The scams and tricks people do when selling or trading guitars

The Know Your Gear podcast. Hey everyone, welcome to the Know Your Gear podcast. March 27th. March 27th, 3pm Pacific Daylight Time. I hope everybody is having a good week and is ready to talk about some guitars and some guitar related subjects. So let's get into it. Let's get into the first question I saw which was for Phil. It was for me. It says, what are the pros and cons of a reverse headstock? So pros and cons. In my experience, if it's a Floyd Rose locking nut, I have had no negative experiences with a reverse headstock guitar. In fact, I kind of dig it and my new know has a reverse headstock. I think I own, I'm looking real quick. I thought I own another guitar with a reverse headstock. I was pretty sure I do. I think it's like a Kiesel or something. But I will tell you that without a locking nut, without a locking mechanism, I'm not a big fan of reverse headstocks as a whole. They tend to ring out for too much remaining. Now if you have a Fender one that has string trees, I think the string tree is kind of damp in it. I always find that I need some kind of dampener or something to go over the strings. I think it's just because the Loe and the A are just so long over the headstock, they just ring when I'm playing. So whenever I mute, I just feel it ringing extra loud. That's the negative if that's something you're dealing with. Most players won't notice it if they're not hitting it aggressively, just get the body shaking and the neck shaking. Some people say it has added sustain. I don't know about that. I don't know anything other than, like I said, in some reverse headstocks I like and some I don't. It's just always about whether or not it's ringing out or not. I had Kiesel prototype me a reverse headstock guitar for something and I just did not dig it. I did not bond with it at all. So that's the negative in my opinion. But look-wise, I think it looks cool. I don't know why. It's just some appeals to me so much. And then the other question he had was, what is your thoughts on using Emory cloth flexible sandpaper for rounding fretboard edges, sanding like a... I'm not a big fan of that. I did a video where I show you how to round a fretboard edge and what's funny is you never know where a video is going to take you when you make a video like that. I didn't want to make that video. That was a request from the audience and it was just a video. I didn't see the upside of making it. You know, just being very transparent with you guys. I was like, you know, I don't know how many people are going to be interested in this. You know, you know, so I made it. What I didn't know was I have had two manufacturers, specifically one more so, but two reach out and say they watched it and now that's how they do it. That's how they round the fretboards, which is funny because I told both of them the same thing I'm going to tell you, which is I learned it from another manufacturer. I watched another manufacturer round a fretboard edge with a razor blade and I was like, oh, okay, that's how you do it. At least that's how they were doing it. It looked really good. So I'm not a big fan of crushing or sanding the fretboard edge. Again, you know, everybody's mileage may vary. You know, there's all kinds of techniques that work. It's just I find that method, the use it basically scraping and rounding is very precise. And here's what I what I don't like. I've never tried this technique with that, whatever this emery rope is, but I'm not a fan of anything. I don't have 100% control of while I'm doing it. So that's why I like stuff where it's very like, you know, I can hold it on both sides. Right. I know when I'm moving it, I learn over time, like muscle memory, the process to do it. I don't like, you know, just kind of, you know, hodgepodge, just doing it with your, you know, like a sanding motion. It's not really my forte. Now I do use sandpaper when I finish the roundup, but that's not to shape it. That's just to smooth out any of the scrape marks that you've maybe created with the razor blade. So that's the way I like doing it. In fact, I just recently scraped a bound fretboard edge on a Gibson. It was really harsh and sharp on the edge. So I just rounded over, took me a few seconds and I always tell people my best advice for that if you watch that video, besides all the safety advice, take all the safety measures is a little goes a long way. Nobody thinks that the fretboard should be rolled over like a round, like, you know, and it's not, it shouldn't be super round. It shouldn't, it just shouldn't be harsh. It's, it's most fretboards that feel nice are just very subtly rounded, very subtle. That's why I said you don't have to make this harder and has to be. And I think I mentioned this on the, on the 75th anniversary ultra to telecaster. It looks like, cause it has a rounded fretboard edge. It looks like they use something like a screwdriver to crush it. Cause I've seen people who have used the method of crushing, right? And I think it came from, I believe it or not, I think it came from a manufacturer or somebody who was doing furniture and they were showing you how to round it using a crushing technique. And I did not like it. Here's why I don't like it because I've seen many guitars now where I know somebody did that because like I said, there's a waiver in it. And here's what happens. It doesn't happen right when you do it. It happens over time. And, and I think I look at things a little differently and it's because of, you know, everybody's going to filter their, their, the situation through their life experience. Not only do I have this like repair experience, you know, repairing stuff. I also have a buying experience. And I mean, not just buying for myself, I mean buying for a store, you know, obviously I was buying all the time. And when you're taking in trades and buys and, and, you know, you have to go over certain guitars, especially when they're expensive. And I, I gotta tell you, we've never probably ever talked about this, but believe it or not, there are a lot of people out there who do the same damn things to guitars over and over again. And what I mean by that is everyone's got their go to to do, to a guitar and that devalues the guitar. And so when you, when you become a retailer and you have to take guitars on trade, you get really dialed in usually through all the mistakes. Like, I can't believe I paid for that. Now I've discovered this thing with it. You start knowing what to look for, what people do to their guitars, changing pickups. Absolutely. It just is a thing. Like I said, we never had a single and it's, it's just a fluke. I'm sure I couldn't, I bet you could talk to 10 other dealers who can't, you know, didn't have this experience like us. But we never had a single John Mayer Stratocaster ever coming on trade and actually had the, was it the big dipper or the little dipper pickups? It's whatever it is. I think it's the big dipper pickups in them every time we, and, and I think every time the customer, I think honestly one customer, in this one customer's case, I think they were truly shocked. They bought it second hand as well. And they were shocked two ways. One they were shocked that I was going to pull the pickguard and look. And then when I looked and we're like, those aren't the original pickups. And that's the big thing because Fender wouldn't sell the John Mayer pickups independently. They would only be in the guitar. So of course, people who bought those guitars yanked them. So you start getting used to what people do with guitars. They swap pickups. They try to modify them like crushing the fretboard edges, you know, and around them over. And then over time you'd see this, you always like I said, it takes time, but eventually you will see this wavering. And just to give you an idea, when I did the Ultra 3Tel, even though I'm using those cameras and even though I'm there and it's very detailed and I spent an hours with the guitar, I missed it. I didn't even see it. How I discovered it was a couple of days later, I was looking at the edge. It's too late, obviously to put in the video now. But and I kind of like, you know, it's one of those things like, oh, I'm so mad at myself for, for, for missing it. Because it would have been a great illustration. I'll probably use it in the future to show you guys. You'll see what I'm talking about. It's just a very subtle ripple in the wood where it's not smooth and it's definitely from that technique. And so like I said, there's tons of things. A lot of times you'll see a lot of people who have, especially if you're dealing with any kind of high dollar guitars, they've removed the tuning keys, put aftermarket tuning keys and then when they're selling it, they put the originals back. This is why I started the, when we started doing the channel with the, you know, the Sharpa Max, the whole theory of that. In fact, going forward now with all of the deep dives, you know, in the breakdown videos is to show you guys modifications you can make that I call our non-marring. In other words, you can put the modification in place and remove it and you've never damaged the instrument in a way. It's because, you know, you don't realize it, but when you're talking about high dollar guitars and somebody's put, you know, you look at it and you go, well, people are notorious for yanking these particular, like I'm talking about a certain model. I'll be like, somebody's notorious for yanking the tuners out. You pull the tuner out and they've reamed the hole out bigger and that's a big deal and they don't know how to fill it correctly because you have to fill those back in. Otherwise, you're going to find that your tuner never, your guitar doesn't stay in tune because your tuner doesn't, it's not, it's not secure into the wood. It's floating almost and it's being, it's basically being clamshell together, clamped in by the nut on top and that's great because when you're rinsing it down, except for two things happen and this is why we worry about them when we take the guitars on trade. That compression this way works, but obviously when the strings are pulling this way, it starts shifting the tuning key and it does it over time and you're like, why is my guitar going out of tune? Oh, I tightened it up again. Why is it going out of tune? It's because it's, the force is now moving it because the shaft is, is basically floating in this hole. The other thing that happens is, is that when you try to force them by, by compressing them by turning the nut, you know, tightening the nut, that extra force will sometimes result, result in two big problems. One, a crack in the finish because the, you know, just the pressure starts crushing the finish and then you get micro cracks and then all it takes is one, it's like a vein just goes and now you have a little crack on your headstock. The other thing that happens that's problematic is, is that not only does that crushing effect cause that, sometimes you'll get a split in the wood and a lot of people have seen that where you look at the base of the, of the headstock and you see a crack from the tuning key coming out to the base of the headstock and you think, oh, what hit that? And it was sometimes not hitting it. It's just, it's something like I said, somebody reamed out the hole or drilled out the hole bigger and then put the tuning key in either the new one or the old one and it's not filling in the entire hole and they, to compensate, they have crushed it by tightening it too tight. So you, you learn another big thing that we notice a lot is, and that's why when you're looking at used guitars, one of the things I like to do the absolute most is use your finger to, and to touch all of the screws on the top, the heads of the screws and feel for barbs or chips where somebody's used the wrong screwdriver head. And the reason why is one, that's a tail that somebody's been inside the guitar. So that tells you maybe you want to look inside the guitar. And some of you guys are probably going, yeah, isn't this a little excessive? Look, it can be, but when you're talking about a guitar, you know, you, you got to understand when I'm talking about, when you're taking a trade, it's not so much you're even worried about getting screwed, you are, but you also have to try to give the customer the best amount of money you can. And sometimes even though some, you know, some dealers, like guitar center gets to give you half of what you sell it for, you know, if you've been to mom, pop, sometimes they try for half, but sometimes you can't make the deal. And if somebody came in the store and they got a strat, just picking on a strat really easy and it sells for a thousand, they're not going to take five. And I'm like, and if I pay seven and then I only get eight, I mean, that's a tough, that's a tough flip, right? So that's what I said, you want to make sure that you inspect the guitar clearly. And the other thing too that we're looking for when we're looking at screws is if you over tighten them, in fact, that's a real thing that happens a lot. People over tighten this, the Phillips head screws on pick guards all the time. And that's what causes the pick guards to warp that downward pressure. They're not designed to put so much pressure down on them. In fact, you can kind of see a ripple effect in pick guards all the time. Whether you realize it or not, when you get new guitars, you'll notice that almost never like that because the factory knows how much pressure to tighten the screw down. You know, everybody else is just going to go until it stops. And then one more turn. So yeah, so that's my point is that's the things you want to look for when you're doing that stuff. And all that from talking about rounding the fretboard edge, right? I'm trying to think of if there's any other biggies that we're always looking for that you always look for. There's a lot of, that's why I don't, I never did vintage guitars, but of course, unfortunately, some things become vintage guitars. Like I said, you don't have to talk, we're not talking about a Gibson Les Paul or a Strat from the 60s or 50s, but vintage could just be, you know, a guitar that has more value now that it's 20 years old or 30 years old. And like I said, and people are also notorious for yanking out things that are really expensive out of guitars. It's just the stuff they pull. I don't know, man. And what's worse is sometimes people pull it on someone who bought it unexpectedly and now they're going to be the victim too. And so they're transferring their victimhood to you because they bought a bad thing. And if you don't do your diligence, now you bought the bad thing from them. Now, good news for them is they're no longer going to be a victim of the problem, but you are, you know, and that's why you want to be diligent and learn all the little tricks and tips that they do. It's why I refuse to buy anything from someone who says, I don't know anything about this guitar. I'm just selling it for a friend. And we would get that in the store. And that was always a very tricky, very tricky thing because that is the fastest way somebody can play the, oh, well, I didn't know. I don't know anything about it. So, you know, when you go, hey, did you know that this is a squire body on an American standard neck with, you know, like this is not the, by the way, that's a thing that actually happened at our store. People stuck American necks, American fender necks on squire bodies that were squire components, squire pickups and everything, and, you know, and came in and tried to sell them or trade them to us. It happens quite a bit, actually, more than you would think. And a lot of times you'd be like, hey, this is actually all squire. And they're like, I don't know anything about guitars. I'm just here to, for my friend. So, so that's kind of funny. But there you go. Okay, let's go to the next one. What's the next one? The next one was from David. He says, Hey, if you want to test a new guitar to get the feel for whether it works for you, but there are none of that model available locally. What is the etiquette for ordering from online retailer with the possibility you'll want to return it if you don't love it. It seems unfair to the retailer to have to sell an open box guitar, but problematic to be able to but problematic. Okay, okay. Not to be not to be able to play the guitar before buying. So this goes into my saying that I love, which is we used to try before we buy and now we buy before we try. You know, that was not something I invented as a saying. What happened was when I opened my store, I went and I sought out advice from other retailers. And I remember specifically a retailer, the first one, it was Dennis, who owned the base place of store. I absolutely love. And he said to me, I was like, what kind of return policy? Because that's what I was like, Hey, I'm opening a store and I went to people I mostly people I bought a lot of stuff from. And that wasn't super close to my store. They were on the other side of town and we went to another state. Because, you know, that's a good thing you do. I did it when I on YouTube, by the way. When I started my YouTube channel and I started doing well with it, I would seek out mentors immediately. Like how, how, how have you navigated this? What am I, what am I looking at? And I remember Dennis at the base place said, I said, Hey, what kind of return policy should I offer? And he goes, no, they try before they buy. So it's theirs when they leave the store. And I was like, Oh, I was like, okay, except for, I think, unfortunately, that is more of an old school way of thinking for stores. So that wasn't going to work because the problem with, you know, who cares if you have a policy, if you have to violate it every five seconds, because as soon as you tell somebody the policy, they're going to yell at you. And they're going to fight you and fight you. And, you know, and there's time and then there's also money you can lose. You know, you can't have customers in your store. While another customer is screaming about how you won't give their money back. It's not going to fly. So, um, so that's why I always say we used to try before we buy, because that's how it worked. And a lot of stores didn't have return policies. A lot of people don't remember that. In fact, why was I just talking about recently? And I was trying to, I forgot to mention that the store I was talking about didn't have a return policy. If I remember it, I'll tell you guys, but it was just recent, the last couple of episodes when I was talking about a store and somebody said something like, I would have returned it. And I'm like, no, there was no return policy. So there are still music stores with almost zero return policy. Um, so that being said, you're right. We now buy before we try. So we have to buy it in most cases, especially online to get it and try it. Here's what I can tell you. I've had conversations with both guitar center and sweet water. Now mom pops are a lot different. I'll talk, I'll touch on that. They understand that's part of the game. You know, and Amazon's made that a much bigger problem, much faster for everybody, which is cause Amazon's like effortless, just returned. You know, it's like Walmart, you know, just you walk back in and you're like, you know, I haven't. Returned anything in Walmart in probably 20 years. So I don't know what it's like now, but I remember like, you just walk in and you'd be like, I don't have a receipt. I'm not even sure where if I bought it here and they would just take it. But, um, but anyways, uh, they know that's just part of the game is the return process. Okay. So I wouldn't feel bad about that. Where you do come into play is, uh, small mom pop shops. So I'll tell you what I do personally. This isn't, I'm not giving you advice to do this yourself. I'm just going to let you know how I do it. Um, if I know I want something or I'm pretty convinced that I know I want it and I'm not in the gray area, like in other words, like I already, let's say I have it already. If I just want this one in another color, whatever it is, or it's something I'm very familiar with, especially like an amplifier where I've played the amplifier. Now I know I want it. If I know I want it, I will just now try to source the best deal for me. Uh, and sometimes that could be cost, but sometimes that could just be how fast it's going to get to me. So if there's a store in California versus New York, I'll pick the California store because I get it in a day and versus a week. And more importantly, just, it's more time that can give you damage and shipping. But if I know there's a, there's a product I want, I'll reach out and like I said, I'll ask if there's a deal or I'll talk to them, negotiate a little bit. Hey, any, any, can you do tax out the door? Can you 10% off? Whatever the deal is. When I don't know, I don't ever really focus on the discount because I, I, I just believe that you don't want to ask for too many favors in a purchase. I know you're the customer and you're really not asking for any favors and really the services to you, but I'm just telling you how I think about it. I think, okay, I want this guitar, but I'm a little nervous. I don't know if I really want it. I really want to try it first. And if I don't love it, I'd really not like to be on the hang for this because it's very expensive and I know it's going to take a huge hit. In other words, it's something you, you know, you buy for 1500 bucks and it's going to be worth seven. The second you, you don't, you said, you don't want it. And that's a lot of money to lose 700 bucks. Um, so what I'll do is I won't focus on the discount because not that I think they even care. I just don't do that. I pay the full price because my logic is I'd rather when I call back and say, Hey, I bought this. I don't, I don't love it. I want to return it. I didn't, I don't have to like pretend I'm pretending in my head. I pretend they're going, Oh, great. This is the guy who, you know, grinded us for 10% and now he wants to send it back. So I don't want to be that. I don't want to be the, the two, two things guy. Well, I asked for too much stuff. So I try not to do that. But, uh, if I really think it's something that I'm in the gray area about, and like you said, you want, you've got to touch it. You're not even sure you want it as much as I like to support mom pops. And I do majority of my stuff still comes from mom pops. I definitely go to guitar center and sweet water for that. It's so effortless. Guitar center is the easiest, by the way, because you can buy anything online and just walk it right back in the store. And that's not even return shipping at that point. You don't even have to have the original. Well, it's new. I think you have to have original box and packaging, but I don't even know. I've never gotten any crap for returning anything at a guitar center. However, I have had friends who had it crap for days. They've told me stories. I talked about one or two on this, on this, uh, podcast. And what's funny about that story, even though it was at least five years ago. Okay. When I told that story about a friend who was getting some grief at a guitar center, um, somebody at guitar center stopped me at a PRS event once and asked me what store that was. And when it happened and I told them, and so they were like, okay. So I was, it was very apparent. The guitar center was shocked to hear that there was a problem like that too. But my point is, uh, yeah, usually the return is no problem. Um, I've returned a few things to sweet water. I've returned way more to guitar center, but I will tell you this and I told you guys that I'm going to be meeting with the gave the CEO again to talk about where they are now versus a year ago when I had the podcast with them. And I have a lot of notes to talk to them about. But one of the things that's I, I was taking note of is I've spent more at guitar center in the last year than I have in the last 10 years before that. And I was thinking about that, you know, how strange that is. And I was like, yeah, why is that? Uh, and I don't mean I'm spending that much more. I meant I'm just my, my shopping has. Let kind of pointed towards guitar center a little bit more than normal. Uh, I'm still buying from mom, pop, still buying from sweet water, but still to guitar center more. And I have to tell you, um, when I was looking, cause I went through my, my personal account with guitar center and it was because I'm buying a lot of used gear and I like the idea that I can just return it if there's any problems. Um, in fact, I just recently returned an amp to guitar center. There was no problems. I walked in and I said, I bought this amp. There's no problems with it. I just don't love it. That's all. And, uh, in all fairness, you know, you don't have to do this, but to me, in my mind, sometimes the money is already spent. So I, I returned it and then I was in there and I, uh, you know, I should do the shout out. It was the Tempe guitar center. Um, I had a good, by the way, I had two great experiences at guitar center last week. Uh, one is at, uh, the Phoenix store and off Peoria road. Fantastic experience with them. I just want to say shout out to them. And then I had a really great experience at the Tempe store. Um, I think it was yesterday. Not even two days ago. I don't remember. Uh, when I went, I had returned an app that I didn't buy from that store, but I returned an amp and just said, Hey, I, I'm not, not love. And then they were so nice. I was like, you know, like any customer, I'm like, well, let me mosey around this door. And so I bought a pedal and an amp. Uh, do I have the pedal? I don't even have the pedal here. So about a pedal and amp. So, uh, but, uh, and, uh, I spent probably about a hundred, maybe $130 more than I originally spent. So that netted them up $100 from the last sale I made. So I, my, basically, this is my long way of saying this. I wouldn't worry about returning things. Um, you know, you have to try them. It is a lot of money, especially now. I will tell you that a conversation I've also had with the, uh, a lot of stores, not just, uh, the big guys, but the big guys are echoing this. Returns are, I don't want to say at an all time high, but returns are way higher. This is a year has had the highest amount of returns. And everyone says the same thing to me when I'm discussing it with them, which is what do you think? I'm like, well, how would I know? But I give them my theory and it's just that I just pulled it from my ass theory and it's, I think what happens is, is that when you're at the top end of your spending price point, you're going to scrutinize the purchase more. That's what I told them. That's what I feel has happened. They've, they've inflated us to a point where if I don't feel great, I just can't justify the purchase anymore. And it's not about whether I can afford it or not. It's about how I feel about it. And it's like, I don't, you know, I felt like this was the most I should absolutely pay for this product. And now I'm feeling like I don't love it. So it's hard. So, so, uh, yeah. All right. Oh, that's cool. Cool. Why six, cool guys. He says, uh, says, Hey, I actually grew up going to Phil's old store in Chandler and Dobson. That's awesome. I love it. I, uh, I, uh, it's a little weird for me now because, you know, the store opened in 2004 and I'm keep running into people. In fact, I think I told you guys the story. We just had dinner a couple of weeks ago with a student of our store who started when he was 11 years old. He's 31 now. He's a electrical engineer and he's getting married and he invited us to his wedding and, and, uh, and, uh, it was exciting because he was exciting for me because not only was it always great to see an old face, even though it's a young old face, he's a young old face. It was cool because he wanted, he's like, Hey, you want to come have a, you know, have a go have a beer? And I, I, uh, I haven't had any beers since August. So I was like, Oh, yes. I told Sean, I go, well, God, I can't turn down the beer now. That's not, that's, that's just, I can't be rude. I don't want to be rude. So, so it was nice. I had a nice cold beer. It was amazing. It was absolutely amazing. I don't know how to explain. Uh, it was like getting sunlight after years of darkness. It was amazing. Um, so, uh, yeah. So it's always great when I, when I get to meet, I bump into people that are where I used to go to the store a long time ago. Uh, okay. Let's, uh, yeah, uh, yeah. This is a good comment. It says with prices as high as they are, that's why returns are high. The guitars need to be perfect. You know, what's funny about that is I find now that when I do the breakdown videos and I take a bottle of guitar and I scrutinize it, I've, I've, I can see in the process, uh, pre, so 2009, 19, okay, prior to 2019, where I was pretty scrutinizing, pretty hard. Okay. So I was like, Oh, look at this or Oh, look at that. And I was really on it. And then I, I mentioned this many times during COVID. I laxed up some of the scrutiny. And of course I disclose that to you because the fact that employees work in super hard, the sales were off the charts and things were getting through. And I, I even made the comment that the new, like, you know, in a grade, you know, it's like a grading, grading on a curve, the new C plus is, you know, the A is now a C plus or vice versa. Right. A C plus is now an A during COVID because it's just, you were constantly seeing problems. Every guitar had an issue during COVID. And so I was like, I was still pointing them out, but, but it's not, I've learned with making videos. It's not whether I pointed out or not. It's what I say when I pointed out. I can really, uh, change the narrative, whether I intend to or not with just a comment. Oh, if I say, Oh, yuck, you know, or versus, oh, okay. Well, this happens, you know, my mannerisms can change the way the comment sections go real fast. And, and so you guys know, I'm not just guessing. We've, we've seen it. We've actually seen it, uh, many times over where just in a slight adjustment and how I react to it changes how you guys react to it. And, um, now what's funny is, is I'm back to, I think I'm actually being aggressively scrutinizing again. And, uh, the last couple of videos I even sometimes I've been, I, I just telling you, I, I run him by my wife and I go, is this too much? Is this, am I hitting him too hard? Is this too, was this too mean? Is this too much? And she's like, no. And I told her, I said, here's why I feel like exactly that comment. Everything is so freaking expensive that if I was someone looking to honestly spend my harder money on this, I'd want to know every single possible problem. Even if that means that when you get barrage of so many little issues, some people are going to say, why are you being picky? Some people, which they do in the comments all the time. And some people are going to go, oh, I was really interested in it. But now that he's mentioned so many things, I'm not interested. And I really hate that, you know, that, you know, I'm talking somebody out of something they might want, want. But I'm also, I would really hate the latter, which is that you buy it and then you go, wow, I wish I would have known, you know, I wish you would have pointed this out with it. So I find them being a more aggressive because everything's so expensive. I am in constant shock at the pricing, uh, like you guys are. So, um, and I'm also constantly in shock that guitars, when sent to me by companies, they're, they flat out given me the spec sheet and the price. And by the time I put the video out like a month or two later, the price has changed. So it's crazy. Everything's going up so fast. So it takes the fun out of everything when it's just great, when it's just a pummeling like that. Uh, Oh, thank you. Uh, um, somebody was saying that they appreciate that I, I, uh, I focus on art. Think about how my words affect things. Yeah. Um, you know, uh, it's, it's, it's tough, you know, like I said, you want to be as fair as you can when you're doing content like this because, um, you'll see, I have a video, there's two videos coming in one video. Uh, I felt so bad. I'm just going to tell you right now and it ended up being positive. I, I didn't know how I was going to feel about this video because I, I, it was so, I want to say so bad that I reached out to the company. Now, this is not new for me. I've mentioned this to you guys before. You guys know when music man, when I found the issues with the kaisen, I reached out to music man. And whenever I do a video, the music man was not sponsored. So it has nothing to do with sponsored. I've done it when it's not sponsored. In fact, most of the time they're not sponsored that I'm reaching out to them. I've learned that, um, it's essentially I'm thinking of it like a hit piece. You know, I'm going to put a video out and they're going to wake up one morning and go getting emails from people going, did you see what this guy said? What he's showing? We'll see this horrible thing. And so I reached out to him and I said, Hey, look, uh, I'm not having a great experience. And, um, I, I'll, and just to be again transparent with you guys, the reason I reached out to them was. They have a plethora of YouTubers saying this is the greatest thing since ever. Um, and I mean, I, I only know this not cause I went and looked at those videos. It's on their website. Like it's a who's who of YouTubers going, Greatest ever. This is amazing. How do they do it? And I had the opposite experience of that and I have two samples and those two samples are doing the same problem. And here's to their credit, which will be in the video, which is what I did with music man is like, give them that opportunity to give you their side of it. And their side, which you'll see in the video is they are going to focus on correcting it. And they gave me the fix what they think is going to correct the issue going forward. Unfortunately, I don't have that guitar, the new, whatever the fixed version. So you're just going to see what you're going to see, but at least they're acknowledging that. Yes. Okay. We will, we will work on this and, uh, you know, I mean, it's a great, you know, and to you guys, uh, and I'll get off this, uh, part of this. But to you guys, sometimes I think you guys will appreciate that, but sometimes people are like, you know, well, that's just what they're saying. But as I've mentioned many times, I mostly get the opposite until the company. And then I'm like, I'm like, I'm shadow banned from everything from now on. Like they don't want to talk to me ever again. So I don't know. So it's good. All right. Uh, next subject, let's go to the next subject. This one came in and, uh, this one came from, uh, Chris. Whoops. Where's it at? Uh, Amanda sent it to me and I got it. So I want to think, uh, man, to make sure I don't miss it, but I already got it from Christian. Christian said, Hey, Phil, uh, I'm not going to be able to make the podcast, but I wanted to ask, I like that he put the number two to ask. It's funny. Uh, something that has been bugging me for a while. Okay. Why don't, why do, don't any other companies try and compete with TC electronics? The thrust BQ 500 500 watt compact base head light and $179. Why don't mono price try to compete? Sure. Okay. Let me explain. Uh, I can give you some insight of why that is the case. Okay. Now, when I say why, this is very, very clear. We always want to do disclaimers. If sometimes I'm going to give you some inside information, something I know, that's not what's happening in this case. I'm going to give you my theory on what I think is actively happening with my knowledge of this, this part of, of the business world arena. So I'm going to pull up that amp. If you don't mind. Yeah, it is a smoking deal. Okay. So let's pull it up. Let me just tell you what I think is going on. First of all, um, whether you realize it or not Christian, uh, TC electronics, I'm trying to center up so you can see it. TC electronics is owned by Beringer. Okay. Beringer acquired TC electronics a few years back and, um, that is why that matters is because of a couple of things. First thing is Beringer and Guitar Center know, know, like each other. Okay. So these products now, now that Beringer and Guitar Center don't get along, whatever that reason is, which I've, there's two versions of the story. Guitar Center told the version and the Beringer tells the version. You can go read them if you want. The reader digest is Guitar Center said they didn't want to want Beringer products anymore and Beringer said they didn't pay their bills. There, I'll get there. You don't have to look it up. I just gave you the version, but you can read the in-depth versions because it was really funny. They were actually fighting by the way on a side third thing to say, Sweetwater actually came out and said, we've never had a problem with Beringer. They're great, which was weird to see them get into this mess because it was it was Guitar Center and Beringer like posting publicly, you know, about each other. And then sweetwater was like, I, we think Beringer is great. The reason I'm telling you this Christian is because that means that TC electronics is obviously available in some mom and pops and you can find those as well. But keep in mind, it's mostly going to be available at Sweetwater. So when you see that it's back order right here, here's what I'm going to tell you. See where it says we expect more TC electronic soon. And by April 10th, you need to buy this thing. Okay. What you think is happening is not happening. You think that they're not getting stock. They're absolutely getting stock. What's happening is they're not getting enough stock. Sweetwater sells a lot of stuff. And when there's no competition, which really that's what that means. There's no big online competition. So you got to understand it's probably sold at very few places, maybe Amazon. I mean, think of this. I would imagine TC is mostly sold where you see Beringer sold now, which is Amazon, Alex, Brass, I think, Toman, Sweetwater. And then of course, Beringer and TC. I don't know if TC does direct, but there might be some mom and pops. I haven't seen any mom and pops with TC. So if any of the mom and pop shops are watching this, if you could just post in the comments, yes, we carry TC electronics. Brian will look for you and then repost it to me so I can look for it. And I'll, you know, I'll respond to that. But anyways, my point is two things. One, you have Beringer, who's the king of making affordable, cheap stuff. So if you're mono priced, those guys are tiny. All these guys are tiny compared to Beringer. I can't imagine there's anyone bigger in the world. At making cheap stuff as a brand. I mean, the Beringer, have you seen the Beringer factory? It's like, it's insane, right? It's like, it's like 18 football fields. I'm exaggerating, but it's like this thing. I saw a picture of it and it just looked ridiculous, right? I think it was like four times bigger than the, than the Cortech factory, what I saw. So if you are out there, you know, going to try to make a competitive product for TC, you're also competing with a Beringer. If you're affordable and how are you going to beat Beringer at being affordable? $179. I mean, let's look at this thing again. What you have is a 500 watt solid state, or it's not solid state, it's a class D, I believe, just a class D power amp with headphone, jack and graphic EQ, the whole nine yards with a brand name on it, because of course they own the brand name for $179. This is ridiculous, right? A 500 watt base head that's ultra light for under $200. I mean, you're not going to beat that. Who's going to beat that? And then like you said, why doesn't mono price, those guys knock it off? Well, because TC electronics is a brand name. So you would expect, and I'm just guessing because I would expect that if it didn't say TC electronics, I said mono price, you're going to pay $179? No, right? $159, maybe probably $129. So they got to beat them by a lot. And my guess is that Beringer's got the price down super, super low because they have that volume and the ability to, to, to build them. So I would definitely my recommendation. Look, back to we're talking about return policies. You know what? You can buy it from Sweetwater. You can return it, you know, if you don't look, if you don't, if it's not defective and you get something from Sweetwater, I can't tell you how all Sweetwater reps take it, take care of you. I will tell you how my Sweetwater rep takes care of me. When I get something, I don't love it and I want to send it back. They send me a label. Okay. And if it's not defective, there's nothing wrong. They obviously charge you the return shipping or the shipping. I think the return shipping, they charge you the return shipping, but he will usually waive that for me because I buy something else. Okay. So I'll go, Hey, you know, in other words, I keep the money in house. I go, Hey, by the way, I want to return this. And then I just find something else to buy like you. It's, I usually buy something like, in fact, I just recently, uh, I, there was a speaker that I, uh, didn't want. So I canceled it and I said, Hey, put that money into a pedal and ship the pedal to me. So, you know, sometimes it's like that, but I would say the, the problem is two fold. It's the, it's the Beringer mighty might power, the mighty girth of Beringer's power that small, the Alder knockoff guys don't want to go against it. And also you have to understand you have very few suppliers for this or sellers for this. So you need to order it. You need to pre-order it. I have learned being at sweetwater in depth. Lee, as you know, I wanted to hunt time. One time I spent eight days there straight and I was there 24 seven going through there, all their stuff. And I can tell you the one thing, I guarantee you, you know, no matter how you feel about 55 point inspections, all the things, whatever you think sweetwater is, so those of you have conspiracy theories, whatever you think sweetwater is lying about, one thing they're not lying about most their stuff. Okay. That's far fetched. A huge percentage of their stuff is sold before it ever lands all the time. They're in perpetual back order all the time. And if you don't understand why I can't talk about TC cause I don't know them, but I can tell you that I was just, again, I'm not exaggerating. I was just explaining this to the guitar center guys. You know, there is allocations. The everybody knows there's allocations. So in particular guitar, I was talking about, I happened to know, so I'm not saying the guitar, so I'm clear to say this. I happened to know the guitar center got 109 of them. Okay. Um, and I was mentioned to guitar center like, Oh, you got 109 of these. And they said, yes. And I said, okay. And I said, that would mean in my experience that sweetwater got half that. So 50. And then the mom pop network, all of it across the country probably got 50. And then the European market probably got 60. And then I was like, okay, so if you're doing that math, there's only, you know, 260, you know, 70, 270, 269 of them in existence. So I go, maybe 300 tops is what they're going to manufacture. And, um, so that's what I'm trying to tell you is that, um, you think like, well, why is sweetwater perpetually in back order? Why don't they order more? You don't understand. You can't see part of the things that the dealer network says a dealer. I can tell you this for a fact. I would order 20 of something and they go, you could have two because my store was too small. And, uh, because they allocate, they allocate sometimes by the reps, their territories, sometimes they buy regions in the country. And then of course they buy buying power. And the reason they do that, the manufacturer should do that. It's actually really smart because otherwise you know exactly what happened. Dealers buy up, suck up all the stuff. You know, so we want, what stops me water like 300 guitars. So we were going to order that and go, oh, we'll have them all. We're exclusive. We don't have to, right? That's the problem with big buyers like that is they can suck it all up. And, uh, and that's not good for the manufacturers because what happens is, is the more you let, which is what's happening now with basically sweetwater and guitar center owning 50% of the guitar market in the United States. What you're having a problem is, is that eventually when your customer becomes that big, your customer starts dictating to you. I'm not saying they are right now. I'm just saying, cause I don't know anything specific, you know, no, do, no details to share, but I'm going to say they can come to you and say, I don't think that's the price anymore. And I don't think it's right. So, um, so that's why it's, uh, it's parceled out like that. So that's my advice on how to get it. And that's my thoughts on why they're, uh, no one's competing with it. But that's a great product. Like I said, put it on order. I think it's, uh, it's not a huge, huge amount of dough to do. It's worth a shot. What can go wrong? Uh, man to send me this one from Robert says, Hey, thoughts on Benson amps. I don't know anything about them. I looked at them online many times and, uh, they're one of those amps where I'm like, okay, and I listened to some sound samples and I'm not sure what I'm listening to, uh, sounds like to me, maybe it's like a Marshall. I thought I remember it like a Marshall thing. Don't know much about them. Um, you know, I, I spent a long time, not Benson specifically. I've never talked to those guys, but for a while, you know, I'd reach out to a lot of amp companies and go, Hey, let's get some more amps. You know, I like to try more things and share them with the audience. And, uh, I very rarely found anybody interested in them, uh, in doing that. But, uh, maybe we'll grab, we'll reach out again. Um, but I hear good things about Benson's, but I've never physically been in contact with one ever and like never heard one personally. Um, okay. I don't understand. Okay. Hold on a second. Uh, I want to match my EMG telly neck pickup with an, with an 81 X using a three way switch, have the 81 be a single coil in the middle position. Is this going to be balanced? I don't know. Is the 81 X is that, is that the quills? I thought 80, the 81 TW was the coil split. Is the EMG 81 X coil splitable EMG 81 X? Let's take a look at it. Course. Um, does it say active fuel by high gain, 40 years, blah, blah, is everything you love about the 81, the power, the crunch, the sustain, improved greater clarity, headroom, high gain, lover, sweet water, blah, blah, 81 X is for more open voice while retaining the original character. So, uh, no, you can't coil. I, as far as what I'm reading, this is not one you can coil split. I believe the only one you can coil split is the TWs. Um, 81 TW, let's pull this up. I'm, by the way, since I didn't share with you guys, I don't know why I didn't X and share with you. This is the 81 TW and, uh, yep, coil splitting. So that's what you would need. Uh, if you want to coil split it. So then your question then becomes, uh, you know, can you, can you, can it be a single coil in the middle position? Sure. Yeah, you can do it every one. Once you, yeah, you can coil split it and do everyone with it. Wired up however you like, but you need the TW. So I wonder what TW stands for. Does it say? Now I'm curious. TW. Cause I, I don't know why I remember it. Isn't that funny? I remember that, but I don't instinctively know what TW implies that what makes me other than I've installed them. Actually, if it's funny is, uh, actually, um, to, uh, to just tell you the funny story, I've de-installed more a TW EMG pickups than I've installed. So I have put in a couple in guitars for customers, but I've actually removed more from customers saying this doesn't sound as good as the actual 81 or the, you know, the 85s. So, um, just let you know, it's kind of funny. Um, okay. Oh, uh, I'm going to say to G, to G says, Hey, the tone knob on my RG 550 is acting like a volume knob after I swapped the pickups. What did it, what did you do wrong? Uh, you, uh, if you act, it's acting like a volume knob, then you wired it up like a volume knob, uh, cause the thing to remember is there's no technically, there's no tone knob or volume knob, right? You have a potentialometer in your case of 500 K one. And then how you set it up. In other words, there's three lugs, right? So we'll keep it simple and I don't need any graphics for this three lugs. And essentially what you're going to have is the, um, if you're looking at it, trying to think the best way to look at it. If you're, if you have the potentialometer facing you like this, you know, the three lugs are facing you to the left, the left one will be your input. You're going to be, you're going to be putting the signal into it, which is coming from your switch or your pickups. The middle one is going out to your, uh, output jack. And then the right one needs to be grounded to the, to the, to the casing. Okay. And now it's a volume pot because you've done that until you do that. It's not a volume pot. It's not yet. Now your tone control is going to be different and how you wire it up. And there's different wiring for the tone controls and how you, sometimes you wire the capacitor and in series with the volume pot. Sometimes you can tag it to the outer casing of that, you know, so it can needs to go to ground and then how you, you know, how you have signal coming into it and essentially the, the, the more you turn it, the more it's sending signal to ground through the capacitor, which is making it dark, um, or bassier sounding perceived. My point is, is that you have a tone control that you've wired up as a volume control. So that's what you've done wrong. Uh, that I don't, I can't think of it another scenario where that would be acting like that. If you didn't do that. So, uh, first thing you need to make sure is that, um, there are no lugs, the three lugs on your tone control, none of them are grounded to the casing or grounded period to anything else. You just want the capacitor on there. And then of course you need signal going into it. So to keep it the easiest, you're going to have some kind of signal usually jumped off of the volume pot, going into the tone control, uh, or the pot, and then you're going to have the center lug like to ground, right? Does that make sense? And then again, you're not going to have it, uh, you're not going to have the third lug grounded because that would shut, that would close it off. It would put 100% to ground and you'd have no more sound. So that is my guess. Um, and I didn't pull out my dry raceboard, even though I know some of you really love it. That's a joke. No one seems to love the dry raceboard. I thought it was going to be great. Every time I pulled down, we were like, Oh, not this crap again. Like, Oh, awesome. Uh, the, uh, okay. Uh, slow 51 50 says, Phil, any benefit to cutting a bone nut with a file size up? In other words, okay. So instead of, instead of using like a 10 gauge file, you're going to use an 11 or 13 gauge file. I see what you're saying. Like instead of using the 42, you go up to the 46. Any benefits to that? No benefit, uh, that I can think of. Is there a downside? Not really. Cause technically if I was going to use my, uh, my file kit to slot out a, a nut for 10 gauge strings, if I threw nines on it, I would expect no issues, uh, as long as they were polished and done well. So you would have no downside to that. There's an upside. I guess, okay. You said what's, is there, uh, you know, is there a benefit? I guess it's cause you could easily go from nines of 10s and back. So I will tell you, slow 5150 that the majority of nuts, this is going to get 12, the 12 year olds are going to come out now. The majority of nuts, nut cases, whatever you call it. No, the majority of nuts, uh, hold on a second. This is so wacky on my screen. What wacky on me? Uh, the majority of nuts that are cut at the factories are cut for 10, even if they're sticking nines on it, just to keep life easy. So it's just a lot easier to do that. So that's why they do it. Um, me, I always just do whatever, you know, the customer had asked. So if they ever wanted, you know, they're going to put nines, I'd do it for nines. Me personally, trying to think about when I, when I, what do I do? Do I default to 10s all the time? Probably. I never thought about it, but I probably just do. I don't play nines a lot anymore. I play 10s. Um, I used to play nines before I was on YouTube all the time. Now I play 10s most of the time. Uh, and it just, cause I play a lot more cause, you know, cause I'm making videos all the time cause I play a lot more strings, just like if you work out all the time, the weights just seem a little lighter strings to seem a little lighter when you work out. So, uh, so that's why I, um, that's why I do mostly 10s. So yeah. Um, if you're thinking about going to 11 gauge and slotting it for 11s, if you're using 10s, I wouldn't do that. It's not a negative thing. Again, just, you know, so, but there's no benefits. But there's really no downsides. Um, okay. Um, I don't know. Okay. Hold on a second. Uh, Hmm. It's an interesting question. Let me think about it. Uh, okay. So this one came Amanda grabbed this one too. In fact, all the ones I'm reading right now Amanda grabs. So thank you, Amanda. Uh, this one says, Phil, do you think the Gibson Machop guitars are maligned unfairly? So, no, um, here's what I could tell you about expensive guitars. People who don't want to buy them think they're stupid. Uh, not notice. I didn't say can't afford them. Don't want to buy them. I've told you guys this many, many times affording and not affording is not the only criteria or most people think about, um, when they, when they buy a guitar, it's not even the closest thing. Okay. Most of us are the opposite. We can't afford any of this stuff and we can't stop obsessing about it until we figure out how to get it. Okay. A lot of us have an addiction. So to this instrument, because of the music, we got music in our soul. It changed our life forever. And now we need to play music and be around music and, and it's a drug. It's the best drug ever because it's essentially doesn't cause you any problems like drugs do. So, um, so, but, but that being said, a lot of people are not interested. I make this content all the time. So I can tell you people, something, or like when they go $6,000 guitar, they're not even interested. And I go, well, you don't want to learn about it. Like, no, I'm never going to buy that stupid. It's not even cause I can't afford it. They're just like, I'm not going to buy that. I kind of understand that. Okay. Um, but that, that criticism is not really warranted. You know, if you don't, not interested in it, just don't say anything. Uh, people realize some people fail to understand something I can tell you from making thousands of, of videos, essentially, and podcasts that essentially where are you giving my, I'm giving my opinion. You don't always have to have an opinion on everything. That's what I've learned. In fact, you're better for it in life. I have opinions on a few things. You guys probably think I have opinions on a lot of things. I don't have opinion on a few things. And then I don't care about the rest. I don't have opinions about them. When I say, I don't care. I mean, I don't care to have an opinion about it. It's not something I'm interested in talking about. So, uh, I would say that's one of the problems. Me, I think the problem though, for any custom shop product is, is that they're like, you know, the, the mod shop and stuff. It's just expensive. If you want it, you want it. Um, you know, but I do, I think it's scrutinized unfairly. No, I think, um, you know, I've told you, I've been run through the ringer enough times publicly, but I've always come to the conclusion. Well, I guess I put myself out there and that's what you get. You get run through the ringer. I think the same thing with manufacturers. If you're going to buy, if you're going to build guitars that are expensive, you're going to get scrutinized. That's the game you're in, you know? Um, I know this because I've done videos where I've reviewed like a guitar that's like a hundred dollars and I'll go, Oh, it's a really decent guitar. I can't believe it. People are like, it's junk. And I'm like, well, here's the problem. How do you say it's junk? It's a hundred dollars. It's a guitar that's cheaper than a decent pedal. It's crazy. So it's hard to scrutinize that. It's very easy scrutinize a guitar that's $5,000 because for $5,000, it should be amazing in every way. So I don't think so. Um, but I don't know. I can just tell you about my personal travels with expensive guitars, um, which is what I've learned from me is if I didn't have the channel, I would probably never have bought any guitars over, I wouldn't say $2,500. I'd say $3,000. I don't think I would have ever bought a guitar over $3,000 if it wasn't with the channel because there's sometimes not only is my curiosity, but then I was like, well, I want to put every kind of guitar. Like I did the Novo for $4,200 I put on the channel. And what I can tell you is I own no guitars or have pulled any guitars through the channel that are over $4,000. That's a number that I've liked better than any guitars. I've owned that were $1,000 or $1,500. I'm not saying they weren't great. I'm just saying there's no guitar that I've either bought personally and owned or had a review on the channel and thought when I've heard people do it, I love that they do it. Uh, they go, wow, I totally get it now. How many times have you heard that? Wow, I totally get why everybody thinks this is the greatest thing ever. So great. I can't ever go back. And I'm like, hmm, you know, I still have my favorites. Uh, my Mira, uh, this is my Mira. It's a 2013 PRS Mira. It was brand new. This was $1,200. I think it was 1299 retail when it came out. I think I paid 750 for it. Still love it. Didn't get rid of it. I've had it for, well, since 2013, I bought a brand new. So that's how long I've had it. And I've had a pile of really expensive PRS's here and they were all great, but I would argue that not a single one made me go, I gotta get rid of that. That's just junk now. I think that's still in play. So, uh, uh, I guess that's my nice way of saying is if you're not in the market to buy and really expensive guitar or you can't afford one, you're not missing out. The, I really have determined what I believed in the beginning, which is what sucks sometimes when you have like, I had a thought and then I said, well, even though I had thought I'm going to try it, so I'm going to do this for years. I'm going to do every guitar, every price point. What I came to conclusion is it's just about owning something that no one else has. If that's, you know, and some people get like upset about that. And I go, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that philosophy. Somebody wants something nice, like a nice watch or a nice car. They want to live in the nicer neighborhood. They want, you know, nicer things. If that's what it fuels their fire, then that's what fuels their fire. Doesn't necessarily do that for me. That those things, like I don't wear like a watch. I don't wear anything that, you know, would go, Oh, look at, look at what I bought. It's so cool. Uh, that doesn't do it for me. Um, and with guitars, when I buy an expensive guitar, the only thing that's cool is it's the curiosity is more, I'm excited about. Like, what is it going to be like? And, uh, but it doesn't do anything. Like I've never been anywhere. No one's ever heard me standing in a group of people and I go, they go, Oh, I have a Fender Squire. And I'm like, Oh, well, I have a Murphy lab, less Paul. You know, just in fact, in fact, the one thing I can say, we've probably negative about me and maybe positive at the same time is that if you've ever bumped into me and, and you were talking and you said, Oh, I have a Squire, I would probably say, Yeah, me too. Cause I do. And I'll be like, Yeah, me too. I just wouldn't mention that I have something else. I'd be like, I'd, I'd, I'd instinctively go for the thing that I think could bond us the fastest to make the conversation interesting and have a conversation. Uh, so that's just funny. I don't, I think it's cause I'm always like, I don't know, looking for somebody to talk about guitars with. Um, okay. Here's another one from Manus says, Hey, will I do damage to my American vintage to 51 telly by wet sanding the neck? Um, I feel like a more woody neck. Uh, will you do damage? Well, yeah, you're going to, you're literally going to take the finish off the neck. So yeah, and you're by definition damaging it. You're removing it. Um, uh, I don't know if you have to wet sand it. I mean, I understand you're using what sand here. Don't wet it. Don't physically put water in your wood, even if it's got to finish, because when the finish gets off the wood is just going to suck up the water. I'm not, I don't think you're actually talking about putting water on the wet sandpaper, but just let you know. If you want to sand the finish off your neck, uh, what you're doing is you're just guaranteeing that your resale value went to crap. And if you decide you don't love it and here's what's funny in some, uh, this is why I always say everybody goes, well, who cares about that? Well, here's my cautionary tale, my friend. Uh, if you're trying to modify your guitar because you don't like it, what happens when you modify it and you still don't like it, now you just screwed yourself out of the value of it. That is the thing to be scared of. I'm not trying to talk you out of it, but I've seen it too many times. Um, I famously, uh, my first, um, I, I had a customer who sanded the finish off his men's, no, sorry, the JP 13 JP 13 neck and, uh, dude, just tank the value of it and he's like, I know, I know. And, uh, I bought it and, uh, thing. I didn't love it. I didn't love the neck cause it was all sanded down and he thinned it down too thin and I just too thin to, didn't feel right. And then, you know, I sold it and same thing cause it had no value cause somebody sanded it. So he sanded it cause he didn't like the finish. And I think the lesson he learned is what I'm telling you, which is he was probably better off looking for the right guitar and selling his guitar off. That's what I'm basically going to tell you. Um, you know, when you hear those stories about rock stars, cause this is the story that always fuels that fire. Oh, well, you know, so and so back in the seventies, they sanded their neck off. Hey, they took a, they took a chisel out, they chisel it out. That's because that was the choice. Do that or nothing. There wasn't. Online and online delivery within 24 hours. I would argue that, um, I don't know if I could argue, none of us could factually argue whether or not any Van Halen or, or any of the guitars, uh, heroes that modified their guitars would not do it now that they can just order something that's more like what they wanted from sweet water guitar center and have it in a day. But I would say less, right? I would, again, we're not going to say no, but I'm going to say less, right? Um, you can just find what you like. So, but if you love the guitar in every way and you really believe that this, the, uh, taking the finish off the neck is going to be the thing that takes, it takes you to the next level. Then like I said, do it, but the, the downfall is not what you're like said, aside from don't put water on the neck, there's no damage that's going to hurt the guitar. You can't, you want you to send that finish off. It's not going to damage the guitar. Having the wood exposed, um, you're just killing the value. So, um, there is, there is a, since you're talking about American vintage to, um, here's the, there is another option, which I've seen people do, which is, uh, you can take them to different shops throughout the United States where there's different Luthiers who are, who specialize in reliquing guitars. And I've seen players do this a lot, which is they will, um, they will take their guitar and have them sand the neck, but then relic the whole guitar. So it all looks right. And then it actually helps the resound a little bit. It doesn't make it worth more, but when somebody, you know, goes to buy it, they're just going to see a relic fender and it's not going to really, you know, you're just going to say, oh, it was relic by this so-and-so person. Sometimes it doesn't hurt the values. Okay. One's and zeros. This came from Manus says, Hey Phil, since you featured the JS 2480, which is the Joe Saturani guitar that I showed last week, he says, I got my heart set on it, but I think it's just my interest in the sustainiac best cheaper option you'd recommend for that purpose, please. So I would normally tell you, like, obviously I, uh, you know, Shector makes a sustainiac guitar and of course I've been as makes a more affordable version of the guitar, more obtainable, then I say affordable cause that's still going to be $1500. And then used, I think you can get them down to $1,000. And then there's other brands that make sustainiac pickups, but I really think when the video comes out, um, you'll see where I told you, I'm showing you the Digitech freak out paddle and I'm comparing the two and you're going to see that there's some plus and minuses. Um, what I will tell you is if ones and zeros, you have it in your craw, so to speak, is my, as, as, as our parents would say, so it's definitely something I grew up with. Is this stuck in your craw? I don't know if that means anything to you guys, but to me, it means like you can't stop thinking about it. Um, okay. Uh, let me go to favorites and, uh, what? Watch this. Okay. This is the pedal. I'll show you this one. Okay. Uh, so, uh, ones and zeros, if you go onto reverb, that's where I've been finding the best deals. So you go here, there is this pedal called the Digitech freak out. This is by city music annex, right? Oh, it's weird that it doesn't scroll. The thing I want to show you, which is city music annex right there. Um, this one's one 89 plus $10 shipping. It says that it's mint used, but in my experience, this is probably says mint with all the original packaging. See, look at this mint with all the original packaging. Uh, so I'm not, I can't guarantee you it's a new pedal, but it looks, I would imagine you're going to get something like that's either new or really new adjacent, like said, in packaging everything. Uh, $200 is what this would cost you plus tax. These are normally 250 sets, 50 bucks off. So think of it as that's 20% off. So, uh, I was able to find a bunch of Digitech freak out pedals for the $200 price point. Um, $200 is not a little bit of money, but it will get it out of your system. I guess that's what I want to say to you is it will, um, it'll get it out of your system. If you need a sustainiac, it does pretty much what the sustainiac is. They're different in the way that the, the, the sustainiac physically, like I said, it physically is vibrating the guitar a little bit because of the way it works. And you can feel some of the energy in the guitar that it's more organic. I would argue that if you haven't played a sustainiac pickup, you wouldn't notice anything that you're missing. If you get the freak out pedal. So, um, that's why I bought a freak out pedals for just for that video, because I knew that was going to be a question, which was, you know, you know, um, uh, you know, uh, do you need the sustainiac pedal? Something that our stand is like, when I bought that just started running guitar, which I bought it to make the video, um, a lot of times because we know we're going to lose money on the guitar. So for instance, the Novo cost us $4200 and we sold it for three. Actually we sold the Novo just so you guys know, we sold the Novo, um, here, I guess we are a transparent channel. Something's going to show you everything. Okay. Uh, uh, orders. Okay. So we sold the Novo. I just got to make sure I can't obviously share with you the customers, that information or anything. Um, does it, what can be a breakdown? Does it give you the breakdown? Read our guidelines. I want to see the breakdown. Um, okay. So let me do this. I'm pretty sure this is all safe now. Okay. So let me go here. Uh, so, uh, the Novo sold for $3,373. I charged $80 shipping. By the way, it costs $160 shipping, but you know how it works out there. If I charge $160 shipping, everybody's like, are you ridiculous? But it did cost us $106 shipping. No problem. We kind of factor that into the whole pie here. Uh, then the customer paid $331. So they paid $3,784.91. So what did I get? I received $2,998. Of that. So, and I, and I'm, uh, I'm going to pull that up and verify that. So you guys know, and then I'll see. Okay. And, uh, okay, let's see. Um, hold on a second. We're going to go to, just got to find, oh, here it is. Okay. Let me do this. It's just, uh, cause it's got my, I can't give you my bank information. That's just too much too much to give you. I can't give you that. All right. Ready? Uh, so here to see you guys know, and this all makes sense. What I'm about to say, hopefully in a second. Um, we go here web. So I received, I was wrong. Not $2,983.93. $3.84. So of that, that's what we received. And then like I said, what the video made, we ended up netting $245 after the video posts, right? So we didn't make back obviously what we, so the thing was the video made enough to pay for the guitar. And then we actually paid ourselves something. Um, the reason I tell you that is because sometimes this probably doesn't make sense to you guys. So let me help you make sense. When I buy a guitar, sometimes I do a video like that Novo or like the Joe Satch running guitar, cause we know we're going to have to sell it at a loss. I tend to buy guitars that I not only think are interested in the video, but I'm by the one that I might like, because if I end up liking it, then I can buy it for that. There's, I can buy it for the reduced price. Why do I have to sell it to somebody else? So, um, so that's why, like I said, that's why I got that Joe Satch running model. Otherwise, if I didn't think I was going to be interested in the guitar at all, I would have bought the Indonesian one because it would be a lot cheaper. And it just would work just well, cause again, it's for the illustration of point out, sustainiac works and stuff. But, um, but I will tell you that, uh, I liked the guitar, but I didn't love the guitar. And, uh, the freak out pedal is I think really, really, really the, you can get away with that. So, um, and then it says, uh, the sustainia pedals come with a wall version or just on and off. Uh, it's kind of weird. It's like an expression kind of feel to the pedal. I don't know how to kind of explain it any different than that. I don't know. Um, but, uh, yeah. So, uh, let's go back. Steve, Steve, oh, you cases, that's a crazy minute of sales costs. Yeah. It's brutal. I told you. That's why I said it. Sometimes we'll put the stuff on our website. And if we put on our website, we don't have to charge you sales tax and I'll eat, you know, the fees out of it cause you know, and then, uh, we end up netting just a little bit more and then you guys save a little bit of money. So, um, if you go to, uh, to know, your gear podcast.com, unfortunately you're going to have to check on the regular. We don't send out an official notice that when we list the guitar, except for the patrons. Well, sometimes I'll tell the patrons, the heads up first obviously because they're supporting the channel. I want to give them a little heads up and say, Hey, just, you know, we listed these, but so you know, the, the Novo sold so fast that I don't even think the patrons got to really see it. Um, very many of them got to see it. Um, but yeah, let's see. Okay. Let's, uh, let's go on to the next subject. All right. Uh, there. Nope. Somebody's asked me if I'm interested in other instruments. Nope. The answer is no to your question. Nope. Uh, bass guitar, that's it. Um, for the most part. Um, uh, nope. This person doesn't understand. Okay. Cool. Um, okay. Let's see. Oh, uh, Bert Rockins says, Hey, if I buy used American strat, what is an easy way to tell if it's really a square body, you can take the, I have a video on that. I have a video on, uh, you just type in Phil McKnight, you know, a Fender strat, uh, where I break down the US strats and I explained to you that the Mexican strats have three holes, the American strats have one hole. There's ways to see the route patterns. That's a, that's the fastest tell to tell you right away. Um, and then of course, you know, just really once you get inside them, it used to be the, obviously the squires were thinner, but now they make square bodies just as thick, but you can tell by looking at the pickups, you can tell by the bridge, uh, where the bridge posts are, what type of posts they're using, but essentially, uh, and of course there's going to be marking stamps on everything. If you watch the video, I just did of the Jackson dinky where like I said, everybody on the internet was saying, Oh, you look at the serial number and that's here. I'll said 96 or 97. They're like, Hey, it's a 97 and I pulled it apart and it was clearly stamped on the neck and in the body made in 2002. That's how Fender will be too. They'll be clear stamps and barcodes and stickers on side the guitar as well. So the first tail you're going to notice is that when you take the pick art off and there's no stickers or markings on the body, uh, that would not be from the US. The US will have some kind of markings in them. Uh, vintage reissue guitar bodies from Fender will have stamping in them. Some kind of letter stamping in them. Um, relic guitars, believe it or not from Fender have relic. I think it's RELK. See RELC relic in it. Um, sometimes not always clearly stamped through. So it's sometimes it's just kind of half ass stamped in there, um, but it's there. So, um, there are clear signs and I have a bunch of videos that where I go through all the things you need to check for. Um, this one also came from Manus says, have you seen the shark guitars from Turkey? I have seen the shark guitars from Turkey. They sent me some stuff about sending a guitar out and, um, that was before the NAMM show and then I haven't heard from them since. So, uh, I think I said, uh, I would imagine, I don't know, I haven't talked to them, but this happens a lot. Uh, you know, I've been doing this for a long time. A company reach out. They're very excited about doing a video. And then what ends up happening is in that case, I think, um, um, uh, Dweezel Zappa did a video and it went viral. And then usually companies, once they get a either, they got a lot of orders in that and now they're backlogged in orders and they don't need any help promoting their guitars. So they don't need to send one out to me. Um, or, you know, they got a lot of hype from it. Um, sometimes it works the other way. So, you know, I've had it where a company was really eager to work with the channel, but then another chat, you know, they sent it to another YouTuber in a YouTuber did a video and then they saw no sales from it. So then they're a little scared to send out a guitar because they're not going to see any sales. Um, a guitar like that, we tend not to send them back because it's just, obviously it's coming from Turkey. It's got to go through customs and it's really hard for me to spend all that time making a video and then package the guitar up and then ship the guitar back and get it through customs and deal with all that stuff. So there isn't a cost to them because again, they're going to have to leave the guitar behind for us to do the video, especially on a guitar like that, a guitar like that, uh, Shauna factors in the, uh, I don't want to say the billable hours, but we have a, I have a sheet just like if I was a plumber or, uh, electrician or anyone else who has a job or have to bill it in hours, uh, a guitar like that is two full 40 hours weeks, uh, two 40 hour weeks for me. That's, that's what a guitar like that takes to scrutinize, to go through all those options, go through all that stuff, to do all the research, find out about their company, download all the pictures and stuff and do a deep dive like that and feel like I could actually communicate something to you guys that would be enlightening. That's what that would take to do that. Um, there's no amount of money that makes that sense for the most part. And what I mean is so that's, I said, we'll see if they ever reach out again, we'll go forward from there. But, um, yeah. Uh, okay. Um, okay. Okay. This one's from games for one, 41.05. This came from a man as well. It says, Hey, bought a new Epiphone 335 from guitar center. It developed fret sprout in less than a week in my home. Humidity in the room was not below 40%. Sure. But let's not confuse that. That's a good subject. Uh, do I get a quote from my local repair shop or SGC to cover it? You could do all the, all the above. You can reach out to guitar center and say, Hey, look, the fret sprout happened. Um, the, uh, the, the important part to understand about fret sprout is obviously, uh, obviously in my experience, anything on their 40% humidity, you're, you know, you're just, it's going to be, it's going to be a factor, right? The neck will shrink, the frets will pop. Um, you know, and you'll feel them. However, you don't need a guitar to get 40% humidity. I, um, you can have a guitar neck shrink because it was over-humidified. And now you're, now you're just humidifying it correctly. Like, so in other words, I've seen fret sprout at 50 or 60% humidity. It's very rare, but it happens because somebody was, you know, had it up to 80%. And of course the neck was all, you know, swollen. And, uh, so it's, it's possible. Guitar stores, what's great about guitar stores is they tend to be extremely dry inside. Uh, and that's because the doors cause constantly opening and closing. So guitar center is going to have, that's why people go to guitar centers. Same thing with all mom and pop stores. You walk in and you feel fret sprout all the time. You're like, what's going on here? They don't take care of it. I'm like, look, the door constantly open and closing in the store and running all that AC or, or heating either way, a central air between the heating and cooling drying out the air. Um, you're going to usually experience it. And, and, so my suggestions are three fold one, you can reach out to guitar center and say, Hey, could you fix this? Um, they tend to not, let me tell you why it's something I don't like about guitar center and like, like I said, uh, I have some things I like, but I have a lot of things, a lot of things that don't like about guitar center. One of them is the repair shop is not ran by the store. It's the dumbest thing ever. I'm sure it has some kind of lawyer corporate crap attached to it. And, uh, I'll ask Gabe about it. It's in our notes to talk to him about this, which is, so whether you realize or not. So the store, like when you go into a guitar center, the store manager manages the, obviously you have a store manager and you have sales managers and they manage the people, the employees that you see, but not the repair guys, the repair guys report to corporate. They don't even have like a boss in the store, so to speak, um, which is totally stupid. Um, because essentially that's why I think you have troubles. And I think people have troubles when they're trying to get what you perceive to be like in my old store, you walked in and I'm like, obviously cause I'm the owner of my repair shop. And I never pulled like the, oh, my repair shop is different than my store. They've like, wait a minute, what do you mean? I'm like, yeah, technically it's different LLCs. Um, now, funny enough in my store, so you guys know they were, my lesson of cabin Academy was a different business than my store and my, and my repair shop was different. So, um, and that's for all, I can tell you why. So you understand it was mostly for tax purposes. And not tax purposes to the IRS tax purposes to the city and the state, because obviously I have to collect sales tax. And so what happened with a lesson Academy where, where 99% of the transactions were not, were services and not items, you know, product selling, you, it was a, it's a, you didn't want to commingle your sales tax. Cause what happens is, is you're running the chance. This is a stupid conversation to have, but it's just there. You're running the chance to get an audit by the state or the city because they're going to go, wait a minute, how are you, how are you doing this number, but only reporting in this much in sales. And then you're going to go, well, this is lessons, right? And this was, uh, uh, my repair hours, right? Cause so on repair, I would, I would charge your sales tax on, on the parts, but not on the labor, right? So that's why we separated. But because we separated for that reason, I didn't pull any crap where I was like, Oh, I'm a different LLC than the person standing next to me. But guitar center does kind of play that game, which sucks. So I'm just telling you this game's for fun that you might go in there and they're going to be like, Oh yeah. You're like, Hey, can you have the tech just take care of this? And they're going to be like, no, he's not part of the store. They, it's just dumb. But, um, but you can always ask the other thing is be prepared. They just because they might not be able to get the tech to do the work, that they could give you something to, to, to, uh, take care of you. So compensate you, I want to say. So you might say, Hey, look, how about you? You know, whatever, give me a $40 worth of product or whatever, or discount this guitar a little bit so I can cover it. So that's what I'm trying to tell you. You got to think of all the options, be prepared to have three options to present them and let them say no to all three. I don't mean hopefully they won't will hopefully they won't, but I'm just saying it's a lot easier than when people tell me, cause people email me all the time and this is a good time to clear this up. I give no shits. So you know, when you guys tell me that you're like, I had a bad experience and you tell me, how you went in and you demanded something and they said no. And I'm like, look, that's not how you talk to people. You go in and you, you say, have a problem. And then you go, do you have a solution? And if they say no, you go, well, here are three possible solutions I will take. And if they say no to all three, now you have all, all my respect to get upset, to, to call them criminals to whatever. But when people say, Hey, I asked for a 50% off and they said no. And I'm like, okay, well, look, it'd be perfect world. They would come back with their, you know, like I can't do that, but I'll do this. But, um, but, but you definitely want to have solutions. So games for fun. If I was your, if I was in your boots, so to speak, I would go in and say, Hey, look, can you correct this fret sprout issue for me? And if they say no, then you're okay. Can you discount the guitar so I can go have it done somewhere? And then they go, no. And you go, okay, can you compensate me with a product? You know, can you give me whatever, you know, a, you know, $40 care cleaning kit or whatever the dollar amount is, right? Product because sometimes they can do, that's easier for them. Again, you're trying to work within what the employee, because they're employees, they work at far corporation, you know, you know, their hands are tied, so to speak, but not fully tied. Sometimes they have options for you. And the other thing is too, is also if you get nos from the employees, then Jeth the sales manager. I think this is cause I was in the army, there's just instinctively, I mean, like you always, it's, you walk up the chain of command, right? I don't ask for the general, who's the general on this post? My direct deposits four hours late. No. Anyways, my point is if the employee says, no, they can't help you. Well, then you, you don't have to take that no either. See, you gave them three options. They can't do it. Now you get the sales manager, then give them a shot. I know this sounds frustrating, but, but the end goal is you're trying to get your situation taken care of. And the difference is you can either quit and just, you know, take it and you got the guitar and you're stuck with it, or you can return it. But that's what I would, I would offer. Then, um, then if they do compensate in some way, then you can go to any shop you want to me personally, games are fun. I would just watch one of the film ignite videos on how to correct for that sprout and then maybe take some of that. If they gave you compensation, take some of that money and buy some stew mac tools for that guitar. I would say if you just bought a fret and dress file and one of those sanding sticks from Amazon that I've highly recommended many times, those two tools, uh, uh, in fact, games are fun. How about this? Do me a favor. Let's have some fun with this. Um, take some of my suggestions. Okay. You don't have to do exactly the same, but take those to heart, you know, whatever. Uh, I suggest you go back to them. If you could, you send the response to ask know your gear at gmail.com. We'll, and put in the heading, you know, games for fun or whatever it is, you think it's going to make me catch that it's you in this. And I will, uh, gladly give everybody an update next week or the following week on what happened with you. And, um, if you decide you want to do the fret sprout on that guitar, I will specifically do a video and either launch it on the second channel or just launch a link to it so you can get to it with me doing those, just those two tools. So you got to figure you're going to, you're going to be, because it's you can both buy them both from Amazon. Uh, and, and, uh, I'm going to say $15 and under 20, 20, $20, $25 is what you need and tools. And you can totally do the work yourself. You're going to need a little painter's tape probably, but you know, you can whatever and, uh, you can totally do that work as, as good as anyone else can. I promise you, it's a very hard thing. It's one of my favorite things to teach because it's one of the things that we used to charge a lot for, do a lot for people. And really is the thing they could have done themselves. So, um, so that's just what I have my suggestions for that. And, um, um, yeah. And cause ultimately look, you all have the same goal that you want a guitar and they wanted to sell you a guitar. That's the thing that people forget. You are, you're aligned in the, in the goal. They want you to have the guitar too. Right? So now you just got to figure out how you're both going to be happy with how you keep the guitar. So that's my suggestion for that. Um, and like I said, and not to be so, uh, like harsh when I'm talking about people emailing, but a lot of people still send us a lot of emails and they, and I, and I, I always think about it when I'm reading it and a lot of times it's just so like, you can't just demand a thing and then then not, you know, and then not jump and then you be upset. It's just not reasonable. I'm not saying it's not right or I'm not saying it's not right or wrong. It's just not reasonable for a lot, for a person that wants to have a sane calm life. You need to understand you're going to have to deal with this world, this corporate mandate crap world and how you navigate it. Um, I have, I have, uh, probably not yelled in a store in 20 years at least, maybe longer. But before then I used to think that's how you got your way. I'm like, well, let me see the manager in you. Do one of those. And I learned, I got nowhere every time. And I thought, well, I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. I'm telling me, I want to see the manager and I've made some kind of loud gesture and now I've learned, no, you want to negotiate. That's how you want to do it. And when they don't negotiate, you know what you do? You just realize that you just spent your money at the wrong place and you never go back again. So, um, okay. Google dog says, Hey, good day, Phil. Uh, do Cortech workers strive to move upstream to higher level brands or guitar lines being made in various factories? Do those pay more that have better work structures, conditions? So yes. So two things. Uh, yes, leveling up to different departments pays more, right? So certain departments pay more. There's entry level. This is, this is factory one on one in the US. Like the, the, say the person's sanding guitar bodies and buffing is starting in at the lowest pay rate. That's like the intro level position. So it's not any different than in Indonesia than in USA, right? You come on off the street and you're like, you know how to build guitars and like, no. And they're like, okay, can you, can you sand, you know, right? And yeah. And then can you buff? Yeah. It's like, cause it's a, it's a crap job and it's a really, I mean, think about this. What people understand is when you're handing it, and when you're holding a guitar body and you're buffing on the buffing wheel, you know, it's not like you're just holding it there. You have to actually put some muscle behind it. You're, you're, and you, and you can burn through the finish. You can damage the guitar. So you got to do it at the right amount of pressure. So it's a, it's a labor job and kind of like, I don't want to say mindless, but obviously you want to wear headphones a lot of times cause it's not very exciting. So they start there and then they work up. Yes. But like, yes. It was very easy for me to assess very quickly. Like the PRSSE factory is like one of the jobs to have. Okay. So yes, there were a lot of fat workers would like to get from the lower factories up, lower quality factory to the higher quality factory building to get a higher pay and a better kind of job. Again, I'm sure setting up guitars, you know, turning Allen wrenches all day on a guitar is a lot better than standing there with a respirator or a mask, breathing in, you know, wood dust all day and sanding or cleaning or mopping or whatever is. So yes. And then yes, there's pay grades. So, you know, generally speaking, you know, they can start in at about $3,000 a year. And again, this is important because some of this is not information is directly told to me by Cortex. So I'm not giving you inside information. This is just, I was in the country and I would learn as much as I could. So, and before some of you freak out, you have to understand, like when you take the currency equation calculator, it's about a $40,000 a year job in the US and then they can make as much as $5,000, $6,000 a year US. And right. And that's about a $50,000, $60,000 a year job in the US. So, so that's good. But keep in mind, they have a lower living condition, a lower cost of living conditions or lower cost of living there. So compared to a worker, this is where it gets really tricky. Workers in California, you understand they're in one of the most expensive living costs in the country and they're making $50,000, $60,000 a year or building your guitars. And so it's not, I'm not saying the Indonesian jobs, a better job or anything like that. I'm just giving you all the information to factor in. There's so many factors into what's better a job. I mean, I could argue that, yeah, they technically are making more compared to their cost of living. But also I could tell you right now, whether I was in the factories in Mexico or I was in factories in Indonesia, OSHA is a thing here. And so the working conditions here for the American workers are cleaner, even though it was a clean factory, it's cleaner, it's a little safer. Right. There's, you know, workman's comp doesn't seem, it didn't appear to me at the Cortex factory, just like when I was in the Mexican factories, that workman's comp was something overly that they freaked out about. We're here in the U S, you know, workman's comp is something that manufacturers really worry about, you know, that if somebody was going to get hit on the job, you know, so different, different standards. But overall, the condition looked pretty good as a whole. But I always say this, I was there for two days and I'm not going to go, I'm an expert now and how their conditions and stuff worked. And I'm just giving you the information that I, that I observed when I was there. And, and also what I would think if I was ever to speak as, and try to speak as an informed person about working conditions in a factory, especially outside the US, I would want to be there at least a month to, to be able to, to, to know. I will tell you, however, that I am going to a factory next month and that factory, which I think is very special and very different compared to a lot of factories in the US. And I am going to be talking to employees there specifically about some interesting work. I don't want to say conditions, but work, they have a very special arrangement with their employees that seems very unique in this industry. And one of the things I asked for, which they granted me was, could I have permission to talk to some of the employees about this particular? And I'll just tell you why, why I talk cryptically. I'm going to be going to the Taylor guitar factory. And if you guys don't know, in 2021, Taylor guitars gave the business to the employees, it's employee owned. I don't know what that means. When you Google it, you can do some research, you can go on AI and you can learn a little bit like I did. Oh, okay. The employees all own a piece of the company. I've worked in corporate America where I had stock options. So of course we were technically owned a piece of the company too. So I asked Taylor guitars, of course, I want to see all the stuff, what's going on in the factory and I want to see the guitars and I want to see all the stuff. But I said, can I sit down and talk to some different employees about that, about why, what that means to them, what that means, you know, again, not like a expose, I'm going to expose everything. Just kind of, I'm curious like, okay, so the company gives the company to the employees. What does that actually mean to them? And so I'll be talking to them about that. So I'll, I'll, when that video comes out, I'll report back and just like on the show, I'll report back to what I see. But I'm going to a bunch of factories this year as well. I think one thing I can say to the core tech guys that I want to thank them for every time is that core tech factory video, getting a million 1.3 million views did open the door for some other factories. Although I still have a bunch of companies who they don't want me anywhere near that factory for some reason. I don't know why, but I, but a lot of companies have reached out and said, Hey, absolutely, we'd love to have you come by and, and do that kind of video, you know, kind of inform people what it's like here, you know, and, and try to give a, a fair shake, both positive and negative. In other words, you know, show what, you know, like core tech, what's the passion, but also here are some of the things that's structured. So, uh, Oh, love, love ahead says chat. He says 70% of Taylor employees love gravy. Well, we won't be eating together then. And I can't eat with them anyways. I got a, I'm on my own little regimen for a while now. Um, um, Hold on. Okay. Bill, that joke made me laugh so hard. I didn't even think I was reading it right. I had a pretty re re read it again. He said fender raised prizes today because Taylor guitars his own bison poise. That's a great joke. I love that. So I love it. Um, Okay. Um, Okay. Uh, this question is from cool guy Z says, Hey, uh, what, what, what, Oh, what? Wow. I'm hiccup up and trying to talk. What amp would I recommend under $1500? Um, you know, it's tough, right? Cause that's the thing where we, I don't know what kind of music you like. I don't know what you're after. I will just tell you my favorite amp, absolutely with no question under $1500 is my Princeton reverb. So highly recommend it. I like the 68 over the 65. Both are fine. Um, but the 68's my favorite amp. I, uh, I can tell you that I have lots of amps that are better than it. I think my magnetone's better than it. I think my affidination is better on it. I think the two rock is better than it. I think the, I was looking at another magnetone, another magnetone's better than it. I, I, I like my car amp with two Rs better than it. I like my mat, my Morgan amp better than it. But all of those amps are considerably more, if not double the price. And I would say that for half the price, um, and you can buy a Princeton for about a thousand bucks used, um, you don't even have to pay 15 by used or, you know, whatever, open box, buy on sale, you can find them out there. It's a great amp. So I think it's, I think the reason I love it is not only does it sound good, but it's one of the smallest combo amps that I think is legit in the idea that you can gig with it, you can practice with it. It's professional grade. In other words, you know, professionals use it, right? And it's small and that's different because sometimes the other professional amps that, you know, these guys use, they're so huge and so loud. It's just too much. And I can get any great sound out of the Princeton I want at a reasonable volume. Okay. Uh, let's see. Oh, Christian says, uh, if I gave you a $200 gift card to Sweetwater to do a deep drive on the TC bass amp, uh, would you do it basically? Um, I would love to, because I mean, think about this, that's easy, right? Cause you're, you're going to fund it. There's just no, there's no time. Uh, it, it would, uh, I, it's hard for me to commit that's cause I don't know the schedule and I can't pull it up right now. But so you know, like we do pedals and amps on the second channel. So if you guys don't know, we have a second channel called know your gear where we do clips of the podcast bonus podcasts, bonus material, but more importantly, that's where amps and, and pedal videos go. Um, so like we have two pedal videos posting next seven days and then we have two amp videos posting. Um, and so those are also scheduled out. And, um, the way that works, the reason why we do that is I don't edit those videos. So I make the videos and then they're edited by somebody else. So that way otherwise they would never get done because the deep dives just take too much time. That's, you know, I, I, I, it's, I was, uh, last year I was doing all the above. I was doing a pedal videos and amp videos and, and bonus podcasts. And I was doing, you know, the Cortech trip and I was doing deep dives. And here's what ended up happening. I just never took any time off. And I got to a point where I was so exhausted that I just hated this so much. I didn't want to do it anymore. Um, and it wasn't anyone's fault. It wasn't like I was upset with the viewers or the companies or anybody. I wasn't upset with anything. I mean, the channel record numbers last year, record results, but at some point the decision was made. Think, think, I actually, you know, it's, so you know, it's since it's on the back half of the show. I'll just tell you, um, in the last part, uh, I decided in August of last year, mid way through the year that I was working myself to death. My wife agreed with me and, um, I'm like, you know what, uh, we're going to change things. So I worked really hard last year to get into the position where we are now, where I get to go, I go to the gym three times a week. I get to go to the gym now. I have a trainer. He's mean to me. At least that's what I tell him. Um, and, uh, he's a nice guy. Um, and, uh, that, that's the thing. You know, you're just sitting there, uh, my days where I'd wake up, I drink coffee, I would work, I would work, I would work, and then, you know, at dinner time, I would throw some horrible crap food down as fast as I could. Um, cause it was almost time for bed and then I'd go to bed and then I'd repeat this process like every day. And so I decided I'm like, I had no more of this and my wife has an agreement. So, um, now everything's very structured. So I just focus on these deep dives and making, uh, cool videos. I'm super excited. I have a deep dive that'll be out in April that it's kind of like the Cortech video, something I've been working on for a year. I'm super excited about that. That'll release. Um, and, uh, and then that, we came up with the idea that why don't we have someone run the second channel? And, uh, it's a huge, I don't know, I'm exaggerating. It was in, it's a, it's a pay cut because I'm obviously paying people to do stuff now, but, uh, my time is, you know, what are you going to do? It's all you got is time, you know? That's the only valuable thing you got in life. And so I'm giving myself some more time. So basically Christian, what I'm trying to say is, yes, I'm interested in doing it. I just don't know the answer. You see what I'm saying? Because I'm, I'm, I, so, um, here's what I suggest Christian. If you reach out to ask, know your gear at gmail.com and put in the subject what it is that you're asking us. What happens is a lot of people email us and some people get upset because we don't respond, but we do. So you understand it's not that we ignore people. We prioritize every day things that are the most optimal for the community. So if you have a question, I think is interesting for the community or we'll make a great video, I focus on that. If it's a personal thing that I can help you with, it's hard for me if I don't have, we don't have the time to do that. So we kind of skip that. It's like I said, it's never, it's never a bad or good thing. It's just, so things like this, if you're interested in like, that's essentially you're trying to say you're sponsor a video. If it's, if we can do it, I'm up to do it. Um, I'm not prepared for those questions. I was, you're the first one to ever ask something like that since we've switched this because before I could just go, okay, yeah, I could figure out to do it. But like I said, in this case, I would not be editing it. And so I would just film it. And so then it's a question of whether or not it could be done in a timely manner. So just let you know. All right, let's up button up the show. Let's find one last subject or topic to talk about um, um, okay, hold on. Hold on a second. Okay. Oh, that's quite, I don't know the answers question. I'm going to read it anyways. Says any tricks to get reverb to get guitars in their database that are missing? I have guitars that aren't in there. They never respond to me. I don't know. I'm only reading it because I want to timestamp it when I look at it so I can do some research on it. Um, um, oh, okay. Well, I know this is a good question. I like it. So this one was, why would anyone ever shim a nut when it's easy to make a new one? Um, here's why. So this is a funny story because this actually came up with stew mac and me. That's how I met stew mac. I did a video where I did just that. I showed everybody how to shim a nut up, right? In a, uh, in a, um, a sharp max. And this is when I had a different philosophy than I have now, but I, uh, because now I'm, I can't, I've been in the public eye with you guys for so long. There's no reason to do it. But when I started doing sharp max, I used to do them on my daughter's art table, which you guys, and that's why I said, at the time made sense. Cause you guys didn't know not so much who I am, but you didn't know anything about me. So you would click on a video and there I am on my daughter's art table. You can tell it's an art table because you can see all the spilled paint on it. Right. And, uh, my, my wife and daughter had this big wood table and I would position it in the art room, which is our front room because they make that the art room. And I would do all the repairs on that. And I would, my, my thought process for this was if I did it there and I laid out all the tools I would do in the video, that would be easy for anyone watching to understand this is all you need. Okay. And, uh, I don't know why I did that. I just thought it made sense. Uh, it's kind of like how I was really trying to optimize not being my store. You know, as you guys know, I would do in the videos independent, even on my own to store. I wasn't trying to be like Anderton's and be like, Hey, this is all like a McKnight guitar company. Buy stuff from us. You know, I was trying to do my own thing. And, uh, anyways, what I would also show you guys repairs, like I said, things you could do to guitars that, uh, were non-marring that you could reverse. But more importantly, things were limited amount of tools and not files are one of those things that cost the most. And when I say the cost of most on average, I said a not files is going to cost you about a hundred bucks. And the, and the, and by the way, if somebody puts in the comments, just use blowtorch, whatever pipe cleaners that, that doesn't work. I know a bunch of YouTubers told you to buy those. I bought them. You know what, you could probably get them to work. It ain't worth it. Okay. And it's not worth your time in your money. Um, but anyways, uh, a hundred bucks for some not files is expensive because sometimes guitar players probably only do this job once or twice in their whole life. And that's a lot when, especially then when you could pay somebody 50 bucks to do it, you know, it's not like you're going to save yourself money. You're only going to educate yourself. So I would go, okay, well, what could you teach somebody to do? Well, anyone can get a piece of sandpaper, stick it to a table and sand the back of a nut down and up or glue on sheets of plastic and shim it up. So I showed you guys in a video how to do that. Why this is important is, um, I one time was going to the NAMM show and I don't know if it was a week or a month before on the NAMM show, the people at Stu Mac reached out to me. I'd never talked to them before and they said, Hey, can we meet with you somewhere and have coffee? And I said, Sure. So we met at a Starbucks, go figure. Uh, and I didn't know what was happening, but I sat down on there for this day. I sat down and I feel like there was 50 of them. I don't know what it was. It was just like, it was probably six guys. It was just, they were on a U shaped, you know, a thing around me. We sat down. I was like, wow, there's a lot of people from Stu Mac here and we were talking and they began to explain that how my repair videos are sourcing to the highest, you know, to the most on YouTube and that everyone, you know, they're just become, you know, the most, right? Uh, to this day, I think I have, I think my repair videos have more views than Stu Mac has views on their channel, total, something like that. Right. I don't know if that's entirely true anymore, but it's close, right? So they said, but we noticed in a video, you did something weird, you shimmed up a nut. I said, yes. And they go, and they were being very nice. What they were, what I now understand, what they were trying to get to is like, why are people watching you? Cause you're not doing it the right way. They didn't say it like that. See, they said it the nice way and it took like 15 minutes to get to the point. And I was listening and they said, you know, um, yeah. And they go, you know, why do you, why did you do it this way? And I said, oh, because one of the things that I think is intimidating is when you have Dan Earl, wine, who's amazing, do a, a video. He's in a shop with like $50,000 with the tools and the guy's been doing this for 50 years. So when you watch it, all I get from it is if you've been doing it for 50 years and you have $50,000 with the tools, you can do it too. I said, I was trying to portray a different idea, right? Because what I was really effectively doing at the time, which I wasn't really seeking to do this, but it was what's happening was I was taking all the repairs that I thought people shouldn't have to pay me to do and teaching them how to do them, how they could do them themselves. Because at the time, you got to stay when I started my YouTube channel, I was still fully repairing guitars. I still fully repair guitars until 2020. Okay. So I had a middle of 2020. If it wasn't for COVID, I'd still be repairing guitars to this day. Okay. I stopped preparing guitars when the state Arizona shut down, flattened the curve. And they told me basically, like everybody, we couldn't come in contact with people. And, and then what happened was I did what a lot of people did. I pivoted even more at that time. And then I decided when it came back and we got to do repairs again, I had already pivoted into a different income, okay, from something else. So the point I'm trying to make is I said, I was just trying to teach people, you know, you don't have to come to me for a silly thing. Like just that, you know, if your nuts slots are down too deep, you can just shim them up, or you can use baking soda and glue and you can fix them. So to answer your question, why would somebody do that? Well, it's because it's easier, right? And you're, you're saying it's easy to cut a nut. I think it's super easy to cut a nut. However, if you don't have the tools, you have to do a workaround. I think that mentality comes from what we used to call shade tree mechanics growing up, which is definitely something I was. You know, shade tree mechanic is someone who worked on their car under the shade of a tree, right? You would go, you would go to auto zone, as in you're too broke, if you're lucky you had, you got the Chilton manual, you got the manual for your car. If not, you just went in there and kind of looked real quick at the pages, you know, there was no Googling anything, right? And then you went in and you would buy the part from auto zone and then you would try to do it with the tools you had. You were always, you're always figuring some work around because you didn't have the right torque wrench or you didn't have the right things because, you know, and again, you know, they're, and I sense crazy, but there was no Harbor Freight even, there was no way to get a tool super cheap. To get tools cheap, you would go to pawn shops and then, you know, and then you'd buy used tools or go, oh man, yard sales. Those are great when you go to yard sales. And then all of a sudden somebody had a couple of tools there and you're like, I always knew that, but it was really tough to justify buying one tool, you know, to basically take, you know, your timing belt off or do something like that. You know, this is one tool for this and it's like, it's going to cost you 30, 40 bucks for this tool, just to do this job, you know, so if you couldn't borrow it, you'd have to find a way around it. And so I kind of approached the repair videos that way. What could you do with the least amount of tools? Which is why, so you know, now when I do the deep dives, I say these are the tools we're going to use. Even though we don't demonstrate every tool in every video, the reason I show you that is, I want you to know that no matter what you see in the video, those are the only tools I've used in that entire video. So you know, that's all you have to have. So everything I could do in that video was done with those tools and no more. And I think that's because again, I think for me visually, I'm a visual learner. So to me, that visually helps me. I go, oh, okay. So if I have those things, I can do this. Yes. Oh, good. And so I think that's a great question that you asked. And I see your point, but it's again, how, you know, you got to, how do you do the most with the least? So this is Western Auto. Yeah. Let's see. Indio G says, don't buy used torque wrench though. Yeah. Well, you know, when there was a different time that you would use whatever you got, you didn't even know, you didn't know. I remember not knowing. You just didn't know you couldn't check anything. So I said, I love YouTube. I'm absolutely love of YouTube. I don't care about AI. I don't care about anything else. I think YouTube, I don't care about Instagram. I really don't. I don't care about any of the stuff. YouTube, to me, has been, dude, the idea that people who do a job for a living go out there and show you exactly what they do or a quick trick, trick, trick on something is just to me is amazing. I'm constantly on there. So it was great. I once saved myself a lot of pain and suffering. I had a thing go wrong on my AC unit and I had, when I was in the Army, you would have to discharge capacitors and, you know, those capacitors on those AC units, they have a lot of kick. And so I knew that, you know, you had to cut the power and you had discharged them. And I'll never forget this. There was a guy, an AC guy on YouTube and he had a quick little video with three minutes and he's like, how to do it? And I go, okay, I already know how to do it. Watch it. And when he did it, there was a one step that I didn't think of. And he's like, Hey, you got to make sure you do this. He's like, go back, turn it back on, then turn it back off. And I was like, Oh, okay. And I did it. And I remember thinking he's like, otherwise it's going to, it's going to hurt your teeth. And I'm like, Yeah, yeah, that's a lot of juice. I don't, I don't want that today. So I love videos like that. So okay, I think we covered the show today. If you guys are interested in the Royalist Pedal, that video will be out very soon. It's edited. It'll be on the second channel. If you guys haven't checked out the second channel, there'll be a link down below. We're about to hit 40,000 subscribers on that. We're thinking about doing a giveaway at 50,000 subscribers. So something to keep in mind, you know, you have to just be subscribed to be in the giveaway. I'll let you know it's going to be a guitar, of course, we'll give away a guitar. And also something else that's really cool is some people are asking, what is the difference between the bonus podcast that, when you're a patron, you support this channel for $5. And then if you pay the 100, it's $115 a year. It's $19 a month. But that's if you pay by the month, if you pay for the year, it's like $9 a month. It's half off. What is the difference in the clinic? So something fun for you guys to know, if you go to the link to the Patreon link down below, you can become a free patron. This is not a free trial. Don't click any free trials. I don't think we have any free trials, but don't click that. It will be 100% free. No tricks. You can be free forever and forever and ever and ever. If you become a free patron, you can watch a full two hour live clinic. You can watch the clinic and you can see what it's like. You don't have to pay anything for it. You get to check it out. If you end up liking it and you want to pay and become the mid tier patron and get monthly clinics and also see the catalog of them and plus the other stuff, there's a discount code also in Patreon that shows you how to get 50% off. Again, you can choose not to or not to, but the question that what we got emails about what we're trying to do is solve a problem, which is you're going to be emailing us. What is the difference between these two levels? So we're just put the video out. You guys can watch it. All you have to do is become a free patron. You can unpatron after you watch the video. I could, you know, whatever makes you happy. I don't know. I will tell you that if you stay being a free patron, what you get is we notify you when videos drop in case YouTube didn't notify you. And also I post some bonus things there, but don't expect a lot. It is free. Okay. But just let you know. But if you have those who want to check out the live clinic, you can check it out. Okay. And it's the most recent one. So it's kind of cool. All right. On that note, I want to thank the moderators for making the show possible and working. I want to thank you guys for all hanging out, especially to the end because you guys are awesome. And I want to thank everybody who saw the Jackson video. If you haven't, this week's video is about that vintage Jackson, some really cool stuff, including some really cool tech tips stuff in there. And as always, I want to thank you guys for your time and know your gear. Then know your gear podcast.