Why Cheap Guitars Have Better Features Than Expensive Ones

The Know Your Gear podcast. Hey everyone, welcome to the Know Your Gear podcast on May 1st. May 1st! We're in May now. I hope everybody had a fantastic weekend and is ready for a great weekend. We're going to talk about guitars probably. It's probably going to be some kind of focus today. So Elmo Hawk says, Hey Phil, our bass is harder to build than guitars. I played bass and I bought a guitar for fun. It's funny, it usually works the other way around, right? Guitar players buy basses for fun. So bass player who buys a guitar for fun and the build quality is great, but I returned two basses a couple of months ago because I had issues. Let me make sure I'm reading this right. He plays bass and he bought a guitar. Okay, so he's talking about. So bass is harder to build than guitars. So I've built way more basses than I have guitars. So I don't really think there's a difference. I mean, when you think about it from electric guitar, electric bass kind of, you know, anatomy, I only did bolt-ons. So let's start there. So for basses, I've only built bolt-ons. For guitars, I do bolt-ons as well. It's just my preferred method. I have done two set necks, one for a build off and then one for another reason entirely. But bolt-ons, I don't really think there's any difference. You know, you either want both to have frets, the neck being longer. I mean a longer piece of wood sometimes can be more problematic, but I don't think so. I don't think that's in the build process. That's more like in the picking process, a picking a piece of wood. But everything I built was in small amounts. You know, you're talking, you know, one at a time kind of thing, not, you know, ten or a hundred at a time. And so wood selection is not very complicated when you're building a small, like a one piece at a time because you go and select the wood you want and you start the process. It's not like I'm trying to get lots of, you know, straight boards, lots of perfect boards. I, you know, you just find the one you want and from your supplier and there's where you go. So I'm going to say no. I think if you can build a guitar, you can definitely build a bass, especially if you're using aftermarket necks and you're not making the neck. And again, I'm not saying the base neck is harder than the guitar neck to build. It's just like said, if that would be the one thing is selection of wood because it's a harder, the longer the piece of wood, the harder it is to find a good straight piece of wood. So that's what I would say to that. Oh, you know what else I need to do while I'm here and you open up the screen. Now let's me see what Amanda's sending me. I did not have that open. Now I do. Let's see what Amanda sent. She sent this from Gibson fan. Gibson fan says, do you think Friedman is oversaturated their own brand by releasing too many similar sounding amps? Yeah, a little bit. Now the reason I think that, and this is where I get in trouble a lot of times because, you know, somebody will say Phil says, I think that because I think that there is a lot of used Friedman amps out there right now when I'm out there looking, I see a good amount of Friedman amps. And I'm not going to ding them for the values not holding as much because everybody's, you know, kind of fluctuating in the amp market when it comes to resale values on amps because of the fact that people are really disinterested in shipping things. And so shipping is a big factor at amps and it's hurting the value of amps on the resale market. It's not, everybody thinks it's a desirability thing that has a factor to it, but the big factor is just people don't want to ship them. It's they're easy to damage, they're hard to ship, they're hard to box. So I think there's quite a bit. Now that being said, I'm going to go ahead and contradict myself right now, which is I've already prepared myself for the new Phil X amp. When I say prepared myself, I've sold off some some amps and I'm waiting for this amp. I'm going to buy the Phil X amp when it comes out. I don't know what it is. I thought there, I thought their NAM presentation was, I don't know how to explain it. Like I watched every NAM video and I felt like all I still think is I love Phil X, so I'm buying a Phil X amp. There was nothing in any demonstration showing nothing. I was, okay, I do like the Neve console looking knobs on the amp. I thought that aesthetically, great. Of course, Phil I think has one of the best ears in the industry. So I think obviously he's going to make a great amp. And I've always said this for years. I think Dave Freeman has one of the best ears in the industry. So I trust the two of them coming together. I think I'm going to have a great amp. So I'm going to buy one. So and is it just another one of the Freedmen amps? Sure. But also, come on, we can say that about Marshall and Fender too. Has Fender made too many amps? Has Marshall made too many amps? You know, I think the strategy that Freedmen has used for years, which is to build these really high end boutique, beautiful amps and then now give us mere mortals, the sampling, you know, to get the PT20 or the, you know, the little Shirley, the little Dirlish, Dirty Shirley or the little sister, right? And the runt, you know, you can get smaller amps. I think it's a great idea. But I almost think one of the mistakes that I think, and again, who am I? Nobody, right? But I think they should have stopped producing some of them. Like I think there's just too many. It's not that he's made too many amps in the history of his amps. It's that he's has too many available right now. If he would take some away, what I think would happen is people would, who would have to pay more for use. I know that kind of sucks to the consumer, but it would help the company because of what would happen is the use values would go up on several ones. Like to be honest with you, at this point, everywhere I go, I see a pink taco or PT20, whichever one, you know, because it had two different names at two different times. I don't know if you guys know the story. Let me tell you the story. There's an amp called the Pink Taco, okay? Sweetwater did not want to carry the amp with that name. So Friedman renamed it the PT20 for, I think everybody, not just Sweetwater, I believe it's everybody. But so if you ever look at Pink Tacos, some say Pink Taco on the back and some say PT20. And then I guess when Sir came out with the Pete Thorn amp, they were going to call that the PT20. So this I think is the rumor part. That's true, by the way, with Sweetwater. That's absolutely happened. That's true. But the rumor or the thing I think I understand from a rumor is that Dave's like, obviously, his friends with John Sir and obviously Pete Thorn and just said, hey, yeah, take the name. We'll just go back to calling it Pink Taco. And so now they're called back Pink Taco. Sweetwater now carries the Pink Taco back to where, again, we started with facts. Now we're in the rumor mill. I believe the reason why Sweetwater carries the Pink Taco now is because I don't think Chuck Surrock's there. I think maybe he was the hold out for that. I don't think Chuck liked it. So that could be totally fabricated. I'm just like I said, that's just a guess off of knowing all the parties a little bit. So so anyways, back to the amp. That amp's everywhere used and it's all it's very easy to find one for 800-900 bucks. And I think that's I think that's grossly grossly undervalued. What do you think that amp is worth? I think that that amp is, you know, I think given that I think, wow, in 2018, I remember you can find them used for 1000 bucks. So the fact that they haven't, they're not holding their use market value means I think they should stop making that amp and maybe even the runt, you know, and just, you know, cut back a little bit. Not the twins, the little sister or the dirty little dirty Shirley or whatever little Shirley, because those again, those are harder to find and they seem to hold their values. So that's just my thoughts on that. What I can say at the end of all this is I love all the Friedman amps. I've never played a Friedman amp I didn't like in some way. Friedman amps have never been about liking for me. They've never been like about liking or disliking a sound. It's always been about, you know, workflow for me. Like the the pink taco is like it sounds great over gain, you know, because it's a gain amp, but I need clean too. So I don't have that. And then you get the small box 50 and I'm like, okay, a small box 50. I like to clean on that, especially the crunchy ear and then the cleaner clean. But the gain side is not as gainy as like the pink taco. So again, and so now you got to get into the BE 50, the BE 100. And that's just a price point and a size that just doesn't fit my lifestyle. I don't need an amp that weighs 50 pounds and is takes up half this corner. Excuse me. Sorry about that. I don't need that amp that big and I don't need something that's three, four thousand dollars, you know, that essentially is just does, you know, I just don't need that. So I have the twin sister. I fought back and forth for about a year between the twin sister and the small box, figuring out which one I was going to get rid of. And I finally was the small box and I can tell you right now, I don't regret it, but it could have flipped the other way and I wouldn't care it either way. It's just, here's what I've learned about them. I was always just playing one. I picked one and played one. I'm playing the twin sister all the time and then I'm hoping to have a fill X soon. So that is my thoughts on Friedman amplification. Let's see what you guys say. M beaker seven says, I love my dirty Shirley made me a Friedman convert. I believe the dirty Shirley. Look, I think all the Freeman stuff, I like it more than Marshall. It it's, you know, Marshall has a sound. It's iconic. It's, you know, it's just, it's like said, it's never going to go anywhere. Technically, I just love the look of it because it's, it's just, it's been this thing and I know Friedman's pretty much look like them. That's what keeps Marshall in my, my love zone. And I just love it. But ultimately, if you kind of, if you were going to tell me right now, Phil, you get one Marshall or one Friedman and we won't tell you what it is. Let's make the game crazy for some reason, right? Hey, Phil, you can have one Marshall. And this is my only amp, by the way, one Marshall or one Friedman want to pick. It's going to be a Friedman. I don't even know what Friedman it is. I'm like, I'd pick any Friedman over any Marshall as a one only amp. So I like having both. And if you, you know, if you're so lucky to have both, do both. But if I can only have one, it's always going to be a Friedman because I can get more out of it. I can record more with it. It's more versatile to me. And overall, I actually like the sound a little better. What keeps me playing Marshall is this nostalgia, just like, oh yeah, that's what it used to sound like. And then once I do that, I kind of knock it off and then go back to do it stuff I want to do. So somebody said, Friedman cabs. I only use Friedman cabs. So you know, I have this, this is a 2061 X 212 Marshall cabinet. I actually don't love the way it sounds. It sounds okay. This has had about five, maybe six speaker swaps trying to find the love connection with this cabinet. And I've eventually, I've eventually found something that works for me. It's okay. I do have a couple other Marshall cabinets. Again, this is more of a nostalgia like to have a Marshall, but I use all my cabinets you've seen in my videos. I actually, I have some other cabinets, but the main cabinets I use is the Friedman Open Back 112. I have three of them. One has a cream back selection in it. So it's the 65 watt cream back and two have the selection red back in it. And so I believe at one point, I think Friedman, well, I think of this, all those cabinets, all my original Friedman 3, 1, let's slow down. All of my Friedman 112 open back cabinets that I bought brand new all came with a cream back with a C selection 65 watt speaker. And then Friedman made a choice somehow. When I say somehow, I don't know. I wasn't privy to the information. I just noticed it that the red back selection went into the dirty Shirley styled silver cabinet. That prompted me to want to try it because I had heard of a red back selection in a limited edition 65 Deluxe Reverb that was called like 65 Deluxe Red or something. So I bought a red back stuck in it and absolutely loved it. When I say loved it, I don't mean like, oh, the cream back is horrible. Just, it was a different flavor. It's a little heavy. It's got a little more meat. It's a little more meat, bassier punches. Definitely works when I'm playing quiet at night because I can feel like, I feel like there's base movement, but there's no low end to disturb the house. And so I switched it over. So I had one cabinet that one cabinet cream back and then I eventually put one cabinet as a green back and then eventually switched that to red back. So, so I only use freedom in cabinets. I think they're the best cabinets. I've tried every cabinet. If you watch the show or just my videos over the last decade, you'll see I've had it all. I've had orange cabinets. I've had Mason Boogie cabinets. I've had Marshall cabinets. I've had boutique boutique, meaning boutique brands cabinets. I've had custom mojo tone cabinets. I've been through the gamut of cabinets. I, I actually have a little sad little room downstairs full of cabinets. Just all these cabinets that I haven't got rid of yet. And I, I like a lot of things about them all, but for some reason that cabinet just works for me and I like having one cabinet that's not one specifically, but one design cabinet that works for everything. And it makes my life easy, especially for this gig because in this room, I have one of these cabinets mic'd up in here and in the shop. I have one of those cabinets mic'd up in the shop and then I have one that I can move around if I need it for something. So and, and what, and the last thing I prefer the red back selection to the cream back for the most part for what I'm playing, but I use the cream back almost exclusively for all videos. Why? I like it and I've been using it forever. So just keeping it easy. So Joe says, I have a PB with greenbacks are great. Yeah, greenbacks. I want to say, here's what I want to say about greenback speakers. They are the bitchiest speaker ever. I mean, talk about a speaker one day that I can absolutely love and figure out like, why, why do you need anything else in your life? This is the speaker. And then the next day, why, why do I hate the speaker so much? My Morgan PR 12 combo amp has a greenback selection. I love it. I would never think of changing that combo. It just sounds great. I do have a greenback speaker in a, in a cabinet. I love it. And I do have some mix and match two 12s where it's a two 12 with like a cream back and a green back or a V 30 and a green back stuff like that. But I also currently have way too many speakers right now. I went speaker swapping again a few months ago and maybe the end of last year began this year was a really bad idea. I don't recommend that. It's a great way to just burn off a lot of cash and waste a lot of time. And at the end of it, I will say it's fun, but it's fun in that way where you feel like you just paid a fortune and the movie wasn't that great. That's it. That's how it's fun. Like at the end of it is like, that was great, but I don't know if that, that money equated to the fun I had. Diesel crit says, do you still have the, oh, it's Mojo tone. He said monotone, but Mojo tone, five E three amp you build. I do. It's just modded now. I showed it a couple of weeks ago on the show or no, I didn't show it on the show. I was the pot. I was a bonus podcast for the patrons. There's a patron watching right now. Can you tell me if that was in the patron hanging that I showed that amp? I have my Mojo tone, five E three amp. I believe let me be clear in a second. I built two, five E three amps. I built one for Mojo tone in a Mojo tone class and I built one for stew mac. Now, keep in mind the stew mac Mojo or sorry, the stew mac five E three amp kit that you can buy is made by Mojo tone. It's just specified by stew mac. So if you buy the five E three, if you buy an amp kit from stew mac, it is actually built by Mojo tone, but it's two stew mac specifications. So I built one of each. I kept one. I don't know which one I have. I didn't really look. I can't really tell. There's not really any markings. I think I have the Mojo tone. I could have the stew mac one. So but whichever one I kept, I then modified so it has the Dumbled mod thing in it. I went and did some resources months ago and I like it. I don't know why I would do a video of that. I don't know what help would help anybody, especially since when I did the mod, what I did is I cheated like, I think you're supposed to, I did the mod and then I took it to my really, really talented amp building friend who went through and he tweaked a couple of things and fixed some of my eye. And you know, he's like, Oh, that was good. But no, he's like, actually, that's a quote. That was good. But no. And and if you haven't seen it, it's, um, if you see in a video, it looks like a fender tweed, but the logo looks like fender, but it says McKnight and green. The jewel is green and it has a green back selection in it. So that's why I made everything green. So let's see. Let's see. I'm going back one. Okay. Yeah. Unfreaking belief says I believe it was on patron. I think it was on a patron hang that I went and grabbed it. So maybe I'll show it with you guys. Maybe I can put it in the, in one of the podcasts and we'll talk about it. We can do it as like a gear of the week or something and talk about that experience. I enjoyed building as for those that are interested in building an amp, like take it, especially like the mojo mojo tone or any amp building class. You know, so you know, uh, I think Bruce Aignator still does amp classes. There's all kinds of people do amp classes. I will say it was a amazing experience. Um, one of the, one of the things I will tell you is it was a little weird for me because, um, I did it as a promotional thing for mojo tone. There was mojo tone was having trouble getting people into the class, which is really crazy to this day to think of. I think the class is one fantastic value. I'm not kidding. Um, I got, in fact, that class was full. It'd be there half my patrons and half my friends. So I was like, yeah, you guys got to go. And, uh, but, uh, because I was promoting for it, I filmed when I was, so I was moving at a much slower rate. So I didn't get to finish my amp in the class. But that's because like I said, I was, uh, when you're filming and doing content, your brain is like thinking in two different ways. But if I was to do it without doing it, making content, I would tell you right now I would've, I still enjoyed it, but I would've enjoyed it on, on 10. And, and, um, and I can tell you now that I've done it, uh, cause I done it cause I did the class. I was able to finish the stew mac version. And now that I've built two amps, uh, I'm done for the rest of my life. It was fun. I learned a lot. I grew as a person. I, uh, I think I changed a little bit and, uh, I didn't kill myself. And I thought I really like, uh, just buying an amp that sounds great and having a great amp that sounds great. I, you know, it's just, uh, I now, I think I understand better, uh, my friends who are in construction when they tell me like they're a carpenter, but they would never do drywall or they do, you know, plumbing, but they would never do electrical. I'm like, Oh, I totally get it now. I love building and fixing guitars and I would never want to build or fix amplifiers. So yes, I get that. Um, and, uh, and if anyone's curious, which I don't know why you would be, it's not from a safety standpoint. It's not cause I can get like, you can hurt yourself building an amp. It's just a different set of tools and skills. And, uh, and it doesn't, I like to say as much fun as it was to try it. It's not something I can see myself every day going, yeah, this would be great. So, uh, let's see. What do we got? Let's go to this one is from Ron Groves. So he says, when you sell a guitar on reverb, what is your opinion on including shipping costs? So I would not recommend, so I would not recommend to sell on reverb the way I do. The way I sell on reverb is I pick a price that I think is fair. Um, now I have two things going on and I want to be very clear about this. Uh, selling on reverb as a, as a, as a person, just a, you know, this is my collection. This is my guitar. I'm getting rid of it. I think you should try to sell it for the most you can get the best deal for yourself. That just makes sense. I have a different problem, which is I'm this YouTube or Ness. And when I put something up for sale, whether I do it or my son does it for me or Shawna does it for me, um, we have to run a different set of, of, I want to say requirements for the sale because of the fact that we're working with a community who knows me. And, um, I don't want to, I don't want to think about, there's not enough money to take advantage of anybody or feel like I did. And that's really more important. I wouldn't take advantage of anybody, but I could feel that way. I could stay up at night thinking like, Oh, you know, did it, did he only pay that? Because I made it. I make videos, you know, you don't want to feel that way. You don't want to feel like you got, you know, taken advantage. So I tend, I tend now to undersell my products. If you guys go on my rear page, you'll see almost everything is, I think, valued at, at or below what I think you should sell for shipping. I, I just, um, I just, I, I just figure out, I don't actually think about shipping in the way it costs. Like I don't think shipping costs 150 bucks. So I'm going to charge 150 bucks. What I do is I go, okay, I would like to sell this for $1,500. Okay. That's the fact that all in like that. I think the person buying it would be good, a good value. I think I would, you know, recoup enough of my money or get whatever I'm happy with to be happy. And then I go, and let's say I go, um, uh, there's shipping on top of that. What I'll tend to do is I just go, Oh, um, it's $1,499 for shipping or it's $1,425 and $1,750 for shipping. I charge the shipping, but really it's just, cause I think people look at this and go, Oh, it's, it's 1425. That's a good deal. And they don't really add the shipping really fast. And then they go, well, plus the shipping and then plus the tax. And that's how we kind of talk ourselves into it. Right. You're like, you know, how many, how many of you, raise your hands. I can see hands apparently. Uh, how many of you have, uh, went to buy something on reverb and go, you know, 1,200 bucks. I think I'm going to do this. You know, 300 bucks. I think I'm going to do this. And then it's like, Oh, it's $50 shipping. It's like your total is 350. Okay. And then you click the button and it goes, your total is going to be 407. Cause it's, and you're like, wait a minute, wait a minute. I thought this was way more fun when I was in the $300 range. Now I'm not interested anymore. So I, I tend to try to, um, you know, stack the price like that. But, um, I can tell you right now, uh, what's it called? Hold on, hold on. Uh, nope. Pirate ship. That's what it's called. Pirate ship. Pirate ship is every, uh, every single friend, which is like three, I have three friends. I'm not bragging. Just, you know, some people have a lot of friends. Anyways, I have three friends and my three friends, I all respect and love and they all do this for a living selling guitars and stuff. And they all told me to buy our use shipping pirate. We don't use a whole lot of shipping. And so we'll probably try it cause it's pretty cool. But I mean, I've heard only amazing things. So from people I trust, not just the Rando sending us just like, Hey, try shipping pirate. Uh, I mean, everybody that I, I know. In fact, one of my friends, not only do I respect him as a business person, he's really a cheap ass too. So I was like, that's a, that's a double recommendation right there. Right. Um, so, um, but yeah, somebody says pirate slip. Hmm. I don't know. Well, look, do your research. I got you at least use the word pirate shipping. Go find it. Um, if I end up ever using it, I will definitely give you my feedback. But like I said, that's what they like. Okay. Um, where back one more. Uh, Ryan says, Hey Phil, I just ordered a shecter custom shop guitar. Do you have any experience with shecter custom shop? Nathan worked at the shecter custom shop. If you don't know who Nathan is, he's my friend. He worked with me at my store. He then went to PRS and he worked at PRS for five years, then fender custom shop and, which is also Jackson custom shop. And then, uh, then eventually went to shecter guitars. Um, and I think I don't want to speak for him, uh, but I believe he seemed to like shecter guitars the most. That's what I feel. He might have liked PRS the most, but just the living conditions were tough. Um, because that's a factor of it too. It was really expensive. Live there and he was on the other side of the country from his family, but, uh, he had nothing but great things to say about shecter guitars. It's just, uh, and the only reason he's not working there anymore is cause they slowed down in their orders cause, uh, you know, look, you bought one. So you know, that ain't going to be a lot of people buying one of those. They're super expensive and they take a super long time, but he had nothing but positive things to say, which I only tell you that for one reason. When somebody doesn't work at a company anymore and they got positive things to say, I would say that's pretty positive things to say. Right. That's when you're going to get the whole, let me tell you what really, I think, Brooklyn sound garage says, why are most of my guitar is not made in the USA? Well, you have to buy the ones that say made in the USA. That's that's the first step. Yeah, that would help you. Um, I, I, I don't know if you're joking or not. So just let me answer, uh, get that topic. Uh, I think, uh, I've actually made companies cringe, like openly like recoil from me for saying this. And I say it all the time and I thought, I don't know why they don't like that. The, and when I say companies, I mean USA guitar building companies, I say, uh, I always mentioned like I told you guys, I think buying a USA made guitar or high end boutique guitar, if it, if you know whether it's where it, whether it's from is a luxury. And if you're able to do so, congratulations are good for you. If that's something you wanted to do, aspire to do and now can do, or if it's something you never cared about, fine, but I think it's an aspirational purchase. You know, the idea why everybody has a lot of theories. My main theory is that's what our, look, Jimi Hendrix didn't play a Mexican straddy, played an American one. What do you have? Probably. So yeah, right. You know, yeah, I think so. Uh, you know, um, that's just how it works. You know, the, the, the rock and roll era started here in the old good old United States. And that's where it, it, it took off. And that's where the guitar builders were. Hell, big with this, not only here in the United States, half of it's from California. California's got more of the history of our guitar, you know, love than probably any other place on the planet earth. And because of the so many builders, there's still a ton of builders there now, which is crazy. And, uh, and it's just very expensive. And I think, unfortunately for a lot of us, uh, you know, these companies figured out how to make guitars overseas and make them more affordable. I say that because my first, I couldn't even tell you, I, I couldn't even tell you my first a made in USA guitar was, let's see if I can remember what it was. Okay. So, so I had kind of one, one. Okay. So here's what I mean by my first guitar was my JB player. I have no idea where it's made. Like anybody who starts playing guitar, it's not something you know to think about, right? You get a guitar and to you, it's just a guitar. No one said the thing to you yet, right? That's how it happened to me, right? It's like, uh, it's like, um, I didn't know about brands, you know, until one day somebody's like, Oh, what's, what's a brand on that shirt? Oh, I'm like, Oh, does that matter? I'm not, I don't know. I got a Kmart. I can't, you know, you know, I actually, it's not true. If I'm going to be honest, uh, I'm going to tell you the first time I ever discovered brands is when I was super happy to get a pair of tennis shoes and they were by a company called tracks and they were blue with white stripes. And this kid just eviscerated me in the school ground. And I was also a little scrawny little kid too. Super, super small. And so it was a double whammy man. It was just like, man, he just grinded me into the dirt mentally and physically over these shoes. And I didn't know what was going on. I was so proud of these shoes for about 11 minutes. I'm not even kidding. I didn't even make it into the first class, I think before they, they sought me out. And I didn't know. Here's how I didn't know what was happening. What was happening to me was, uh, my mother was using my, her best friend's address to get me into a better school district. So when I went to this school, I was going to a school, apparently of like middle class kids or upper middle class kids. Actually they were probably middle class kids and I didn't know what I was walking into. I walked in literally. And when you say that, when I say this, you're going to go with the seventies. I'm not talking about the seventies, man. I walked in with my, uh, Goodwill, corduroy's pants and my track shoes and his shirt. And so that's the first I learned about brands. The second time I learned about this, uh, brand or slash, you know, uh, you know, hierarchy of things was when I got my Aria pro two, which was like a dream guitar, you know, it was fluorescent yellow. It was so great. And some kids said, where's it made? And I was like, it's made by Aria pro. And they're like, yeah, but where? Oh my God. I don't know where Aria pro lives. You know, and they're like, Oh, it's main Korea. And back then that wasn't a badge of honor in any way, shape or form. You might as well say now, whatever, you know. So then I got an actual main Japan, I have been as, and that was a 50 50. Half my friends were like, man, I've been as main Japan and half my friends are like, yo, USA guitars are better. But my first USA guitar was actually in 2000. I'm doing the math because I got to think when my son's born and then we were at, I want to say 2002 sounds right. I want to say 2002. It could have been 2003. So it's my very first USA Megatar. It's a new no Benton court in four in an ash at American music supply because I had discovered the American musical supply payment plan with no credit. And I was like, what? And it was $1,200, I think. And there's no sales tax back then online. So it was like $1,200, $1,300. You'd have to look at the pricing. And they were like, I was like, I'm like, I could finance this with no credit app. That's the way I need to finance this. So I bought it and that was my first USA guitar. And so you know, still at that point, even in 2001, 2002, on the time, I wasn't relatively hip yet to this concept of USA guitars have a hierarchy to them. But I believe there's a lot of ton of reason why people care about that stuff. But the main reason I believe that is that you want the thing that your heroes had and your heroes were playing, you know, Nuno wasn't playing the N2, right? That was main Korea. Nuno played the N4 that was made in USA. So if you wanted to be like Nuno, you had to get the USA one. Oh, oh, one sweaty yet. He says, I think my first PV was USA. You know, see what's funny was is this is why I kind of talk about the fact that made where stuff made is kind of a funny thing. I think now the way I present it in videos and I hope the way you guys take it, it's more about explaining the economics of it. Like, hey, this guitar is $200 is made in China. This guitar is $3,000 is made in USA. It's really just to show you that, you know, labor rates, you know, right? That's what I'm implying. But what's funny is, is I laugh now thinking about this, all PV stuff, all Randall stuff, all crate made in USA. Creating a crate made in China is the last year or two or three of crate, all crate. So if you have no crate in, you're like, oh, it's horrible. It's made in USA. Look on the back, made in the USA, right? Randalls, inexpensive Randall, made in USA. PVM's, made in USA. Everything was made in USA. They used to make cheap stuff here and then they stopped, you know, and then now if it's inexpensive, it's usually made overseas because of the cost. It's just physical cost. That's it. That's all we got to say. Oh, you know what? Brooklyn Sound Garage said, what about those Gorillams? Also USA? Probably. I would imagine. I don't know for sure. But I would imagine back then almost everything at AmpWise. The main thing, so you guys know, if you have a little fun fact for you, how the world changes so dramatically over just minor things. This is a, most the amps that were inexpensive 30 years ago were made in USA, but they were made differently than the high-end amps. So the inexpensive amps would be particle board, solid-state amps of course, and then particle board. So that's why the PV's are so heavy. That's why the crates are so heavy. A lot of particle board, right? Using a lot of particle board, using plastic corners instead of metal corners, using cheaper components. They made them cheaper quality product, but they still made them in the USA. And then what's funny about that is, is what killed a lot of these companies, or what hurt them a lot was California, when was that? Let's look when California did that. So California, hold on. California A votes no or, okay. I want to get the year right, because it's actually more recent than I think I'm going to say. 2007! Woohoo! I remember it. I remember it well. Here's why I remember it. I'm not into this stuff. You know, I told you, the politics of it, if you guys want to go down the politics road, you're on your own for that. But here's what happened. Remember this because it was so weird that it happened. In 2007, California basically passes a law that you can't really import particle board into the state, right? Now I'm paraphrasing and I'm looking here at the actual stuff from the EPA, California is taking EPA court, whatever this is, MDF, right? It's basically saying they put a standard on MDF and how it has to be done, okay? And here's what's crazy about that. It happens and I'm like, oh, and I remember every AMP company, remember I had a store, I was a dealer in 2007. I remember every company who makes like, Crate, because Crate was still around, Crate, all those guys were freaking out. And I'm like, why are you freaking out? And they go, California is like 45% of the market in the US. So we have to convert all amps out of particle board, out of MDF, because, you know, why make one amp for 65% of the country and one amp for 45% doesn't make sense. So they had to switch. So that's why all the little, little inexpensive amps got lighter real fast because they had to use them out of plywood instead of particle board or MDF now. And that drove up to cost a little bit. And if you remember 2007, there was a thing, I forget what they call it. Oh yeah, it's called a recession and they couldn't raise prices. So there would be a pummel to death with the fact that they got to make a $99 amp that just skyrocketed and cost for them, but they can't. So what, what they did, a lot of them like Crate, they shot right over to China in a minute. And they're like, okay, we're not going to do it here. And that's when you start seeing more shutdowns. You see a lot of them start pulling back even more. So again, you know, I don't want to get into the deep politics that I really, I just want to, I'm just telling you a piece of little history. I remember that was crazy about things changing, you know, I just remember. And also I learned in 2007 that California is apparently a big deal because that, that was the first time I heard that. And then I've heard it now. If I've heard it once, I've heard a thousand times if California passes the law, it's like this whole industry changes completely in a minute. So, so for those that want to know. All right. Uh, Devin, I'm going to say Devin says, Hey Phil, why do companies offer more advanced options on their cheaper guitars? LTD has stainless steel frets, ESP doesn't. Ivan has prestige has stainless steel frets, Jay custom doesn't. Why do companies do this? Sure. Um, what happens is there's a ton of reasons, ton of reasons, but let's just talk about the first one, the elephant, the room, which is the influencers, you know, those bastards. So anyways, um, they have created a laundry list of things that if you don't have, they're just going to be upset about. And then of course there's a whole group of people that watch those influencers that now like to go to Reddit and have the same thing. How I can't make a video. So you know, it's so, you know, I can't make a video. If I make a video of a $4,000 guitar, the first comment will be $4,000 and it doesn't even have stainless steel frets. So here's what happens. Manufacturers figure out that there is a consumer that is not very knowledgeable about a lot, but they do have a little nugget of knowledge and that little nugget of knowledge is that a bone nut is good apparently and stainless steel frets are good and roasted maple necks are good. And these are the lists that they have and Alnico magnets are good. Right. By the way, none of this is actually true in any way, shape or form. Right. Um, even when you watch my details, if you watch how I do it, it's never a, I'm never concerned about the materials. I'm just, I'm explaining materials to cost. That's it. It costs more to do those things, but it doesn't necessarily mean some of those things are better. But what you can do is you create a laundry list is like to call it that says on paper, this guitar is great. And that is a really awesome thing for two reasons. One, you're probably going to sell a guitar online, which means only gets a touch it and they're going to be more confident to make a purchase because of these things. They're not the only, by the way, I'm not inditing this industry. The whole world is, you know, it's like, you can't even buy a car now. It's like Bose stereo. I think my truck has Bose and I don't know whatever. Bose stereo system. Oh yeah. And I think my wife's is Harman Kardon. I don't believe, by the way, for a second that there's a Bose or Harman Kardon in our cars, but hey, it's premium, premium surround, you know, premium surround sound systems. They put the brand names, they put the buzzwords, right? And traction control, whatever, you know, on your cars, they do the same thing everywhere else. These are buzzwords. Do our standstill frets good? Yeah, I like them. I have a lot of good things to say about them. Are, do they mean that a guitar should be expensive? If you watch my video of the RJ guitars when I walk through standstill frets, which is why I give you a little nuggets, the main difference between a standstill frets, we're just talking cost. It's minor in physical cost. Okay. It's nothing, you know, it's a couple bucks more, especially when you're buying it in large quantity. It's not even that much more expensive if you go to Stumac. If you guys want to go to anyone, want to go to Stumac right now and just look at a like size fret and nickel and then one in standstill, you'll see it's just dollars of difference. However, it does increase by two and three times the polishing time and the work time. A lot of people talk about the tooling cost. There is more wear on tools, but it is minor. Okay. The real cost is the labor, the time it's gunking up the line. When I say labor, I don't mean that you're paying somebody $20 an hour and now they're only doing one guitar instead of two. What I'm talking about is the way manufacturers think is three widgets is more than one widget, 10 widgets is more than three. Obviously, I know that these are obvious things. What I mean by that is when they look at their end of day, they don't look at how many hours it took, what they do, but they really look at, we need to get 100 things out the door to break even and we got 102 or we got 92. That's how they think. If somebody takes longer, it means less things made. That really kicks it because it's more than now than labor costs. It's more than anything else because it's products and those products are literally what they need. They need to turn components into products. Back to this launder list. It makes it easier for them to sell inexpensive or more medium priced guitars with those launder list. High end guitars are, in my opinion, a smattering of two kinds of consumers. Consumers with just money to spend but really no knowledge and consumers who don't have as much money to spend but they have a lot of knowledge. That's why when somebody says, Dr. Lawyer guitars, I'm like, look, man, I can tell you right now, I have sold a lot of expensive guitars to people who are broke as a joke. They got like a $3,000 Custom Shop Strat and their car may not start to take it home. That's an absolute truth. I'm not kidding in any way and the reason is, is their priorities are different. Priorities are, music is their life and that's it. I'm a good example. My guitar collection is nice, I guess. I would never in a million years trade my guitar collection for a really nice car or something flashy or a watch or anything like that. None of that stuff appeals to me. I could care less. Like I said, everything matters for me is guitar stuff. That's why they do that and that's why you see that a lot of times because, again, it doesn't necessarily important. I just came back. We're not going to talk about any of this today just so you know because I got a tomorrow, I'm going to hopefully take a half day off and recharge. I've been going, so you know, I just arrived. So I'm a little caffeinated, more than normal. I just finished an eight hour drive back. I was in California all week and I was at the Taylor factory. I spent the entire time there. I was with another, I want to say factory that I can't say yet and of course I spent the day with the folks at Guitar Center and I learned a lot this week and frets were actually a really interesting conversation that actually added to my not only knowledge of frets but maybe my perception of frets and materials. That was really cool. So basically to finish up that, that's why they do the laundry list and that's why it's going to continue. Look, that's why all the, you know, the fireflies and all those guitars, they're very smart, very smart marketing, right? It's $300 and because here's why. If you saw a firefly guitar and somebody said it's $300, you're like, what is it? You're like, it's firefly. Like that doesn't mean anything to you. I've never heard of that brand. I don't know what they are, but if somebody said, because they do, it's a firefly. It's $300. Okay. It's got a roasted neck. Oh, okay. Stand and steal frets. Oh, okay. Go to a bridge. What? Bone nut. Who? Right. Your brain starts adding up the components and you're like, whoa, I don't even get that if I buy a guitar for $3,000. See how that worked? You actually explain the sales logic by asking the question. That's just my thought. What's funny about that question? So, you know, and I hope I'm saying it your name correctly. This is the question you just asked me is the number one question I'm asked by every manufacturer and brand that I go and visit. They always ask me, like, I'm supposed to know this answer for them. They're like, Hey, Phil, can you tell me why all the cheap guitars have all these components? I'm like, so they can sell them. They go, yeah, but why do they do it? So they can sell them because it's easy for somebody watching a video. I mean, even to me, it's tough when I'm doing the video. I'm like, I'm listing off all this amazing stuff. And I'm like, wow, it's pretty, pretty impressive. It's why think of this. It's also why companies lie and say they have things that they don't. It's why companies say that they have a mahogany body when we clearly figured out that they didn't in videos, you know, sanded down and they were like, well, it's kind of it's mahogany adjacent, right? Well, why didn't they just say that it was Filipino, Philippine mahogany? Right. They could have said that it's still in the mahogany family, but they didn't say that. And that was Gretch. Let's pick on Gretch for a second. That's a major brand. All right. They said it's mahogany. It's like saying it's beef. It's beef. And you're like, Oh, I like beef. Wait, what, what kind of beef? So, so yeah, they're just putting their best marketing footboard on an inexpensive guitar. Um, uh, just fine says our Warwick bass is worth the money. Worth is tough. I have bought many work bases. I play a work base now. It's my favorite bass in the world. And, um, and you said what model is it all good? I like the streamer, but of course, you know, the Corvette, I've had the Corvette. It's great. I like Warwick. I'm a huge Warwick fan. Uh, keep mine. Cause I'm a bass player. Fender's always going to be, you know, just the holy grail because of the fact that the, the fender is a fender base and a, to a bass player, a fender base is like a pickup truck, a full size truck. Like you ever see, you know, the poster, not in the back in the 80s, but the poster now of rich people, or you see a show and there's some rich guy and he's got like a 10 car garage or whatever he's got. And he's got the Lamborghini and the, and the, the Maserati and right. And then some kind of weird exotic car and all this stuff. And then it's just like a full size truck, right? And you laugh because if you think about it, it's like 200,000, 400,000, 150,000, 600,000, and then 80,000 and to us, 80,000, 90,000 dollars truck. That's crazy. But to that guy, that's the cheapest thing on the, on the, on the rack, right? Of cars. And it's because everybody needs a truck, I guess, right? You know, especially if you're rich, you got to take your, you know, you got to run over some stuff. I, that's how we look at a fender base, right? You could have a row of the most exotic seven, $10,000 basis, and then you're just going to have one P base or one jazz base. It's just going to be there. That's your truck, man. You got to have it. So that being said, I'm always going to have a truck, a base, a fender base, but a warwick, uh, is it worth the money? It's worth the money to me. So, uh, I love mine and I highly recommend it. Uh, highly recommend them. So, um, okay, let's see. Uh, Alex, what's up, Alex? Let's see. Give me a second here. I like that your avatar is floppy disks. That's awesome. Uh, Alex says, Hey, how do you feel about MIRC refurbished guitars in the squire epiphone price range? Seems reverb sellers don't always disclose their refurbished and price them like used on unrefurbished ones. Yeah. That's kind of a, well, first of all, that's, I don't know if it's illegal. It's definitely morally, uh, you know, wrong, some corrupt, morally wrong. So, uh, if you catch them doing that, you should call them on it, you know, call them out on it and, uh, and say something to them, you know, at least say something to them, say, Hey, I don't think this is right. Um, you know why? Because, and by the way, don't, here's my, if you're a hundred percent sure, then maybe call them out. If you think, maybe ask, you know, right? I find a lot of people, um, one of the etiquettes that's missing on the internet is the question. A lot of people go to a statement when really they should be asking a question. Sometimes I read a statement on YouTube and I think, man, this is an asshole and it would be not an asshole if you just put a question in it because he obviously doesn't know the answer. He's saying the answer. What I mean by this, let's somebody said, Oh, that guitar definitely has, you know, uh, stand-in-the-stale frets and it doesn't. And I'm like, well, it doesn't. And you're, you should have said, doesn't have stand-in-the-stale frets. And then somebody who would know and who has it could answer you, but instead you just want to think something. So, uh, if you know it, I would say, call it out. If you don't know it, I would ask them, what do I think about MIRC refurbished guitars? I've never tried them. I don't know much. I, I, I, I have a lot of, uh, I don't know a whole lot about MIRC. I have a lot of weird questions about MIRC that I'm working on and I've been working on for a while now about how they work and what they do and, uh, who's involved with them now. There's some weird stuff going on out there. So I just don't know. So, uh, but, uh, I, I don't know if anyone has bought a guitar that's been refurbished by MIRC, um, I would love to, uh, for you to put comments. And like I said, please, please, uh, you know, not what you think if you haven't tried one, don't, or what you heard to just put, put your experience. That would help Alex out and, uh, maybe help me out too. Cause I can read what you guys have experienced with them. Um, okay. Uh, Bird Rockin says they're missing looking at the Gretsch that was on the wall, hoping Phil is just swapping them out and did not actually sell it. You guys will probably never figure out what's here and not here from the wall. Um, so I, uh, one thing I never thought about was I never thought that, uh, people would track, you know, what, what we're keeping and not keeping here. Um, and it gets really tricky cause like I said, some stuff is my personal collection, so it's staying here for a long time, if not forever and some stuff, it's on loan, but it's on loan for a very long time. Sometimes we have loans for years, uh, here of gear from companies. It depends what I'm up to, uh, and what I plan to do with it in the future. Um, and, uh, and then sometimes, you know, it's again, it was just here to make a video when it goes, uh, the Gretches, I own two Gretches. I used to have three, I own two now. The main one I play is this mini junior black one. So if you see the black one a lot and then, but that's, but, uh, so when you say Gretch, I don't know which one you're talking about. I have, I have two. Um, uh, uh, Tony, Tony's questions are interesting cause I'm not, okay, let me explain. Let me, let me, let me kind of handle it as best I can, but I'll let you know that I'm not by far no expert in this. He says, Hey, Phil, how much can you compensate with good EQ if you don't love a speaker? I'm not a sound engineer. So, you know, it's not something, it's not something I'm an expert in. So I'll just tell you my personal thing. That's why I'm detracting from this. I'm just want to show you what I like. I use EQ a lot to fix a lot of things. What I will tell you is I use EQ. I like the analogy. So I like it. It's like a one steak sauce, right? Hey, you can, like if somebody says, Hey, you can make a pickup sound better by using the EQ, I agree a hundred percent. You can make it to sorts and sound better with you. I absolutely agree. You can make an amp sound better with you. I absolutely agree. I did a video with temp here. It's me and him. Just that's a whole video. Me and temp talking about how the G7 boss EQ or an EQ pedal in general is one of the best and best things for every musician to have in their toolbox, literally music toolbox, you know, on their pedal board in their studio and their in their duffel bag. He's a studio musician and he swears by it. Me as just a person who's like, you know, plays music every day. I swear by it too. But I will always say it can fix a problem for you, but it will never be as good. So if somebody says, Oh, if you don't like the way something down, you can EQ it. You can. But like I said, sometimes you'll detect either through hearing it or playing it that you force something into a sound. And that's fine. It works, especially for the audience, but sometimes you personally. So can it, can you help EQ out, you know, in compensate for a speaker? Like let's say a speaker is too dark and you put in an AQ and the effects loop and maybe help that. Yeah, absolutely. Well, do I think it'll work? Absolutely. We'll work. We'll record. We'll record. Well, it will work on a stage, but deep down. And eventually it is some kind of coloring process that you may or may not like personally. So. Okay, let's see. Hold on a second. Let me do this one. Let's see. No, it's funny. This is a good question. I like this one. Alex says, Hey, I think it's a different Alex. I just see the Alex name. I have a vintage 30 in a Marshall 50 watt combo. Is it dangerous? No, it's not dangerous at all. So the vintage 30 is 75 Watts, I believe. Let's verify that. And even if it's not, you're still fine. But let me double check. I think, why do I think that? But I want to check for sure. And I'm sure somebody's answering in the comments and they're probably right. Let's see if they beat me. Vintage 30. Do why sometimes when you put your cursor there, does it jump? And it only does it when I'm on the show. So it doesn't like something on the show. V 30. Doesn't matter about ohms. Don't worry about the 60. That's 60 Watts. Well, I was close. So it's rated for 60 Watts. So it's called the vintage 30 and it's 60 Watts. But that's all you have to have to know and you have to worry about. And and I've never. I've never blown a guitar speaker. I've blown a bass speaker. So you can get you can get a little crazy with the bass speakers. You can get you can blow a guitar speaker. In fact, guitar speakers easier to blow than a bass speaker, which is kind of funny that I did a base here, not a guitar speaker. But I can tell you you if you had a 50 watt amp in your war running, let's say you let's change your question to somebody else might have a question like this. What if you run a 50 watt Marshall head tube, not Salis Dey? Because tubes are much more dangerous 50 Watts than Salis Dey when it comes to a speaker. And you're running it through like, let's say, a green back selection, which is 30 Watts. What would happen? You would be fine. But if you cranked it and you ran it hot, in other words, the cranking all the time, you could blow the speaker or eventually blow the speaker through wear and tear. I've seen that happen. But in most cases, if you're not cranking it, you'd be fine. You know, you can get away with that for a while. And it's absolutely done every day. So I've seen guitar players run 100 watt head through to 12 cabinets with two green back selections that were, you know, rated for 60 Watts between the two of them and never blow a cabinet. But they also weren't diming out the head and running it all the time. Because it's the thing with this. Think of it. And again, I'm not an Amtech. Just give me my life's experience. OK, I want you to think of it like a car pushing the car to the, you know, pushing the gas pedal all the way down, running full throttle as hard as you can. And for all for two, three hours straight, imagine your car at max speed for hours and hours and hours and what that's going to do. It's going to wear it right. That's how it is to. Can your car accelerate for 10 minutes really fast? Fine. Yeah, absolutely. But same with the speaker. Can you run a 50 watt amp through a 30 watt speaker? If you're not cranking the amp and you're not running it for hours at a time, I don't think you'll ever have a problem with that. I can't imagine one. Oh, OK, so this one is a man to send me this one says, Hey, Phil, I'm currently I currently own a Fender Player one humbucker single, single HSS Strat Strat would going for an American Pro to provide me any kind of beneficial upgrades. I'll say it. It's American. It's made better. So what do you think? So the Fender Player one is made Mexico. I wouldn't ever, me personally, I wouldn't ever argue that the Fender made in USA guitars are made better than the Fender made Mexico guitars. That's not an argument. I would make, you know, Fender stacks the deck perfectly. If you remember when they originally were doing the Made Mexico Stand Series, you know, they were they were only doing 21 frets. So if you wanted 22 frets, you couldn't get it unless you went to the American one. They were using ceramic made pickups, which sounded different to me. I always liked them. I always loved them. In fact, I still have a guitar with surround, not a Mexican guitar. I have a USA guitar with Mexican made ceramic pickups in them, because I think they kind of have a P90 vibe to them with those big ceramic magnets and just the way they kind of push and hit. They just have that vibe. But, you know, Fender would do that. And then Fender was using originally smaller fret wire on those. Now around again, the recession, so it came around that bat around that time, Fender decided to revamp some stuff. And one of the things they did is to say, hey, screw it, let's let's make less different things between the Made Mexico and main USA guitars, one, because I'm probably for supply chain issues, right? Just makes it easier. One kind of fret wire for the two guitars. They upgraded the Made Mexico's in a lot of way. This is what I'm talking about, like with the Player Series, the Fender Player Series. To me, the Fender Player Series, I mean, the differences don't matter to me in the quality of the feel of the neck. They don't matter to me in the materials that they're using. I'm not going to the alder body is an alder body to me. The maple and the rosewood or maple maple neck is the same to me. Tuning keys are the same to me. The the bridges are different. So I mean, you can but that's an easy swap to upgrade. I like I prefer owning a main USA Strat. Why? Because in my mind, just because I've been doing this for a long time, I can buy a used American Strat for a little bit more or on the price of a brand new main Mexico Strat. So my brain is like, OK, unless I'm really trying to hit the budget, which is by used main Mexico Strat. If I'm buying a new American made Mexico Strat, I might go USA. But keep in mind that's not because of a performance thing. It's not from a sound point of view. That's not for any of the reasons. A collector kind of brain that I have that says, OK, what what holds more value later on if I want to get rid of it and move on? But that's it. I mean, I don't think to give friend or credit where they really deserve it. There's a lot of great things I can say about Epiphone and some negative things about Epiphone, of course, you know, but an Epiphone, which is a fantastic instrument, is still pretty removed from a Gibson in what it core is. You know, not only because the logos, but just different materials for the finishes, different pickups for the most part, different bridges. There are some differences there. To me, the main Mexico series of Fender guitars and the main USA Fender guitars are so alike. I think there's a placebo from in my experience, most of it, including myself, most was placebo, you get the USA one and you go, man, this is real better. This is way better. What did I what did I what was I missing? And in most cases, I bet you it's you might be noticing just a better setup on one guitar than the other. So if you set the other one up and maybe you're noticing some sound difference in the pickups, but I don't know if there's ever anything that says, yes, go out there and get that. And notice how easy it is for me to recommend one thing, but then not another. So that's why I'm trying to say this. It's like if you want to do it, I would never tell you not to. Like if you said, hey, Phil, I really want a main America, main USA guitar. I guess both are main America, right? So I want to main USA guitar really, really bad. It's my lifelong dream. If I could have that, I've arrived. It's the best thing ever. And I have a main Mexico one. What do you think? And I'd be like, do it. You don't go for it. If you got the money, have fun. But if you're asking me like you're kind of asking me, what are you missing? What are the upgrades? You're not missing a whole lot. And there's not a lot of upgrades, not especially is nothing that you can't just easily do yourself. That's just my thoughts on that. Shark knife says, hey, Phil, I want to upgrade the two nomadic bridge on my S G to a tone prose bridge. Should I get the one with the pre-notch saddles or without? I prefer the pre-notch saddles. If you want to cut the saddles in your, if you want to cut the notches in the saddles, if you want to do that, the pre-notch saddles are just markers for that. So you probably will still need to file a little bit on them. They're going to definitely be sharp and they're going to bind the strings a little bit, so you still have to do it. So keep in mind, if you're saying like if you get the notch one, you don't have to do any work. I've very rarely seen where you don't have to do some work on a notched bridge. But it's possible, depends on how lucky you are. You know, when you when you put the strings on and stuff. But, you know, as far as I know, there's not a price difference, right? So that's usually what I think. If stuff is easier, but it doesn't cost more than I go with that weight. You know, to me, if it's like a 10 bucks more, 20 bucks more, I'm like, I'll just do it myself and save the money. I because I have the tools. If you don't have the tools, then it's a really easy decision. Go with the one that's notched already, because you're going to save yourself money from buying the tools, unless you think you're going to do it again. Because, you know, tools are great if you use them multiple times. But if you know, everybody knows the feeling. If you buy a tool for one job and never use it again, it's not the best feeling ever. Oblivion says, this came from a man too. Have you ever bought your dream guitar? I have. If so, does it does the feeling of wanting the next guitar go away? No, in fact, it's just all regret. So, you know, I I've been told the saying, never meet your heroes. My whole life, right? We all have never meet your heroes, you know, in my experience, never had that problem. I've never met anyone that I was a hero to me. And I thought, wow, I wish I hadn't done that. I would say if any regrets I have with meeting my heroes, I wish I didn't say something or do something. I'm like, why did I say that? Why didn't I say that? You know, I've never had that experience. I've never met somebody who was like an outright jerk. And even if they were a little, you know, abrupt or anything, it was always in a situation where like, I can understand, you know, who the hell's got time to just like, hey, want to talk about guitars in the safe way? Anyways, why I'm saying that is I can I can translate that same logic to when somebody says never meet your heroes, I'd say never buy your dream guitar. You can do it. You may have better luck. Most of my friends never had the luck that I think they wanted when they bought their dream guitar. I have not. I bought maybe two, maybe three of my dream guitars. I mean, I had more than one. Let's be let's be honest, right? And it's it's not I'm full of regret. Maybe I got it out of my system. Maybe that's a big thing, too. But one of the thing that one of the things that definitely happened was I learned I learned a very, very important lesson with this one particular guitar. So let me just tell you the story of this guitar. So I bought a universe. I have a Steve I universe, a swirl universe. This is the guitar that was the Holy Grail. Anybody has seen me talk about it. They know that there's no audio. I have audio. OK. So anyways, the the guitar was this guitar I wanted forever. And for for my anniversary, my wife, then I decided I was going to get it. I got it. It is one of the best looking universes, in my opinion, because the swirls are definitely out there. They're different. I think I definitely bought it for the right price when I say right price. Market value are better than market value. I really think right now, even though the market softened from even when I got it, it's it's worth exactly what I paid for it or more. What I mean by that is, in fact, I really think if I reach out to there's a bunch of heavy hitter guitar stores out there, you know, you guys know Diablo guitars or Carter's vintage guitars, they could probably consign it for me. And even with consignment fees, I think I would get what I paid for it out of it. So I mean, I could walk away from that guitar right now. Here's what's interesting that I could never predict. And this is something to think about. This is the advice that will maybe I can impart on you and maybe help you. This guitar's neck is amazing. It's one of the best playing seven string necks. And I know, you know, you're not looking at seven string ever. I've ever played the guitar looks amazing. The weight is amazing. It's a beautiful specimen with no damage. It's it looks great. When I look at it, it makes me think about when I first saw one, you know, in the 90s. And here's what is killing it. I had to over the years because I couldn't afford one. I couldn't get one. I bought an RG seven, six, 20. OK, and I bought this RG seven, six, 20, I don't know, 15 years ago, maybe 20 years ago, and I bought it for three hundred and fifty dollars. OK, so a fraction of what the universe costs. And if you ask me, is the neck on the universe better? Yes, if you ask me, does it sound better than the seven, six, 20? Keep in mind, I put blaze pick up the same pickups in both. Yes, the universe sounds better. It sounds better. It plays better. But you know what the universe doesn't have? It doesn't have 15 years of me playing it. This RG seven, six, 20, which I was going to get rid of. It's one of the things I said. I'm like, hey, you guys know, I have a one in one out kind of rule. The guitar that was going to go out was obviously got to get rid of this RG seven, six, 20 for the universe to put in the rack and have it. And here's what happened. I couldn't do it. Every time I went to do it, I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. First, I made the excuse say it's only $350. It's not like I'm going to get a lot of money for this guitar, you know, keep it. Then it was, well, it's a nice backup. And then it slowly hit me over time, A, being them and playing them kind of like this for that. The RG seven, six, 20, it's just it's home. It's my friend. I've been playing it so long. I know what it sounds like. I know how it I know how the bridge feels. I know it. And they're almost identical in construction and feel. And just. I so what I learned about this for myself, and this is the thing I can impart on you is I learned that a dream guitar is amazing. But the guitar that you play with for a long time is your best friend. It's your best friend. And there's just no way for it to go away. So what will eventually happen? The universe will eventually go. That's, you know, right? My wife already knows we talked about it. I have no eagerness to get rid of it. She has no eagerness for me to get rid of it. You know, it's just one of those things. The only reason it will ever go is because even I don't buy guitars to flip them or make money or doing that stuff. If I'm buying a guitar for me personally, it's so I can use it, play it and enjoy it. And I'm enjoying it, but I'm not using it. And so eventually I'm going to feel guilty or guiltier about not using it. And it's going to go. So so that that's what I say about your dream guitar is I'm not telling you not to buy it. I'm not telling you not to get your dream guitar, but I will tell you that, you know, it's and this is what I've learned over time. The guitars, the guitars are their personal, in fact, a funny thing I can't tell you where. But I was on a podcast this week on somebody else's podcast. I eventually see it. And one of the questions was they're asking you about my guitar collection. And more importantly, my favorite guitars. And ironically, I told my three favorite guitars and the three favorite guitars were the guitars that I play the most. They just it's not that they are my favorite and I play them. I play them and they became my favorite. They just became the thing that I use all the time. And now I'm used to them and I have to have them all the time. So that's my two cents on that. And will I ever do I have any other dream guitars left? I do have a couple of guitars that I was like, oh, yeah, that would be great to own. But to be honest, I bought, like I said, two of my dream guitars, maybe three over the years and everyone, it's the same story. It's great. But I've really kind of like what I have. I guess who I like who I am now and the guitars I am now with. And maybe if I would have got one 20 years ago and spent 20 years with it, it'd be a different story, but I didn't. Gray haired newbie. Hey, I love the sign on says, Hi, Phil. This is by this is from Amanda, by the way, in your Martin deep dive video. You mentioned the guitar had been Plect. Do you feel it had any impact on the playability of the guitar verse one straight from Martin? So first of all, Martin Plect, that guitar. So the the Plect on that guitar, let's verify this real quick. So the guitar was not Plect for me. It was not Plect by Guitar Center because Guitar Center sponsored me. Guitar Center sponsored the video because you guys have been asking for more acoustic guitars. So when a company like Guitar Center or, you know, another retailer reaches out to me, one of the things I try to do is try to get guitars that I normally wouldn't buy or get my hands on so that I can give you guys these other things you guys requested. So you guys know, somebody's going to say it right now in the comments, but what about bassists? I'm working on that too. When you guys talk about bassists and Martins and here's why, here's why I'm doing it just so you guys know. If I can get the guitar sent to me by a company like Guitar Center or Sweetwater, something like that and sponsored, I don't have to worry about the performance of the video. I don't have to worry like, does it get 150,000 views so I can break even this deal or so I can, you know, I can just go, this guitar is, you know, people want to see more guitars on the channel, especially acoustics. And I thought, you know, what's cooler than a mid tier priced Martin that sounds like one of their most iconic guitars? That's a great guitar. We're going to do that. We went through and there was like eight different Martins we were going to pick. And last minute I just picked that one. So back to the important part, which is that guitar. It states, Martin states that they Plect that guitar. That's why I said it was Plect because Martin states that. Let me do and I'm going to ask, I'm going to answer your question, but first I just want to, because that was a question, that was a comment in the video, you know, who Plected Martin. So you guys don't know if you didn't watch that video this week. It's called the Martin D12E. It's a made in Mexico guitar that's 100% solid wood, solid top, solid side, solid back, ebony fretboard, ebony bridge. So no rich light fretboards and stuff comes with a deluxe gig bag and it is aged and it's made to look and feel and sound like a D 18, which is a $3,000 iconic. Obviously Martin and. And it was it's actually behind me. I'm pointing at it right now. This is it behind me and pointing at the guitar on the wall. And it's a fantastic instrument. So let's look at the specifications because somewhere in here it's going to say this spruce top with scalloped X bracing delivers bold clear tones, subpelly back and sides, which are also solid. Twenty four twenty five point four scale. Plected frets ensure accurate intonation and consistently playable across the neck. So Martin Plect the guitar. So that's why it's Plect. So for those for those that didn't understand that, I didn't think to say that in the video. I because I read it off their spec sheet, the specification sheet from Martin. I just assumed it would be easy, but I saw a bunch of comments saying who Plected. I didn't think that you guys would have thought because it was sponsored. It makes sense. You guys, I said it was sponsored by Guitar Center, so you guys probably assumed Guitar Center Plected. They did not. So to to Gray Hair Newby's question, do I feel it had an impact on the playability of the guitar? Yes, I am not a fan of Let's Be Clear. I've done a ton of videos, including where I had I paid out of my pocket to have a Squire Plect. I've talked about the fact that Plect machines are more consistent than guitar techs. So if if you want consistency, especially if a large manufacturer, I am more a fan of Plects for used guitars or guitar repair than I am for manufacturing purposes, but I'm not a huge fan of Plect. So, you know, it's I don't have a problem with it. I would never not recommend you do it. In fact, I'm I'm if you said, Hey, Phil, I'm thinking about having a guitar Plect. Yes, that's fine. It's just it's a good setup. It's a good it's a good system and it does great. So why would I say do it? But then tell you I'm not a huge fan of it. One of the things I don't like about Plect machines is that they can fix almost any issue by the frets and in a guitar repair, that's a world that I live in all day. So what I mean by that is you bring me a guitar and I'm going through and you got a couple of frets and they're seated correctly. But, you know, you know, they need to be lowered either because they're they're high or the neck. I don't want to say twisted. People get freaked out about twisted. But let's just say wood's never really flat all the time, especially all guitars. So what happens is one thing all guitar techs can do and Luthiers can do is level your frets and crown them to make your instrument performance best. You can take almost any guitar that's having issues. And if you just do a really good fret level and crown and set up, you're going to have a great playing instrument. However, that's great when you when you're when you have a scenario where you're just fixing somebody's problem. What I don't like about it in a factory is I believe it becomes increases laziness in the factory. What I mean by that is if you listen to the manufacturers that I trust and I like the most that make I think some of the best necks and performing guitars in the world, they don't use Plect machines at all. OK. And when you ask them why it is and I believe them 1000 percent, it's not the cost because they're they're expensive. Plect machines about 125 grand a piece and they have a lot of service contracts to go with that. Trust me, these are not companies that are like worried about $125,000 or multiples of that. OK. So it's never that it's when they say they don't use them because they believe that if they make the neck perfect and focus on that and then seat the frets in perfectly, then they don't need a Plect. I 100 percent agree with them because I've experienced the ladder, which means I've experienced a company sending me a guitar that I thought that yeah, the frets were perfect, but it didn't feel right because some frets were because they're they're level with each other, but some frets are lower than others. And when you go to bend a note, you're like rubbing your finger on the fretboard on this one position because they like said to level them, they got to take the lowest fret and then go, everything's got to come down to that. And if you're like me, I'm not a really big fan. I don't need jumbo frets, but I don't like really thin, small frets. So that's essentially what they're making. And so I don't like the catch all catch all factor. And I keep seeing it when I go to factories and deal with there's a particular factory I'm not going to rat out because I'm still working with them on trying to get to their factory and see them because of this. I believe when I talk to them that I explain this correctly and I think they understand me now, I think that's their problem. I think they are their team is plucking the crap out of their guitars to the point where I don't think they feel right and they're they're not taking what I think they should do additional quality steps in the process of construction of the neck because they know the plexus is going to fix the problem at the end. Right. I don't care what you guys do for a living. There's about 1200 of you live here right now. So if you do something, if you knew that at the end of the line, no matter what you did, right, it was some machine was just going to go. And you're fine. It's going to go through QA or quality assurance. I'm sure you'd be like, yeah, well, it's let it happen. So that's what I said. I think it creates a little bit of a not so much laziness, but it creates some some workflow to happen. So that's why I want to be clear. I have a dual opinion of plek. I think it's a fantastic thing for after the fact that the guitar is already made. This is where it is. You can make it better. I think that's a truth. But when you're building the guitar, I don't know if I actually love plek. By the way, some factory is going to happen because it always happens to me. Some factory that uses plek is going to message me after this because they're going to feel I don't think you understand. Please feel free to say whatever you got to say. I'm not not everything is a broad stroke. I'm not calling out everybody who uses a plek. I think there's companies that use Plex and absolutely do great job. Back to that Martin, that Martin was great. It played great. You know, like I said, I don't I don't see any issues. Do I think the Plex had a lot to do with how it played great? I'm not only sure that it had the Plex helped that Martin behind me play great. I'm pretty sure that it guarantees it. That's like that's what the Plex are supposed to do. So so yeah. Elroy says, great Friday afternoon. He says, do you think the more pickup capture pedal is superior as superior as an EQ pedal? Your words, L-O-L. Then MXR Dunlop 10 band EQ pedal. So these these capture pedals that so if you guys don't know what he's talking about, more makes one a bunch of companies make them. They make pedals that essentially model, if you will, or simulate different pickups. So you could plug your guitar in it and you select through and you go, this is going to sound like a Tele pickup. This is going to sound like a strap pickup. And that is something absolutely you can do with an EQ pedal. You could take an EQ pedal like a boss pedal or an MXR pedal right now. You can plug your Gibson Les Paul into it with humbuckers and through the EQ, you can make it sound like a strap. Absolutely. It's totally not only totally possible, it's done all the time. You can make a guitar sound like it's out of face. So if you want that, hey, this guitar sounds like a cocked wall. You can do that with your WAP pedal or your your EQ pedal. You can make a, you know, you know, somebody's like, hey, I want out of face switch. Okay, cool. I told you guys one thing I used to do when I used to have people come in and go, I want they come in and go, I want you install these pickups and I want coil splits and I want out of face switch and I want this and I want that. And I go, okay. And I go, why do you want that? And they go, because that's what people put in on my go. Have you ever tried out of face? No. And I could take their guitar and I would put a EQ pedal and let them play it. Simulate the out of face sound, which is basically basically reverse V on your basically reverse V on your EQ pedal. And then they'd go, oh, I don't I don't love that. I'm like, OK, well, there you go. Use it or not. You know, I'll put it in if you want. But I just want you to know what you're doing. So. But anyways, yes, I believe what those pedals are that simulate these pedals are just like impulse responses are essentially cues and very knowledge of this is very limited. You understand, you know, in fact, I saw Michael Nilsons in the chat. He actually creates impulse responses. So he could answer the question way better than me if you go to his live show sometime. But the point I'm going to make is that I've seen manufacturers make impulse response simulation analog with the same thing. So when I tried, I tried one of those pick up simulation pedals. I forget the brand. It's on the channel. It's from probably six, seven years ago. I thought it was cool and I liked it. The only thing I didn't love about it, I think it was like it was two, three hundred dollars for that. And again, I was like, well, that's cool. If you really need it, otherwise you can use your pedal. I would imagine the more let's take a look at it. Let's look it up more. More so you guys don't know. So you guys don't know. I don't know what the hell I'm saying. I'm I'm not jet lagged, but I am driver lagged. So so you guys know more is pronounced like moo like a cow. More. And that's how you do it. And it's it's Chinese. It means magical ear. So a little there. So I'm I'm I'm telling why I look this up. So. But that's absolutely true. I'm not making that up. It's the tone captioned GTR. Is that what it is? Is that what we're looking at? I'm going to find this thing. The hustle drive. No tone captioned GTR. That's that it's not that's not that. Pick up simulation pedal. What's it called? Does anyone know what it's called? Simulation pedal. I'm not finding it. Let me go back to the chat. Can somebody put what it's called? Oh, my gosh, you guys are putting some in comments. I can't see. Does anyone know what the what the more is called? So I can look it up and look at this. What he's talking about. Um, no, I'm not seeing anybody. Anyone finding it? I'm looking right now, too. So you guys know, but I'm not finding it. You know, I you know what I can do? I could actually just go to more's website. More more. OK, let's go here. And maybe I'm a wild goose chase. What is this? Oh, that's more guitars. That's a store. What about more pedals? More pedals. OK, this is I don't find it. OK, so there's more audio and language support. Search search. Pedals. OK, here's so you don't have to just watch my face. You can look at what I'm looking at. OK, I see a I see a drummer. I see a looper. I see this. Let me go here and I'm going to give me a second hop. Does anyone have? Oh, by the way, let me get out of this in case I'm looking. I'm looking back in the chat to see if you guys have. OK, big Harry guitars, which is Michael Michael saying tone capture, GTR. Yeah, EQ match pedal. Is that what it is? So that would make sense. But like Michael says, I'm curious now because he's curious to I'm curious to so I might look around and see if I can check it out. But oh, you know what? Did I just find it? Nope. This is going to be wasting everybody's time because I'm just looking and looking for the stupid thing. We're never going to find it. OK, so if I'll move on and but if we find it, I'll come back. That makes sense. So I just don't want to take up too much dead spacing. We're almost at the end of the show. But Cigar Dad is saying more GTRS. OK, cool. Let's look at that. Let's say more. GTRS, the. Yeah, that's OK. I see it as a capture thing, but I didn't know that was for pickups. It's just it's just an EQ. I get what you're saying. I'm confusing what you're saying. You're not saying it's a pickup simulator pedal, although I have done reviews of those. You're saying it's a it's a programmable EQ pedal. I think is that right? And it has I've actually I don't know if I did a video of this, but I had one for a while and I was checking it out. Yeah, it works if you want preloaded. Yes, it would work for what you're saying. Yes, you can use it like an EQ pedal and it's programmable. So if you guys don't know, let's go to it here. This is what he's talking about. And this is it. And yes, I've tried this thing out so I know exactly how it works. It's essentially just like said, you set the EQ and then you said you can keep them as programs right there and you can toggle through them. So it's presets. So pretty cool. It's pretty cool. And it's like 60 bucks. You could probably pick one out for 70 bucks or whatever, 69 bucks. So pretty reasonable. Yeah, by the way, what I was looking at was hold on guitar, hold on guitar, pick up simulation pedal. I actually wonder if the company that made this still around. Guitar, pick up simulation pedal and it doesn't come up. And I'd have to go through my old videos and find it. But there is a company that makes a pick up simulation and it works like that. It's pre-programmed EQs to make them. So interesting. But to answer your question, yes, I believe you could use that. Oh, that's a good question. I don't know. The happy good thing says, hey, sir. So what John Sir and Tom Anderson work for for Fender in California? Any Mexican Luthiers who worked or work who worked or work for Fender in Sonata and sell their own guitars, not that I know of at all. I don't know. One, I don't know if it would help them. So, you know, John Sir, Tom Anderson working at Fender isn't the really the big deal. They were the custom, they worked a custom shop. So that's probably where the massive difference is. John Sir's respect comes from the fact that he's not just physically worked there building guitars at Fender. He's a design guy. He helped do stuff at Fender. He created models. He built once, you know, obviously custom from hand, you know, for famous artists. That helps too, by the way. You know, it's nice to throw in the hey, I made a guitar for Eric Clapton. I don't know if that's true, but, you know, he made him for famous people. So I would imagine that's where their notoriety comes from. Think about this. When you think of Joe Nags from Nags Guitars, he obviously was at PRS guitars, but he just didn't work there. He was a designer there. He designed guitars there and he he started the private stock, which is essentially a partisans custom shop. So I would imagine that would be the big difference in the Made Mexico facility. If somebody worked there and said, Hey, I'll build you a guitar. You're like, you know, that might work if you don't know anything. Like I know anything about the cons, you know, how the guitars are made in the factories, but most you got to say, and if you're in a factory, it works. Unfortunately, like a like a fast food restaurant, somebody is doing one thing all day or they maybe work multiple stations, but they only know parts of it. So it's not very common to see somebody in a factory position who's like, I could build you a whole guitar because trust me, I've done it. It's they're like, no, I can do your fret work. I did that. I can buff guitars because I've done that. I can do electronics. I've done that. So it's it's different when you're in the master category of doing stuff there. By the way, somebody found and found it and then it's where was it at? And then I thought I just did a copy paste it and see if I did. Did I copy it like a smart person when I saw it? I thought I grabbed it. No, somebody named the pedal that I did the review of that sounds like pickups. And I was like, yep, as soon as I saw it, I go, that's the pedal. And then it it's scrolled too fast. Hold on. I'm just scrolling right to see if I got it. If if you're the person that posted that, can you post it again real quick so I can look for it while I'm. But that whoever put the name, that is absolutely the name of the pedal I reviewed. And that is the pedal that simulates all the different pickups. So. So if I see you post it again, I'll make sure to read it. OK, Keystone, thank you so much, David. So the Keystone with a Z Keystone pedal. Let's see what happens if I do this. Keystone pedal, I don't want to say it's still look at Bill McKnight, Bill McKnight. Go back, back, sit. Keystone pedal. This is the pedal because I figure I should share with you guys. It's thinking whatever website this is slow as all asses. Here we go. This is it. This is the pedal. So how it works, if you guys. So it doesn't say a price on it, so it doesn't help you. But here's how it works. It does exactly what I said. It's got different pickups. See, it's got Texas hot Texas single coils. It's got vintage single coils. It's got P 90s. It's got a TV Jones style pickups or filter trons. And these are the pickups and including acoustic sound. And essentially you can select through them. And it works kind of like impulse response or any of that stuff, it's simulating something. And so I believe it's doing it through like a pre pre not pre recorded like a preset free cue is what it sounded like to my ear. It sounded really good, but that's what it sounded like. And by the way, that would be very difficult to do. The person who designed it and built it had to really do a lot of research and put that in there. But that's what it needs. And then this one is from G Falcon Channel, the G Falcon Channel. Says, Hey, Phil, I squished my volume knob in my gig bag and now it crackles. And it still lets sound through in the zero position. Anything I can do to save it. You yes, yes and no. First, save it's a little I mean, come on, man, it's like seven, ten bucks. And I know it's it's a work if you don't solder and stuff. So let me just tell you, you can save it. So what happens is in the volume pot, what you're going to have is the the knob is sitting on a long shaft that goes in and then there's two swiper swipers in there, right? And the swipers are touching a strip. And what happens is there's a there's a can that surrounds it. That's the thing you're looking at. So you guys, when you look at the bottom, that's the can. There's usually four tabs and those tabs are holding the can onto the potentiometer. What happens is when sometimes when some force hits the shaft, it pushes down so hard that it bends the it bends the four tabs and the can gets pushed out and then now the swipers are not aligned correctly to fix it. It's very, very easy. In fact, so easy that I'm going to put you on hold and get one and show you how to fix it. Just give me five seconds. OK, I'm back. So when I'm talking, I'm going to take this thing apart. So what I'm doing is doing what I showed you. This is the top. Well, this is the bottom of the potentiometer. Here's where the shaft is I talked about right there. And then these are the tabs. So there's four of them like an X position. OK, and you'll bend them back. They'll probably already be bent back. I'll show you that too. And I'll switch cameras so you can see a little better. You know, it's funny is I had I couldn't I can't get to the shop and back in fast enough. So in the shop, I have a display one for when I do clinics. That would help. But anyways, I just want to show you because this could save you some money if you can fix it yourself. OK, any time now, I got one more to do. But I'm doing it with makeshift tool right here. OK. This is driving me crazy. One more tab. These were great. If you had this potentiometer, you wouldn't have a problem. These tabs are not bending at all. I cannot believe this. This last one, OK, I'm going to pull this apart. OK. Just it's not going to work. I can't get this last one. Now with the tool I have. Hold on. When in doubt, get a Swiss iron knife. And don't cut yourself. Did one second. Perfect. OK. Ready. Here we go. I'm going to switch to this camera if it helps because it's going to help me. Let me see you show what you look at. There's those four tabs. See them? I haven't bent them out now. So they're bent. What happened to your guitar was you got force here and it pushed. See, and this pushed down and bent these tabs. And now looking from the side, your can is pushed down. And then if that can comes off, what happens in here, the whole assembly falls apart, see what I was talking about with the swipers right here, the wipers. See these wipers right there? These wipers need to have contact right there. And they have to have contact correctly. See, so they spin. And also there's usually something on here that when it hits sometimes in the can, it stops. OK. But either way, it stopped. And so what happens is when you go to zero, you're like zero, you're still getting involved through this because your swipers are still touch your wipers. I don't want to keep saying swipers. I'm sorry, wipers keep touching. So essentially what you want to do is just go in there and disassemble this. How I how I just did, which has been these four little tabs out. I would use needle nose pliers. Be careful. And then the minimum amount. Once you've been them out, this is what you're going to do. You're going to put it back together. You'll rotate it a couple of times. You'll find you'll see where it all of a sudden feels like it's right. See, there's right. And then you bend them back with your needle nose pliers. OK. Which I do not have. But you get the idea. Back to what I have to do it this way. Yeah. OK. And then as you bend them, you'll just bend them back over. And the whole assembly work again. You can go through that if it works. If your potential is cheaper, sometimes a little bit more difficult. Sometimes after you if you after you fix it, there's other damage, maybe scratches have happened and other things that will not so much be irreversible, but you'll have other problems. That's why sometimes, you know, if you got the time and you want to learn it, fix it, the good news is this, you're going to probably have to replace it anyways. So there's no downsides to try downside to try to fix it. Try to fix it and you screw it up. Just put a new one in. And if you fix it well, then you can fix it. The thing I like about that is either way, you'll get some education. And now that you've seen how it kind of comes together. I mean, think about this. It's what is it? Four parts. You're going to have the cap. This is what you're going to essentially see on a potential or you're going to see the cap, you're going to see the this this has the tabs for soldering to this place, which is also has the important part, the filament right there. Then you're going to have the shaft with the wipers. It's going to have grease. This is for lubrication. It's a it's a family channel, but we're going to talk about shaves and lubrication. I'm sorry, guys. And then, of course, you're going to see lubrication inside the can. And that's the bottom. So like I said, it's four whole pieces. That's your entire assembly of this. And there is differences in different models, but essentially they're all going to be like this. They're they're not going to be more complicated. They're going to be less complicated. So all right. So you somebody says you can always spread out. You can. The problem is, is that again, you know, hey, what does it hurt? You know, put in some some electronic lubricant. The problem is that when he says crackles, crackles could be dust. Crackles could be anything. But when he says no sound through zero position, that tells me that the wipers are not touching something. And that's because they've been and they might be bent. So you know, you might have to actually do what I just did and then also bend your wipers back into positions of stuff. So. So, you know, there you go. I will. Maybe I can do a video of that. You know, we do some shorts now of repair shorts and I throw them out. So we'll do that. Let's do one last topic. I know it's a little over, but hey, why not? Let's. Let's do one last one. Let's actually also check. This one, this one was a from antique rocker. So we're going to end with this. OK, ready? This is the last one. Antique rocker says, compare the three types of neck joints. This is like a homework assignment. You wait. Wait, wait, wait. Why don't I tell you what he wrote? This antique rocker. This is homework. He's like, compare this. This is exactly like back in school again. Compare these three type of neck joints, bolt on, set neck and through neck through advantages, disadvantage, each type of joint. Best example of each. OK, so this sounds complicated, hard. It's not. It's super easy. OK, so the three types of neck joints that we generally see. And I'm going to talk about electric guitars only is exactly what he says. The bolt on, the set neck and the neck through the neck through. You got you got to understand the goal. If you understand the goal, then you understand the logic and you understand where the BS comes from. So the goal is to make the neck joint as as comfortable and easy to access as possible. Right. This is this is very, very important. So you have so you have originally think about how you originally have this. You originally have like a Gibson guitar with a set neck. OK, somebody gluing in a neck and then you have somebody like Leo Fender coming along and he goes, Hey, man, this could be a lot easier if we screw the neck onto the body. Now, the main reason, as somebody like Paul Riedt Smith has stated that there's no real difference between screwing a neck on and gluing a neck on. It's just neck compressed onto, you know, it's wood compressed onto wood. He this is his words. He says it doesn't matter. He's like it really doesn't matter to tone. It really doesn't matter to anything. So if it doesn't matter, why do they do it this way? Well, the main reason you were going to do is a glued neck versus a bolt, a screwed on neck, which is bolt on and vice versa is it's more efficient and faster and cost effective to do a screwed on neck because of a bunch of reasons. One, while somebody is cutting the, you know, doing the electronics, they can be used putting them in the body and somebody's still working on the frets on the neck, right? So, you know, construction time is definitely shrunk down. It's faster. Once you glue a neck onto a body, somebody can only fret it and somebody can only work on the on the electronics. And you can't do multiples. The other thing that's important is that when you glue a neck on the body and you start building the guitar, as you finish it, if you come across a problem, you're going to have to restart the whole process again, where if you're doing a bolt on neck and you find a bad neck or a bad body, you can then go ahead and swap it just like any other part and continue on the way. Again, eliminating time and cost. So those are the advantage of the construction. None of that really has to do with anything that most people claim, which is sound. Now, can any of these things I'm talking about have sound factors? Sure. That's really for you guys to decide. I'm just giving you the logical why they did it. What ends up happening afterwards, musicians start saying things because they have emotional responses to the instrument. The manufacturers use marketing jargon, but realistically, everything was just a the function of building. OK, so then the second, the second, not second, but the third option, which is the second that we're talking about is next through. What does next through come from? So next through is basically coming with the idea that there's a flaw in both those systems, which is when you bolt a neck on, you have to have so much, so much thickness in the neck and so much thickness of the body so that they can hold true and not and not come apart. And the same thing with glue, gluing, you have, you know, they're weak at that point where they're they're coming together. And so if you want to make that as thin as possible, you can make the neck one continuous piece, because now you can just shave material away from where the neck meets the body, because the neck isn't meeting the body there. The neck is meeting the body on the sides. Think of it. And I know you guys hate it for some reason that I use the dry rest dry raceboard, but I want you to see this because I think if it see it, it makes sense. Just looking at it as a glued neck. Right. So if you have a glued neck, you have a neck pocket, it looks like this. And then you're going to glue a neck into it. Right. You're going to put the glue here. That is the contact of glue, that area. Right. But if you do a neck through, what happens is you're going to have the body wings. And then the next going to come through down the center. And all of these sides here are going to have glue. So your contact and where you're gluing to the wood, the wood together is much bigger and because it's stable, because the neck is being actually glued on here through basically 10 inches of each side of the body. Now, if you want to come from the side where we normally would see the body and then the neck come up here. Right. Now you can do the opposite. You can take because it's one continue a piece of the neck where it meets the body right here, you can just start shaving away material. And I don't know why that's out of frame. Sorry. Shaving away material. So what that why that's important is it gives you better neck access. Now, why, why does that cost more? It costs more because like what we talked about, we started the show with this idea with bases versus guitars. Longer pieces of wood are harder to find that are good and straight and have less knots in them than shorter pieces. And so neck throughs are more cost prohibitive to the manufacturer because they have to have longer boards that are straight. And of course, and more wood means more potential flaws in the wood because it is a living growing thing that has flaws. And so it makes it harder for them to make the instrument that way. But also it makes it harder because like I said, they have there's more in the process. And then of course, they're anchored to the same problem. Set neck is, which is now you have a guitar that's one piece and you can't compartmentalize it where it doesn't matter anymore. Is in technology like this. So this is a bolt on neck from Kiesel that I was playing earlier. But if you notice, see, they they've learned because they have CNC machines, they learn through time that they don't have to use a big thick piece of wood right here. They can use furls and they can instead of using a plate, right? See, because before when they used a plate, the problem was the plate had to be flat. So the surface had to be flat. But now because of furls, they can they can they can cut this at an angle, make this more convenient and comfortable there and give you more of what a set neck feel is. So you can make the neck joint a little better as a bolt on neck. You can make the neck joint better as a set neck. There's sometimes referred to sometimes as a as a guitar sometimes referred to as set through where they use six inches instead of four inches. It's not technically the right way to say that, by the way. But that's what is usually referred to commonly. And so again, you get more contact with glue. So because you have more strength through all that contact, you can you can shave it down and make a set neck look almost like it is a neck through. And that's why if they paint it, it gets real confusing for people. So that is the way why they do that, you know, in those in those three ways. But it's not necessarily super important to the way it sounds. It's just not. You know, when people go, oh, a set neck has more sustained than a bolt on. I mean, again, that's an argument for the internet or the world to have. But I it's also convenient that they're different guitars with different shapes, different materials, different pickups. My argument would be, OK, let's take a Fender Strat, take the plate off, put a bunch of glue in there and glue the neck in. Do any of you really expect that guitar to have more sustained now? And if you do, then why don't you do it? So. So you can do it. So that's the that's the the logic there. And that's the differences. I have no me. No personal. I don't care, like I said, I have no preference in any of the guitars I own to whether they're set neck, they're bolt on or the neck through. I don't know, three and it only has to do with what they look like, what they felt like and why I like them, but it never because of those conscious decisions. I never picked up a guitar and went it's bolt on. One other thing that happened, unfortunately, and it's probably because a Fender is sometimes you see this when somebody will say, oh, five thousand dollars is a bolt on. No, thanks. And I'm like, well, they could easily not drill the holes and glue it in. There's no reason they have to do a bolt on at an expensive guitar. They can, you know, the the point of making is. Is that what's the point? The point of making is I'm at the end of the show. Lost now is that it's not done for the reason you think it is. The reason another reason why companies will do set necks is because Leo Fender did affordable guitars as bolt-ons and a lot of student grade guitars are bolt-ons because of the reason I told you, which is defective parts, means they can be swapped and you can continue on the construction process. We start associating inexpensive with screwed on necks or bolt on necks. And therefore we assume that set necks are better, but they're not better. They're just more expensive and they're more expensive than a construction standpoint, which most of those construction standpoints don't even affect any more in new factory design and manufacturing. So that's the answer. Think about this. It works exactly the same way with acoustics. You could argue all day. A perfect example is somebody will look at a Taylor guitar and say, oh, that neck is bolted on. If you guys don't know, Taylor bolts the necks on and Martin glues them in. And it's different construction for sure. There's different things. And some people argue, oh, well, the reason that the Martin sounds bigger is because it's glued the neck on and Taylor screwed the neck on. You should play a collings. Collings are also screwed on necks and they are just as deep and vibrant and full sounding as a Martin. It's not the construction. It's just by design and what it was after. Taylor was after a more separated note separation sound clearer, more bell like across. And that has nothing to do with going with that neck reason. The only reason Taylor guitars has a bolt on neck is because they figured it was easier to repair and fix a neck after the fact that I ran in a neck reset. You don't have to steam the neck out and do a neck reset. Like from a loo, the or you could actually just have your local tech do a neck reset for you. So that's the main reason they started that way. So like I said, if you look at this is my opinion, just like said, this week I went to my 37th factory. So 37 factories, here's what I can tell you. They will the marketing teams will tell you that it's sustained and its tone and it's all that stuff. But the engineers and the workers will tell you that it's just efficiency and cost. So that's what I think of those three next styles. It's efficiency and cost. And then you can pick what you like or you can believe that it's all tone. I don't really I don't have a problem with whatever you decide. All right. On that note, I'm going to call it. So good news. You made it to the end. So I'll just give you the cool announcements that are going to help you at the end. We have some cool videos for you next week. But more importantly, we have some really cool videos. We have an amazing factory tour. I mean, I'm going to put it on the same level as the Cortech video. And if you like the Cortech video, you're going to like this as a like a really eye opening like holy crap experience that no one's ever done on YouTube before. That'd be cool. They will be soon. I I I again, I'm just teasing you guys. So I'll just tell you the teasers. I was in California. I went to my favorite guitar store in California and I bought a guitar. And so there will be a video on that. What I bought. Why and why it's one of my favorite stores are my favorite store. It's my first store in California. It's one of my favorite stores, but my favorite store in California. So that's coming out. I actually did two podcasts with with I did one with Gabe, the CEO of Guitar Center. That will come out this one year later. What happened? Of course, we've been talking about on the show. Obviously, you can imagine what I want what I talked to him about. And more importantly, I actually did another bonus podcast with Andy Powers, the CEO of Taylor Guitars. I did that one too. And again, you know, I kind of just still in my wife's words, she's like, it was powerful. That's what she said. She said he he what he said was powerful. So we'll go off that. And I think there's one other video. So we got like five or six videos done this week there. It was long. It was hard. We we went we were at a different location every day. We stayed in four, no, three different hotels, but four different days. So a lot of checking in a lot of checking out. So it was really crazy and a good time. And and you'll see the content for that. On that note, thank you guys so much. I will see you guys soon, especially next week. Until the next time, know your gear. Then know your gear podcast.