So didario, but mostly Ernie ball right now. Um, and then I have outliers, like I use DR strings for base, uh, I use the stainless steel DR base strings for my bases. And then I'll use the DR pure nickels for the pure nickel strings just to have it. That's what I like. So I've been using it, but I thought about trying theirs. I've heard good things, um, from so many people, but I also have strings. That's the problem. I buy strings. Um, when I say I buy strings in bulk, I just, it's not even like a bulk discount. I just need the pain. I, you know, buying strings like buying gas, buying tires, it's stuff I don't want to do. There's no excitement in that unless I'm trying a new set of strings. So when I buy strings, I just kind of, um, for me, uh, I'll just go like $100, you know, right? Like I treat it like, okay, $100 bucks. And then I just go in and buy $100 with strings and I hit launch on guitar, either guitar center or music, um, sorry, sweet water. It's just depends on whoever's has in stock or who, whoever's, you know, cheapest at the moment. Um, and then, you know, when it shows up and I just feel like, oh, the bandaid's been pulled off. I don't have to think about, you know, how much they cost per pack or anything. So, um, pesky pesky says, I use cheap strings from China. You know, I know there's a lot of those strings like on the Timu and, uh, you know, Ali express and a lot of stuff. I've heard mixed things. My personal experience has never been great. Um, functional. So yeah, they function, but again, and that that's all you're interested in. Cause again, everybody has a different, not a standard, but a different need. Right? Um, some of us are delicate flowers and everything has to be perfect. And if it pokes us or bugs us or if it smells weird or whatever, it upsets us. And, uh, the reason I say that is one, I'm one, so you can make fun of me. But two, I've, I've, look, uh, I've worked on so many people's thousands of people's guitars and I've sold people thousands, thousands of people guitars and strings and all this stuff. I can just tell you all the, they have, all of us have a lot of idiotic secrecy. Some of us, and some of us don't care. So for every person that came in and says, I need this gauge string from this brand, exactly this and this and this and this is exactly what I need. There's a person who's like, what's your cheapest string or what do you have on sale? Or what do you have two for one on? They don't even care. So, um, so, but yeah, I, I don't try those strings. The, the, I don't know if it's Timu, but like I said, I'll express all this stuff, but not for any particular reason. Just I'm like, you know, I don't really care. Uh, when it, when I say care, I mean, yeah, I don't like paying six, seven bucks a pack of strings, but that's not enough to motivate me to go the other way. So, um, so, and then Nella says, I buy 10 or 12 packs when music friend has them on stupid deal today. Yeah, I'll do that. Like I said, Black Friday, I bought a bunch of strings. I do that stuff too. Same thing. So, but if you notice, I don't have a whole lot of hard up, judgy opinions about how people buy things or do things. And the reason is, is because sometimes actually the opposite happens. Sometimes when I'm talking about stuff, people go, Phil, that's your opinion. It's true, but sometimes not. It's just more of a like, this is what I've noticed about people, um, and players. Um, everyone has a different, like I said, everybody has a different motivation of what they're after. And like I said, some people can play, um, you know, an Epiphone SG with some strings they buy in bulk off of a, you know, a cheap website and they play in a Katana and they are as bliss and happy and they're not wrong. There's nothing wrong with that. Not only nothing wrong with it, I mean, there's nothing wrong. Like I could probably find, join that too. So, uh, I find it's more of a, I, like, you know, it's funny, I was telling a friend this week, uh, we were talking about collecting guitars and, and collectors. And he had seen something, uh, where I'd said, uh, you know, somebody asked me a weeks ago, you know, will there ever be collectibles besides Gibson and Vendor? And I was like, probably not. And he's like, you really don't think so. And I said, I said, I think collecting is about money and cause it's about money. It's about, I said, it's, it's about buying things that are going to go up in value. And so people buy the things that go up in value more so than just the things they love. So some of us buy things we love and some people just make business decisions about everything. So, um, so basically what I'm saying is that sometimes some of us are buying guitars for love and some of us are just buying investments and that's never going to change. All right. T-Bone to 2451 says, Hey Phil, is the PRSSE SilverSky a better guitar than a Fender player too? Um, no, I don't think so. Um, when I say, when you say better, first of all, it's hard to quantify, you know, as, as construction quality components. No, do I think that you're more likely to get better fret ends and a better cut nut off the PRSSE? Yeah, absolutely. Um, I don't know why, but Fender has been unable to get quality locked in in the last six, they call it six years now since COVID. Uh, it's been bad even on the made Mexico side and the main USA side and it's not getting any better. Um, I know what you're thinking. You're like, wait a minute, but the, but that now Fender has guitars made at the Cortech factory. And I'm like, yeah, but there, but if you paid attention to the video, you'll see that they're not at the level that the PRS side of the factory is that building. The PRS guys have definitely leveled up Cortech and, and Cortech essentially is going to do what the manufacturer wants. And Fender doesn't want them to be as good. Fender obviously could make those new Indonesian player series guitars as good as the PRS silver sky. Why the workers are skilled, the components are there, the, uh, the factories there, it could be done. They just don't want to do it. Um, so, uh, I would say, yeah, the PRS silver sky fit and finish, I would, I would bet is going to be better as, as an average, like if we're going to pick 10, you know, 10 guitars of each brand, I'd expect 10 SEs to be better polished, better, you know, just better completed. Um, but I'm still as much as I love the silver sky and as much as I'm a huge John Mere fan, I'm still just a Fender strat guy. No, no one's been able to pull me 100% that way. Uh, even though I have a Kiesel Delos and I play it all the time, it's my favorite, you know, guitar to play, I still have strats. So I don't know, strat. So, um, so that's something to think about. Uh, left fall left for pass. I think you guys just wanted me to butcher your names. God, I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing. Uh, oh, how do you feel about, how do I feel about wiring kits, uh, upgrade kits that use push-on connectors for wiring harness? You know, I, I, I don't like it in guitars I have to work on. So in other words, like an epiphone guitar or a music man guitar, when you pull it apart and you want to upgrade your pickups and it's all clip-on harnesses, it's a pain in the ass because now I got to cut that stuff out and solder and sometimes it's on PC boards and you got to remove all that. I'm not a big fan of it. However, as a drop-in solution, I think it's fantastic. Um, and, and, and let's be clear about that because those are almost too con, you know, conflicting opinions and here's why they're not as conflicting as you think. My issue with companies, the manufacturers that are doing the clip-on componentry is not that I don't like clip-on componentry or that I think it sounds not very, uh, not as good. It's that I don't have access to the clip-on componentry to just like as a consumer, not as a repair tech. If, if, you know, if, if Seymour Duncan and DiMargio and Bear Knuckles had a clip-on component, a exact clip-on system and so I buy their pickups and I pull apart my Gibson or my, my Fender or my music man or my epiphone or my Spire and I pull it apart and I unclip and I clip like it's a airplane, you know, a model, not airplane model, but you know, like a flying, you know, what do you call it, a remote control airplane because, you know, a lot of remote control cars and airplane stuff use that kind of componentry. I would go, this is great. It's great for the consumer. You don't have to solder. You don't have to pay somebody to do it. Life works out great, but it doesn't work that way. You're talking about in your question, you're like, you're thinking about adding in an upgraded system. What's all done like that? Yeah, why not? I mean, you know, I told you the only downside is if you want to change anything later, it might be a little harder to do clip-on componentry. I'm hoping eventually that'll standardize, but this industry is, see this industry has got two problems. One, nobody gets along, so no one's going to want to make anything universally acceptable through all the guitars. Two, there's no motivation to do it financially for them because the only reason they're doing clip-on componentry in the manufacturing side is because it's faster for the employees to do because they can have another building building all these components and then it clips and goes. So it's just cheapness for them. It's not about efficiency, which is making it cheaper. It's not about convenience because of the customer. The other problem is, so not only is there no motivation, there's nothing safety about what we do. You're not going to get hurt. No one's going to go, oh, I got electricity from my pickup. And so they can use different wiring. That's why they all use different wiring colors. My father-in-law is an electrician, and the first time I was working on a guitar, and he was looking at it, he's like, wait a minute, that's not the right, that's not hot, that's not ground. I go, no, no, in our world, it's just some people say this is hot and ground, and then some people say this is hot. Some people think that the red is hot, and some people think the black is ground, some people think the green is ground, and the black is hot. He's like, that's crazy. And I'm like, yeah, there's no voltage to hurt anybody, so there's no regulation on it. And sometimes it's as simple as it's who copied who at the time. So somebody was doing it one way and they copied them, and now there's looks like that. And then sometimes it's just because the other guy did it that way. The other one specifically did. I've heard that story so much now in this industry, I'm almost sick of hearing it. Like, oh, why'd you do that? Well, the other company that I hate did it this way, so we did it the opposite. Oh, geez. So Macphotograph says clip on seems cheap, honestly. Well, I mean, I understand, like, aesthetically, you're looking at it like cheap, but the reality is, is the way we solder it is about as cheap as you can get. It's just cheap wire, soldered with basic solder. I mean, it is cheap. This is cheap stuff. Even expensive stuff is cheap stuff. So, yeah, I understand. But I think that's not a real thing. It's just more of a, like I say, I see what you're saying. You look at it, it looks cheap, but I don't have anything that I've not experienced anything where I'm like, well, let me put it this way. I've never met anyone or myself that ever picked up a guitar, strummed a chord and listened to an amp and go, what are these clip on components? This sounds really dark. Is it because of clip on components or PC boards? You see what I'm saying? So it's, it's not something that you can actually tell. And here's the thing when the back to the original argument we talked about earlier today with the audience can't tell, you're supposed to be able to tell not the audience, right? And if you can't tell, that's where you have to really be honest with yourself going, look, there's nothing I even, I can figure out here. So, and I just don't think you can tell. I don't, I don't think without heavy comparison and actually putting it in the right environment, there's nothing you're going to tell. Okay, let's, let's button this up. What do we got here? Let's um, clan house cat says, Hey, is the Semic Indonesian factory as good as the Cortech? You know, I don't even know if the Semic Indonesian factory still exists. I think they all went to China. Um, it's possible. Let's um, hold on. Actually, we can check. Hold on. Hold on. Okay. Oops. Alright. Um, according to hold on. I need to hold music now. So according to this, there still is a factory, a PT Semic factory in Indonesia, in Indonesia that makes guitars. Um, but there's no information about it. So I don't know. Um, but on that note, uh, the question, what is it? Is the, is the Semic Indonesian factory as good as Cortech? Uh, I'm going to say, I mean, there's no way to tell for sure, right? But let's, since we can't tell for a factually, I can't say because I have no comparison to compare and contrast the two. Um, I will tell you what Cortech is doing is pretty unique as a factory in the world compared to other factories and that doesn't make it, make it the best, uh, by any means. But what it does do is very unique. And what I mean by that is how they constructed it, how they built it with the multiple buildings and how they've kind of made different layers of, of quality levels and all that stuff. That's the way I wanted to do that video. So it is very unique, but I mean, ultimately, I've said this before, when it comes to, I don't want to put the focus on the factories. I don't really believe that's where you actually see and you detect quality. Um, as the, uh, as, look, I, I've, I've, I've built in a, I didn't know this was going to happen, but I built a value to companies, uh, this, not to my channel, me, I, I have done so much consulting for companies now. And, uh, it's something I've just actually, we're trying to not even focus on doing anymore, but the, the main reason is, is not because I was a repair tech or I had a store or I'm a YouTuber or whatever. It's because you can't take apart as many guitars that have taken apart and document as much as they've documented and not be able to answer a question now. Like you guys think about what you guys know. Okay. I want you to just think about this for a second. Watching the deep dives. What do you guys know? Pretty much everybody's shipping the guitar with two millimeters off the 12 fret action. Okay. That, that industry did not come together and decide that there wasn't a meeting. I wanted you to know something. There was never, ever, ever once a meeting where Gibson and Fender and Ivan is and sire and Taylor and, you know, all these companies got together and go, here's how we're going to set up all guitars going forward. And it wasn't because guitar players like this action because that's not the action you guys like. In fact, most people in the comments, number one comment when I say, oh, the action is about two millimeters left, 12, right? The number one comment across all videos is that's too high. Most of you are saying you want it lower. And so the question is, why did they all establish this number when they didn't agree to it? Obviously they didn't come together to agree to it. And why is it something you guys don't want? And the answer I had to, I had to know. So I answered it. I went to 36 factories. And the answer is that's what gets through quality assurance. See, they need the guitar to ship. They need you to be able to strum it out of the box. You know, Paul Reed Smith is notorious. Paul Smith is notorious for saying a thing that's obvious. When I say obvious, he sounds like he's a smart guy, right? Watch his TED Talk. I like it. It's one of my favorite TED Talks. Both of them, by the way. But the point is he says a lot of things, not besides this crazy unicorn stuff. He says a lot of things that are just, yeah, no shit, Sherlock's. Like a PRS guitar out of the box, you can play it. Every guitar out of the box should be playable. That's not a thing he thought of. Paul Reed Smith did not go. I have a great idea. Check this out. What if when the guitar is finished at the factory, somebody could play it? And they probably sat around and going, it's ingenious. I've played every guitar, guitar center, none of them are playable. Not one. You can't pick up a single guitar and play it. It's just not possible. And he's like, what if they were all playable? Like every single one of them, a guitar playable? It's like imagine if, imagine if Paul Reed Smith worked at KitchenAid. He's like, what if all the mixers when you hit the switch turned on? They'd be, Jesus Christ, what are you asking us to do here? That's insane. You can't have all the mixers work, right? So anyways, my point is, besides being a sarcastic ass, is all the manufacturers want the guitars out of the box playable, but then you have to define what does that mean? And what it means is whatever doesn't get sent back. That's what they're trying not to do. Think of all the elements that have happened in the last few years. And I've had a very unique situation where I was able to see a lot of it and I'm really, I'm really happy. And now a lot of that is because you guys, and I want to thank you for that. So you have Sweetwater doing 55 point inspections. You can think whatever you want about the inspections, watch my video, it explains why the defect rate is what it is. Like I said, I always defend the 55 point inspection because everybody always says, I got a bad guitar. And remember, I always, I know about the 55 point inspection is because I did get a bad guitar from them. But the point I'm making is on that, and this is all going to come together, is they ship a thousand guitars a day. And if they have a 1% error rate, 10 people are getting a bad guitar today. So when 10 people say, Oh, I had a bad guitar, I'm like, Yeah, that's not scary to me. That's really good. Actually, it sucks that it happened to you because it's happened to me as well. But the fact that 990 guitars got out doing well, that's great. Right. So what would be concerning is if half the guitars were defective, and we know half the guitars are not defective, you know why we know? Because when you go on Sweetwater's website, there's not half their guitars are available as B stocks. You're right. So here's where it gets important. So you have some of the Sweetwater and they're checking all the guitars. Okay. And when they're bad, they kind of make adjustments and fix them. And they're really bad. They send them back. And ultimately, the manufacturers don't want to, they don't want to get the guitars back. So they have to figure out how do you get them to go through. And what I've kind of experienced is this. They set that action because that action, because I've gotten a couple of past this, and I've answered every single one of you guys, you go, Hey, Phil, when you check the action, it says two millimeters. And then you check the notes, and there's no dead frets. If you lower the action, will they be dead frets? Maybe. Which is why we check so many things. That's why I'm checking certain things. Yes. And sometimes if I think there's a problem, I make adjustments. I'll lower the action in a video. You'll see me do it. And I'll go, because I want to see if there's any dead frets. See, I figured out that most of the factories have figured out that to that action, that setup on that guitar, that particularly setup, hide some sin. Right. In other words, you could get it out of the box, strum and play it. And think about this right now, some of you guys are going to have epiphanies. A lot of you guys all know this because you're watching videos, but some of you are literally going to have an epiphany right now. You got another box, you play it, plays great. You like it. You're busy. You got stuff going on. You know, you don't set it up. You don't change the strings. You don't do any of that stuff. You wait past the return policy, and then you get one day, you get a weekend off and you decide, I'm going to restring this thing, you restring it, you lower your action a little bit. And now I'm sitting here like, Oh my God, there's like six bad notes. These are dead frets. What's going on here? What happened? The guitar has moved. Something's happened. Nope. It was always like that because the way you're going to find them sometimes by lowering the action. I like, I want you to know with full confidence, the reason why we do the detailed sheets is I do way more than what you see in the videos. That's why I do the detail sheets so that you can believe me that I did these extra steps. After I do a video, the patrons specifically can tell you this is true. I then go through a rigorous point where I give them the video and tell me to find the flaws or the issues. And then also I go and test my own stuff and I come back and I make sure that you guys are still getting a full story. Again, edited because I'm making entertainment. I'm not making a two hour video on a guitar. No one would watch it and the channel would die. And then what good would that do any of us? So I'm trying to give you the best information, but also make something entertaining. The point of the story is, is what I'm basically getting back to, which is they've all come to that conclusion because that's what works. That's what sells a guitar, that action, that setup, that way. And so what's interesting about that all is that back to what I'm talking about when companies reach out and they ask me a question, you can understand I can actually give them really good information. Sometimes they're asking me a question and I'm like, oh, this is why yours is doing that because I've seen your 15 competitors and they have all got the same problem as you. So what's interesting about that is as I've done this over the years and and we'll probably not do any more of these. Okay, not for any particular bad reason, just for time purposes. But so you know, I was getting in a little, it was getting a little tough. I was getting commissioned by some companies to do deep dives without actually making the video. So I did make the video, but it went to them only. They just wanted me to dissect the guitar, almost like I was going to be their external quality assurance. It's almost like having external audit, they wanted some of the external audit, the guitar. In fact, they just did it recently for another company. And I might have saved them a lot of money and headache, because I found an issue and they were super thankful. They're like, they actually, I was pretty upset. I thought they're going to be mad at me and they were like, we're so glad you found that issue. That was what we're nervous about. We're going to fix it. I'm like, great. So this is why this all ties together. So back to the factories like Cortec and stuff, what you're noticing is, is that, and that's what I'm basically going to tell you is nobody can make a perfect guitar. It's not, it's not possible. Not all the time. First of all, I can't make a perfect guitar at all. Second thing is you can't even consistently make a guitar that's not just slightly above average. That's just, or whatever, right? You're going to have a guitar that's average and then something better slightly above average. The point is, especially with import guitars, the question is how does Cortec how do those companies ensure that you get a good guitar? They don't. The manufacturer, PRS, Fender, Squire, Epiphone, which isn't Cortec, they ensure we get quality guitars because they filter them. They go through them. And I've told you guys this before, when somebody says, well, is this factory good? Is this factory good? And I'm like, well, I went to visit them and this is what I showed you guys what I saw and this was good. This was bad. But ultimately that doesn't dictate whether or not you get a good guitar. You get a good guitar if Sweetwater catches it. You get a good guitar if, let's use PRSSE. You get a good because you only get a good PRSSE. If all of these things absolutely happen, Cortec make a great guitar. They catch the defective guitar. So they sent a good guitar. PRS gets the guitar and if they, and they catch the bad guitars and then they send out the good guitars to Sweetwater, I'm using Sweetwater in the analogy. And then Sweetwater gets the good guitars and then they catch all the bad guitars and then they ship you the good guitars. The only way to guarantee you get the good guitars is if everyone's filtering along the line. That's how you get a good guitar. Not that they made a perfect guitar. See, that's the, that's the, I don't want to say that's the lie. It's not the lie. The argument is, and this question, which is why I liked it, is Samic as good as Cortec. Look, I believe Cortec's filtering really well. I believe they're doing stuff that's a little unique. But again, the only way to guarantee you're getting a guitar is if somebody along the line is catching the bad ones and only letting the good ones out. And the best statement I ever heard ever was actually from the person I was kind of making fun of a minute ago, which is Paul Reed Smith. And he said, the customer, trying to remember this, it was 2009 when he said this, he said, the customer should not be your quality assurance department. They should not be the ones finding the problem. He said that, I thought, I got chills just now. I thought it was a great saying. I hope to God he'll continue to always be like that in some way, because I always thought that was the best saying ever. At that time 2009, I was a dealer for PURS. And when I heard him say that, I thought, that made me feel really good about the brand. Yes, I don't want to be the quality assurance department. You don't want to be the quality assurance department. They're supposed to do it. So that's how you get a good guitar. So somebody filters it and catches it. Okay, are we done? Did we do a good job? Probably not. Okay, so a couple things. If you're a patron member, $5 level or a channel member, tomorrow is the bonus podcast on Saturday. Just to remind you guys that so you know if you want to come hang out live, otherwise make sure you put in your questions ahead of time so we can do that. The next two deep dives are cool. Probably release one on Monday. I usually don't do Mondays, but I might release it on Monday. Just let you know. I want to thank you guys all for hanging out this weekend. Hope you guys get good plans to do something fun for the weekend. Hope you guys that involves even playing guitar. And I want to thank you for your time. Till the next time, know your gear. Then know your gear podcast.