How Guitar Brands Target Kids Vs Older Players

The Know Your Gear podcast. Hey everyone, welcome to the Know Your Gear podcast for May 8th. I hope everybody had a fantastic week and thank you for joining me on Friday at 3.00 PM Pacific Daylight Time. I always say this because I get comments a lot like, when is this live show happening? I'm like, oh, so for a lot of us, we've been coming for a decade. So we're like, oh, Friday at 3. So Friday at 3.00 PM Pacific Time. I'll say Pacific Time because it's just that makes more sense to some people because some of us live in Arizona and none of it makes any sense. So last Friday when I got here, I don't know if you guys caught it when I said it. I was a little diskebabulated. Let's just say this. I wasn't jet lag because I didn't fly on a jet, but I have to tell you that I had just literally shown up right before the show started after an eight hour drive. So I drove eight hours. I was in basically, I'm going to say LA or Hollywood area. It's actually, what is it? Westlake? So a lot of people in California are like, that's not that, but these are the things you have to drive past. But I can tell you this, this is what I've learned driving to that area is that once you get in the Hollywood area, that's where the traffic is going to get really bad. That's where the hours come from. So I can get to basically from my house to Westlake in about six hours, but if the traffic is bad, it adds two hours to that. So it was an eight hour trip. But that's not the important part. The important part was I had also had done a ton of stuff, including a sit with the CEO or guess we didn't sit, we stood, we walked, we did it in a neutral area. We went into an actual guitar center this time. We had a discussion. If you're a patron member, you've already seen the video. It'll be out this week, I believe whenever you do an interview like that, you always want to send it to the people I sent to guitar center to see if there was anything that they saw that was going to be a problem. And they were happy to report that they were happy with it. So we don't have to do anything. Not that we would normally do anything, but you understand sometimes it's like, I'll just tell you guys so you know, there's no guessing. Because I know somebody's going to be like, what? They don't want you to say certain things. They never ever anybody, and I don't mean guitar center. I mean all of them, they don't really criticize or they don't have a problem with the, when I have a podcast with somebody, the problem is sometimes the CEO misstates something. And they're like, Hey, he said that it's a, you know, easy, free return for this, but it's actually this, you know, right? So sometimes they're, it's a really more of a technical question. So there was no technical issues. So, so anyways, that will be out next week. However, something else happened that was pretty cool. I sat with the Mitchell people. If you don't know Mitchell guitars, Mitchell guitars is guitar centers in house brand. It's kind of like Harley Benton is to Tomon. And, and I have to tell you, they're going to be making that announcement in August. And obviously I was locked down because they, they don't want me to share anything with you guys. I was so impressed. It really threw my game off because I did that the day before I met with Gabe. I went to see what, I didn't even know what I was getting into. So, you know, they just said, Hey, when you're coming here to California, I went to some factories while I was there. Obviously if you guys this week, I'll talk about that. I bought a guitar and a store, a mom, pop store. And they asked me if I'd come sit with the Mitchell guys. And I didn't know what that meant, but I was willing to do it. It was a little old school for me. It took me back to the corporate days. There was a PowerPoint presentation. It was very good. But it was like weird. I was like, am I in a boardroom watching a PowerPoint presentation? I'm like, haven't done this for a long time. And anyways, I have to tell you, considering, I can't tell you, it's the greatest idea I've ever heard in the guitar industry when it comes to business. And no one will get it right. I can tell you this, when they're going to announce the new Mitchell change, whatever the lineup, the thing, the thing they're going to do, they said they're going to launch it in August. If they would have asked me to come and consult for them a year ago, I would have told them a lot differently what they did, but exactly the same results. Ingenious. I don't think there's a... I could not punch a single hole through their idea, which I tried very hard. Actually for a whole day, me and Shawna would sit. We even had dinner that night and said, I'm like, I can't find a flaw in this idea. She's like, I can't find a flaw in either. So really cool. And a lot of you guys are going to think, if you overthink it, you're not going to see the beautiful part of the simplicity of their idea and how great it is financially for them, but also for the customer. So that's exciting news. So obviously in August, I'll be talking about that as well. So let's talk about the video I made this week, because that's a kind of a funny story, because the guitar is behind me right now. If you guys don't see this, this is a burgundy mist strap. If you guys watch that video, there's a funny story of that video. I just want to talk about my favorite comment in that video. And there were so many great comments. I appreciate you guys coming. But my favorite comment was the troll comment. The outright accused me of lying. I don't mean lying. Like I didn't pick that guitar. No, lying. This was totally obviously sponsored. And I got to tell you, normally the trolls are like, whatever, man, calm down. This troll comment, if it was you, if you're watching this, man, you gave me and my wife, we, you had caught us just right when I read the comment. So basically the accusation was, even though I said it was an independent video and I went in there and it was an independent store, somebody said, oh, this is obviously sponsored and basically, you know, implying that the store had paid me or is giving me free product. Why we laugh so hard. We laugh so hard. I mean, I thought we were going to choke to death. So I mentioned in that video that I've known the owner for 20 years. I'm going to tell you some funny stories. I've never really talked about him. So, you know, for specific reason. And the reason is he does not like the internet. He does not go on social media. They don't have a website. He's not interested in doing any this, this, he doesn't enjoy any of this. In fact, filming in his store, some people have filmed in his store, but you know, he, anyone who's filmed there will tell you, absolutely, he has a, he will not be in the video. He does not want to be around the video. He's just not going to tell you, no, you know, and that's where it basically is. He's like, if you want to film my store, he's like, do what you want to do, but he's like, not interested. He works his own hours, whatever hours he wants. He is the owner operator. There is no other people working in that store. And he is, has an insane collection of guitars called the guitar collectors. Let me tell you the story. So, let me tell you how I met him and how I know him. When I opened my store in 2004, very early on, one day at the store was just me and the wife, this gentleman comes in and, you know, he's, he's a little, he's a little hard on the edges. And I say that, I mean, just, he's really natural in the way he speaks. He's not like, you know, polished or full of crap, right? It's like, hey man, that, that guitar is cool. That one sucks. You know, right? Just really unapologetic, very knowledgeable, comes across. But he had a lot to say. And so as you guys know, people say a lot of stuff. He came in my store and said, oh yeah, I've owned a store for years. I have this, one of the largest guitar collections, you know, he didn't say it like that, but that's how it's coming across. And he goes, I have all these guitars. And he goes, and if you know, he goes, I'm at the time he had closed his store in another state, he was moving into Arizona and he was like, I'm probably going to open a store. I don't know yet. And he goes, do you want to consign some stuff? And I was like, oh, we had never done consignment because we had just opened. I was like, I guess we can consign some stuff. And he brought in some pieces of guitar, some guitars, and they were nice. They were all really nice guitars. You know, it was like a, I think the first one he brought us was a Gibson Les Paul that was an anniversary model that had a diamond in the headstock and a diet. It came with a diamond ring. So if you guys don't know, like Gibson made this like anniversary, Les Paul that had diamond in it and came with a, like a, almost like a ring, you know, if you win a, you know, Super Bowl championship, it looked like that. And it was a real ring, real gold, real, the real deal. And he would just bring in these cool guitars. You know, he'd bring in like exotic Jacksons that were airbrushed and, you know, just Fender Strats, you know, American Strats, just normal stuff too. He brought in a couple of things and then I don't recall how soon, but I feel like very quickly we sold one or two pieces. I'd call him and let him know. And he'd come in the store and he, every time he came in, I had, I have been at this point, you know, let's just say with hindsight now that you guys have been watching me for a decade. I was pretty knowledgeable at the time, but he was very knowledgeable. Like I just could feel it, you know, everything he said, you're just like, man, this guy knows a lot of stuff about guitars, not only vintage guitars, but new guitars. And so one day he says, this is one story is funny. One day he says to me, he goes, Hey man, at my house, I have like hundreds and hundreds of guitars. You ever want to check them out? And I'm like, okay. And he's like, yeah, you can pick some and bring them to the store. And I'm like, all right. Now he drives like the country buying guitars. Okay. Now I know a lot about him. So everything now makes sense. But then it was like, what do you mean you drive? He's like, yeah, I drive. You know, he drives like he takes like, like trips. He drives state to state to state driving to pawn shops and guitar stores where he has tons of people who call him with, uh, you know, like fines like, Hey, we found you this vintage guitar and you know, he pays people like, you know, he's like, Hey, if you ever find me anything, I'll give you a couple hundred bucks or a piece of it or whatever. And so he has this van like, I'm, you know, just a big white mega van, right? Just a van. And he's like, and he has a van so he can put guitars in it, right? Cause the truck doesn't make sense. Cause the guitars have to be inside and you're protected. And he goes, Oh, come to my house. So I look at Sean and I go, I'm going to go with him to his house and check out his guitars. And so Sean, she grabs my shirt like this, just very delicate as a woman does and says, I don't think that's a good idea. She's like, you don't know this guy. She's like, you're going to get in his van and go somewhere with him. I'm like, yeah. I mean, look, I, and I, and I, and at the time she totally gets it now. But at the time I was like, I, I don't think you understand. Like I know this guy knows a lot of stuff. Like he's, I mean, he's, he could be full of crap. Like I don't think so, but I mean, he just knows so much. So I get in his van and we drive to his house and it was actually in a nice house and a nice like gated community, nice house, nice everything. And we go in, he has a pool the whole nine yards. We go in his house and there's just so many guitars. I've never seen anything like it to this day. Just stacked to the ceilings, just stacked in cases up to the ceilings everywhere. Guitars everywhere. Stuff that we all wish we could own piled in piles, just gear, pedals, amps, all this amazing gear that you're just like, I've never seen one of those in a while. I would kill for that. He's three of them stacked up. He's like, yeah, I got three of them. So, uh, and, uh, and so here's what would happen over the years. You know, uh, he would come in the store consigned with us and I would just get to know him and he would always help us with certain things. Every once while he was the go to for somebody I'd call and I'd call him and go, Hey, I got this weird guitar and, um, and, uh, you know, what is it? And he would go, Oh, this is what it is. Or, you know, no, they're, they're wrong. They don't have what they think it's really this. And, uh, somebody said hoarding. No, it's not hoarding cause you're gonna stand. This is his living. He's buying the stuff to sell it, but he's, but what I learned from him over the years is some really interesting life lessons. And that's why I thought I'd share with it and share, share with you. Um, what I learned was, you know, when you see these guys like Joe Bonamassa or something like that, and they're out there and they're buying these high end guitars, that is not very normal. Okay. That is not the normal thing you see. Okay. They, they make it seem normal, but it's not, uh, you know, Joe Bonamassa is not cause he has lots of money. It's just because usually if you're buying or if you're getting guitars, you don't want to pay the top dollar for those guitars, especially vintage guitars. Cause vintage guitars can, can go up and down. It's a scary market. So you're always looking for not so much a deal, but a situation. And one of the best situations is trading. You know, one of the things he taught me was, you know, uh, which is why, if you notice now, I, uh, when I tell you guys like, Oh, I bought this guy's collection. And I've done a couple of videos. I bought this collection to get this guitar. And if you're doing the math, some of you guys have the last three or four collections I bought, if you did the math, I slowly, uh, you know, uh, you know, churned out the guitars and the collections I didn't want. And if you're doing the math, cause I'm not really a reseller. So it's not where like I was trying to resell and make money, but I would walk away from a situation with the guitars I wanted for literally nothing or sometimes a little bit of profit. In other words, I got the couple of guitars for absolutely free. And then I made a little money or sometimes I didn't make any money, but I want them into those guitars is just ridiculous. Like for instance, there's a guitar, like, I think it was like $3,300 and I'm into it for like $3,400. Right. So because of these situations where he would explain this, like, you know, he's like, look, sometimes somebody has a guitar and it's emotional thing, you know, and he's like, they don't want to sell it, you know, cause it's something that matters to them, but they also, they might sell it, but of course they're only going to sell it if you give them the premium price. And that doesn't work every time, you know, that you can't give somebody a top dollar for everything. So sometimes like a good example would be if you, if they had a collectible piece that's really nice, instead of saying, Hey, how much you want for it? And then just struggling, you could say, Hey, how about I give you this and I'll trade you one of these. So let me give you an example. This is made up, but to give example, let's say they had, let's say a 54 less parts and like that, you could say, Hey, instead of offering them like half a million dollars, you could say, Hey, why don't I give you whatever a couple hundred thousand dollars and this 63 strata, this other valuable guitar that's kind of cool and you would still have a cool collectors piece. Because sometimes that's the attachment they have to, they have this guitar that's exotic and unique. And sometimes even though they, that guitars are worth a lot, maybe they've had it for 10 or 20 years, maybe they'd like something new. So it's just, you see how those guys work. Now he's not the only one that does this from, from watching him over the years, I learned that there's a lot of guys throughout the United States to do this. I think he's one of the best. So, you know, I'm doing it. Um, that's why if you mentioned, I, if you saw in that video, when I was walking through a store, I mentioned that if you're really looking for cool gear and you go in a store and you don't find it, you, you're really hurting yourself. You don't ask him like, Hey, you ever heard a, in fact, there's a comment in the video and somebody said, I was actually in that story fill and I said, Oh, you don't have any G and L's. I'm looking for a cool G and L and he goes, hold on. He went in the back and pulled a couple out and the guy bought one. That's absolutely how it works. Many times, uh, you know, you just have to ask him, you know, like, Hey, are I, I'm looking for one of these and he'll either sometimes have it cause it just not out or he'll, he knows where to get it. So, or he's going to be the guy to get it. In fact, Shawna said something. He mentioned to me, uh, we hung out for two hours talking to him cause again, old friends, we've known each other for 20 years. Uh, he mentioned like, not really, you know, selling his store, but he's like, maybe I'll sell my store and he joked. Maybe he's selling his store. He said it twice, you know, over time and, uh, Shawna, who's always got a really cool, keen, you know, way of looking stuff. She said, you know, it's funny is, I said, what? She goes, his phone number is probably worth a fortune. He's had the same phone number as long as I've known him. And that's 20 years. So I'm like, you're right. Because let me tell you what, what I know about him, uh, he's never not answered his phone when you call, cause I'm sure he answers it because every phone calls a lead to some piece of gear. But let me tell you, there's probably thousands of people in this country or around the world, but probably in this country that if they want to sell a cool piece of gear or know something about a piece of, they call him. And so you got to understand that phone number, that phone number is valuable. That's what people see. People don't really think of this industry in all these ways. Somebody actually mentioned in the video again, I'm just talking about, cause I think it was for clarifying, I want to clarify in the video. Somebody said, you know, cause he doesn't post prices on stuff. They're like, well, that's what's horrible. And I'm like, well, then that's not the store for you. You should go to guitars and other prices up front, you know, things are easy. Right. Um, the reason there's no prices on there is because the product fluctuates. You got to understand he's in a, isn't it that, that gear is worth different amounts all the time. So he's in tune with the market at the time and it goes both ways. He's not a silly, like in other words, uh, sometimes he'll, he'll a good, come home to guitar is not worth what it was two years ago. And so he'll do, I've seen him do one of two things. He'll lower the price when you ask him. Cause he's like, yeah, they used to be, he'll tell you flat out. I've heard him say it. Yeah, they used to be worth two grand. Now we're lucky to get 15. So I want 15, you know, and you're like, okay. And I've also seen him when stuff goes down, he puts it away. He's like, why sell it for cheap? I can put it away. It's going to come back up. He's been doing this a long time. He knows how the market is. So to me doing that video in that store was one, I was buying a strat and, uh, cause I told, I told you in the video, I was looking for a strat or a Charvel and I was actually looking for burgundy mist in a Charvel, but actually this worked out better. Cause this, that neck is just fantastic. And this is for a project. You'll see why soon, what I'm going to do it for. Um, uh, but, uh, but yeah, it was crazy. It was a crazy experience. And I'm glad I got to share a store like that with you guys. You know how many people said in the, in the comments, like, I didn't know that store and I'm only 20 minutes away. Yeah. He's not really actively out there looking for customers. Cause like I said, they usually look for him. So, um, just to give you an idea when I got there, let me say the story. It's funny. So I got there. I told Sean, I said, I should call before I show up. So we drove from Riverside. No, I don't know if you guys know, it's like 50 minutes to an hour from where we were. So we're Riverside to orange. Um, and we got there, uh, there was a sign says open at noon. I'm like, cool. It's 12, 12, 15. And then we sat there and a guy came up, a customer came up and he had this vintage, um, he had this vintage, uh, Gibson, right? Um, Thunderbird base. And he's like, I'm looking for the owner. And I go, yeah, he's not here. And I go, and I go, well, let's call him. Cause like I said, he always answers. So I called him, he answers and I go, Hey, it's Phil McKnight. He's like, Oh, cool. And I go, I'm, I go, are you coming in the store today? And he's like, uh, I go, I'm here. And he goes, I'll be there in three hours. So Sean and I went and had a beautiful lunch and we went to these vintage stores and looked at old clothes and stuff for, cause that's what was in that area. And then here's the, just to tell you, we showed back up in three hours. He was there. And so did that guy, that guy with that vintage Thunderbird showed up cause it, and he said the guy, the vintage, the guy with the vintage Thunderbird said to us, he goes, there's nobody like this guy around. And I said, I know he goes, this guy knows the stuff. And I said, I know. So that's the story I thought I'd share with you. I have funnier stories throughout the years, about the time he sold the guitar against his will for like a hundred and fifty, hundred and eighty thousand dollars. You know, that story is a funnier now, funnier, not ha ha funnier, strange, because when he told me the story, I'm going to wait to tell you guys that story. But one of the things that made me laugh was I got, I was talking to him about that story, uh, when we were there at the shop and then he mentioned now that guitar is worth like a million dollars. So he goes, see, I was right. Not to sell it or not wanting to sell it. So anyways, we'll go on to the next subject. Because we have a lot to cover. Let's go into an early riser question. Let's get out of the guitar store talk. Let's talk about this. This came from Clayton. He says, Hey, I'm new to bass and I want a pedal or two or four or six or 10 or all. Why not 20 of them? No, he just said one or two. He says, I'm planning on grabbing a big muff, but I saw your review of the line six M five. How do you like it for bass? Absolutely love it for bass. So, you know, I don't really play specific bass pedals. The only pedals for bass guitar that I would be specifically interested in is sometimes overdrive pedals because overdrive bass pedals, distortion pedals, tend to have the ability to let the clean signal through. Because one of the things that happens when you step on a pedal for a bass is you lose all that low end frequency, right? So if you're holding down the low end of the band and you hit your, your overdrive, sometimes it sucks all the low end out. So a lot of overdrive's on bass guitars pedals will have these where it lets you mix in the clean signal too. So you don't lose that. That being said, I don't own not a single. Well, I just bought that Nathan East Parametric EQ, but that just recently, aside from that, I don't own any specifically bass pedals. The reason I don't is because my I was when I used to go to base lessons to this amazing bass player named Ray Riendo, who's just fantastic. You can look him up. He would play bass and he would play through guitar pedals. And I was like, oh, so I can just like I just play through guitar pedals. Somebody said envelope filter. I actually use a guitar envelope filter. I don't use a specific base envelope filters. In fact, I've been using for envelope filters. I'll use a couple. I have a couple of different ones I like. One of them I like is the DoD one for a four of one. The other one, what's the other one I like? I like the electro electro harmonics one. That's really good. But so, you know, I have specifically bought like the MXR one for bass and a couple one for bass and I just didn't love them. So far what I was doing. So because to me, the envelope filters, they really get too wonky in that low frequency range. So I just I didn't want I like the guitar ones better. So recommendations. Absolutely the M5. I still 100% recommend the M5 pedal. If if you guys there's also the other line six pedal that I will show you right now. Let me go to here. So there's the because I want to say it's the MX 100 line six. I can't remember. I did the video of that too, by the way, because the fact that the M5 is out of production now, but you can find the line, the M5. Let's see if they still have the M5s online. Let's go see. Not new. So you would have to go out there and find them on reverb. I was at Zim's guitars two days ago and there was one in his cabinet. So I know he has one. So there I know they're out there. Why can't I find the line six? HX Stomp. Okay. So the other one, it's a lot more money, but it's a it's HX Stomp. Nope. That's not what I'm looking for either. Hold on. HX one. Like I said, I hate names that are just letters and numbers because I'm never going to commit that to memory. And line six, HX one. Right. That's what it's called. HX one. Here it is. So there is the HX one. This one's $300. You can find the M5 for way less money. It's essentially the same thing as the M5. However, there's a couple of cool options like it has more stuff, but more importantly, it's a smaller footprint and not for you and bass. It won't help, but for the rest of you guitar players, I like the overdrives better in this than the H5, but given the price. However, I find these, I find line six is like all these digital companies now. They're, they're constantly on sale. So I've seen the HX, our HX one constantly go on sale for 250. So if you wait it out, you know, if you don't want to wait, you could probably go on reverb and find a couple of retailers selling for 2.99, put them in your carts and wait a day and you might get an offer for 250. So that's one thing, but that's a great pedal. I like it as much as the M5, except for the M5 is a lot less money, but the M5 is a lot bigger footprint. So Dave wants to know, Hey, Phil, what do you think of the future series? I'm not going to tell you. Just kidding. David, I have a video. I did the video. So, um, when I timestamped this, I'll put the link to the future video. I bought a few Chara and I made the video because God knows, you know, Gibson and Fender never going to work for this channel. Funny enough, I'm wearing a Fender shirt. I'm wearing a Fender. Look, I promote, I promote those companies. I, so I bought a Fuchera, Fuchera, Fuchera. I'm still going to mess up their name. I say it correctly in the name because, uh, uh, cause I, I worked hard enough to learn it for the five seconds of saying the name, but the, uh, Fuchera, uh, Fuchera, it's, it's like Fudera, but Fuchera with a T, I think is the correct, how I see Gibson pronouncing it. But the, uh, I bought the Fuchera because I thought it's a new product. It's really cool. I had a lot of compliments for it. A couple of critiques as always. And, um, same with vendors. I buy vendors and I put them on the channel, um, because it's a guitar channel and it would be stupid not to have Gibson, Fender, Epiphone and, uh, Squire on this channel. This one came from Amanda says 93 green strat. Hey, I have a green strat and it says, Hey, are we too obsessed with vintage specs? Modern guitars are better. You know what it is? They're modern guitars and vintage guitars are both amazing for totally different reasons. And I like both, but I tend to say this. I like the way vintage guitars look and, but I like modern specifications on them. Um, so to me, my perfect world is a guitar that looks vintage. But has all modern components on it. So it performs. So like, you know, like think of it like a fifties reissue strat. So it looks old, like an old strat, but it has carbon fiber rods and has a, you know, dual action truss rod, maybe a spoke will end on it. So it don't have to take off the neck to adjust it. And, you know, a two point tremolo that, but maybe make the tremolo look a little vintage, you know, maybe age it a little bit, you know, again, give it the look, but give it the right performance. That's where I'm the most happy. So I like it when companies do that. I always liked that look. Um, but obsessed with it. Look, we're all obsessed with something. So we're all, you know, it's, it's, it's, you're never going to shake the fact that the thing that we really love, which is music, no one's playing guitar because they don't love music. That's what it starts it. It starts, that's how it starts first. It makes no sense the other way around. I mean, I'm sure there's, there's 1200 of you here. So maybe there's one of you that's going to be like, I don't even play music or like music. I just like the way the guitars look. I mean, that's possible, but most of us, you fell in love with music and that's the connection. So the guitars are connected to music and that's why analyzing the logic of it sometimes is fun, but also, uh, stupid because if it had logic, it wouldn't make sense. Um, you know, um, sometimes I like a song not because of the technical prowess of the song, you know, I like the song cause it's catchy and it, or it was the played at the right time in my life when the right memory and created the right memory or it signed itself to the right memory. Um, and, uh, and then because I love that music and I love the artists, I love the instruments they played and the equipment they use because again, I'm obsessed with like, how did they make this beautiful music? You know, where did they come up with their chords? Why, what, you know, how, how much effect did the guitar have on that or the, the amp or the pedal, you know, uh, it's, it's all part of the equation. Um, and, um, I once, uh, I was talking about, I was actually talking about Robert Baker, if you know the channel, the Robert Baker from the channel, Robert Baker. Um, one time I was talking to a friend about him, you know, we all know each other, so it's, it's, it's fine. Uh, and they were saying, you know, like Robert doesn't, isn't as gear centric as some of us, you know, he's, he's into gear, but you know, obviously he's really accomplished player and he's really fun. I said, that's because he's collecting something else. And they said, what is he collecting? They thought I was going to say like soap dishes. I'm like, yeah, he collects, uh, he collects, you know, beanie babies. No, I said he's collecting chords and scales and music techniques. That's collecting too. See, it's, he's, he's passionate about that part of it too. So that some of us are focused on that. I need to know, I, I, you know, I have a, I have a friend who's a masterful guitar player. He's not known in any way. He teaches guitar for a living though. And I see it in his brain. His brain reacts the way my brain works when I see a new pedal and I go, oh, that pedal is really cool. Maybe if I get that pedal, I'll be happy. He goes, he hears a song and he goes, here's a phrase or a lick and goes, I need to know that phrase. I need to learn that. I need to have that in my vocabulary of music. I need to prove to myself that I can do that, that I can do what that guitar player can do. And sometimes it's not even a competitive thing. Sometimes just I want to hear, play that or I want to hear that. You know, I had that for me, I had that moment musically at a young age with the squeal harmonic, you know, the, the, you know, these rocker guys, I mean, Zach Wilde, Nuno Bencourt, all of them would help if I had distortion. Do this, turn on the thing. This, that sound, right? So that squeal. And it drove me crazy, but I didn't know because I didn't know anything. And this is where the argument about music and gear has relevance. So I would sit there on my CMC amp with my JB player guitar with no overdrive. And I would do this for hours. Yeah. Yeah. So for even now, it wouldn't sound that good. Back then it was probably like this. I couldn't do it. This, this, this little squeal, this little pinch harmonic couldn't do it. It was driving me crazy. So here's what happened. I went not because of this, just one day I happened to walk into the store called guitars, et cetera, on Speedway in Tucson, Arizona for those watching for Tucson shout out to the wind guitars, et cetera, was there. They were a PV dealer and I walked in and they had a little amp room. You could go in and I walked in and I grabbed this Ivaniz guitar. Okay. And they had a PV rage amplifier, which you guys know is at the time like a $99, I think it was 109, actually funny, little amp and it had distortion. And I had practice probably. I mean, I'm in my head. I'm thinking like, you know, a dozen hours, probably hundreds, some ridiculous amount doing this. That over an hour. I go in, I plug in the guitar first time go. And I went, and here's what happens. This is a hundred percent true story. I was like, it was never me. It was the amp. I have a crappy amp. If I had a great amp, I, I could be able to do this. And I sat there in that store probably for 20 minutes because this is back when they would kick you out for loitering. And I would just go. And then here's what happened. I went home and I went home to tell my mom that I need a PV rage amp. And if I don't get a PV range amp mom, I won't be able to do a pinch harmonic. I will literally be, you know, just a failure as a guitar player. And before my mom could come home, I went into my bedroom. I grabbed my guitar. I plugged into my CMC amp with the distortion like this. And with this and did this. And I went, what the hell was that? I mean, listen. Right here. See how quiet, see how less distorted this is. Watch. And I went. And all of a sudden I was like, wasn't the squeal the same as the hiking amp? Now here's my argument to this day. I'm not saying you need a good gear. What I'm saying is I believe to this day that that PV rage amp unlocked the last part I couldn't figure out whatever it was that I couldn't figure out in that pinch harmonic. That day I could do it. And then from then on I could do it on anything. Sounds better when there's the more gain, but I could do it. And so that's probably my earliest memory of figuring out that I don't need gear. Okay. Practice was the pinch harmonic. And here's what, here's the argument. The argument that I would make is without the hours of practicing a pinch harmonic badly, the rage amp, the PV amp would have never pulled out the pinch harmonic. I would never pulled it off. So it definitely was the combination. That's why I don't like when people go, why don't you practice? Why you guys look at gear? Well, why don't we do both? Why don't we do both? Why don't we practice and look at gear? Cause maybe all of it comes together in some way. Wouldn't that make sense? Like, right? I mean, if you don't want to, if you don't want guitars and amps and pedals to make music, just become a singer. Use your voice. I don't know. Right. Um, but, uh, that's, uh, like I said, that's, that's kind of my thought on that. So, um, let's see. Let's go to another one. Hold on a second. Um, okay. I don't know if I understand the question. I'll do my best. Nathan says, Hey Phil, are noiseless pickups on strats looking at a player to modified? Okay. Any different from regular player to pickups outside? Obviously be a lack of hum. Uh, in my experience, noiseless pickups, um, don't have the rich harmonic overtones that single coils do. I mean, that's just like how a humbucker doesn't have either. Right. I mean, cause a single coil, a noiseless pickup is a humbucker. That's, that's a good one. Noiseless pickup is a humbucker. That's, that's just how that works. The closest thing that I know of that's a single coil, that's not technically a humbucker to be noiseless would be the lace sensor pickups. And so, you know, they're not a hundred percent noiseless. They still have six cycle hums. It's just really quiet because of the way they create that, that lace sensor pickup. Um, but, um, no, uh, um, uh, I mean, there's nothing wrong with noiseless pickups, but they're not the same as single coils, uh, just true single coils. You, so, um, I look at it like this way, and this is probably the best way to put it. Uh, in a situation in front of an audience, you know, we are in a bar where there's blenders and noise and having a noiseless single coil pickup is, uh, to me, is a, is a benefit. So I like it. But in the room, what do I choose? I would choose a true single coil traditional pickup because again, I feel like the harmonic structure of it is just a little clearer and brighter. Um, there's some stuff happening there that having two, uh, bobbins, um, you know, uh, change, you know, change the way it sounds, but, uh, it's up to you. And like I said, and that doesn't make them bad. Some people love noiseless over single coils. I have noiseless pickups, by the way. I have noiseless pickups in some guitars because sometimes that fits the job. You know, I don't want to deal with, uh, noisy crap. You know, uh, it's just how it works. You know, you pick the job. So if you want a strat that has some noiseless pickup center, just do it and, uh, they'll sound straddy. That's, that's what they do. So the reason they sound straddy, let me tell you, let me tell you why noiseless single coil pickup sounds straddy or single coily to you. It's because the difference between putting two coils side by side and putting them on top of each other. Now there's two ways to do a noiseless pickup. Some of us know as a mini humbucker, like you see it on a blade pickup, like, uh, like a DiMargio or a mini, you know, 59 or JB from Seymour Duncan. But what he's, I believe he's talking about is the most traditional noiseless pickup that we know of, which is where the, the, the bobbins are on top of each other. Okay. So if you took off the cover, which is getting harder, cause a lot of times they're gluing that stuff up, but if you take up the cover to a fender noiseless pickup, what you would see is two bobbins on top of each other. Now the reason why they're on top of each other is because it's essentially what, uh, Paul Reedsmith calls a narrow field pickup, right? In other words, humbucker, cause the, they're side by side, the field, in other words, the area which they're picking up is wider. So they get more of the low frequency and high frequency and give you a fuller frequency response. However, part of the magic of a single coil is by narrow, by narrowing that down, they just get a little area of that string and they get some, like I said, more bright out of it, usually less bass, even if it's in the neck position. Um, so, cause again, think of it like, I mean, the best way to think of it is, I, this is a good analogy. I like it. Think of it as putting two microphones in front of a guitar speaker. You put one, like towards the center of the speaker and one towards the outer side and you mix it in a mixer. And what you're going to get is a little bit of the low end of the speaker and a little bit of the brightness speaker and you'll mix it out. Or if you use one microphone, if you put it right in front of the cone, it's going to be really bright. And if you put it the end of the cone, uh, you know, it's going to be really bassy. So that's why it won't matter if it's noiseless. It'll still pick up the same area, giving the same sound, but the pickup itself works a little differently. So you, like I said, you lose a little, in my opinion, that top end sparkle. But if you don't care about that, some people will find that sparkle glassy and harsh on the ears. So there's reasons why I would say never, never, uh, you know, you may not like that. So I've, I have a friend, um, years ago put noiseless in his guitars because of that reason he likes strat sounds, but he doesn't like the glassy, bright strat sound and that works for him. Um, uh, let's see. Step van Joe says, Hey, Phil, what is your suggestion for a high gain, lower wattage, two BAMP, uh, was considering the Archon. So okay, you're, I'm assuming you're in the thousand dollar range. That's where you want to spend a bit much for my current situation, combo or head. So if you like the Archon, which I do as well at 50 Watts, a thousand bucks, things that would suggest EVH brand stuff, you know, like the LBX amps, I think they discontinued most of them, but you can find them on a, like I keep seeing them for 450 every one. The MT 15, some people complain the MT 15, including me that, you know, it's like it's hard to turn down, especially compared to the, uh, the Archon, but the newer versions actually do that much better. So you don't have to get a brand new MT 15. You need to use when you just need to get the second editions. The, the first editions were a little hard to get them, the sweet spot of quiet. Um, I like the MT 15 almost as much as I like the Archon. They're side by side. They're, there's a slight difference in the sound and where I would give the edge to the Archon every time. But then the difference is so negligible, um, to what I would say. Um, so that's another one. I, if you want to spend a little bit more, I love the Steve Morris by Engel. I like all Engel amps like for that. I, I end up, so I've had the Archons. I've had all the Archons, all of them. I've had the 100 watt, the 50 watt USA version. I've had the 50 watt Indonesia version that's made at the Cortech factory. I've had the MT 15. By the way, that's one thing you can tell when you're looking at MT 15s, then the newest versions are made in Indonesia. They're made at the Cortech factory. Instead of China. That's where some of the revisions happened. It's not even, I'm kind of saying like, oh, they're made better. It's not that it's just, there was some revisions, you know, like anybody, they got feedback from customers and they made some adjustments. So when they read, they, when they had to go to Cortech to, uh, cause you know, they just don't want to start building it. They have to set up the whole process. They were like, that's a good time to read, you know, change and things. Um, I mean, there's a ton of those amps. But I personally, um, I mean, I think I'm going to go with the ground and try to see if there's any other inspirations. I think out of all my little high gain amps that I've used, I've just stuck with the Steve Morris cause I like the way it performs, but an angle. I don't know why it is about angle. I find that I get less fizz and more mid range punch and that kind of like that about them. But I like that about the 50 watt Archon too. So, um, this is the question I have. I'm going to go with the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the uh, this is the question I can't answer, but I'm going to talk about it. It says, uh, this one is from six stringer says, Hey, Phil, what's your thoughts on the microtonal guitars and that French band with the polka dots? Uh, I have no, I, first of all, just figured out now, cause of you, they're French. I know I saw some memes or something about somebody looks like I saw polka dots on people in clown masks. I'm sure that's what we're talking about. And, uh, I, I don't even think I actually heard the music cause I probably saw some version of it that gets fed into you by some social media thing where somebody overdubbed. Um, but so I'm just saying that's why I think the reference is coming from. So I don't know the music. Microtonal stuff. Don't know much about it other than it's tiny frets. It never sounds good to me when I've heard it, but I haven't heard what you're talking about. So I don't know. It's, it's, you know, it's one of those things. It's new. So I'd have to hear it and get, and digest it for a while. New stuff takes a while. So every band that I really love, I hate it at first. So, um, that's just how it works. I love guns and roses cause I'm a huge slash fan. I hated guns and roses when I first heard them. I hated them so much. I thought it was horrible and it just for some reason, it graded on my nerves. And then it just won me over. And that's sometimes how that's, and Mike's, for me, for me, new things, truly new things. I'm negative first. So I'm always like, I don't like this. It's new. I don't like new. So I have to digest it. And now that I'm older and I know that about myself, I forced myself, you know, to put in the time on something to find it out. And go, okay, let's get past this weirdness part that I'm not digging. So, um, uh, let's see. I don't even know what that means. Let's see what this is. Since I just noticed your shirt. What says Fender? Uh, so my shirt, oh, for those listening later, my fender, my shirt says Fender telecaster on it says, uh, do you think Fender will ever fix the cable jacks? 75 years seems plenty of time. I have no idea what that means. You're talking about like the output jack cable jacks. I think that's what that means. Now output jack cable jacks. Let me look that up. It's maybe it's something that's obvious and I'm just missing it. Cable jacks with an X on a tele. Yeah, it just says output jack. It's, why would they fix it? Uh, fix it. I don't know. Uh, I don't have a problem with it. So, uh, I never, never replaced any of my Fender tellies with their output jack plates or any of that stuff. Uh, never had an issue. Some people don't like it. If you, if he's probably talking, there's a, you know, the modern ones are a solid piece. The original ones are this, uh, dish. And then there's this, uh, four pronged plate that you have to put it through and it sticks in the wood and you kind of balance it out. The, the. Yeah. I mean, it's not ideal, but it's one of those things. Like I told you, like what I just did with this guitar, where you put a nice output jack in it, to me, if you put a quality output jack in a guitar, it's, unless you're a rock star and you're beating the crap out of stuff. Um, I don't think you're going to see too, too much, uh, you know, have desire to have this, something replaced like that. It's not, it's not something that breaks that easy. Once they put a good one in, it's the cheap ones that are problematic. Um, uh, let's see. Um, some of it says, here's a topic. Um, can you tell me if roasted maple necks are a real quality thing or just a gimmick? Uh, here's what no one is saying about roasted maple necks. So I did it in two phases. So first phase was I bought a ton of guitars with roast maple necks. So if you watch this channel, you know, I've, I've had the gamut. I've had the, you know, the firefly, the jet you call it, you name it. You want to talk about $100, $200 guitar, $300 guitar with a roasted maple neck. I have done it. If you want to talk about expensive or mid-priced roast maple necks, I've done it. Charvels at, you know, the, the main Mexico Charvels, the, uh, Indonesian, uh, uh, roasted maple neck guitars like Ibanez, AZs, the main China Ibanez, AZ, um, the main Japan roasted maple necks. I've owned a ton of those, bought those dissected those, uh, $4,000 roasted maple necks, you name it, uh, you know, uh, uh, uh, Kiesel roasted maple necks, sir roasted maple maple maple necks. I have put my hands on a ton of maple necks. The second part of that phase was, as you guys know, then I would go to factories and I would learn about, uh, torrification, the process of making these roasted maple necks. Here's what I think about roasted maple necks now. I think when done right, it is a fantastic system, but I think that half of the guitars out there are not done right. Um, the problem with anything where we start as a community, start just saying key words like, oh, roasted maple neck means quality that teaches people, especially that are a little bit more on the con artist side. Oh, so if I roast the neck, if I make it dark, then they'll just think it's quality, it doesn't matter. But the reality is this, um, the, the craziest thing I can tell you is, is this is absolutely the craziest thing. If you take factories like Taylor guitars, you take factories like, um, Kiesel guitars, you take factories like Paul Ritz Smith, USA, Paul Ritz Smith, Indonesia. You, uh, I've been as, you know, Indonesia, um, you, you take these factories, just to some, just some factors. I can tell you that not only when I was there and filming all of them refused to allow me to share with you guys any of the torrification standards and processes that they do. And I can tell you, cause I, I filmed them. They were all slightly different from each other and how they did it. More importantly, I could say that the really quality, uh, roasted necks, those companies were slightly aligned. Okay. So again, I have to be vague. This is a hard NDA to break. I break this NDA. I can be in trouble. So I was, I had to remove it. I had to remove it from a ton of companies because they don't want you to know exactly what temperature they're running, um, how long they run it because where they land and here's why, here's why I don't, um, I think it's because they think they figured out totally where it lands. Maybe cause a lot of them focus on that. I can tell you just going on reverb, you can see the problem. When you over roast a neck, when your torrification is done too much, the neck becomes very brittle. Try to find, and I'm just going to pick on Ivan this first, cause I think they screwed it up really bad first. And I think they've refined it. Some of their necks were roasted to hell, like really dark. And then now you go online, you can't find without dense in them because once they, once they basically carbonize them, cause that's what they're doing. They're, the torrification process is essentially a, it's, it's cooking. They're cooking a neck, but they're removing oxygen and this process, it carbonizes the neck. That's why the neck is so, so hard like carbon fiber. It's carbonizing. So what happens is it gets so like carbon fiber. It's really strong, but then it gets brittle. I've seen it. I saw, I saw a torrified neck once that I stabbed my thumbnail into. Just went in and I was like, and I did it in the weirdest way. I did it like compulsory, like when you peel a label off of a bottle or something. Like I, I was holding it like this. By the way, I'm not in trouble for this. Okay. And I was holding with this hand and I had my thumb right here and it felt, it felt brittle and I don't know what possessed me. I just pushed and it went, now why am I in trouble? Because the company was extremely embarrassed. They were like, I go, oh, I'm sorry. And they're like, oh my God, I can't believe you did that. And I go, yeah. And they're like, and they're like, that must be a mistake one. I'm like, yeah, that's not right. That's crazy. That was in maple, by the way, like pushing your thumbnail in through, through some maple wood was crazy. So what I've kind of learned with the, the torsification process is there, when it done, right, it's very nice. I find that if you don't know, if you're a manufacturer, especially small ones, like you see them in small, small builders, you know, the small builders doing it out of a shop, doing another garage, I would say what I learned from the big boys, so to speak is do it very lightly. Like, in fact, this is where they have problems. Sometimes our uneducated stupidity is what caused the company grief. We'll go, oh, that doesn't even look like it was roasted at all. Yeah, it's a scam. Like we were like, it's like, we know it's not good unless it's dark chocolate. And actually, sometimes that could be the worst. Now, so you know, just because the guitar is extremely dark, it doesn't mean that that's bad. I'm just saying that's usually the sign of where it's going to be problematic if they didn't do whatever it is their process. Because again, I want you to think of it like in this, I'm going to be vague because it makes sense this way. It's not how dark it is, is how fast they got it there. How did they get it that dark? So did they throw it in the oven, so to speak, and they cook the shit out of it? And then now it's like dark. And then now you're like said, now you're having a problem. The problem is, is time is money, right? So the longer it sits in that oven to sit it for two days to cook it over a period of time or 24 hours is a while. I've seen companies where they basically, you know, they're zap frying it. You know, and so in my experience now, when I'm looking at guitars, unless I trust the company and I know the company's process and I or I can go online and see, like I said, that there's not a lot of damaged, torrified necks out there. I like it when the necks are roasted very lightly, where it almost still looks like the neck is still maple colored just a little bit on the darker side. Because I think what at that point they've just successfully dried all the moisture in the sap out of it. So, you know, they all they all grade it differently to they all have different thought processes and how they figure out where the success has happened. One of my favorite ones is a lot of them measure the moisture and the sap that is collected at the bottom of these tanks. And so it's crazy about that is no one's allowed me to show you that. Everybody's specifically said, no, no, we don't want that shown. I think there's footage and videos, but then what you may not notice is like the audio was taken off and maybe I'm talking overhead or we put something else over there, but they weren't you weren't allowed to know the specific things they were doing and checking for. So, so do I think it's a scam? I know it's not a scam. Do I think it's great? I think it's a highly effective way to put less burden on the planet earth and, you know, on trees, you know, and and make because again, because one of the things that made old guitars great is old growth wood. There's there's no doubt about that. There's there's no tone would debate here. Okay. Old growth wood is a lot of times stronger. It's more stable, right? Cutting wood in directions like quarter son versus flat son. Again, putting the grain in a different way in the neck. It's more stable. It's a better quality thing to do. It causes more expense. So if you can, when you're using younger trees and they're just, you know, kind of using tree farms and they're trying to make guitars out of younger wood and then try to make that process done really fast, the wood doesn't air dry for years. I mean, there's difference manufacturers. Some manufacturers take old growth trees still and then air dry them over a couple of years. You ain't getting no $300 guitar with that way. Okay. There's just no way it can exist. It's just not possible. The process to do that makes that guitar, that process puts probably puts $300, $400 of value onto the guitar. So to me, as someone who's just ultimately wants everybody to be able to enjoy music and get a good quality guitar, if somebody's figured out how to do it more effective, I'm going to turn this hissing off. I'm sorry. Effective process, I think that's a great idea. But that's what I've observed. So my official answer is it's not a scam. However, it can be used as a scam. It can be used as a tag word that just implies quality. My favorite comment sometimes on videos when I talk about, you know, a roasted neck or torrified, somebody goes, I don't understand what ads cost, all they're doing is cooking it and, you know, or whatever, the roasting it. How does that make the guitar expensive? It doesn't make the guitar expensive. In fact, sometimes it makes the guitar less expensive because it's again, they can use a younger, younger growth tree and cook it, so to speak, versus an old growth tree and let it air dry. However, the cost that we're going to see is the proprietary thing that they figured out where the sweet spots are. Because once you know that, why would you give it away for free? So let's see. Michael wants to know, have you ever bought an expensive piece of gear and immediately regretted it? That's my experience with EH Oceans Abyss, 100 presets, and they're all weird. I should have bought a big, a big sky. Yeah, so you know, I, you know, I convinced myself over years of doing this YouTube channel that I should experience all the things and relay that to you guys. And, you know, because one of the things that would get to me sometimes was, you know, I'd watch another content creator and they would be so diehard about an opinion that I didn't think they actually had a whole lot of experience in. And I thought, well, that's not really fair. Like, let me give you an example of that. So I'm not just pigeonholed that idea. If I said, hey, no, no guitar should be over 200 bucks. Every guitar that's $200 is great. And I've never owned a guitar over $200. Well, I could be 100% right. But a part of that's by luck, because without that compare contrast, how do you know, you know, to me, taking an $8,000 callings guitar and comparing it to a $400 epiphone, you know, is a fair way to give somebody some insight onto onto those two guitars, you know, to say, to say that one's a joke and, you know, to say the opposite is bad too, you know, if you have a four-nit all guitar, you have junk. By the way, that's all the comment sections and all videos on all of YouTube channels are the same. You know, if you review a cheap guitar, guys come out of the woodwork and say expensive guitars are great and this is junk and you guys are all idiots and you shouldn't buy this garbage. If you review expensive guitars, the cheap guys come out and say that the expensive stuff's overpriced and only the idiots buy the or rich people, right. I always, by the way, I'm never offended by either position, you know, I think everybody should buy the thing that makes them gives them the most joy. However, I will say the only thing I sometimes don't like is when people say rich people buy this, because as an addict, I will tell you that if you gave me an option to have a hundred thousand dollar truck, right, or a fifty thousand dollar truck and fifty thousand dollars with a gear, I'd take that in a second, in a second, right, or even less of a truck, right, like I don't even care. Like, my mindset is I would have a car that barely starts and I would have nice guitars. It's probably not the best choice in life. I mean, if it was, if it depended on my job and I had to get to work on time, I wouldn't make those decisions. I don't make bad decisions that way. But I'm just saying it's, I don't always think it's a rich thing. Some of us are just compulsively addicted to something because it's the only thing I like, you know, I helped a friend, a good friend of mine move recently and when I was helping him move, I figured out that he's like into three major hobbies and he had all this stuff and I was like, oh, see, I only have one hobby. It's just this, like there's nothing else I have. I collect no other things and any form or reason of logic or any way, nothing. Just music, literally CDs and guitars. That's what I have tons of. So, the real trouble maker says priorities. Exactly. It is priorities. Okay, let's do this. Refresh this. I need to drink a water. Okay, so let's button these up. Antique Rocker says, metronomes. Are there any metronomes you recommend? Have you tried the Sound Brinner pulse? That's the one that watched that goes in your wrist. They sent me one. I did a video a long time ago, but I didn't do it by itself. That's probably why it's hard to find. I think I did like five gadgets kind of video and I went through them. Wasn't really blown away with anything. I didn't have anything negative or positive. It was just kind of a thing. I gave it away. Do you use a beat buddy as a metronome? No, for metronome, I only use two kinds of metronomes. These are the metronomes I use. I have this one first. I both, I think, are Wittner. So, Wittner, this is a Wittner metronome and then I have a larger one like the piano. Wittner is the brand. These are mechanical. I cannot stand digital metronomes. I'm sorry guys. To me, as a bass player, remember I'm a bass player. I know it's like a weird thing because it's a guitar channel, but I'm a bass player. So, to me, all my really time gets spent on bass. On a bass, metronome is your friend. I don't play drum machines. I play to metronomes. To me, mechanical metronomes, this is a wind-up metronome. You unhook it here. This is actually made in Germany. This sounds pleasing to me. What happens with my brain and metronomes, and I'm going to leave this on for a second so you guys know, is that when the pulse or the digital beep or whatever that fake block sound happens, after a minute or less, my brain stops paying attention to it. I don't care about it. But this, a physical click, and of course, I actually like the larger Wittner more, which I have in the other room. This is just my portable one. It's a little portable. It has a little plastic thing that goes over it. This is plastic. I'm going to pull it up so you guys see it. Wittner WITTINR. Is it all NER? Metronome comes right up. Let's see what... Oh, look, they have both. Oh, man. Okay, so the other one I have is expensive. There's a cheaper version. The one I have looks like it's about $180. Of course. But the one I just showed you is... Can I just pull it up on Amazon? That would be the best, I think. This one, the one I'm showing you, I'm pulling up online. I see one for $65. They're not cheap, but like I said, they're actually made in Germany and really good. This is what I use. This is the Super Mini is what it's called. And by the way, I just randomly pulled this up. I should pull it up on Amazon or a better place or sweetwater or guitar center. The larger one, as you guys know, is going to look like this. This is what I mean by the larger one. It's... Oh, that's an old one. But you get the idea. It's like a piano style one, see? I say it because it's always on top of pianos. So I use that one, which has got a deeper, fuller click. It's just a little nicer than this. But to me, that sound is more pleasing. And more importantly, I feel like I'm more connected to it musically when I'm playing and staying locked into the metronome. So that's what I use. This, and like I said, this one's wherever I am practicing, like I was practicing before the show today. When I'm practicing this one, the little one goes with me. This goes in my little go bag. I have a little go bag for musical stuff, and this is what I take. And that's what I recommend. If you guys haven't seen one like this, how it works is it's just got a weight. It's got a little... See, it hooks underneath. That's why it doesn't move when you transport it. It's got a little weight at the bottom. And then the slider depicts on how fast it is. So the higher it goes, the slower it goes. Whoops. If you don't slide it off, I'm trying to show you guys and not break my thing. Okay, here we go. See? That's right. It won't work if it's not on a flat surface because it's too... That's pendulum is too heavy. Let's go back this way. There you go. So you get the idea. So I love that. Like to me, that sounds like an old clock, right? Just sounds great. So to answer, that's your answer, your question. That's what I recommend. I highly recommend that. You'll buy this. I would not get the big one. That's to me, it's... Quality wise, they work the same. Just the other one has a bigger, deeper, deeper click. This one will last you for ever and ever and ever and ever, as long as you don't get into water. So if you're going to play in water, I would not recommend this. But I bet the digital one won't work either. You can use your B-Buddy. You can use a drum machine. You can use the thing online on YouTube. You can use whatever you want. If you don't have to spend 65 bucks. But you know, yeah, you know, for me, it was not a big investment. I think when I bought this one, except two of these, I think it was $40.99. I was back in the day. So that one's got to be at least 20 years old or older. I have one that I bought from my store and one from from Performance Store. Oh, actually, I think this one's the newer one because I think my other one's got a red. It's got a burgundy thing. So, all right. Nathan Nathaniel Nathaniel says, Hey, I heard you say Ivan has breaks your heart. Was a title of a video. So was a yes with low quality but saw Satchiv, oh, Satchiv Eye Band last night. And now I want one. How old should I should I buy to get good quality? I would stay away from the last six years. That's easy. Like the pre COVID. Like, I think of this, I have the new Satch guitar and the neck on this. In fact, I was just playing at that store, the vintage store in California, they had a Satch guitar used there. I should have bought it. And the only reason I didn't buy it is because I have the white one here. And I was like, I got to get rid of that one when I'm done with the video. You know, or you know, you can always put your hands on one, you know, like, that's my whole point is I feel like you have to put your hands on them now. It's one of those things like, you know, used to be Ivan is and that's really the thing about Ivan is it's not even that that they're I want to say their qualities about them. Look, everything on that Satch guitar that I have now the $3,600 one, I could round the fretboard edge, I could polish a few things, I could set up it up, and it's going to be fine. Okay, so it's not not that it's defective product. What I'm basically saying is, is I've been as used to be a brand that I used to just be able to tell people, yeah, go buy it. Good idea. I'm thinking about getting a quality guitar. I'm looking at Ivan is, but that's great. I've been as great quality go. It's where now I'm like, Well, what model you looking at? What price point you looking at? What are you looking at? You know, so, so something to think about. So, yes. Just to see, you know, I'm pretty sure I don't even think Satch and Vi play like in Japan ones, I think on stage, they're all in the USA custom shop ones that are not allowed. Us mere mortals are not allowed to buy. So they have a better version in most cases, in most cases. I know sometimes they'll probably have production ones, but I know a lot of them are their super custom shop Ivan is once Mr. G says, Hey, Phil, always love to show best Intinuator for Fender amps play mostly clean light overdrive. Don't need irs. I would use the tone King Iron Man two. That's what I use for that. I've tried and owned so many of them. There's a lot of great ones. That one's my favorite when you just want your amp to sound as close to your amps going to sound attenuated. It also has a problem if you really got to attenuate the crappy ramp, it's still going to get dark enough. I mean, the way the way I here's what I figure about all Intinuators, even though when somebody goes, Oh, this one's the best, and this one's the best, there's there's a lot of really great ones. But I've learned that none of them allow you to choke down the amp down to nothing and not affect the sound by darkening it. And it's just this how it goes. So but I think the Iron Man by the tone King Iron Man Intinuator is really affordable for a high end Intinuator. And it's it's especially for a Fender amp and I have it. So it's like said, it's one I've decided out of the ones I bought and over the years, that's the one I landed on. So that's what I like. Okay, let's um, let's button up the show. You know what we're going to do? We're going to do now it's time for this or that. Wow, these speakers are loud in here. I'm afraid. Let me try that again. And now it's time for this or that probably distorted the my microphone when I was playing. All right, this or that. So you guys been liking this little I'm going to call it a game like it's a game show. It's a game show. We're doing this or that. This one is a little bit for me. We're going to try this. I'm having a you're going to help me out. I said this before it's this is just for having fun and so we're going to have fun but you're going to actually help me out. I have two pedals today and I I think I I think I love one more than the other. So let me get my dry board out. I'm going to write the one I like better. This is going to be really hard by the way. I'm going to go put this over here on the official now the new official board holding amplifier. Let's create the the pole. This or that. This that or the other. I'm just kidding. There's no other or none. So I don't put both. Somebody asked me like what about instead of none put both. I'm like if I put both you'll just put both. It's a cop. I'm going to use the guitar of the week guitar. So my last time playing it. I'm going to start with clean. Okay. So what you're going to hear what you're going to hear here is I'm running a clean amp. So you guys know if you want to know what amp today today I'm using a two rock. I don't know what the hell it is a studio signature. Okay. So it's a 50 watt amp. No it's 25 watts. It's like 25 35 watts. It's a studio signature. Let's make sure because it could be the vintage reverb. Nope. It's a studio signature. Okay. So two rock studio signature. It's running into a 112 cabinet with a this has a red back slashing it. So just something a little different. That's one speaker I like to play. It's clean. It's got its own reverb. The reason I'm using this amp is because the amp is really clean and I really want you to hear what we're going to do because it's not an overdrive video today. This one's going to be trickier. This today let me turn on this light. Okay. Today we're trying two delay pedals but one is a lot more expensive than the other. Now I put them as close to sounding as I can of each other for those that are going to pick me apart because you're going to do it. Fair enough that one is slightly off or different because I didn't set a thing and do a thing. The problem I'm having is this. This is how I have both of them set. This is how I personally use them. So we'll do our best. You know like said just do your best to have some fun. Switch screens to the board the board cam. We will start with this. Okay. And play the clean and then I'll play the delay pedal and we'll A B. Okay. Let's do it. Okay. Now we'll go to that. This is the other delay pedal. Okay. I feel like they changed a little bit. It's okay. We'll go back to this. We'll mess with some of the... Oh! Let's start the poll now too. Okay. Here we go. Okay. Now I'll go back to that. Okay. Messing with stuff right now. Just give me a second. I want to try something. There it is. Okay. Okay. Here we go. Still on that. Okay. Now we're going to go back to this. Okay. So in the last what I would like to do now is play them both. We'll stay on this. We're on this pedal. We're going to hit overdrive. Okay. So we have some overdrive now. And so we'll do this with overdrive. Okay. And now we're going back to that. Here we go. We're on that. Okay. And one last time for fun. We're back to this. Okay. And then last last time. Back to that. Okay. So let's see where we're at. Let's look at the poll. Okay. We'll see our vote. So right now we have 204 votes. Let's see if we can get 300 votes or 250 somewhere on that. Let's look at 250 at least. So 250. Right now this is 73%. So definitely this is winning for sure. Let me get my board. And let's see which one I picked versus you picked. And I have a caveat on this. So you know so far this is the fifth episode we've done in the first four episodes 75% of the time three of the episodes we agreed one time we I just had a different opinion in the group. So and like I said I'm going to end it at 250. So putting your last votes. I think it's a pretty clear winner. So I don't think we have to go to 300 and then we'll do the reveal. Okay. We're at 234. We're still we're stalled. I'll probably kill it at 240 then because like said we're it's a clearly one's winning. So just give a couple people want to vote last minute. Okay. One more. I got one more vote. We're going to end it right now. Okay. Anyone else last vote. Okay. We stalled. All right. So here we go. We'll end it. Click that. All right. So this or that you guys picked this at 71% of the votes picking this 24% of that votes picking that and 5% picking none. I picked that. So I disagreed with you guys. But I have a caveat. Let me explain why the caveat in a second when we do the reveal. Let me go ahead and get the screenshot if you don't mind. Okay. So I screen shot it. I think. Yeah I did. Okay. Well go back here. All right. Ready. Here's the reveal. It is the Strymon delay. This is the dig. DIG digital dual digital delay versus the boss DD three. Now what's funny about this is I know some of you guys mentioned like the timing stuff. I try actually I was I was trying to sync them up. But the problem is every time I got them synced to where they sounded almost except they one was definitely suffering in my opinion. So here's where I'm at. I picked the digital delay the DD three the boss. Let me tell you why I picked it. You guys I think I saw you guys do the same thing. This is what's interesting because I think you guys picked up on something that I picked up on clean wise. I thought the Strymon killed. I was like yes if it was only clean and that's what I'm having a problem with. So you guys know I I've been using this Strymon delay. I bought one and I'm really liking it. I love it on clean. It's so transparent. The notes sound great. Everything's right. When I run distortion what I notice is is the boss pedal thickens the distortion. It actually changes it thickens it a little bit and then the delay just feels a little bit bigger on the repeats than the Strymon does. And I've messed with some of the stuff. One of the things that Strymon doesn't have is like a tone control. I think that would have really helped in this particular situation. But like I said I like both. What's crazy about this is you know the massive price difference. So looking at these the boss DD3 isn't made anymore but now they make the boss DD3T. Right so we'll go off that. That's not what this is. This is an actual old boss DD3. So a boss DD3T which is just the same thing but has tap tempo okay is 153 dollars. So the Strymon delay is I don't know why I played delay without A on the end but I needed this one 379 dollars. So there's a 220 dollar basic difference in price okay. So I mean think about this. You can buy two boss DD3Ts for the price of the Strymon. So the fact that it wins makes sense. It should win but you know what it is. I've been on this as you guys know. I like the New X Atlantic pedal. I have so many delay pedals and I find myself I found myself always just falling back in love with the boss DD3. It's really just easy pedal to like. So yeah and this is a fun game. I hope you guys understand. If those you want to pick it apart pick it apart. Okay I'm tons of flaws. So playing style the recording set up everything you can do. The whole point of this stick that I'm doing is because we have your live here and we can talk about it but also see what people actually hear and think when they hear and think you know when they hear it. I mean it's a really hard thing to figure out with these kind of products but I thought it was fun. So yeah so again so now we've like said I know we disagreed on this one but kind of half agree with you guys. So like said I think I think I'm going to give this one a half but but yeah nice. I want to do let me know what your thoughts in the comments later when it is. I want to do this or that with my favorite and least favorite pedals and see how you guys react to that and I think that'll be fun. I think that'll be a fun video like this is my absolute favorite pedal and my absolute least favorite pedal of like all time to see if you guys if we would agree on that. So it's really cool. I like this. It's fun to me the most interesting thing is not the pedals. It's really just seeing how people react to it how we all react to it. You know you hear it all the time right. The gears for the the audience can't tell. Well I'm not saying that's not true but because it's a different audience. You guys are musicians but man you guys have been able to tell a lot. I mean it seems like in most cases you guys have actively picked out the more expensive product every time or at least the majority of the time. So does it mean that and I think everybody well everybody know it and everybody doesn't agree. There's no way. I think a lot of you agreed agree that when you pick the more expensive gear those that pick that you're happy with both. I was happy with both. So all right let's do one last question and button up the show. And we'll do this. Elmo Hawk says hey Phil Longham McQuade. Longham McQuade is like the Guitar Center of Canada as my understanding. Sales returned as new without telling its return or open box. Is that a common practice in general. I feel like I don't trust them as much anymore. You know Guitar Center does that too. I think all companies should have a return product as an open box product. The way I see some companies doing it is if it's physically in a box like if you buy a pedal or you buy an amp or a recording interface or something like that and the box has been tampered with you get a return they say it's open box or demoed. You see that a lot. Then when a guitar comes back because it's not really in a sealed box they don't seem to say anything. Sweetwater does tend to put that product has been demoed or returned. I think that's just though let me just tell you the ethics of the way I did things at my store. So in my store obviously returns were different because it was a small mom pop. So returns were in store credit onlys. That was policy. So if you bought something from us you could return it but it would be in store credit. We couldn't really give you a refund. Now obviously I don't have the store and I don't have any reason to not tell you inside policy. I'll tell you the inside policy. The truth is we did give returns. We would do it pretty regularly. We made that policy because it was the best decision for us financially because the way it worked in my store as a smaller store is you came in the store and you would buy that Jackson. I'm pointing out a Jackson behind me and then yeah if you return in the next day probably no problem but most people don't return like that fast. They need it for a couple days. Well a lot of times we would take your money and we would apply it somewhere maybe even ordering another one of those guitars or paying the bills or paying an employee or paying the electric or the massive rent of the shop. So not that we didn't have money to get back to you. It's just it's like it's tough when you're small business. You don't want to see money churning that way. So we would say in store credit that way we could have a return policy. So if somebody says hey I'm buying this you know if I have any problems with the return policy we would say hey look it's written here in writing in store credit you know no hassles right. No hassles. However if anyone ever said to us well I don't want anything in your store which by the way it's not a theory somebody said that. I don't think I'd ever come in the store again. They weren't mad at us. They're just like I just happened to like I think one time somebody said something like I was driving by sorry store I bought this but like I don't live on the side of town. There's no reason I'd ever come back to the store and by the way when we said in store credit you didn't have to use that credit then we could give it in a gift card and one of the things we could do is actually give you a gift card for anything so you could have it for lessons or you can use for repair like so if you you know we didn't we didn't do that you know isolate it to just product but if somebody said you know hey that doesn't work for me we would just give them a return we'd give you know return the money. The other reason we would do it again something I would never have told you while I had a store ever a million years is it's it's there's a lot of rules about returning stuff okay so if somebody pays you with a credit card the credit card contract that you have with the credit card provider is that you can only return the money with the through the credit card agency right so and sometimes there's a fee both directions so we're eating a fee both ways which was not that bad our fees were pretty reasonable at like 2% so you know credit card fees are sometimes based on fraud so like restaurants pay a higher fee than like a retailer does it make sense so we had well we had only two cases of fraud in 13 years you know where people committed fraud on us and so in both times we ate it so we never saw any increase in our fees that way so sometimes you don't want to you know you don't want to have to do return for cash because you know you're eating fees so that's one reason that's problematic the other problematic thing is a lot of people didn't understand that we would want to write them a check so like if you gave me let's say $2,000 cash you bought a guitar you came in you go I want to refund I go it's in store credit and you go I don't want in store credit I want I want to refund we go cut you a check many people got upset with us which is tough because here's why this is the part I would never tell you then I'm telling you no I wouldn't carry that kind of cash in the store my wife's in the store my children in the store other people's children in the store we didn't keep cash in that store right if we got a large left you came in and you bought a $3,000 guitar cash my wife was out the door to put it depositing that in the bank within seconds she's like I'm off she's like in the bag she's gone if it was daylight it was nighttime it would be me um you never keep that kind of money in the store because you don't know who's paying attention you don't know somebody's going to know that they have money it doesn't matter if it's in a safe you don't want to get robbed so that was just a safety concern so we didn't keep cash so because we didn't keep cash I couldn't give you cash we would keep nothing more than the basic till in and so that was another thing but again would I discuss that with a customer hell no I would never tell a customer oh I'm not keeping cash because I remember robbed that's a dumb thing to say to a customer so you would just say we just write checks and then people get upset about checks and so the problem is is that it was easier to say here's here's why as a negotiation term remember I told you guys one of the best advice I can give anybody about having a small business is always be okay with asking for forgiveness if a customer came in said hey I bought this guitar I don't like this guitar I'd like a return great we'll do instant credit I don't I don't want instant credit I want my money back okay I write you check I don't want to check I want cash well I'll tell you what our policy is we only do instant credit I'm already making the exception couldn't you take a check you can go write down the street our banks literally on this street go to the other side of the street go left you can go get it you can get it cash at that bank literally right now right I'll buy you a Starbucks coffee just fucking go just kidding so so anyways um so the point is you know that's how you did it so so back to your good thing if somebody returned a guitar to us it was always a returned guitar if somebody returned anything to us it was always returned and the reason is is because it was out of my possession for a period of time so I don't know what was done to it and the reason I did it and this is why Longham and Quaid should do it if they're not doing it and this reason we're guitar center and sweetwater should do it everyone should always disclose to a customer that a thing was returned and you know why not because it's deceptive not to because it is but the reason I did it isn't even for that reason it's because if you ever bought a cabinet from me and go hey Phil I bought this cabinet brand new and it has a radio shack speaker in it I don't want you to think I did that then I gotta say oh that's because I sold it somebody they must have done that I didn't want you to buy a fender strat and come back to my store one day and say hey I bought an American strap from you and it has a squire pickup in it you're gonna think I did that and then when I say well a customer turned you're like sure this store is a scam so I think if any property that you sell to a customer has left your business for any period of time that should be disclosed to the customer now in in in sweetwater's case specifically they inspect they reinspect so you guys know okay because I've been there I filmed it if you guys want to watch the footage I will give it to you sweetwater gets a return amp from you guys or any of us or a return pedal or return it goes through an it goes through a process it goes through a reinspection process before it's ever sold now it's disclosed that it's been returned but it goes through inspection process I did not do that in my store if you you bought an american strat and returned it two days later I did not pull the pickguard off and start going through stuff I just you know why because I would disclose that it was returned product so the next person's getting a discount so hopefully if there's a problem I'll take care of them obviously you know and so that makes life easy so that's my answer to that you know it's I find that I find that no matter what game anyone comes up with you will pay the price somehow so in other words if they make a little bit more margin because they don't disclose you was returned trust me it's going to buy them and they ask some other way I've seen all the ways it can hit both sides I've seen at this point I've seen all the ways a customer can get screwed and all the way the store or retail are going to get screwed uh and I want to say all the ways you can never see you get the idea the majority of them and I will tell you that that's why you want to do as much stuff as transparent and as honest as possible not because it's a good byline to say to somebody like a politician like hey you know I'm honest it's because ultimately there is going to be a price to pay and you want to make sure that day when it happens your customer goes oh I know it wasn't you I mean you were really upfront about everything you did so far so why would you pull that right you want that kind of experience and vice versa right you want you want to have that experience for your customer so there you go so okay last thing we're gonna end on okay last thing this was a question that came in I actually got emailed this question and I don't know why I'm answering it but as you guys know we all love the gravy jokes so somebody said hey Phil if you don't put gravy on mashed potatoes what do you put on your mashed potatoes I only put pepper on my mashed potatoes so you know carbs are my are my weakness potatoes are definitely the biggest weakness I have she didn't know I've been on this diet and in the gym four days a week for the last almost coming up on a year today was a by the way I share something today I was really cool today was my record I'm very excited about it let's see if I send it I'm gonna send it to you guys I know it's going over on the show but I just want to send this to you because it was awesome so today I broke my record at the gym um takes a second to share uh so let me share you and then I'll tell you about the gravy or the lack of gravy uh oh it's out of focus probably because I was still on the machine so I was actually still moving on the machine when I did this but uh today I hit 506 calories so my goal is to hit uh is to always hit 400 calories in a session when I'm on the machines so I do two days a week I do weight training with the trainer and then two days a week I'm on this treadmill or the stair master but the treadmill the goal is to hit uh 400 calories so today I hit 500 calories in the same time I normally hit 400 calories that's how much more inclined and faster so that just that was a record day for me so that's I know it's sadly my new goal but back to mashed potatoes uh I put just pepper on them I just how it works it's has nothing to do with this new diet thing it just has to do with that's how I've sort of done it I'm sorry I know it bugs you guys that I don't eat gravy uh but um but if it will make you help I don't make you feel any better I do like ajou so a french dip with ajou I guess technically that's kind of a gravy I maybe so uh uh so there you go no gravy but ajou on that note I'm gonna let you guys go you guys have a fantastic weekend if you want to sign up for the uh the mid-tier uh for the clinic tomorrow sign up you can join tomorrow's clinic it's at 10 a.m pacifics I don't want to say standard time pacific daylight time whatever tomorrow if you want to if not um you know thank you for supporting the channel all the ways you do don't forget to like or subscribe because uh uh you know helps the channel and all that stuff that we're supposed to say and uh it actually makes me feel good so it's a nice way to make me feel good and doesn't cost a whole lot um all right and I'll see you guys next Friday till the next time know your gear then know your gear podcast you