Fender Demands Everyone To Stop Making Strats Immediately!

podcast. Hey everyone, welcome to the Know Your Gear podcast for May, what are we on? The 15th? Is it the 15th? It's May 15th at Friday at 3 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time I guess is what you call it PDT. I guess what they said anyways. Oh welcome to the show I hope you guys had a fantastic week. We have so much to cover. I don't even know if it's gonna be possible So we will move Bund and quickly through the show so let's talk about the first bit of news which is if you are a small builder and And or even a retailer you probably were served with a legal letter this week So I want to talk about this and let me go to it So I have it because apparently Fender has decided to go nuclear on all small builders and just builders period So let's let's get into this. Let me switch screens so you guys can see what I'm gonna show you here We go right here. So basically there's a couple things I want to do I want to talk about what happened and I want to help some of the small builders So if you are a small builder that builds electric guitars and you were sent a letter this week from Bird and Bird which is a law firm in Germany and That we're told basically you can never build any Fender Stratocaster shaped bodies ever again. I want you to know you weren't alone from my understanding They served pretty much everybody now. I actually have a theory and I want to explain the theory I'm pretty sure what they did is they went to tommens website and they went to where it says s type guitars They clicked that and they hit everyone who sells on tommen. So I believe tommen has also served It looks like the big guys were served to see the PRS guys and maybe like, you know, maybe even Ibanez We don't know yet, but I can definitely tell you that a lot of people were served with this legal notice So what is this legal notice says? Well, I can go through it in detail I will provide it to anyone who needs a copy of it. I do have a physical copy. I was given physical copies from different people so you know So it's a cease and dis this letter and it's to to to basically say that you are to stop selling any Strat style shaped body and Recall all of the guitars you have sold immediately and destroy them now This is in the EU, but what's interesting about the letter is when it says you have to destroy them What's funny about it is is that in the US? The strat body is public domain and has been since 2009 So what's funny is is why couldn't you just send the guitars in theory that you have made that Fender is Saying that you don't have the right to make anymore send them back to the US. They're legal here Why do you have to destroy them? I mean at least if you send it back here, they could obviously go to customers in a very legal way And by the way, I'm not even arguing whether or not it's legal or not for them to argue this will get into that too Let's go back to this letter because it's it's pretty crazy and so back to the letter Whoops it says that Let's see that you are to destroy the property your story destroy the the product so to speak and you're also to pay them 250,000 euros plus what I think I understand is 3500 euros to the legal the law the lawyers for sending this letter the cost of sending the lever letter by the way The only thing it's funny about this is if you destroy those guitars Maybe you should do it in the way Gibson did when they had her like a tractor just roll over them with you know, right? That would be it seems like big companies love destroying guitars I hate to bring Gibson is mess, but I always feel like big companies love destroying guitars So anyways back to the letter So the good news is they can still make electric guitars, which is very nice offender considering fender didn't invent the electric guitar It's very nice of them to say hey, you can still make electric guitars Which you know anyways, we'll get back into it says the best part is that let's see best part is that they can continue to make electric guitars by the way failure to do so seems like it's gonna result in if you go through obviously they also outlined the guitar we'll get to that too and Failure with to do so will be 15 looks like $15,000 per offense for each guitar. Let's go back to more of these screenshots. Whoops Why did it do that? Let's do that one. There we go What's interesting about this is? Fender fender so if you guys don't know you what if you watch this podcast, you know about in March We talked about that the fender Won a case and which is interesting because what happened was they argued that the fender body shape is copyrighted, right and that a company that was selling on AliExpress was violating this because fender ordered this guitar had it shipped to Germany, which then violated it and The person they sued or was trying to sue the company did not show up So they won by default judgment again, I'm not a lawyer So this is just giving you the general idea Which is interesting because the way they're coming off here. It's almost like a price fighter who's Lost the majority of their fights which fender has and so as Gibson Coming out and saying hey the last fight I fought with the guy was a no-show. I'm the champ Right, so it's kind of weird that they're so cocky for this so not only are you to stop immediately marketing the guitars and Selling the guitars recall all the guitars and destroy them You're also to pay them. It looks like a quarter a million dollars and you are quarter million euros and pay legal fees Now what's interesting is they're not just serving These letters to the builders. They're serving them to certain retailers retailers like probably like tolman who have Harley Benton stuff Now what's interesting about this is this is an interesting tactic different than what we've seen with Gibson doing Gibson Specifically would always go after one company and kind of pile drive on them To kind of win this this idea, but what is crazy here is they're gonna fight everyone they're literally picking a fight with the entire industry and There's a lot of craziness behind this, you know, and I have my opinions. They've been out there for many years They are unchanged, so I'm gonna go with my opinions now. First of all, I really feel bad for people in Europe This isn't gonna improve Anything for customers or guitar players in Europe, you know I don't like monopolies and I understand and I can see both sides by the way I can see that Fender did design the Fender strat. It is iconic. It's my favorite body shape most of my guitars are double cuts and I can see some of that. However, it has been Decades and decades and the sad thing is most of the guitars that I play that I love that are strat Esk aren't even fenders anymore. I mean granted Fender arguably Even bought a company. I think Charvel to me Charvel was are some of the best strats Style guitars whatever you want to call a style guitars ever Fender bought them Even Fender knew that Charvel made a better guitar than them. That's what they bought them They don't buy a company that's worse than them You don't buy something worse than what you have you buy something better than what you have or something That's gonna add value to which have so even Fender's acknowledged that there's companies out there that make a good Strat-esque guitar like Jackson and Charvel because they bought them I mean right and I would really hate it if if if now think of this now because Fender owns Charvel and Jackson they'll continue to make these strat-esque guitars But imagine a world where they didn't buy them so then they would be done. I couldn't get a Charvel anymore That's what this would mean by the way Charvel can't make a strat style guitar anymore. I just I don't Basically what it is is I I love the idea of someone trying to protect their their intellectual properties. I don't like When somebody basically is trying to monopolize a market and there's a fine line between that And I think people are gonna argue this and people are gonna get upset both sides and I understand that but my whole point is is that I don't think the world is better if there's only Fender strats and that's my real argument and It's it's a really sad thing Especially since you got to understand and as you know I've been served even recently and I can tell you what it's like to get a lawsuit letter to you first of all it means you have to hire an attorney and they ain't cheap and I will tell you that in this case. It's even worse It could cost five ten thousand dollars easy to hire an attorney to respond to this letter And that's in the US Which means then they have to pay probably equal that or more to another attorney in Germany because I'm sure you can't have an Attorney here in the US just answer this because it's in a different country So it's going to double the cost of the legal fees and that's you know what you want to see right everybody paying a lot of legal Fees I think that's what we love when we talk about guitars every week is taught thinking about how much money is of our Hard-earned money when we buy the instrument that we love is going to legal fees either to defend or to fight and it's a really Really sad thing Especially since it's so aggressive Some people have talked about if you haven't when you see the letter if you look at the letter There's a lot of talk about how the strat is modeled like a woman You know and it's got the curves of a woman and it when Leo Fender designed it because he loved this sexiness of a woman I'm paraphrasing of course and the funny part of that is The funny part is That they're doing that because it's a copyright and not a trademark and so they're trying to push that it's an artistic thing It's the guitarist art It's really really sad. I I want to say this publicly So if any of these small builders or any retailers or anyone who's getting this lawsuit is it can hear this I Would be totally happy to help connect any of you to each other I know most of you so you know I've talked to this week alone. I've talked into I've talked into I've talked to Half a dozen maybe more. I'm trying to keep it vague obviously for reasons companies who have received this letter and it's been a lot of stress Definitely, but I will tell you that if I can help you connect with each other I think this is a good time for you guys to maybe reach out and talk to each other I'd also be happy to help in any way I can if you want to help start a go fund me for legal fees to fight this Because I don't think this is right I don't think this is fair and that's the word. I want to use today is fair is it let me give you an argument Let's say that Fender successful and they stop all guitars going to Europe that are not a Fender logo It's Stratocaster the only way you're gonna get a strat is if you're gonna Fender logo, you know If you remember for a few years, they didn't make striped Eddie Van Halen guitars Eddie wasn't really with Charvel anymore and he wasn't with Kramer anymore and they weren't making them And so if you know this if you know anything about the history of Eddie Van Halen and these striped guitars, you know that Thousands if not tens of thousands of guitar players made their own They just got good bodies and they they painted them and they taped them up and they made their own Replicas of these guitars because they wanted them because why because this is the thing we're freaking passionate about music and artists And we want to emulate our heroes their sounds their techniques their style We want to have a piece of that in our soul because it's the thing that literally makes us Make a whole work week liveable right is so that we can listen to music and then and then rejoice in the people who made that music for us And what's funny about this is? You can't even do that because there's a weird weird loophole problem with that right now in Europe So imagine this Fender lost in 2009 the loss the lawsuit which made the Fender Stratocaster body shape public domain in the US If you were to buy a warmoth neck right now a fender warm off fender shaped headstock warmoth neck It will be licensed by Fender which means they pay Fender royalty for the use of the headstock. It's not approved by Fender It just means it's licensed in other words. They have the rights to use the headstock. You can buy that here in the US But there is this thing as a licensed Fender body because it's public domain Which means there's no way to ship that body to Europe because there isn't a licensing deal in place and You don't need one So they can't even make their own fender parts of casters that aren't fenders and I think that's wrong again I like fender who doesn't like a fender they're they're iconic because I like said I'm a bass player so fenders always been a big part of my life, but And I'm not saying they shouldn't try to defend some of their rights I just think attacking the entire industry and trying to throw them in financial and actually there's a there's a creepy idea here This could be a motive because the market is definitely shrinking and feel it fenders definitely fill in the burn right now I have a shrinking market every company I've talked to a hell you guys know I just came back from two factory tours both companies Basically alluded that markets a little soft and it's a little tough right now, but they're figuring it out So you can imagine great timing for fender to go You know what would help us sell more fenders if we stopped everybody who made anything like it and That's not fair again back to the word fair What is fair in my opinion if fender was to say maybe you have to pay some kind of fee Maybe some kind of deal it has to be made fine And maybe hopefully that's what this Aggressive technique is maybe they're being aggressive and they're attacking everybody thinking that if they scare the living shit out of everyone And with financial destruction because that's what they're threatening with financial destruction I mean if you guys have ever if you guys don't need to own a business to know this if you work for A company and you're the owner comes out of his office or her office and says hey We have to stop everything we're doing destroy all this product and then throw it and show proof of it And then by the way recall all our current product and destroy it You would probably be looking for a job tomorrow if you had half a brain right because that company's over it's over This is a game over nuclear option, right? This isn't we want to work with you and figure it out This is you're done You're done and they don't in my opinion have any real Reason to do this because like I said just because you've got a nobody no show default the judgment Is silliness and I want to talk about it, but so you know not for the hey Let's let's talk about the drama and then therefore people watch the show because as you know the show is funded by patrons I don't really I'm already paid to do the show. I don't even need the show to be public Just on a side note Just to remind everybody because how nice the patrons are I just want to let you know I've offered to them now three times out three years to just do this show privately for patrons every week and not have it public And because they say no let's do it public. So thank you for them for that, but that being said The real reason I wanted to talk about this is I did stay on the phone this week with a quite a few friends who were covering up the fear and the anger and the chaos of this and This is real. This is some real shit. This is some heavy heavy You know shit When the biggest guitar company in the world starts pounding on your door That's not playing around anymore and when they're using aggressive language like this This isn't like hey, you know We want you to stop what you're doing and if you don't this is no pay us a lot of money right now Stop what you're doing destroy everything and pull all your inventory back So be interesting be interesting to see if tommy also picks up the the fight obviously I think they should I think everybody should fight This I think again I don't think this is gonna benefit the consumers again like I said the first episode we talked about this in March I'm gonna reiterate that you're up you in my opinion has always been a place where I feel like they always put customers first They have a lot of consumer protection laws that I like and this is one of those things I don't think they're protecting the consumer. I don't think the concern the customer is better for it And if I seem passionate, let me just tell you a quick I'm not gonna tell you the whole story because it's my personal life and no one needs to know But I will tell you that I was once in a horrible legal battle once and it was over a manufacturer who killed someone that we loved dearly and Pretty much changed our lives for the worse forever and It was because of essentially a monopoly this company was able to do things that They would have never got away with if they hadn't lobbied the US government in a way to stop competitors from competing in a certain way and So I know this isn't Fender's not the safety concern thing that that was it's not the same game But it is the same play in other words I'm gonna make it to where all you all you have is my choice and then let me ask you this and for anyone who wants to again Defend Fender for doing this because there you maybe feel passionate about the fact that you're like maybe you create stuff I create things as well and people people People who create understand what it's like to have your ideas stolen from you immediately or people You know take from you and they will get they will internalize that and I understand that because I also do that too So I understand that pain But what I will tell you is this the question I want to ask you is if Fender was able to stop everybody from making anything like let's say music man No more music man shape Fender's no more Ivan is shape Fender's no more Charvet well Charvel don't count right no more Kramer's no more, you know You name it. I don't want to keep naming brands my my point is do you think Fender would then give you a better quality product? And maybe lower the price if they increase their market share Do you does anything is anything that Fender's done in the last six years or ten years? Show you that they would be very motivated to know, you know, if we didn't have so much competition We would make our guitars a little bit more affordable. We'd actually put stainless steel frets on some of the hiring guitars We'd actually make some better product. We'd actually do some better things. You think that's the decision. They're gonna make with this or Is it gonna be hey, you know what maybe Indonesian fenders need to be $3,000 and That's why it It's crazy. It's a crazy thing and I want to talk about it But again reiterate one more time if you and it but by the way everybody feel free to give your opinions on the comments Against me whatever I said if you disagree because like I said, I could argue the other side a little bit too I mean, I understand it's not a clear-and-cut dry. I'm not trying to say evil big corporation It's in a sad easy. It's not that easy, but it is kind of a little bit like that and it's really crazy Like I said, I will present the letters anyone wants to read it. I will tell you it's pretty crazy How the verbiage is written and how aggressive it is. It is a very aggressively written legal action or legal letter again, I don't want to use wrong terminology and And nuts and I wish by the way if I have one wish It will be that one day when we do the Friday show We will not have to mention Gibson and Fender and the word lawsuit because it seems like those two companies love that word and It comes up to too many times Okay, if anyone has anything specific to say that you want to talk about and I can put that up about this subject You could just put a question mark first So I know you want to talk about this and if I see it I'll talk about it otherwise we're going to move on to the next topic and Also, like I said the email address is the ask know your gear at gmail.com If you are specifically a builder who has been affected by this or a retail who's being affected by this and you want to reach out to us And like said feel free to do so and also if you if anyone's interested in maybe helping with a go fund me a campaign I think that would be really a cool idea for the builders to come together I don't know how to officiate that and figure that out That's why I said I'm happy to help I'm sure there's 1200 people live here this the episodes that this podcast is is Fortunately or unfortunately to one how you want to look at it one of the largest guitar podcast in the world And I'm happy to help and I'm actually happy to Also put my money where my mouth is I will actually donate to the legal funds or I will even donate some of my time Which to me is way more valuable to me than my money So it's whatever is more valuable to you okay, um, so I think we covered that and and Yeah music gear channels the YouTube channel says fender waited after the 75th anniversary telly show. Yeah, it's it's kind of a weird Right Mighty might be Kevin basically says Phil aren't you excited for the new fresh ideas to come from this? You know what's funny is and and this is the crazy part I believe that the reason Charvel exists that Jackson exists that Ivan is you know kind of exists now the You know so many guitars exist, you know Famously said John sir said and I'm gonna mess up the quote But he said you know if a fender had it was doing it right I wouldn't have a business something like that again, please don't you know I didn't get I'm not getting the quote a hundred percent right But it's something to that line like he wouldn't fill the need to fulfill the customer's need if vendor was taking care of the customer And the way they should have or wanted to My point is exactly that you know Eddie Van Halen, you know people forget when the when these iconic rock stars that we talk about you know Famously I saw was it and again. I think I read once Jimmy Page Thin down the neck on his less Paul and then he told Gibson like make me a neck like this and they told him No, Eddie Van Halen shoved a humbucker and a strat and a strat body basically, right? Because that didn't exist and nobody wanted to make it for him essentially right you see what I'm saying It's so funny what I'm what I'm arguing is is that a lot of these brands? Oh, there is knockoff vendors Don't be wrong I get it some people just take a fender and just knocked it off and maybe they just made it cheaper and Maybe you know, I don't know how to argue that point fully, but I can argue this I can argue that in most cases when there's a guitar that's inspired by a fender design It's because there were feeling a need that Fender didn't want to fulfill That's that's essentially how easy that was Fender wasn't doing it and the customer wanted it And so why should the customer pay the price because the company doesn't want to do something and I know you're like What's their design? But here's the problem with the fender design regardless of what that letter says that Leo designed it because he thought of beautiful Women and their thing the reality is this you know in the last the strats been around since what? 54 right so think about that right so what is that? What is that 70 years? I don't even know the math on that Okay, so yeah 70 years so fenders been around 70 years the strat been around 70 years Let me tell you what has not changed in seven years. Obviously technology is changing in 70 years. That's totally different okay The world has changed in 70 years the Environment has changed in 70 years a lot of things to change you know hasn't changed the human body I Would argue that the reason why I love the fender strata caster and the strata caster body and all of the Charevels and all the guitars that are like the strata caster is because I like the way it fits on my body It's very comfortable to me less balls. I love them, but they're not as comfortable I love the contours and feels of the strata caster because it fits the curves of my body which makes it very Utility like which by the way this argument they're arching arguing is the opposite because they have less protections if it's a utility product see cuz you can't copyright you know a shovel You can't argue that the shovel was a artistic choice. No sure shovel is a tool and obviously Once somebody makes a shovel, it's not like nobody can make a shovel anymore. That's just really dumb It has a purpose and so and it's a really crazy thing Yeah, the belly cut which I really need sometimes a little less now, but still a lot lot, okay So you guys make me laugh sometimes I read the comments when you guys tell what things have changed, okay? Let's let's go on to something else Let what I want to take you guys what do we want to talk to the next subject? You know what we're gonna do for the next subject. I want to talk about something very positive. Can I talk about something positive? First of all, let me share this with you I want to share with you guys last week and it didn't happen and so I want to share it now Let me go ahead. I did send this I wasn't Whoops How come I there? Why can't I not share I can't okay? So I want to tell you a story so if you guys recall about a year ago I did a guitar the week of a very special guitar this guitar was a Kiesel vader seven string Let me recap the story so you guys know what happened was a viewer Contacted me one day and said that his son has passed away and his son played a seven string guitar He does not play a seven string guitar He doesn't know how to play the seven string guitar and he doesn't know what to do with this guitar He offered to give me the guitar I explained to him that I get guitars all the time I have lots of guitars that that's really not something, you know He needs to do but his point which I understood was he doesn't really know a lot of people and there was it's not like you can donate A seven string guitar to a school, okay? School's not really gonna what are they gonna do with it? Okay? So, you know, I thought about saying like why don't we sell it for charity or something like that and put a charity something But essentially as someone who's lost both their parents and had to deal with their personal belongings. I understand intimately What it's like to have someone you care about? Belongings and not wanting to hawk them off or sell them or what to do with them And you're just trying to do an honorable thing with the thing that they cared about So he sent me the seventh string Kiesel I record I'm recording an EP just so I have copyright attracts my from my channel and I record used it I use that guitar in one of the recordings I then did a guitar the week with it and I told you guys that I would give it away one day Please don't call me or ask me and I will know when to do it. So what happened after about? Four months or five months. I don't know it was a while It was just sitting here in my closet, too Just like it was sitting in his closet and I was like I don't know what to do with this guitar So I took it to Zim's guitars and Mesa and I walked in and I his son was there Bryant And I said hey, I want you to put this guitar in the back of the store and he's like why and I go I don't know why I said I don't know what to do with this guitar. I just know that it's probably Gonna make sense if it's outside of my house then inside of my house because again, no one's coming No one's going to my house to visit me. I'm working all the time and When I did the Kiesel clinic Zim's Jane reached out to me text me that 40 goes Hey, do you want me to bring the Kiesel guitar to the Kiesel clinic and I was like, yeah, no You know, I mean, I understand there'll be Kiesel fans there And maybe I'll find some kid or some person to give this guitar to I go I just don't I don't know I just you know, it's too much going on in my head right now You know, obviously I'm gonna be on stage talking and doing stuff. I just let's not think about it So about two weeks ago I was at Zim's store buying a pedal or something trading something and this Couple guys came up to me and they were like, hey, we like your show, you know, and they're talking to me I'm like cool. I appreciate that and was talking to him and there was a gentleman there and he's Waiting and I could see him in the you know on the peripheral on my peripheral and he came up to me He goes, hey, I just want to wait a minute I didn't want to interrupt you when you're talking to those guys because I don't want you know that I'm a fan of I just recently subscribed. I've been watching for years, but I didn't subscribe until recently and I said, oh cool and he goes you want to know why I subscribed and I'm like I thought so You know, he's gonna go cuz I cuz I never say subscribe and click the like button and I finally did or something I was like did I say something did I do that in a video? I never do it So you guys know if you're a patron, it's funny every time you guys see a preview video I'm always like like and subscribe and then when you watch the final cut I've cut it out because every time I go I can't I just can't do it. It's just too YouTube hokey for me. I can't do it So anyways, I thought I was gonna say and he goes no he goes cuz I figured out you have good tasting guitars and I go Oh, oh, okay, that's cool. And he goes. Yeah, you like seven strings. He goes. I love seven strings I go. Oh, I love seven strings. So we're talking about seven string guitars And he's wearing a deaf tone shirt and if you guys don't know the guitar player of deaf tones plays a Kiesel Vader guitar I'm not really thinking about that, but obviously I mentioned the deaf tones to him I said, oh, I'm a fan of the deaf tones and corn and You know and we're talking about the bands and the music and the guitars and he said I saw your Hills seven string Video you did he goes if you ever sell that I'd like to buy it And I'm like, oh, okay, that's interesting, right? Okay. Yeah, maybe never know, right? Okay. Let's figure it out and we're talking and again, I get back to You know doing something in the store He's doing something in the store and then he comes up to me or right we interact again and this time again, we're talking guitar seven strings seven string music How we both don't play eight strings and then he tells me he's like well was great talking to you I actually have to go my son got his first job today at he's working for the city For the I think working at the pool the city pool and he goes I'm gonna take him to dinner because it's first day on the job Everybody remembers your first day on your job. Actually, I was thinking in my head right then You know because I didn't have a good relationship with my father How could be if like my dad would have took me to dinner the first day I got a real job like you're a man now son Like what a great feeling, you know, here's dinner, you know, and I was like, wow, that's really cool And then he goes and as he's turning by the way, he he bought a guitar from Zim's You know, he's buying a little guitar a little but you know what I mean guitar And then as he's going to walk away He says don't forget me if you ever want to get rid of that seven string Hills guitar and I said You know what? Don't go anywhere and I look at Bryant and I go go grab that guitar in the back and While Bryant's going there I go, how do you feel about keys or guitars because as you guys know a lot of people love to tell you how they don't like He's a guitar. So I thought this is his opportunity. He goes. I love keys or guitars. They're just expensive And I'm like, yeah, they sure are so the gig bag comes out I put it on the case and zipping it. I open the guitar and he goes wow, that's beautiful. I go. That's yours And I'm gonna obviously Because you know for purposes as you can imagine I'm gonna show you the picture of him This is if you're thinking his head looks really big this because obviously I covering up his face That's his death tone shirt funny enough. He asked to take a picture with me. I To show his wife that he did not buy this guitar One thing I told him was I said I wouldn't post it on social media But obviously I'm not posting his his face on social media I will tell you that part of the cool thing now is that his as his wife can now watch this and know the truth The truth that he was telling the truth that yes, I'm crazy youtuber handed him a beautiful seven string Kiesel guitar and I wanted to show the story one because I Promise you guys I would give you the follow-up to how it works to look. I don't know what you all believe There's 1300 of you. I don't know what you guys believe in. I don't even know what I believe in sometimes but I can tell you this when the universe puts two people together in a room and one has a guitar to give away and One person's wearing the band who's synonymous with not only that brand of guitars Kiesel and that model and seven string and Telling you over again how he likes seven string and he tell you like how he wants to buy one of the inexpensive seven strings You reviewed on your channel that also happens to be set in black just like this one And he's a father and the person who gave you the guitar as a father And I'm like and I just the universe told me to give this guy the guitar so he gets the guitar and I I Just I didn't know what to think of what I happened. In fact, I think it was the store was just the three of us at that point So when he left me and Bryant Dane's unsat there and we went wow Well, that just happened Right. We're like, what is that? It was so crazy and so I was super excited because it was it was a welcomed burden To have that guitar and I say that the way I hope I'm saying it correctly or it's conveying correctly I'm so happy that this viewer imparted this You know, hey, can you help me let this guitar live on and uh I I was concerned because last thing I wanted was uh You know is to give it to somebody who's like, hey, yeah Take that and flip it on craigslist in five minutes and take the money because who doesn't want a free guitar Who's running free money? That's free money. You know I didn't want it to be that and I didn't want it to sit here and not get played and the reality of my life is Even the guitars that I've Pine d'affre for years and I finally get to own uh I uh I don't get to play so I like sit I like sit I appreciate you guys indulging me and letting you tell the story Um, because again, I was uh, it was cool. It was a very cool moment for me and positive and I liked something positive. It was nice Okay, so let's uh, let's move on to some of your questions and topics because you guys have some too. I'm sure uh This one ties in so we'll keep going with the flow because this ties in this came from Michael says Hey get offset, which is Emily from the channel get offset if you don't know that channel You should check it out and the 60 high cycle hum, which is Ryan from six cycle hum now both have quesels What I'm the only one supposed to have quesels. No, I'm just kidding. Uh, I said who's next Who's the next youtuber to join the quiesel family? So funny enough? I am uh, uh, really I'm I'm responsible for half of that problem uh, so the reason Emily has a uh quiesel is because uh When I was talking to the guys at quiesel when we did the quiesel event and they had me come and and and it worked the event I suggested some youtube channels to come out. I said hey, why don't you invite some channels then come out and and uh and uh in classy form they did and even I believe they Compensated them or at least paid for hotels or did something like that. I got this my understanding again I didn't know the personal business wasn't my personal business to know but I kind of understood it from the channels Uh, but anyways, uh, I was able to introduce Emily to quiesel and uh, and then of course Emily and quiesel Obviously worked out something where she had got the new mark 66 guitar, which totally lines up with her surf Rock style of play. Um, so I'm responsible for that. So that's what happens. Uh, so There and then uh six to come that's on him because I mean they probably found him after they found Emily I would guess and then reached out to him So that's the update on that So, yeah um Let's see, uh What are we doing on time? We're doing good on time. Let's do this then Here's a topic this one was came in this one's hot So this one was actually a disgruntled dealer Uh, who is uh wanted to let me know that they do not like uh, when I talk about discounts on the podcast and teaching or invoking or our uh Qualifying whatever you want to call it promoting you viewers asking for a deal and uh Here is the thing uh that i'm going to respond with okay, so I understand that I mean who does it who wants to give up money? No, none of you guys want to take a pay cut, right? um Asking for a deal I want to be very clear because I have been very clear in how I've done it over the years Okay, and how I've explained how I do it and when I do it and why I do it But I didn't dumb it down. So let me just dumb it down even more not to I'm not insulting this person then their question I'm just saying let me just dumb it down to you I'm an informed consumer, okay And most of you Regardless of what you do for a living are informed consumers because as I always say hobbyists are informed consumers. They Obsess over the thing they care about in this case music guitars, you know and guitar like stuff So it's not like you walk in and some of you guys do this and if you do you should stop because it's an asshole move But when somebody goes and into a business, let's say we'll use car dealerships You go into a car dealership and you see this car and it's $50,000 and you go hey sell it to me for 30 grand Pulling it a number from your ass that you would like to pay is not Negotiating it's not asking for a deal. That's not what I do. I don't go two things. I don't do I one I do not assess their vulnerability abilities Why because I've been on that side of the fence and I didn't like it when people did it to me What I mean by that is I don't go wow. They look like they really need to pay their rent this month Let me see how desperate they are. Okay. I don't work desperate people It's just an ethic thing if you do that it's on you, but I don't do it So first of all, let's let's already out out of the equation The second thing I don't do is pull numbers From my ass on things I'd like to buy like for instance if the guitar is uh, $1,000 I don't go would you take 200 bucks because I'd obviously pay $200 for a thousand dollar guitar When I make an offer and this is the point that I'm trying to make to this dealer When when most of us make an offer. It's an informed offer in other words. I've done my research um A good for instance is Like I go on out online craigslist reverb you name it guitarcenter use.com everywhere and I look at the products and I go There's a lot of them out for sale and and the last few have sold for this price I'm willing to buy one but not I'm not going to pay more than I have to that's dumb too Just like you don't want to sell less than you have to but there's an informed decision This guitar is generally selling for about $800. All right in my equation. Let's say it's a thousand It's selling for 800 bucks. That's worth selling And I'm asking them if they want the opportunity because that's what it is at this point to sell it Do you know that in most the cases where I send an offer to someone on reverb? Most of the time when they decline it later, they come back and accept it They come back a week later. They come back a day later a month later. They send me an email and they go Hey, we'll take your offer. I'm like, right because my offer was correct. I knew I knew what it's going to sell for I've done both sides. I've sold all this stuff for years. I've bought all this stuff for years I generally can tell what the market's doing at any given time and I can see where it's all Selling at right and I'm not trying to steal from anybody and I'm not trying to give anything away either on my end on both sides I'm trying to find something that's reasonable so that I can either buy something and make motivate myself to purchase something Or I can sell something and recoup as much as the price I want back that I that I'm doing because I obviously bought it And now I'm trying to recoup my point is when so talking about discounts is not a way about talking about a way to steal from dealers Talking about discounts is about figuring out how to make things that are unobtainable to you a little bit more Obtainable and because here's the thing there are things that I would never buy at a certain price point ever ever ever That's fine And and if it's a market where they're not selling maybe it is a time for me to see if there's an opportunity for me It's a perfect example. Plus. I always look for win-win opportunities You know a good example is uh, I don't know if I talked about this But when I bought my universe, which is a very expensive guitar and my wife and I uh, and shawna's like you should buy that guitar And for our anniversary and we're like, let's do this The person selling it was a small dealer. I reached out to him and I said I didn't say hey, man The market's a little soft right now. You should give me a deal. I said hey um, I'm willing to pay this but I'm willing to do a couple things like Uh, I know that you're in a different state But I have a friend and I that can drive to you and bring you cash If that could help right no credit card fees. Let's cut some credit card fees Let's see if look, I'll save you the fees that saves me the fees, right? We're okay. Maybe we can do something and And and whatever it takes we'll figure it out, right? Like I'm willing I'm also willing to let you ship it a little slower. I'm also willing to you know, whatever Let's work it out and what we ended up doing so you know is he came to me and he goes would you write the check to my wife? Right and he sold it outside of his store now That's he didn't have to charge sales tax because he's out of state So there was no sales tax and there was no credit card fees and he I don't know. Maybe he's keeping off his business books I don't know what he was doing. I don't know. Maybe he owed his wife. Uh, maybe his ex-wife and he owed her Uh, alimony and he's like paying my wife alimony, right? I don't know But the point is we found a mutual win and I got the guitar at a good price And and it kind of worked out So that's what I'm trying to say is that when you're out there negotiating That's you should make sure that you're an informed consumer that you have a reasonable price that you're you're coming out with and And I think the dealer wins in that scenario because the reality is most of the time when a dealer has cut me a deal Like uh this week I bought something this week and the dealer cut me a deal By the way, I didn't ask the deal the dealer cut the deal. Let me give you an example Uh, I was out looking at a particular amplifier in the last two weeks online and I noticed there's a lot of them I mean a lot of them. I had already decided to buy it In fact, I was like I'm buying this amp. I know I want it. I'm buying it So I went to buy it and I was out looking and I was like, wow, there's a lot for sale like a lot And then I was like, wow, there's a lot of used ones I'm like, okay, and you could save a lot of money for for going used But you know used two-bump fire shipped. It's a little dodgy sometimes, especially when they're expensive, you know, right? If it's a right deal, maybe you go that way I'm open both ways and imagine After about a week it took, you know, didn't take a lot of time I found a dealer who was making deals on them Of course they were because they were sitting on them like everybody else and they decided it's time to churn that money back into something else So they gave me a deal. I didn't ask for the deal. They gave the deal the point is That's what you do when you're an informed consumer. That's when you do when you actually know what you're talking about or know You got your research and you figure it out. So um, that's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about asking for a discount or a deal informed requests um that uh That are reasonable So and like I told you guys in my store. I never gave a discount. I never I never gave a discount in 13 years I didn't have to give So anytime anyone got a deal for me, which was a lot of times because I did have a store through four years of horrible recession time Of that section of it. Um, if I give you a deal Yeah, it's because I had to and I can tell you uh that because There was a lot of times when people are like, I'll buy this off you for that price And I'm like are this price and I'm like nope and I wouldn't sell it and I got the right price So it works both. Um So with that being said since we're talking about deals, let's segue again. You know what it's time for Now it's time for guitar of the week Now it's time for guitar of the week this week's guitar of the week Is fun. It's a fun guitar of the week. Um, because it's a lot of things. Um, so interesting enough Yeah Do I show you the guitar first? Let me show you the guitar first. So let me go here Do I have it up? I do. Okay, so this week's guitar Is a kiesel. No, it's a fender because every guitar now is a fender In fact, that's new the new joke screw the hole. It's a kiesel joke now every every every video every guitar of the week Is a fender because all guitars are a fender now. This is a fender. Look at it. It's a fender According to fender. This is a fender. What is this? This is an ibanez az prestige. That's a main japan az az means that it's like like a fender 2204 in w Electric guitar. This is dark tide blue. I'm reading that right now dark type blue looks black, but it's kind of blue Now what's cool about this guitar is I learned something two things back to back over a period of a couple months And I thought I'd share it with you and I thought it'd be cool. So Uh, so let's talk about this guitar the uh, super strat if you will this guitar is a Roasted maple neck. Look at that. We talked about roasted maple necks last week. Look at that chocolatey goodness Um, this is godo tuning keys We have a uh rosewood fretboard. We have 24 jumbo frets. These are stainless steel. I believe it should be stainless steel stainless steel frets It is the neck has a tongue oil finish. Uh, it's a standard truss rod. It is a oval c oval c it feels like a thick u shape it says oval c, but I'm gonna say Thick u shape Seymour dunkin single coils and Seymour dunkin humbucker really weird how vague they are about that But anyways Seymour dunkin single coin humbucker. Look the cable fell out It's got the output jack in the back like the steve i guitars, but not as deep Let me get this cable. There we go. Put this back in like that. Uh, we have a five-way pickup selector With a coil split switch, which obviously works on the humbucker because why would it work on the single coils? It's got a uh a tremolo system. I thought it was godo, but it doesn't say specifically, but i'm pretty sure it's a godo bridge I could be wrong Uh and says the tuning keys are locking. They are locking tuning keys and it came with a hardshell case And what's interesting about this particular guitar go back to the main screen so I can see what you guys are saying Um, so Mrs. Yeah, it's 24. But it says 20. Look, I don't want you to think i'm crazy I know I look 24 frets but Is 22 frets So 22 frets. I was reading their specs. This is why you know, you know, this is just again to prove over and over again when I do deep dives Why I don't read any of the stuff they publish and I only do my own only investigation See here. I am like an like an innocent bystander just reading the specs to a guitar And they're wrong So see can't trust nobody What's interesting about this guitar is and we'll play it Is that uh, I guess I learned two things guitar center and musicians friend are up to some shenanigans And uh, it's a pretty cool shenanigans. So let me tell you what they're doing So if you go to I put links by the way because I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you I do have an agenda here I get a commission if you buy any of this stuff when I say commission, it's affiliate links I have an affiliate link with guitar center or sweetwater Musicians friend you name it every reverb. I have an affiliate with everybody So, you know, just like all the other tubers click the link. It doesn't cost you anything. That's the spill, right? And but this is more important. Here's why so this guitar is normally $2,300 But what musicians friend is doing and guitar center is doing is they're using musicians friend is like an outlet It's like a north storm north storm rack So see 1699 so it's 23 off. That's almost dealer costs by the way. Actually, so you so you know, I'll tell you what Uh, basic dealer cost is so you guys know Uh, so I'm gonna give you two. There's two dealer costs for this guitar There's a like a there would be like a big retailer and then a regular retailer. So a regular retailer would expect to pay about 1540 for this guitar so you can see at 1699. It's only 160 dollars. Is that right 16? Yeah, 160 dollars more than cost now. This is a big retailer. So a big retailer would actually pay Um, you'd have to do 1540 And then an additional 10 So that means their cost their true choice drops down to like 1386 $1400 somewhere on there, right? So now they're actually making a couple hundred bucks, but you can imagine it's a big cut So it's a legitimate discount. Now. Why am I showing this to you? Well for a couple reasons first of all They're doing this to lots of guitars and so I highlighted some guitars and spend so as you can imagine you can get the prs sc studio that's on my a 50 down for 599 and There was let me go here because actually when I go there's a funny one. I want to show you Let me go here where I put all my links Where it says links links, um Click here Okay, oh man, why did I make it so why do they have to have all these pop-ups? Don't forget to get five dollars off But hold on there's more because I'm going to tell you guys something cool. All right. So anyways, uh, they have the uh Gibson victory guitar So the victory guitar was normally $2,000. It's $500 off. So these are legit discounts As you can see one of my favorites that I want to share with you is this guitar because I know a lot of you are going to be interested in this guitar Uh, is this one and I thought about getting myself, but I'm I'm gonna hold out for about another couple hundred bucks um This one is the johnny cash Sja 200 it's normally 15,000 you can pick it up for just nine grand But I mean think about that. That's uh, that's six grand off I mean think about this with the money you save you could get yourself like a sir or a nobo Or a Gibson les paul studio or standard get a stand less paul and take your kids to disneyland But anyways back to this uh, so nine thousand dollars. I did pick that one is a kind of to be funny The other thing I want to show you is this is the important part is this they also have Here's a good another deal. I found The kirk hammock greeny epiphone normally $1,500 that's $500 that's 33 off like I told you guys when I'm giving you math before That's basically cost right. I mean it's it's close enough to where it's going to be tough to beat that Um now here's what's interesting if you look at some of these deals I can tell you right now Including the az that I'm holding you can find them used for more money than they're selling them new The other thing that they're doing that's interesting is they also have Pedals So this is where they're clearancing pedals you do have to pay attention because they're co-mingling with guitar center Which means like this pedal is not a clearance pedal. This is just on the use website for uh for guitar center Now the reason I'm showing you this is one because you guys are guitar addicts like me and I want to show you the deals and uh, and we'll also um Do the you know finish demo in the guitar because that's important. Hold on. I'm trying to get back to your screen But I want to tell you something that a lot of people don't know If you decide especially use my link, you don't have to use my link Use my link anything you buy. I'm gonna get 5% just knowing right now. So if you spend $1,000 I'm gonna go to 50 bucks which by the way, it's pretty pretty cool So for me, uh, so but here's the thing that's cool for you If you buy anything regardless of what link you use or don't use a link kind of care At musicians friend and you don't like it you get to return it to guitar center in their stores So if you get one of the guitars, you don't have to box it back up and show back you can run it to guitar center Now I don't mean the discount deals anything a musician's friend This is why I want to share this with you something I've learned and I thought I would share with you guys The thing that you can't do is exchange So if you get something on musicians friend and you walk into guitar center, you cannot say hey I want to return this and use the in-store credit you can't do that It works like when you buy something on amazon, you got to take it to kohl's or the ups store What you get to do is walk in and they will return the funds To whatever source you paid with And then they just process the return for you another jbc center say you bought some musicians friend You want to return it? They'll take the return. They'll process your return They'll put it back on whatever form of credit card or whatever however you paid and it will take a day or two Or whatever it takes and then they probably ship the guitar back to musicians friend. I think I don't know that part I just know that they it doesn't stay in the store and they don't that's why they can't do in store so what's great is is I think it's cool that you're getting a smoking deal or we can get smoking deals on things and try things because this guitar is a guitar I had a red one of these and I loved it but uh My wife and everybody hated the color was like tomato super red and they just didn't dig it So I let it go and I regret it ever since so now I have one again So um, what's cool is like said now if you want to save a little scratch but not have to take a little bit of uh Uh, you know a little fear of like oh, what if it's you know, what if it's crappy, right? That's pretty cool So back to uh this guitar Let's go here. We're right here. Um, I have it set up work. Let's turn on the guitar. We'll keep it Fast and clean we're gonna start with the neck pickups. It's unclean Maybe oh there it is Here we go Man, it's got a very not fendery not even close to a fender. Don't don't call it fender sound And as you guys know one of my favorite setups is the hss so humbucker, let's go ahead Turn on the overdrive and a little delay because we deserve that. Here's the humbucker with some overdrive So Okay, I'm getting carried away It's gonna play my playing going for a second I forgot I'm like, oh, yeah, I have a show I have to talk to you guys Oh, it has never happened before I am Usually trying to play for a few seconds then get back to talking. This is the first time I was playing and going Oh crap. I forgot you guys are still here So anyways, uh weight wise it's uh not light. This is about eight pounds two ounces So not uh heavy, you know anything uh under eight and a half is to me is uh Legitimate for me. I prefer under eight if I can get it because it's super light feels good But this was pretty cool. This color not so great. Like I said dark blue, uh, they have a gray one that looks really cool as well Uh brass block on the back. Look at that. Uh came with the Dario strings Pretty cool guitar somebody mentioned earlier in the comments. I grabbed your comment early Because I knew this was the guitar of the week and said hey, Phil. This is from Reckoning fire raining fire Dude was wrong with me anyways raining fire says Uh Phil why does the why do golden era? I've been in this feels so much nicer and see and seemingly have so much more soul than modern day Japanese Ivan is guitars. I don't know about the soul thing because like I said, I always my joke is if a guitar had a soul It was killed it was done when we killed it because it was the soul was in the tree, right? This is a dead This is a dead tree man. There's no soul in this it's over So, uh, but why do the golden era? Why do I think golden era? Ivan is is are better than the current ones. Well, this is guitars a perfect example This guitar is built beautifully But it needed a setup really really bad the bridge was cranked down It felt like somebody built a nice guitar But then they kind of slapped this setup together and shifted in through in a case and threw it out the door So it's just iven is is just need a little bit of tweaking Which is something we used to not see with iven is But if you watch the deep dives, you know that you have a bigger chance of needing to do a setup on a guitar No matter what it costs regardless, you know Come here to not doing it But i'll tell you what makes doing a setup on a 22 hundred dollar guitar Feel a little better paying $1,600 for it Because I can tell you right now if you gave me a choice $2,200 and I bet you I'd like to hear we should do a poll right now if you guys can have this guitar for $2,200 I know some of you guys like I don't want the guitar, but i'm just It's a this or that argument if you could have this guitar For $2,200 and it needed and it and it was set up perfectly or you could have it for $1,600 But you had to set it up. What would you take? I'm taking the discount I'll do my own setup and if you watch enough of my channel you can do your own setups too All right, so let's do the thumbnail. This will be a good one for the Fender suing the world Okay, here we go thumbnail Oh, we should probably put the boom out of the way. Okay, there you go I don't know why I'm having trouble with this Okay, so that's our thumbnail that's the guitar of the week the Ivan is az You know, I know we talk about roasted navel necks, but they do smell good so any questions about the guitar or any questions about Uh, let me turn off my overdrive any questions about That return policy or anything like that so, uh Yeah, the candy man says no setup is worth $600. Absolutely. So I love this idea by the way. So unofficially unofficially Musicians friend is becoming like the Nordstrom's rack Where they're going to give you deals So you're gonna so I would recommend because I'm doing it Checking out musicians friends clearance center often Because like I said, you'll save a ton of money You can see some interesting things and The return policy of obviously music friends return policy same as guitar center So it's really really good But then the added idea that you can just walk it back to a guitar center and not have to you know Because now I know some of this I know the feeling of defeat of boxing up the crap that you don't love that you got to send back This just sucks So being able to turn is nice So that was really fun Tell you hey telly driven says save your money and learn how to build guitars Man, I'ma tell you right now As someone who's built a lot of them There ain't no saving your money building guitars I don't know what you're doing. You might need to teach me a thing or two Because building guitars costs more than buying guitars. Absolutely. There's no way to build a guitar Uh that I know of cheaper than you can buy guitars for the most part unless you're just buying like callings or you know guitars So I understand what you're saying Building guitars. I think it gives you more internally. I think it's there's something accomplished about that something mass massively Feels good about whenever you build or create anything. I I understand your argument. I like it I'm just the tweak on it is I don't want to lube that building a guitar somehow cheaper Now if you're buying parts and assembling them, sure you can put together something pretty interesting way cheaper than what a manufacturer high-end boutique builder is going to give you Compared to speaking, but if you're talking about actually physically building guitars Um, keep in mind like I built I've never built guitars. I built bases when I used to build a base. They were like four grand Like I didn't build nobody base for a thousand bucks. There's no such thing as that That's why I did import bases and that went really so great actually, it's funny I've told the story about how my import bases went but I always kind of come with this negative connotation about it But I also have to remind myself when I say that the money we made from those bases was what paid for our store It's what where are we why we had the money to start a store is I sold enough bases that I made enough money I said hey, let's open a store with this. So All right, that's where it came from. Uh, okay um Uh, uh, happy good thing says building cigar box guitars would be cheaper and you know, it's uh, you know what? That's a great happy good, uh good thing A cigar box guitar. I think is You know, if you were gonna do one thing if you were gonna say, hey, I want I want to know the experience of building guitar I would say building a cigar box guitar would be one of the coolest things to do I don't know if you guys remember. Uh, I have a uh, a person I know very well. His name's william wiggins He makes wiggins pickups in Tucson, Arizona And uh, let's go to the website and he builds some of the best if not the best cigar box pickups in the world and uh, wiggins brand pickups We'll go to his reverb store. Let's see what the reverb store shows Okay, we got electric guitar pickups Cigar box pickups. Here you go. They're not cheap, but look at that So if you ever need like custom made I mean again, I know I you know making a cigar box guitar is about making something inexpensive But these are literally look at that like how cool is this right laser carved My friend renai his wife does all she's an artist and she does the artwork and and the laser cutting and stuff See look at this five cent cigars, you know, right? So you can get really cool custom made Out of different woods, right? Walnut mesquite mesquite is uh, is here in Arizona. So he's getting that local, which is nice That's what I would recommend because you get a little taste of Arizona It says texas on the back, but I'm did he move? No, he's still in Tucson, Arizona. I was like, did he move? No So but uh, so check out wiggins pickups also look for electric guitars, too And he makes electric guitar pickups. I'm very beautiful Carved wood pickups and they sound great But also cigar box, but yeah cigar box guitar There it's it's not even how affordable it is Happy good thing made a good point about the fact that it's an affordable project But it's also a very easy thing to accomplish as a as a new trying to build something So that would be really cool. Um, yeah, so that that would be cool. Um to start I think uh, if I you know, I never got really thought of it before but if I got you know, the question is like Hey, Phil, I want to build start building guitars. What should I get into? Yeah, it's the carbox guitar, you know, right? That's that's probably a great First way to approach it because you know why you could probably sell them too You know what I mean? Like, you know, if you build a couple electric guitars even out of parts or whatever you're doing, you know The market is Very finicky and the idea that um You know, no one's really looking for uh you to put together a An inexpensive guitar a parts guitar, you know, you're a new builder. There's no name brand on it The very name brand conscious consumers the guitar players are We're as much as the as as much as we love music We're also a fashion industry type business where it's like brand names really hold the the weight of it But I I think a cigar box guitar. It's about how cool it is, you know, like the vibe, you know What box did you use that? You know a wiggins pickup in there would be really cool and different you could wind your own pickup very easily I would say it'd probably one of the easiest pickups to wind because it's not gonna be much different than a single coil pickup in the concept I've never made a cigar box pickup. So, you know But I would imagine construction wise is the same thing as a single coil Which means it's just you're you got a start point end point and you're gonna wrap and you know You know other than breaking the wire There's really nothing you can do to mess it up because And I would imagine Usually with winding the big issue is the tension. You know the tension can also Really change how the how the pickups gonna sound where I don't know if that's so dramatic on a cigar box guitar I don't know if necessarily go man. This pickup should be a little brighter a little dark. I think it'd be fine So that's a really cool really cool idea that I never thought about Okay, uh, what are we gonna do now now? We're gonna do something totally different for a second I've never done this before but I wanted to react to a video And I don't know why this video, uh, just got me. Uh, I just watched it. I wanted to let you know This is a channel a youtube channel. I don't even know if he has a couple hundred subscribers The video I think the initial video had 40 views So why it came on my feed or why I saw it? I don't know But I really really it really spoke to me. So let me tell you what happened. I was watching a video And uh, and I didn't I watched them back to back Let me go here. Do I have Okay, hold on a second So I have it here file open I Have do I have the screenshots? Okay, so let me go To it. Let me play the video. So let me tell you what happened Uh, so essentially this you this guy on youtube. I don't want to call me youtuber He's just a guy who made some youtube videos. Uh, so let's let's watch the vid and then I will talk about it And this one, I mean if I depress the bar then it You look like it has been that way for every nut I've had on this thing and I and you might say well You must not be seeing a very good person already This has been to this has now been the fifth Person I'm taking it to they installed this this phone nut and definitely the most expensive place I've been to Okay, so as you know, uh, this Nice gentleman named Patrick has made this video and he's talking about how he has this parts of caster It's essentially a strat body a strat neck put together had scalloped frets And he's having issues he the nut is obviously it's tinking right pink pink right because it's sticking in the nut And so he had four different shops cut him a nut and I'm watching this and I'm like, oh, this is funny I have a theory just watching it. I had a theory the theory was that the string trees were the issues First of all, I've dealt with scallop guitars many times. I've owned the engveys strat I currently own a scallop guitar. I've worked on a lot of scallop guitars and scallop guitars add a different problem to the To the mix and one of the problems is uh, the way the tension is applied to the nut It's a little bit of a little bit of a Finicky mistress and there's a reason why I think like engvey puts a brass nut on there not only for sound but also Because of that reason it really does change how it works um, the string and that was how the string tension works because the fact that when you play on the um Scallop you you have a different attack a different touch So I was looking at that and the first thing I thought if you watched is it had two nuts And they were tusk the brand tusk or graph attack and I was like, yeah I think he needs to so my first initial thought was he needs to do one of two things which is going to sound funny in a second remove the nuts And just play the guitar and I think that would fix it at the very least he need to remove the nut Sorry, what does he not the string tree? He needs to remove the string trees And at the very least the string tree that's on the g and the d string So definitely remove this the the string tree That would be my if you if he brought the guitar to me. That's that's how I was watching the video like what would I do if This is my customer Uh, he would bring it to me and I would say I would take the guitar and I would take both the string trees off and see if that Fixed the problem if it did fix the problem great Uh, then I would if it did fix problem I would probably put the one for the e and the b back to see if that that's fine and if that worked fine great but if not, uh, I would uh Leave them both off if that didn't fix it the other likely problem is that the String trees need to be lower They need more downward pressure if you look at the ones the string trees he's using look like this Let me show you one. Here's one right here. This is the same string tree. He was using you see how tall it is So I was like, okay, so either remove it which could be the pro the fix or lower it So either here's the why I'm saying this in that particular guitar because guitars are They are more they're they're more than just mechanical pieces There's a little bit of finesse that has to be done. So the irony is it needs either more tension past the nut or less Right and generally speaking I'd probably say more if I was going to guess more, but I've had it work both ways So in other words, I might I might take the the string tree for the e and the b and Lower it and on this one. It's super easy to lower because it's a material like a nut material So you sand the bottom so I would take this I put a sheet of sandpaper and I would just sand this As you can see it's in my hand. I'm trying to let you guys see it I would sand it like this on a flat surface and sand this down and lower it right no reason to get a new string tree These work great and just lower this I would lower the one for the e and the b string and then I might even remove the one for the the g and the d It might even not need that That's how I would fix that problem. Now. Why am I talking about this today? Well, he made another video Let's go to his other video. I'm not going to play the other video. I'm just going to go and pull up The the thumbnail which I thought I had captured but apparently I didn't because you know, what do you guys want a professional youtube channel? Okay, uh, let's go to the history. Let's find his video Here he is. Okay, so let me share this with you So he made a follow-up video This was a month later, but in my world they were back to back as you know because I didn't I didn't see the video a month ago I saw it recently Here it is Oh cool I do have What I need Okay, so he makes the second video and the second video is Let me move this Let me move this He got cursed out by the guitar store. So he took this guitar to another guitar store So it's not like he's taking the guitar back. He's taking it to another guitar store And he takes I'm just going to paraphrase this story. He goes in there and this is what they do they Cut a new nut they do a full setup. So they charge them for a full set setup and then they replace Those two string trees with new string trees as you look here These are the fender style ones that are the bent metal right here and you can see these are actually taller This is actually making the situation worse in my opinion. I mean these are higher than what the other ones were So what he doesn't say in the video I watched it He doesn't really say if this actually fixed the problem because he's really kind of focused on the fact that he was told to f off and get out of their store and uh and for the record just you guys know the whole story The store owner or store. I don't know if it's the owner store employees Basically told him to get the f out of the store take his crappy guitar and I'm paraphrasing again And uh his his weirdness and get the hell out of the store and of course you as you can imagine as a customer You're probably he's more fixated on that than he is on whether or not they solved or didn't solve his problem They didn't charge him uh because you know, he paid with emotional trauma. So emotional trauma I'm sure it's like it's pretty hard to ring somebody up and emotionally traumatize them at the same time by saying Hey, you're a piece of crap and also it's uh, it's a 139.95 so um anyways, uh, I thought it was interesting uh because Um I wanted him. I don't know if he'll ever see this. I I maybe I'll take this clip and message him with it You know and send it to him, you know, uh, I wanted him to know because like I got the sense that he was uh a little Upset uh from being basically told to get the f out of somebody's store and basically your crappy guitar And and I want you to know that regardless. I don't know the story. He's talking about I don't know them. He mentioned they were close to him and if you did some research You could probably figure it out. I didn't try to figure it out. What I will tell you is this I was uh, I was obviously a guitar tech for a very long time If you brought me the guitar, I would have never stuck new string trees on it No matter what I would have first of all the ones you they put on Even if even if for some reason I was totally wrong and these didn't need to be lowered or removed And go the other way. Let's say that the tech that did the work knew he was right and I'm wrong and these need to be taller There's a spacer for this. There's a way to raise this In fact, all you have to do is either sand it down and then use a shorter screw and lower it Or there's a spacer that you could absolutely should have. I mean, I have a thousand of them And I'm not even doing daily repairs anymore Um, uh, and he could extend to this. They did not need to charge you for new parts So you're correct in feeling like they were taking advantage and the reason They're upset is because you caught them taking advantage of you. I listened to the story. I'm not said look I didn't hear the other side of the story. There's always two sides and maybe he's maybe there was a he did maybe he Great, he did bring some more drama to the situation, but I will tell you that Uh, when you were explaining when when Patrick was explaining what they did as someone who does what they do I was like, no, that's not the course of action. I would have took first of all I wouldn't have added more problems and I wouldn't add in more cost than I needed to to to your situation so And there was more to the story about how they broke a string And then they had to order a string and take a month and all this other stuff or maybe that was one of the other stores He's having a lot of experiences. He did say he could do setups. What I will tell you also is Obviously look my videos are free Okay, so I'm just telling you their videos are free. Okay Uh pat patrick if you see this uh video, uh, I if you can do setups I promise you you could do everything they did for you You can do in fact I have videos where you could do your own nut slots with just a guitar string and some sandpaper And here's what I'm going to tell you. He told me and this is why I really want to talk about this He told me or he told me he didn't tell me anything. He told us he told the video He said that they were trying to charge him 150 dollars patrick. That's a $10 nut You could have bought 10 of them fucked up nine You're still ahead 50 bucks and I can't imagine that if you got uh, if you worked on eight of those pre-slotted nuts By the eighth one if you don't have it down a little bit I would imagine uh and based on their work of the of what you're showing us They couldn't do much better than you so I'm just saying I think sometimes uh Uh when I see stuff like that I used to just watch that internalize it and go on my day And then I thought you know what I have a channel. I have a platform. Why don't we talk about this? Why don't we share this? So that's why I'm sharing with you guys. I think it's a cool story Interesting story not cool like you know that way but to talk about and also um Uh, I think uh, uh, it's not right. It's not right how they treated you and uh, and I know you're probably full of a little doubt about You know, I uh, whether or not you deserved it or not because you kind of said that I'm gonna say Uh, nope, they could have easily used what you had and uh, they didn't have to put new parts on That was definitely they were just taking advantage of when you didn't when you caught them or when you were upset about it They didn't like being questioned and they didn't like being caught That's my take Maybe it's a hot take. It's a spicy field take So it's a spicy field take. Um so Where are we at now? You know what we're gonna answer a question Amanda picked because I haven't done one yet Let's go into that. We have Farmer dan says question. Have you played the fender jazz master? confi pickups. I'm pretty sure that's how I say it confi pickups. See you in fi confi pickups I don't know. I've heard it said different ways I have not thoughts on the v mod pickups. I don't really hold. I you know what? I've played some of the the confi pickups and I've never really Found myself needing or wanting them Uh, no no desire nothing draws me to them. There's not a bad or thing a good or bad thing about it There's nothing about it. So yeah uh Maybe maybe it would be a cool video do a deep dive. I can learn about them a little bit more detailed I don't know very much about them. Uh, you know, I know the basic construction of them You know as I've done research on everything and I've had so many pickups through the years here I don't know if I've actually had a set of those um so Uh, Kevin wants to know hey, Phil. What's the downside of buying an all wood acoustic? Uh, all acoustics are all wood buddy Uh, they're all made of wood Unless they're carbon fiber. Uh, I know what you mean. He I think he means solid wood I'm messing with you because it's uh, that's actually not me. That's our in-store joke We used to do in our store when somebody's like, hey, do you have guitars that are made of all wood? All our guitars are made of all wood. Uh, so solid wood. So yes, what's the downfall buying a solid wood acoustic? It is uh, when you use laminate for acoustics, whether it's back and sides or top Uh, you're taking sheets of wood and whether they go Grain on grain like this or cross grain like this Either way the glue in between the sheets, which usually they're going to be some kind of cross grain When you do it with the as you as you layer the wood with Sheets of sheets and glue in between sheets. You're making it stronger more stable like plywood. Essentially, it's a plywood think about this Laminated wood acoustic. What does that mean plywood? Your guitar is made of plywood plywood is very strong So, uh, that is what's great about it. The problem is is acoustic guitar sound isn't isn't made from strength It's made from vibration the more the guitar vibrates and especially vibrates in a very specific and pleasant way That amplifies the notes that the string is creating because that's really important What people don't realize is that when you play a note on your fretboard on acoustic you want the body to resin Resonate and amplify that note in a very positive and pleasant way And not just make it, you know, regurgitate the sound, you know, you want to actually do it in a very, you know Make a pleasant sound out of it um Plywood isn't very good for that But what plywood is plywood is good for is two things one you can drop the cost because obviously just like plywood at the store versus solid wood It's a lot cheaper The other thing is is that it's because of the sheets of glue in between it and usually because of the cross-graining It's more stable moisture doesn't affect it lack of moisture doesn't affect it So in other words, it's very hard for it to dry out And it takes more abuse. So let me give you a good example Why you would not want a solid wood acoustic guitar? You would want all ply ply top ply sides by back Maybe you living on rv and you're going to take this acoustic around the world or across the country different climates different moistures humidity can you know levels It's going to be more stable. It's going to take a lot more abuse than a solid guitar Um, so you don't have to baby as much. Maybe not have to keep it in a case and keep it at like 50 humidity all the time So that's that's a big reason for that Um, the other thing is is that they are less susceptible to getting damaged because obviously if you bump your acoustic on the corner of your desk Or the corner of your amplifier or the corner of you know, the railing on the stage Uh, the obviously uh to make a guitar sound good and solid wood It has to be thin and because it's thin that you can puncture it easily Again, the plywood would be harder to puncture So a durability factor So what ply wood or laminate wood acoustics give you is more durability and less cost So the solid wood acoustics will give you a higher expense, but uh, usually a better sound Now he's asking a secondary part of this question, which is he doesn't have 30 years to break in the acoustic You know, there is these theories that if you put your acoustic in a room and you play loud music to it There's a company that sells a thing that attaches. It's basically a vibrator that attaches your guitar and a vibrator guitar You know, I mean that's up to you. I've never done that nor have I ever cared to do that I have uh, I've played old acoustics and to say that they're broken in sounds better. It could be a thing I played new acoustics To me acoustics To me I pick up a guitar and it just sounds great and plays great or it doesn't and I've never really put it in the thought of Like where it's going to sound in 30 years or three years or three months three days Um, I just start playing it. So I wouldn't worry about that So and if anything I find that the more acoustics break in the softer they sound there's a less harshness to them And uh, if that's something that's bothering you you can find guitars that are new that don't have as harsh high end Top end and also you can change strings and strings will absolutely Uh, change that so like if somebody said this acoustics really soft sounding like it was not very bright I would say cool. I could make my strings I just wait for the strings to break in and get old and they would kind of soften a little bit too Unless be less bright and harsh Um So, yeah, let me do this. Let me go here. Why can't I find? Ah, I did right there I like how I'm talking a lot. You guys have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm just I'm talking out loud About what screens I'm going into Hmm Okay, I thought I was missing. Let's see if I can refresh it And I can't uh, I got this question from Damian who says hey did the epiphone? uh, futera Futera Have hemispherical fret ends. Uh, no generally speaking Uh, semi hemispherical fret ends. So if you guys don't know what we're talking about Uh, semi hemispherical fret ends are think of a hemisphere like a circle It means the fret end is rounded so nicely that it's it's like we sometimes refer to it as a bb It looks like a bb from a bb gun, right? It's really nice and smooth. They round it out. There's no edges Especially sometimes you will see like a u shape to the to the upside on u Like an arch to the fret and hemisphere semi hemispherical frets are been rounded. So like said they're almost like a bead you know like a ball a ball bearing like a bb and uh Uh, really really nice a lot of times they also will take and remove part of the blade about a Eighth inch of the blade on each end and then they set the fret end and you won't see the end of the blade either Did that epiphone have that? No, they did not have that There are not a whole lot of manufacturers that do that one It's very expensive and two a lot of players don't like it. So some players love it. Some players don't love it. So You know that's a tough right that's tough when it's not loved by all it's a tough thing to implement as a as a Uh as a you know as an improvement, right? So that's the answer question. Okay, let's do Nope Let's see Oh do I I love okay Um Hold on. Okay. I was looking at just previous questions to see if there's anything topics And let me go over this because I want to look at the Okay, so I you know what I think we hit a perfect point So, you know what it is. You know what it is. It's time for And now it's time for this or that now it's time for this Or that So this or that is a segment where we try two pedals, which we could probably try other things But right now we're trying two pedals. I'm gonna a b them We're gonna come together as a group and decide which one did we prefer the best Through a live poll and the whole point is is to see what you guys think Um, so let me go ahead and do this And you know, I I actually Had the setup so I could quick copy paste it. Look at that. Look at me. They got ahead. Okay this that The other no none. Okay, and uh All right, I'm gonna start. Oh, I'm not gonna start to pull you because you guys will vote. All right. Let me put which one I think it is And today I'm using blue ink. I'll put that really matters Okay, all right, let's go ahead and put my vote on the expensive tabletop Okay, there we go We'll get down to trusty ibanez a z Guitar of the week that is not a fender, but is now a fender Because everything's a fender That's a shirt I want could because everything's a fender It's like member demolition man everything is taco bell and then great everything will be a fender All right, this or that let's go to the side cam. Here we go. We got this or that. I'm gonna start with this So we're gonna compare two pedals. We're running through a two rock This is a two rock studio signature head. We have it through a 112 cabinet and uh, we have it mic'd up. I'm running I'm gonna run some I'm not gonna run any delay. I'm running a little reverb Okay, turn on the here you go if you can hear the guitar Okay, so I'm going to try and play something I don't know what But I'm gonna start with this pedal and then we'll go to that pedal and I'll say it verbally because you guys on the audio Podcast like it when I tell you what we're actually playing. So let's switch to the guitar cam And uh, we'll start with This and this is the first pedal we're listening to let's start the poll Here we go And now that I Okay, now what I want to do is go back to this Make sure yep, and if I can add some delay because it'll just make my life easier. Okay. So this is this With delay here we go And now that with delay Okay, so This is fun. I'm having fun. I hope you guys are having fun So this is this or that let's take a look at the poll shall we on the poll we have 119 votes And it looks like that's got 71 percent of the vote Uh, so it's uh pretty strong. I'm gonna go to 200 votes. We usually try to go a little bit more Let's go to 200 votes because it's a pretty aggressive Voting. I don't know if this has a shot if you think this was the better sounding Uh pedal then maybe you want to vote because you're about to lose So uh that's 72 percent we're at 209 votes. I think I can call it but I'm gonna let it run for just a couple of seconds and um All right, I'm gonna go ahead and end it at 235. Let's just keep going 240 It's not really changing isn't it funny still 72 22 percent 200 up to 250. Here we go. We ended the poll Okay, let me screenshot this We all right and let me get rid of this Not literally the pedal this Okay, so what are the votes here are the votes? They are in The votes are in and the votes say let me put this guitar away. That's what they say the votes say The winner is That was 72 of the votes out of 253 guitar players or drummers and maybe bass players 72 said that 22 said this 6 said none. What did I say? Obviously I'm gonna disagree with you guys It's getting here's my vote. I said that Look at look at that. It's that it's gonna be my joke from now on so go to the board camp. What did you guys vote for? You we to this week's pedal choices were the boss ds1 versus the vox joe satirized saturator, which is a modified ds1 I did not use the more button So, you know on the vox and if for anybody is curious all it did it was just give you more gain So I didn't use that. I could have maybe that's not a fair choice, but I actually thought uh, this uh, the the I don't know. I just like the ds1 more How about that? um, so very shocking this was uh, inspired by my good friend michael nielsen Who this week decided when I was super busy to send me a text that made me laugh Which is he was traumatized because he decided he needs a ds1 On his pedal board and he was thinking about getting a modded one and then I was laughing my head going I just bought the joe satirani Saturator pedal if you guys watch the video I made when I was in california I went into a mom pop store a small store and I bought that pedal and another pedal on the guitar And that pedal is a modified ds1 And when I abe, I thought it'd be a clear winner That the the modified one would be better which the modification according to My research says that the modification is that it has more gain That's why I did not want to add the more button gain because that's not the mod The mod is it already has more gain. Oh, let's see. Um Yeah, I thought I had it. Let's see. I pull it up here. Hold on. I probably do I do okay. Let me go here And library Oh wrong one. Okay. Yeah, it's a modified ds1 to have more gain And what does it say? Uh hot rod at ds1 smoother marshal style distortion Uh and saturon is old clean amp plus a pedal rig. So they're saying that he like runs this through a pedal So joe saturani thinks that the vox is better than the ds1 But we all disagreed or at least through my hands and my crabby playing we all thought the ds1 was the best I love this because uh one you agree with me and I agree with you Which is fun because it's always curious to see if what I hear in the room is going to be what you hear after compressed through a live feed through a a road caster, you know platform and all this stuff, but also Uh, you know, this is a funny thing because you know the ds1 I think I think you all deserve a funny ds1 story I don't know how it works now. Okay, because I I don't own a store anymore But when I did have a store I was a boss dealer and when you're a boss dealer Um boss had a minimum requirement to buy boss pedals So you had to buy a certain amount if you did not buy a certain amount You had to get your boss pedals for what they call a jobber or sometime a middleman or a third party so in other words like you would go to a uh like k-man our uh, what's uh, what are they called? kmsc which is k-man kmsc or You know, whatever there would be a company and you would buy them and you would buy them literally for like 5% less than musicians for any guitars and we water sold them for so it was really depressing Right, so that's why if you were walking a dealer and they got like five new boss pedals and they're putting them for like retail It's because they're they're basically not making any money. So it's like, I know I shouldn't be buying they shouldn't be buying them But anyways to buy boss pedals hold on To buy boss pedals you had to buy a certain amount and it was like 70 and that doesn't sound like a lot but if you think about this and when you're a dealer and uh, you know, boss pedals are not going to be slamming out the door They sell well, but they're not like wow, we can't keep them in stock You figure the average boss pedal is going to sell for a hundred dollars. You're paying 70 dollars as a dealer And you're got to buy 70 of them. You're talking about 49 hundred dollars It's like a five thousand dollar buy-in to buy pedals and you got to do that on Semi regular basis because you got to keep an inventory coming in and so that's a lot of money Especially since not all about boss pedals fly off the shelves But one of the things that boss would let you do is you could buy as many as uh, ds ones as you want and ds ones Were funny because at the time they were 39 dollars I don't know what they are now. We'll look and you would buy them for 35 I'm not making this up every dealer can tell you the same story They would buy ds ones for 35 dollars even though the map street price for 39 dollars Now I know what you're thinking. Why would you buy a pedal that has like a four dollar margin? Well, because like I told you most boss pedals were 70 to 90 dollars because if they were 120 or if they were 100 You understand the the 30 percent margin. That's how it would work So you could buy 10 of them and 10 of them would cut down your overall expenditure, right? So like if we were talking about 70 pedals times 60 Right now we're talking about 42 hundred dollars and then you would do Uh, 30 350 dollars, right? So now you're saving a few hundred dollars and especially if you bought 20 or sometimes 30 ds ones That's why a lot of stores you'd walk in and even guitar center You see lots of ds ones stacked up and blowing them out guitar center used to give them away with stuff like hey You buy this you get a you know buy a microphone and get a get a free ds one and uh This is why the story is funny. It was a tried and true business model And that's how you would pad up your inventory and then the crazy part was When the line six amps came out specifically them they were the most important when line six amps came out The ds one pedal sales dried up Because what happened was No, how you would sell the ds one there was a way you would say here's how you sold the ds one to customer Customer would come in and they would buy the uh the crate, you know g G 10 or g 15 or g 25 they'd buy some You know cmc amp or grill amp they'd buy some crappy amplifier And you'd go oh you should get a ds one distortion pedal You know you oh you want distortion or a kid would come in and go I want distortion ramp You're like here's the cheapest one kid 35 dollars. Well, it's 40 40 dollars And that's how you would sell them the problem is is once the line six amps came out they sounded so good Comparatively you didn't need the ds ones because i'm curious I'm looking up what a ds one goes for now and 69 99 welcome to inflation kids. That's great. It's awesome. Let's um Here we go that 69 99 look at that 70 bucks. So they've doubled. Well, not quite doubled in price um in a very in a in a decade so There you go. That's the this or that the ds one wins and uh I had a good time. Let me go back to the main screen. Let's button up the show I want to thank all of you for hanging out. Um, like I said, I want to give my heart felt I don't know. I don't want to say thanks what I want to say I want to say that I really feel for all the builders out there that have been having a horrible week And are are dealing with uh what we talked about with the fender and the lawsuit and hopefully We were hoped for this all to to work out and do well Maybe one of the things we could do is maybe we could try to promote some of the smaller dealers I don't know how that would work. I'd also like to recap one more time that that all that is for europe It's not involving us But there's an argument that this is they wanted to come to the us and make their the lawsuit a thing here and then kind of Change the way it works here too. So like I said, um on on that we covered everything I want to thank you guys so so much if you are a patron member and you're on the top tier Just understand the coffee hang is tomorrow. So go ahead and look that up if you are in the regular tier The bonus podcast is next week. So again, you can look that up on the schedule on patron If you're not a patron member you can look that up if you would like and maybe become one and as always I want to thank all of you for your time for making the show worth doing every week because that's a huge part and um I will uh, I'll leave you with that. All right. Thank you for your time and know your gear Then know your gear podcast