Another Round Of Layoffs At Fender Guitars

0:00the Know Your Gear Podcast. Hey everyone, welcome to the Know Your Gear Podcast for February 27th. Why am I yelling in the mic? February 27th, 2026. I hope you guys all had a fantastic week and are ready for a new episode of the show, so we can go over things you want to talk about, things you're interested in, maybe things you're not interested in. We have a lot. There's some stuff that's kind of come up and I thought we would talk about it. Some viewers reached out to me, but I had actually already talked to a couple of employees that are friends of mine and they kind of mentioned it too. Let's just start with that. We've been talking about Fender for a lot of years on the channel, especially on the podcast.

1:00As you guys know, I'm a huge fan of Fender. You're a huge fan of Fender. They're the largest guitar company in the world. Obviously, we're all fans. There's some stuff going on that I think it's worth talking about. I'm going to give some opinions on it once I give it. The first thing is, Fender looks like they're about to do another round of layoffs again. I think this is all circumstantially bad for a lot of reasons. Obviously, anytime we talk about layoffs, we're talking about people losing their jobs, things that they pay their bills with, they feed their families with. This is their livelihoods. It's always a sad topic and it's always a delicate topic. I just hope you understand. When you're making comments, please keep in mind that these are people that are affected by this, not just whimsical comments to our will. The layoffs I understand are going to be in April. Things could change. I don't know if it's 100% going to happen and there's no way around that.

2:02Let me go to it and share it with you. I talked to an employee who said they were kind of told or they kind of know. I'm hoping all the employees have been told. Let's go to the website. This is a website called The Warn Tracker. It tells you a potential companies that have over 100 employees that are going to be laying off. On here, it says, I'm just giving you the information that Fender is planning to do a layoff in April 7th, it's 6 and it looks like about, let's move this way, it looks like they're going to do about 100 to 250 people laid off. This looks like it's listed as a permanent layoff. Okay, so that's just where I'm giving you that. There's a link down below for those that want to check that out. If you're curious where I was getting the information. Now, like I said, I was giving the information first from an employee that told me and they don't know if they're included in this or not.

3:02So you understand this is why it's a delicate subject. Why are we talking about it? Well, it's guitar news for sure, but that's not why we're actually talking about it. We're talking about a couple things. Now, the one thing I want to tell you is I don't know if this is, I just don't know. Okay, so I'm just going to tell you. I don't know if the new CEO Bud Cole is coming in and this is him cleaning house. I don't know if this was decided before they got the new CEO. But either way, we know Fender's got a new CEO. I personally think with no information more than what I just told you and what I know for here. It could be he just walked into this and this was already kind of something that had happened, but who knows. But you know, it's an interesting thing for the last five years on this podcast. If there was one continuous thing we talk about, there's two. Actually, let's talk about two continuous things. We talk about Gibson always in the news for some kind of lawsuit. And Fender always in the news for some quality kind of quality issue. And I just don't think that Fender, in my opinion, and this one I'm sticking to for the last five years, has let the quality drop. It happened during COVID. It got really bad in COVID.

4:05And I don't think it's come back. In fact, many friends of mine, some Fender dealers, some people at the guitar centers, have consistently told me, which is more important, that they don't talk to each other. And they're in different parts of the country to have the same stories like the Fender quality. They're constantly dealing with a lack of Fender quality of quality in the Fender guitars and the products. Somebody mentioned their price hikes. Their price hikes are astronomically crazy. And now we can talk about some of the economical issues that are causing price hikes. But I've said this during COVID Fender was the first always, in my opinion, to jack up the prices. As soon as there was like, oh, there's a supply issue. Oh, price is skyrocket. Oh, wait, there might be a supply issue. Price is skyrocket. Oh, wait, demand high price skyrocket. Oh, wait, demand might be high price skyrocket. You know, I was looking, I'm going on a sidetrack here. I was looking at something the other day. And it almost, it just literally took the breath out of my, out of my chest. I'm going to show you something. If you remember, I feel like now, in their defense, it could be two years now.

5:09Okay, it feels like it was less than a year or a year-ish that I mentioned that I was in the market for a Fender tone master amp. And I just didn't want to spend $1,500 for a digital tight product, you know, when you can get a used Fender Basement for $1,000. Now, what I'm going to show you is, is that the Fender Basement right here is $2,199, $2,200. By the way, you can still find them all day for $1,000. So you know, I just got one for $1,000, $1,050, shipped, done, in mint condition. So that's half of new. Now, what's the tone master digital version going for? $1,839. And what's funny is, I would have swore I saw when it's $1,900. I wonder if I go into this, if it's one of those tricks. Oh, look, I was right. I was losing my mind. I was in here two days when I made the purchase for the real one. I was like, let me look at the tone master again. And I was like $2,000. No way. Look at that. Already dropped it. $160.

6:15Okay, so obviously no one's paying $2,000 for the tone master stuff. I think this is a bad idea. And I understand prices are not always to the discretion of the company. Like said, we have external prices problems. We have labor costs. You have regulation. You have taxes. You have tariffs. You name it. It's coming at everybody in all directions. Like I said, my stance on the political sense is that there's always a nightmare. There's always a catastrophe. There's always a reason why something's going to happen. And it seems like it's more and more often now. And it's just... And the pick says $1,000. Where? First of all, you could go, let's take a look. Let's take a look to see where you can find one right now for a good price. Let's... This wasn't going to be about Fender Basement. But I feel like now it has to be a little bit Fender Basement 59. Okay, go here.

7:17Oh, look at this right here. First one I pull up. Look at that. Here's a used one of guitar center for $1,000. Here's a used one of guitar center for $1200. Here's a used one of guitar center for $1300. Here's another used one of guitar center for $1,029. And great condition listed. Here's one of guitar center for $1200. So here's one for $1500. But that's a little bit more. Here's another one for $1,099. This is without even trying, guys. I just did this in minutes. So not even trying. You can find one for $1,000. So you know, I think there's even a better deal. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. I'm going to try this real quick. Sadly enough, if it's sold, there's no history. So there's no way to show you. But let me try Fender Basement 59. Okay, so I found one of my local Craigslist for $1250. Here. This is in Tucson.

8:18But I just want to make sure. And so here, I'll open it so you guys see it. This one's in in Tucson for $1250. But so you know, just a couple, I think a week ago, I can't remember a week or two weeks ago. There was one for $750. I didn't, I wasn't interested in it. I was thinking about it. And then I talked myself out of it and then it disappeared. So I didn't know if he pulled it or if it's not there anymore. Let's just see if I can find it real quick. Like if it still exists, it doesn't. So, so anyways, so yeah, that's not, that wasn't hard. Search it for a deal when you can find something for half off immediately. It's not, it doesn't mean it's hard to find. So back to that, what does that mean? I mean, obviously somebody saying the, basically this is all to allude that somebody mentioned in the comments right now that Fender says, hike their prices up to I, I think that's part of their problem too. You know, I think, I think they've been too eager to keep hiking prices up. But they have a plan. And when I say they have a plan, I have a theory that they have a plan.

9:19Let me tell you, if you guys have been on Instagram or YouTube recently or Facebook or TikTok, you have probably seen somebody saying something like, hey everyone, Fender sent me an exclusive model. Hey everyone, I just got the exclusive Fender model. Hey everyone, I just got a Fender only available on Fender.com. Hey everyone, I just got a model only sold at Fender.com. You're seeing a lot of that. I was able, in fact, I share with my patrons, I was able to find a, I don't know, half a dozen, six, which isn't a whole lot, but very quickly, by the way, I did that in like 10 minutes, just like I was looking for basements. And then of course, I was approached by Fender to basically do a, you know, a marketing push, right? In other words, hey, like highlight a product and talk about product. And of course, send people not to the local Fender dealer, not to sweet water, our guitar center, or, you know, anywhere you choose to purchase, the money only comes, and this is the important part, if I send you to Fender.com.

10:23I got to send you to Fender.com. I get a piece of the sale. Now that's an affiliate link. And as you know, like all influencers, I do affiliate links. However, I've been clear about this. The only real exclusive affiliate link I generally will push is Stu Mac. And the reason being, I use their tools and have for over 20 years. And as you guys know, they were in my videos. And also in true transparency, I help Stu Mac set up that affiliate link so that they don't have to pay me to make videos. Because that's how it usually works, right? They pay you to do a video. My logic was, let me do whatever video I want. And I'll put my links to the tools I use. And if they buy something, I helps my channel. That's where I was motivated to do that. But mostly if I'm promoting an affiliate link, it's usually to Sweetwater, a guitar center, or someone or reverb where you make the choice of what you want to buy there. I don't really have to worry about you have to buy the thing I'm specifically pushing, right? The reason why that's important to me, this is a side notice, I learn this the hard way when I do the deep dives. If I do a deep dive, obviously I find a problem in the guitar, the amount of guitars that would convert for sale is dramatically affected.

11:29And you can imagine that could mean thousands of dollars in a period of time over time for me. So in any content creator, so what happens is it really kills your motivation to find the flaws in the guitars when that is specifically connected. It's not like a company telling me to not say anything negative. It's specifically connected to my sales. For example, I constantly, as you know, I buy a guitar, and then I do it, I find a flaw in it. When I go to resell that guitar, you can imagine it really tanks the value. No one's really super excited to buy a guitar that was on Filmic Knight's channel that he didn't give 100%. You know, this is the greatest guitar ever. No one really wants to own that. Usually if somebody wants to buy a guitar, it's because that was in a video so they can show their friends like, hey, this was on this channel and look at how well it did and look how much praise this person gave it. That's why we don't generally sell a lot of guitars straight to the public. I just churn them off to, you know, local dealers or the guitar center and just take the hit. So I don't have to think about, you know, that when I'm making the video, I don't have to think like, oh, if I point out this other defect among the other three defects, now this guitar is really worth a lot less. I don't want to think like that.

12:38So my point is not to not to talk about this. I'm just talking about the, I think the strategy here is clear. In my opinion, again, I got to say my opinion that Fender's definitely not only selling direct, this seems to be an active movement to go direct and it's probably to to not so much so you guys know so not so much in an evil like to circumvent their dealers. In the, hey, screw the dealers. Let's, you know, let's keep all the money. I think it's because the dealers aren't moving enough product and they're in a bad way because I think they have about $186 million in debt. That could be a factor of that, but the biggest factor is, you know, they got to, they got to move product and so if the, if the small dealers can't move it, the influencers can. I want to let you know, this is something I had private discussion with my wife and I was confirming some numbers with her. As you know, I was a Fender dealer for over a decade in a store in, in Arizona. And my store was one of the premium Fender dealers. Now that doesn't mean against guitar center. I can't compete with that as a small dealer, but I'm talking about when you take the other Fender dealers in the state Arizona, we were always top one or two in the state.

13:44And there's about 10, I think. So, so we're always number one, number two in sales. Without a doubt, as a YouTube personality, I haven't got channel. Just looking at affiliate clicks for what you guys buy at Sweetwater and guitar center reverb, you name it. I sell way more per year here than I ever did at the store as a dealer. And I would assume, I'm getting assuming that a lot of influencers are flipping gear to us, die hard gear freaks. More so than some of the dealers are now or is at the rate and think about this, they're cutting in the influencer at 10%, but the dealer has to get at least a 30 to 40% margin. You know, it could be, it could be a way for Fender to really see an opening in the problem. In other words, and just go for that. And I could be coincidence. I'd find it, I find it, you know, you see them kind of saying, hey, we have to lay off some, some people, make some changes. And then also the direct marketing got really aggressive. They've been doing direct marketing for years. I've been a Fender affiliate for, I feel like a year or two now, and maybe longer. And this is the most aggressive. I've seen it.

14:55I don't know. And so, you know, unfortunately, when I sign up for these things, because it's through your affiliate networks, I don't know if in that rhetoric of contract, if there's any kind of disclosure laws, like no, you know, like they put in there, I can't disclose. So I'm not going to disclose any of the personal information that they send to me about those things, just so you guys know, I can try and figure it out. But I would bet I don't want to read 20 pages just to tell you guys, oh, this is what they said in my last email. So I just want to let you know, I'm kind of not talking about that particular, but what what they did sit sent me does seem to line up with what I'm seeing out there and what you could obviously see out there, which is a ton of influencers really pushing fender dot com. And the idea that I think it's because they they'd see that is the either the next way to get revenue coming or they're trying to fix a problem where there's revenue not coming from their dealer networks. And this really is disappointing for one reason, one reason only I really think and I, you know, what do I know just like a lot of you guys were all just talking here on a Friday, I really feel like if they could just focus on the quality, you know, just focus on the quality.

16:06And so you know, I can kind of tell you this, I can tell you that for sure they know they have a quality issue because I was given privilege information internally from employees. Who are no longer there so and I don't mean they're they left and they're like disgruntled mean just they're no longer there now so because they're no longer now I don't know that you know if they figure out who told me, I don't think there'll be any repercussion to them that they were in meetings. Just within the last two years with executive team or the, you know, their management at fender discussing what how bad the quality assurance reject rates were and how much money it was costing fender and I think we even talked about that you'd have to go back in a back episode. So like said, my point is fender knows that there is some quality issues and I think last year, if you think about last year, this time last year, fender, January, fender, January, February, fender, we'll call January, February, from now on in fender area of 2025, you know, I independently bought some of the new fender made in cortex factory standards.

17:18And at that time, like I said, they were fine. I just wasn't excited about them. It didn't prompt me to get any, you know, like wow, this is what a great future in mind. But again, it felt like again, fender just trying to, you know, constantly cash in on an idea and not just focus on, hey, you could probably get somebody to pay $100 for a made Mexico telecaster if it didn't have issues. You much easier than just getting them a $600 one made in Indonesia or China. That's just my opinion. Some of you going to say no, because some of you are definitely focused on the price always and it's like, oh, I know, I just want to be cheap and cheap, cheap, cheap. But I think sometimes there are sometimes you want cheap is not an affordability issue, affordability issue, although that is a factor. Some of us, you know, hey, yeah, I don't got the money to pay $1,000 for a guitar. So that's just an affordability factor. But I think a lot of people are just, it's not worth that kind of money. So if they make a lesser expensive option, I don't mind putting in the work to fix the flaws that I'm probably anticipating that one's going to have because the other one above it's going to have to.

18:20And we had just talked about in the last few weeks and I don't remember the episode I apologize if one of the, if one of you put it in the comments, which one of us where I was just talking about the fact that when I was mentioning reverend guitars and how I could blindly almost recommend a reverend guitar because they don't make cheap junk and they, they don't make any $3,000 guitar. It's like they just make this, you know, right in the middle meat potatoes guitar. And yeah, they're not cheap or super affordable, but they're really good. And I used to talk about fender Mexico the way I now currently talk about reverend, you know, like, hey, Phil, I want to get a guitar that's really good. It don't, I can't spend a lot of money, but I'm not looking for the, you know, the cheapest, you know, Amazon deal out there. And I could say, in fact, I did on this show for at least five years. I would say, made Mexico strat. How many times does somebody say, hey, would you pick a John Mayer Silver Skyseer or Mexican strat. Hey, Phil, would you pick a Shakur or Mexican strat and every time Mexican strat Mexican strat Mexican strat Mexican telly. And now I'm like, it's hit or miss with vendor every time. Hit or miss. And so it'll, it'll be interesting to see how these changes affect. I'm hoping that they, you know, that the people that affected by this, I hope they find new jobs soon or they figure out something.

19:35But it's, I thought I would just share the news and talk about this because again, it's something we've talked about. We just keep talking about it. And, and I feel like the situation doesn't get better, but yet fender just keeps having issues. So, I don't know. David says, hey, should I buy a sharp LHH or Reverend? You know, here's the funny thing about this. And I don't know if it's a joke or being serious, but let me answer it in the craziest way that's going to really articulate my point. My sharp LHDK24 is one of my favorite guitars. It's made in Mexico. I like it so much that, you know, when I was pairing down my collection of guitars, as you do, you know, it kind of plumes up and you're like, okay, I'm not playing all these. Let's pair it down. I had to choose for the type, for the type of guitar that guitar is between my music man, John Patruch, these, you know, six string guitar. And USA or that. And I picked the sharp L over that. And I kept the sharp LHDK and I got rid of the patruchy. Because as great as that guitar was, the music man, I was like, I just think the sharp LHDK is just as good. I like the, you know, I put some de Margeos in it and even though it had Duncan's and I like it.

20:43But I got to tell you that guitar did not come out of the box that way. It had Fred Sprout twice, even though it had a roasted maple neck. It had a couple of their issues. I have to remove one of the string trees because if you go look at that video, I'll show I told you guys that it just would not stay in tune. So I had to remove one of the string trees, make some adjustments and ultimately change it to another couple of components in that guitar. That guitar at the time, I don't know what they go for now, a DK24 sharp LMA in Mexico, at the time was $1,000. And so, and that was, I think I've had it for, I mean, since 2020, probably, or 221, at least five years because, Pain Huffer painted it and I, right after we did the, the great guitar build off and we, we had them paint a guitar for us. So, basically what I'm trying to say is, I love my sharp L, I'd recommend it, but I'm going to recommend it much differently than the reverend. I've had, I've had my hands on a dozen reverend guitars on the channel off the channel, friends guitars, much fewer issues consistently than I've seen with sharp LHDK.

21:49So, and that doesn't mean one's better than the other when it comes to the guitar that you want, how it sounds. We're talking about just out of the box quality, out of the box quality, inside I would give it, I would give that to, to the reverend. Okay, let's, let's see any, any comments or questions specifically about this topic right now and then we'll move on. Steve says, hey, only Fender offers the dishwasher sponge. I know you would think that the dishwasher sponges would have saved Fender financially with that decision, but unfortunately it did not. So, it's funny, some of you guys are talking about Princeton sponges and then again, let's see, you guys are really, really talking about the sponges a lot. I would say, although the joke of this sponge is funny, because it's just a weird goofy product, but, but, oh, here's a good one.

22:54I was going to say, you know, really I think the quality issues were the focus on salty starfish says, hey, do you think there's a quality difference in Indonesia versus Mexico made Fenders? Not really. I think, I think, I've been to both factories, although it's been a while since I'm in the Mexico factory. So, I've been to obviously the Indonesian factory is recent with no less than a year ago. So, I have probably dated, you know, information mentally from the made Mexico factory, and I'm a big proponent for the made Mexico factory. I think it's a, like I said, I think it was one of the best ideas Fender ever did, you know, you have a factory. The main Mexico factory not only is a dealer, but as a Fender fanatic was one of the greatest things they ever did in my opinion, because it was a bunch of things. I was going to say three, I'm just going to make up numbers, but whatever the number is, I'll just go through the things. First, it allowed them to be close to the manufacturer. So, you go, you know, they're in in Sonata. In Sonata is just an hour, two hours away from, I'm sorry, they're not in Sonata.

24:00They're in Corona. Corona is only a few hours away from in Sonata, so they, you know, they can go to that factory. You know, Indonesia, as you know, it took me 36 hours to get there from 30 hours in total travel from LAX. Okay, so Fender's got to travel 30 hours to get to the Cortec factory. It's not an easy, easy trip, because it's not like a direct flight to Indonesia from LA. So, so you can understand, it gives them more control that way. Secondly, you have a quality, you have a great quality, you have a workforce with a great work ethic and skill set because one in five people in Mexico play guitar. So, you have a likelihood that people in the guitar factory actually play guitar. Trust me, very few people in the Indonesian factory play guitar. Is that a factor? Do you need that? Well, you know, I've had people like Paul Reed Smith and Jeff Keisel mentioned that the majority of their workers are guitar players. And that's not necessarily because obviously Leo Fender didn't play guitar, but workers who play guitar, they have our passion.

25:02And therefore, they look at these things a little bit differently than just a quality of work as a pass fail system. The other thing is, it allows Fender to pull the trigger a lot closer to when they need things. So, for instance, let's say they need inventory, they're trying to figure out fourth quarter needs or whatever. Across the world, you've got to make decisions, not only months advanced, sometimes years in advance, Mexico allows them to make that decision a lot closer to when they need it. They can pull that trigger a little closer. They also don't have to worry about anybody else making any other products in the Mexico factory. So, the Mexico factory only makes Fender products. Besides, of course, it makes Charvel EVH, which are all Fender branded products and Jackson. So, it's all Fender products, okay? Where Cortec, although Fender has its own building, and so to squire, there is some cross contamination, and more importantly, you are kind of giving your sauce away to a third party. Cortec now knows whatever Fender teaches them, and as you see, Cortec is adapting as a factory over the years.

26:09It's becoming instead of the place where manufacturers go and teach them how to make a thing that they want, they're going there because they already know how to make a thing better than they know how to make. So, basically, that's my way of saying, I think Mexico Fender is a better decision for Fender. I think it's a better decision for us. It's a better decision economically for us. I mean, some people say, I'd rather buy USA. Me too. I mean, heck, I think every guitar here today may USA guitar? Okay, no. One. So, I didn't plan that. I have one guitar. That grouch is made in Japan. Every guitar on this wall that you see behind you. Oh, Ireland. Let's not forget Ireland, guys. Okay, so Ireland, Japan, and the rest is made in USA. So, obviously, I'm a fan of USA Meat products. I'm an American, and I'm proud of my country and the workforce that I'm part of. But that being said, I like that when we can work with Canada, I like when we can work with Mexico. There are neighbors.

27:10You know, there's some benefits to us on a lot of fronts just like there is to them. So, I kind of really like that. I think Cortec makes a great guitar, but I also think that part of the thing about Cortec is they're not going to allow Cortec to make a better guitar than Mexico. And I'd like to pick on them for that, but when I was there, I didn't really see anything difference in anybody else's philosophy. As we truly know now, Cortec is not making everybody's guitars at the best ability. Cortec can make a guitar. They're making the guitars based on the price points that these manufacturers or these brands want the guitar to be sold at. And that's just how it goes. And I like the Indonesian-made standard-tellus strats bases they're fine, but I would still rather buy a made-mix-go personally. And I'm friends with the Cortec guys. Think about that. I'm really close friends with them. Okay. So, let's go ahead. I think we got it. Unless I missed anything. Anyone's comment?

28:12And then, okay, we'll end on this because it's the last Fender-type subject. I see it says, this is from Marty B. Marty B says, Phil, what's your overall impressions when comparing tone master amps to their two component parts? The tone master amps are very good. I actually call them decadent. I feel kind of like, you know, when you look at it right now, I have a boss katana behind me. I can't see it. It's not funny. There's no light hitting it that way. But anyways, I love the boss katana. I love those kind of amps too, you know, right? The Roland cubes, all this stuff. In my personal opinion, I think the tone master series is as a level above all of those. But there's so much more expensive. Like, I can't, I can't, you know, you keep hearing it in my voice. I can't get to $1,500 on these things. I can't get to $1,200 on these things. Now, I don't have a need for that. See, a need really kind of helps you focus in your price point, right? A lot of people don't understand. It's like, when they look at something and they go, oh, I don't think it's worth 300 bucks.

29:14And I'm like, well, you also don't need it, right? So let me give you an example of a need. I'm not hauling my 65 deluxe reverb to a gig three times a week. Maybe I'd have a different opinion if I was, where not only would if I got the tone master 65 deluxe, it would be a little lighter. Also, I could direct into the PA with an IR. That would definitely change my opinion of how much it costs versus how much my amp costs. And I really wanted a tone master basement 59 for a couple of reasons. One, the basement 59 tone master has reverb, something I have to add to the basement. It also is a little lighter, which is always something nice because the basement is actually pretty heavy because of the four speakers. The basement also has like an attenuation thing so you can crank it. It's great. My problem with it and why I don't value it for not only $1500, my much less than now $2,000 point is I could never get my hands on the try one. And so without trying it, I've had an experience with the tone masters, all of them.

30:16One experience with all of them that I thought was a little negative that I didn't like, which is they don't like all pedals. See a fender amp to me is the ultimate pedal platform amp. I'm sure there's two rocks and there's all kinds of great amps out there too, but I'm just saying when I think of fender amps, that's what you do with them. You put your pedals in front of them. They have this ultimate clean. They sound great. They're relatively loud and not super heavy. It's not like you're taking a half stack. But then you run your pedals and all pedals just sound really good for the most part. With the tone master series, I want to say they're bitchy. Like all of a sudden, one pedal sounds like A, B. I could A, B a tone master 65. I'm just picking on the 65 and the Princeton can be the same too. You tone master 65 against the 65 Deluxe Reverb. I could take, I could pick 10 pedals if I wanted to for this challenge. I could pick five where they sound exactly the same through both amps and you go, oh, yeah, they're the same. And the next five and every case, the tone master sounded fizzier and worse.

31:18It's just something it doesn't like about pedals. Fuzz pedals specifically, I didn't have a whole lot of luck with on the tone master series. But if you're not using fuzz pedals, who cares, right? I mean, it's not something that affects it. Why do I think that happens? I don't know. I've already, when I did my A being trying to decide if I was keeping, which one I was keeping, because that's what happened. I bought a tone master, as you guys know, I did a video. I have a 65 Deluxe Reverb. I A-Bed them, A-Bed them, A-Bed them, and eventually decided I'd like the 65 Deluxe Reverb. And I even said, and I think somewhere in this, on the podcast as well, if I didn't already have a 65 Deluxe Reverb real one, I probably would have been happy with the tone master. But I'm not getting rid of the real one for the tone master. Just for saving a little weight and then having a direct out, the intonuation was not super important to me, as I don't really crank them for overdrive. I'm not running my fenders for overdrive. So, that's my thoughts on that. Although I've heard rumors that the new HyperDrive EVH tone master, since the series amp, sounds really good.

32:20But I, again, couldn't find one physically to try. The EVH guys reached out. I reached it out back to them. I got ghosted. That was the end of that. I'll still try and find one, and I'll get one on the channel if I can. Let's see. Steve says, the pedal show speaks of this. If I recall, when this pedal show did a video on the tone master, they literally came in the same conclusion I did, which is, they liked it, but of the two, they definitely wanted the real thing, whatever that means. The real tubes, and they got real tubes. But like I said, tone master stuff, I think it's good. And I don't think it needs to be cheap. I just think it's priced just a little too high. And the reason why, not because I'm an affordable aspect, it's because to me, it's not a forever product. And so, it's a lot easier to justify some products like a guitar, certain guitars, certain amps, because you know you're going to probably have them until you're sick of them. So then you'll sell them off tone master digital products. It's not even about them breaking a lot of people where you're like, oh, when they break, they're going to break, they're going to break.

33:28You know, digital products, just don't hold value. Perfect example is I've recently decided, which I have not announced you guys officially that I am not, I decided I'm not using my camper anymore. And guess what? If anyone's interested in a camper, you should reach out to me direct message me. You're going to get a camper a great deal. I have tried to sell the camper. I tried to give it away, not literally like donate it, but sell it for dirt cheap. And everywhere I went, which is, I'm going to say everywhere, it's not like 100 places, like four places, everywhere I went, had way too many campers and they couldn't take any more campers used. It was like, it actually had a flashback to my teenage years when we had, we still do, we had Zia records here in the Arizona where you trade records and tapes when I would go and try to trade in certain CDs. And it was like, you know, and they're like, yeah, we have, we have 13 of those. We're not taking those on trade right now because everybody decided they're done with that band.

34:31And that's what it was like having. So in fact, I did some trading yesterday guitar center and I took a pile of stuff and the pile stuff and the only thing they didn't keep are the only thing they didn't take was my camper. And I even sarcastically said, they said, just so you know, they said, Phil, we don't want your camper. Okay. And they go, and even if we did right now, we would probably offer you a low price and insult you. But don't even care. Whatever price you throw, I'd probably take it and they're like, nah, I'm like, okay. So this is my point. Why is everybody dumping their campers right now? I have no idea. I know why I'm doing it, but I'm not announcing it. Why? Because I've switched to another product after having the camper for about five years and I really like my camper. It's not, I've not fallen out of love with it. Again, work purpose flow purposes. I found something that work purpose flows better for me. I kind of even argue sounds better might even technically not sound as good to me or at least it sounds as good as the camper, but work flows faster and easier and more practical for my needs.

35:37So, okay. So let's, let's do the next thing. What do we got? We're going to the clock. Make sure we're on time. Let me grab a couple of these if you don't mind. And that gives me a little second to sip some water. Antique rocker says, hey, I purchased a beat buddy mini to instead of the beat buddy 160 bucks versus 500 dollars. What am I missing by not getting the big boy to use the foot switch? So I use the foot switch. I have the external foot switch. I had the beat buddy mini. I liked it. So you know, totally fine. What are you missing? I don't know. I don't use 90% of the functions on the beat buddy too, but I like the way it sounds. I think to my year the beat buddy, the new beat buddy, the one I have sounds better than the old beat buddies. I think they are some rhetoric and they're marketing about how they resampled and stuff. It just sounds a little better. But is it worth the 160 versus the 500 dollars? I don't, I don't know.

36:40Not, not that I like said I know of. I just know I like the new beat buddy. I use it on the regular and that's about the end of that. But be buddy mini. I think, especially you paid 160 bucks. That's great. I sometimes see him use for 99 bucks to same thing. 160 bucks, 99 bucks. I don't think you can go wrong. I don't think you made a bad decision about that anti rocker. I don't think you made a bad decision. I think if anything, maybe stick with the the beat buddy mini for a while. And then if you start feeling like, wow, I wish it had more features, then maybe start looking in the features of their the newer model to see what it, what it adds. Chris says, can you recommend a good humidifier? I tried the Varnado and it doesn't get above 30%. Are you talking about like to place into a guitar? So as I've said, I really don't use a whole lot of humidification. We use some humidifiers here only when like right now, humanity's 49% so I'm okay with that. I don't keep optimum humidity in the house or even around the guitars. I don't optimize to 50 or 60% what I do is I told you guys, if in my experience, if your humidity goes below, I'm going to say 40%.

37:51So once you're in the 30s, like, once a couple of weeks ago, the shop was at 32 and I was like, Oh, no, and I knew it. And I knew something was going to happen and it did one of my guitar spread sprouted. And I was like, I knew it was just because I left it in there for two days. It's too dry, little too dry. So I don't really have a whole lot of recommendations for that humidifiers that I like the Dodaria ones and I like the. What is it? The music, no med ones are pretty good, but and then for a unit, I have a home, home, Mac is what it's one you buy Costco. That's what I use. Some people say it's not the one you should use. I've been using for years. I have no problems. So. Hoth custom guitars says, Hey, new amp day. All right. What'd you get? He says I just got the high tone custom low watt combo. I never heard of it. What are your thoughts on the high watts? Oh, so high watt like the brand high watt. So it's the high tone custom low watt combo. But is that a high watt thoughts on high watt and high watt stamps style amps. I have played one or two high watt amps.

38:54I know very little about them. When I said I played them, they would come in like one came in and trade or maybe two came in trade or I've found them and used to were here and there and I plugged in. Generally understanding. I least I think that they're like a Marshall type product. Are there a Marshall variant? Right. You know, in my lot and my in my life. Amps have really come down to like the three grandfathers of amps for me. So there's Marshalls. So everything's like a Marshall. So like there's a freedman. Right. There's in my opinion like a high watt. Obviously, there's the the royal is from Tonking. There's the the badger. You know, this semester amps. Some of the Bogner amps are Marshall asked just a bunch of Marshall S camps. And then the next is the fender amps. So then there's all the fence fenders and then all the fender variants. Right. And then it gets confusing because I sometimes I feel like some amp builders are kind of like pickup builders where they just kind of throw all this marketing jargon that confuses me like voiced like a box and this and this.

39:57And I'm like, I don't know. And then even though Vox should be the third. Right. So there's Vox and then all the Vox variants. So then you would have like matchless or bad cat. But then again, they all start shooting off different directions right after a while. Like bad cats got stuff that sounds like a, you know, Marshall and they got stuff that sounds like a like a Vox. And I was. So those are three. But then sometimes I always go to the Mesa, Mesa Boogie. And and I don't really consider like to me the Saldano and the EVH and all the stuff. That's an outlier because I know just enough to know that they're that Saldano is a thing. And then they kind of vary off that kind of think of those as somehow modified Marshalls in some way too. And again, generally speaking, not as like a, you know, oh, no, let me let me tell you how the circuit works. This is what they're based off. I'm not talking like that. I'm just talking about like to my ears to my usage, when I'm using stuff. And then the rarest concept of all as dumbbells. But see, dumbbells again, I feel like all modified things for modified things to me. And that's why I said, sometimes just feel like they're modified versions of stuff. So that's what I know about like high watts.

40:59And I don't know. So I don't know. I haven't tried many. Maybe I'll have to try more. That's a good way to segue into a topic. I was actually talking funny Michael Nilsen's in the chat. I was talking to Michael Nilsen about this. But I was talking about much other people. And then again, on it today. And this subject came up. This is a good time. And this is perfect because we'll do this and then we'll go into the guitar of the week. So somebody asked me, did I see Dr. Z, the owner of Dr. Z say the death. It's the death of guitar amps. It's the death of guitar amps. I did not. I went to go look for it. But also I was trying to get ready for the show today. And so I started laughing. Now I got to tell you. I don't want to talk about this like I saw whatever he had to say. And I'm going to react to it. I'm not reacting to what he said. I actually don't care. So I'm reacting to that statement as this thing seems to keep coming up. Wompler says it's the death of pedals. Right.

42:01Dr. Z is like, it's the death of amps. And I think as a content creator, look, you got to have a snazzy title. Right. You got to get somebody's interest in. You got to give them something like, you know, hey, to bite on. Hey, here's what I'm going to talk about. And here's what's going to happen. But I think the problem with those although they're great is as a title grab. I think there's this reality that I sometimes I know you guys know that that's just a title to grab your attention. And then maybe there's some context in it. But I want to tell you that one of the things that I think about every time I see a pedal builder or an amp builder because you can almost argue. And I would argue that on my right now, what do I know that, you know, what do I know about the amp market, you know, more than Dr. Z, you know, he's an amp builder. Right. How should some random YouTube guy in his bedroom talk about what he thinks. And I think the problem is is because I think even though that's a good argument, I'm going to argue a different argument today.

43:01When it comes to a pedal builder talking about the pedal market versus an amp builder talking about the market and a guitar builder versus someone like me. I like to point out I'm not vested or interested in anybody's products. In other words, I work with all kinds of people and I wish them the best because there are some of my friends and some of them just good companies and I want to support their products. But I don't make any of my money off of products being sold. It's not how I make my money. So I really don't have any skin in that game. I have skin in the make YouTube content that you guys are interested in. And so that's that's my thing. So if we want to talk about the death of YouTube, sure, I might have a differently biased opinion of that versus thing. But here's what I think I want to react to the statement, the death of guitar amps. I would rather change that every time when you guys hear them say the death of guitar amps, the death of guitar is the death electric guitar. Hey, it's the death of pedals. It's no just goodbye to the bad companies. That's what it is. There is no absolute zero.

44:07There's not even absolute zero when there's technology that comes in and takes out something, right? They still print maps. That's a fact. You have GPS on your phone. 12-year-old children have phones that have GPS all day. They still print maps. You can buy a book of maps. They still make them. There's technology never absolutely kills anything. But cars still go, right? Everything goes. I'm sure somebody's going to find out, Lier, please do. Throw it in there and tell me why I'm wrong, because you found one thing that it's not correct in this or 10 things, which still are not going to be enough. My point is, whatever's happening to amps, because it is, amps are declining at an epic rate right now. And so it's pedals. And is that death? No. It just means it just means it's some of the bad companies. And when I'm being bad, I don't mean mean a crappy just the companies that aren't the top.

45:08And I'm kind of mad at myself for saying bad companies, but I just think it illustrates the point better than being too fluffy right now. The best survive. The best amp companies will survive. I was talking about Michael Nilsen. I was telling him a story yesterday. And the story was two things. So I want to go to it. One, I was saying, when they say grunge killed heavy metal, I say no. I say they're wrong. Oh, let's argue. You guys are going to get flared up right now. It didn't. Here's how I know it didn't. Pantera was a metal 80s metal band first before they were pantera. Alison change was a 80s style metal band. There were tons of bands slash was 80s style hair metal stuff. What happens when grunge came? Yes. Grunge came. And there was some Tom Morello is a shredder Billy Corrigan from smashing bumpkins is a shredder. He can shred. He can 80 shred. He was an 80s shredder. They a lot of them. The were what they did is they adapted. They said, hey kids aren't listening to guitar hero style music that are about the girl they want to have sex with.

46:21What what's going on? Oh, they're listening to these bands. These bands who are not wearing they're not teasing their hair there. And they adapted. Some adapted badly and didn't do well. Okay. Some adapted so well. We confuse them with the actual genre themselves. Alison change is not a grunge metal band. Right now when I said Alison change adapted to some of you guys are like, oh but Phil Alison change is not a grunge metal band. They're not but they are definitely held in that era as a band that didn't get killed by grunge. They adapted in it. You're like, you think they just started that week and they were already in the market. They were making music and then they changed. Things adapt. The market adapts. Let me tell you why amp companies are hurting right now. And I again, Dr. Z by the way, I think Dr. Z makes some of the best amps. Okay. And I think by the way, if you watch his videos, I love some of his most to the point comments in his videos. So I want to let you know this isn't about Dr. Z anyway.

47:24And I'm going to watch what he has to say because I'm curious, but I actually didn't want to for this a little bit like said, I didn't have time and I was like, I kind of works out better. I was explaining to again, Michael Nelson, this is funny because it just happened yesterday. A theory I have and it was about the boss Katana. And it was like, I just did a video this week on the second channel about one of the Amphide Nation Amps, which are in my opinion a more obtainable, not affordable, more obtainable version of two rock. So if you're looking at like a two rock style amp that's five grand, you can get yourself an Amphide Nation for about four grand. To you, you're like, that's insane and insane. But to some people, man, that makes it from, you know, hey, $3,600, I got a shot at this $5,200, there's no shot. Okay. So my point though is, is that some people put in the comments, oh, my boss Katana does this. In fact, every channel that makes content can tell you very easily. Every video they do about any amp that's expensive, somebody says, oh, my boss Katana can do that. And so here's what I was explaining to Michael and my, I play very lightly or quietly.

48:33Okay. None of my family thinks that, like if you ask my wife, she's not going to tell you I play quietly. None of my neighbors probably think I play quietly. I don't know if they can hear me. But all of my guitar player friends do not think I play loud. In fact, they think I, they're always, I'm, I set my amps very quiet. I'm not, I don't crank the amps. I've just, I used to a long time ago. I don't anymore. I probably stopped 10 years ago, maybe even longer than that, maybe 15 years ago. I don't play very loud. When you have amps, let's pick on the Amphide Nation amp because it's right here, just like the Katana's right here, I'll use these two as examples. When you play that amp, as beautiful as I think that amp is, I actually think it's a work of art. So you understand, I think an amp like that, the tan made, you know, with the, the blues way and stuff. This is just an art piece to me. This is a thing that I truly love. Do I need it? No, I could totally gig anywhere with a Katana. I'm not against that argument.

49:33I just think that this makes me feel a certain way, right? I think maybe this is how people who buy like 1000, 1000, you know, whatever 25,000 or watch, maybe that's how they makes them feel. I don't understand that concept. So you know, I don't go, oh, I want a 25,000 or watch. I go, maybe it helps their self esteem. They're walking around and like, hey, what time is it? You're right. To me, this is what makes me feel good. So that's why I have this. But my point is, when I turn this amp down, the one of the best attributes of this amp, like a lot of two amps is the power section, I've taken that out of the equation. Okay. And then because I'm not using the power section to even not only its full responsibility, but just to any ability, the speakers are taking out the equation because they're not really moving like they're supposed to. So I make adjustments and I'm using pedals and all kinds of things to make things sound good at lower volumes and I, I obtain this. I'm very happy. When somebody says, oh, I can get my boss Katana something like, yeah, you can as long as we're playing fair, which is putting these two amps at a handicap by not using their full power.

50:40The reality is, I don't care what boss. I don't care if you have the artist boss. I think there's a hundred watt artist boss. There is no one is ever going to convince me that any, any boss product. I don't care. Cranked on a stage, which sounds as good as a martial amp. Cranked on a stage. There's just no way. I'm not saying it sounds bad. I'm not saying I couldn't use it. I'm not saying you're crazy if you like it. I'm just saying there's no one, like, am I AB them? And I play them both. I'm going to, I'm going to go, yeah, the, the martial I think is better. And then I would probably tell you, can we turn this stupid thing down? And then I would probably then go, well, the Katana works for me or the artist Katana, whatever. So my point is, this is why I'm talking about adapting. I talk to amp builders all the time. They, they don't listen to anything I say. And I don't mean because I'm a YouTuber. I mean, because when I'm speaking, I'm speaking to them for, I'm you, right? We're all here on a Friday talking about crap that doesn't matter.

51:40This is who we are. People are so fanatical. We're so fanatical about the thing we love music and guitars and amps that we just want to talk about them. Play them, talk about them, look at them, right? Right? I mean, I look at guitars and magazines the way I think some guys look at like playboy sports models or whatever. They're just staring at girls all the time. I'm like, just, oh, look at this guitar. So my point is, when I talk to amp builders about the future, hey, we need more lower water jams because the power section is not really relevant to a lot of us. You know, we need amps that are good, but not crazy. We don't need $5,000 amps that literally are 100 watt amps. And the amp builders are stuck with the rock stars. They're still also, they're also talking to professional musicians and the professional musicians are giving them the opposite. Hey, this is what I need. But that's the minority. None of us are rock stars. In fact, even if you're gigging on the regular, you're being told to turn down.

52:46I just told you I don't play that loud. I haven't played a gig in the last 20 years that I wasn't told to turn down. And I don't crank that loud. It's because they always just want the volume down. So I guess my point is is that whenever I see like pedals are dead or the death of pedals or the death of guitars or the death of the amps, it's really just, hey, it's the survival of the fittest and the ones that figure out where the market's going, they're going to do fine. They'll do great. And the ones that don't, they're going to be in trouble. We see it all the time, you know, we saw it with G&L. They made great products, but they just didn't adapt not only in their marketing, but they didn't adapt, adapt in their pricing, their design, their, their, their delivery strategy with their dealers. And so I, that's my two cents on this subject and every time this subject comes up because I just want to say every time I hear the death of something, I kind of always chuckle a little bit like, yeah, it doesn't die. Okay, that's not what happens to it. It just, it's changing. And the change means somebody goes away. And maybe that means they die. I don't know.

53:52There it is. There I just contradicted my whole statement for fun. Matt says, hey, any reason why you can't download episodes on YouTube premium, I did not know that let me check. Actually, let me check right now. I will check after tonight. I will look as far as I know, there is no setting that allows me to, to stop you from that. But if there is, and I've clicked it somehow, I'll fix it. You know, last week, I got it. I get this every about, I don't know, I want to say 10 episodes, so every three, three months, let's call it 12 episodes every three months. But once a quarter, once a quarter, I get a couple of comments going, hey, you've turned off your closed captions. Hey, turn on the closed captions. That's not me. I, there is a setting that you can turn off closed captions. In other words, so your, your video doesn't have closed captions. I think I heard our red ones that that's even illegal to do. So it's weird that it's an option. Maybe it's made an option for certain countries or something.

54:59But I don't do that at all. But if you notice, it's never happened once ever on an actual video I made, but always on the podcast, it's because sometimes there's a backlog on YouTube. I'm not sure the official answer, but they don't get to it. They don't do it. And then eventually they updated and they do it. It's always them. And I've in the past, I've sent them a message. And every time they send me a response, a day or two later saying, oh, it's fixed. But they didn't fix it. It just caught up. And then they just tell me. So I stopped emailing them. So I'm just letting you guys know, I'll figure out the download thing. And if there's a problem, I'll fix that. And on the closed captions, I appreciate you guys putting comments. I said, I used to answer you guys if I'm not answering now, it's not for any reason, then there's nothing I can do about it. So that's my official statement. There's nothing I can do about it. I always check it though. So anytime anywhere you guys put the, hey, there's no closed captions. I go to check to make sure I haven't accidentally hit any kind of weird setting. So. And I also think that part of the problem. So you know, on the closed caption thing is because I don't monetize the show until after it starts replay.

56:04And you've probably heard this before. When you don't monetize and you're a channel like me with this kind of, there's 1,500 of you live. YouTube's like punishing you a little bit. So they, they'll throttle down. So not only do I not get the monetization for the first two hours of the show, which is on approximately 6000 views. Just so you guys know, you guys think it's 1500 views because there's 1500 view. There's 1500 view at any one minute or one second here right now. But through the two hours, we're going to cycle apparently four, four times your number because there's about, sometimes about four or five thousand people. So I lose out on the four or five thousand views that we do because we're not monetizing. And then they throttle down the, the sharing it afterwards because it wasn't monetized yet. It's a, it's so you know, just for, because it's sponsored by patrons. So I guess it doesn't really matter anyways, but it's about $150 per episode is what we lose. There's 52 episodes you do the math. That's what we lose a year by doing at free at the beginning. That's, you'll hear a lot of channels say, hey, I don't make much. Well, that's probably because they had like 30 people live and they get 200 views.

57:096000 views on a two hour stream like this. It's about 150 bucks to the channel that we are skipping. So I'm just letting you know and but the not to tell you like on the money side, I just want you explain that that's why I think YouTube is also not worried about close captions and also messing with some of the features. They, they put us as a back burner where no different than if you have a new channel at that point, you're not monetized. They don't care about it because there's no money for them to make. So, okay, and then cigar dad saying YouTube also let us stop letting us use the playback speed. Yeah, I don't know what that is. I mean, I know what it is, but I don't know why it would affect that there shouldn't be anything effects that there's nothing in the settings we can do to prevent you or have that or anything like that. Let's grab this one. This one was from Amanda. This is from Amanda. She said, she grabbed this and says, hey, Phil, red that reversing the saddles on a tunimatic bridge can improve intonation on wound strings. Is this true.

58:19I would argue whether it's true or not would probably be irrelevant as I don't think that's why anyone does it when you top wrap us a string on a tunimatic bridge. bridge tailpiece. It is generally been used for attention change to change the way that it feels when you're doing bins. And I've talked about this before that one of the things I always thought was funny was I think Greg Almond from the Almond Brothers did it and Zach Wilde did it. And I always thought there was funny because these are probably two dudes that never cross pass and said, hey, that's how I do it. Me too. So it's funny to me when different musicians, kind of like when I was saying about the story about Fender with different people, when different people who are playing different things that are in different places can come across the same idea. Sure, they could have heard them the same, but for them to adopt them, to me kind of solidifies them as being more of true thing than so much just a, you know, a wives tell our myth.

59:22I have top wrapped my tell pieces on my guitars and I have noticed the exact same thing you when you wrap over the top, your tension is decreased the feel of it decreases. And so if you're playing 10 to 46, they feel a little bit looser. So I've heard that there is sustained increase, you know, increased sustained intonation. I could see that as an argument. I don't know why intonation would. So here's my point. As someone who's worked on these guitars for so many years, I don't know what it would be physically changing because the intonation is from the saddle. From the bridge saddle to the nut, right? That's work. That's where intonation is affected. Intonation is not affected by anything past those two points. So it's from that tip to that tip. So it's like really where the string rests into the saddle from so and this continue this part.

1:00:23I was going to use a sharpie. It doesn't matter. So you get the point. This is the string. This is the string. This is the saddle. The intonation would be affected from when the string is contacting this point forward. If this is the bridge and then on the nut, the same thing would be before the end of the nut. By the way, so you guys know in your screen, I'm probably doing this weird holding it this way because I have something in front of me. So I had to turn that this round reading your question. So my point is intonation being affected. Is it possible? There is another factor in intonation, which is tension. It's guitar. So what I mean by that is you could hit a note because remember, people think of intonation as just being distance where sometimes it can physically be tension because we, you know, hitting an open string lightly. You go, oh, it's perfectly intonated. Let's say take a a for 40, you know, that's not really going to be your intonation. 100% your intonation is really more affected more. You're going to notice it more the more you go up the neck. So maybe with tension, it will get different. So maybe by changing the tension, you can improve the intonation.

1:01:24There may be an argument there, but I'm going to stick with my original statement, which is whether it is or isn't a factor in intonation. I would say that's not why anybody's doing it. That could be a byproduct that they notice. The by the function of it is to change the tension on a less Paul to make it easier to play, especially players who play really thick strings is what I noticed too. So if you haven't done it, you can try. You can try it. You just top rap rap rap. I have a video. I'm pretty sure it's either the, I think it's the guitar miss video, which is like a million view video, and I discussed that in detail why they do it and why, why all this stuff. But so pop, pop, it's something says you can just use a guitar to demonstrate it. I could, but then I have to hold the guitar awkwardly in front of the camera and then point. It's not set up that way. It's not how it works. Unfortunately, you got to set up your rig the way it's set up. So in the other, in the other rig, I can show you guys in detail anything.

1:02:25But here I, it's the more the second I go and grab a guitar and just start pointing at things that gets a little more difficult. Plus, because so many people consume the podcast is audio only, I have to describe it verbally more than I have to show you anyways, because otherwise people listening in the car right now are going to go, I don't know what he's talking about because he's not not saying anything. Triple, this is also from Amanda, triple trains, triplet trains 1373 says, hey, have you ever had two guitars sound alike? And what would you change to make them sound different? I would say that's the rarest thing I've ever come across to even identical guitar sounding the exact same and feeling the same is probably the hardest thing to achieve. I've probably spent more time in my life trying to get two guitars to sound alike than I've ever found two guitars sounding alike to the point where it's almost like I think it's a futile effort. I don't know if I would ever. You know, somebody's like, I got two identical strats, same wood, same pickup, same height, same measurement, same string, same setup, same frets, and they don't sound alike. But yeah, that sounds more like it to me.

1:03:29I think it's because the variables are so much that it's too hard to get all of them exact. Have I have, I ever played or had two guitars that sound exactly like maybe I don't remember, I don't think it's ever happened. I don't think. I mean, generally speaking, like could I convince you on a YouTube video by strumming a couple generic chords and saying through the microphone's going, oh, they sound the same, don't they? It's funny, it's funny about the one dimensional kind of concept of showing things on a platform like YouTube. You can really convince people of some bullshit really easy. You can go like, hey, look, Ling, this sounds like this, Ling. And if you haven't figured out why honesty is so important on YouTube is really the real thing you need is somebody to explain the personal experience to you. And although that can be tainted with their bias, which is why knowing their bias is important, and it can also be tainted with their experience or lack of or, you know, maybe too much experience. At least if you have an idea, if somebody's telling you like, hey, you know, regardless of what you're hearing, this is what's really happening, right?

1:04:36That's where it happens. But yeah, in a YouTube video, I can make two guitars sound exactly like because you just stop doing anything that's going to increase the variable of that. So like I said, a perfect example is like, strum the strings open on one guitar and then strum the strings open on another guitar and go, look, they're the same and they're going to sound generally the same. But will all be other things that are really important to you be the same, probably not so much. And I didn't really get too much in that to my channel, but in the beginning, I did a lot of comparison stuff. And then over time, you do comparison because people like it. But then what you realize is that it's almost impossible to give them a real good comparison. You would just have to tell them the difference. And then the skeptics come in. It's like, it's weird that the guitar community has the same skeptics as every other community. But we do have them like, whoa, you know, when you didn't show us the proof of that, like the proof of it is telling you what I think. So that's my thought on that. Two guitars sound like it's very difficult. Which is why I think, so you know, and I think a lot of same people, we'll call them saying guitar players, think that tone wood, not that exists or doesn't exist.

1:05:46It's where tone wood debate came from. Where tone wood comes from? The concept is, two guitars never sound the same, usually. Say never is a hard word, right? Generally don't sound the same. And so then the argument becomes, oh, well, it's because they're different woods. And if they're not different woods, it's just different, you know, densities of wood or different grains or different, you know, tight, you know, right? And so that's the, that becomes, I think where that argument comes from. The reality is, you know, the best I've ever heard it put is, is this. When somebody says, oh, everything sounds the same. Like, oh, if that's true, then it'd be a lot easier to make money in this business. If I could make every guitar sound the exact same, that would be the easiest thing to do, right? Is, I could sell them. The problem is, is, is that guitar players go in a music store and they pick up seven of the same guitar and yet six of them they don't like and one of them they love. If you could convert all of those seven to being the one they love, you would make a lot more money. And I told you guys that I've learned this the hard way as someone who had to sell guitars for a long time in a store.

1:06:46That was my money tied up in those guitars when guitars just could not sell. I don't mean one person didn't like it. I mean, every guitar player came in and they just didn't like it. They didn't like this guitar and you do a full set up on it. They didn't like it. Just there's something about the guitar. It just didn't appeal to anybody. You just learn like, you know, this not everything is going to be great. Some guitars are just not great or even good even. Let's see. Guitar sample. No, guitars amps and coffee. Oh, see, that's good. I like that name. So guitars amps and coffee says, hey, I found a Jackson X series Kelly for $100 at a thrift store. That's awesome, especially the thrift store because I hear all the time that they're gouging down stuff. So is any suggestions for a pick up a grade that would be for that guitar that would kind of 80s rock Van Halen kind of vibe definitely go with the JB jazz. But dude, find a use one stick use JB's in there. So somebody's always yanking out of JB in the in the guitar JB jazz, you know, get yourself a use set of Seymour Duncan's that would definitely do it or get yourself some used to Margeos or some copy of those kind of pickups a lot of good copies out there.

1:07:54Mighty Might makes good copies. What's that? What am I having trouble with that? They make the SLS guitars. Why can't I think of the name of the guitar fetish they make some good copy pickups. So you can always get copies if you want the real deal. I totally understand that. So just but by used pick up uses sometimes a great deal. So and a JB is a great pick up. Especially for the 80s. I think it's the for me is the JB and the super distortion that's the Dimarsio Seymour Duncan like they they owned the 80s. Paul says, hey Phil, what are some good rule of thumb to maintain gold plate hardware. Don't sweat on it. Wipe it down all the time. That's first of all, they usually it's played like crap, you know, as we all know, it's usually cheap. But the biggest problem you're going to have is your sweat destroys it. And it getting sweat like wet on it isn't what destroys it. It's just the when your sweat dries. The salt and the acids in your skin, the corrosive stuff that's in the not in the skin in your liquid in your sweat stay behind and they dry and they eat at the the bridge.

1:09:04So I would say the best thing you can do is wipe it down constantly. Have a nice cloth. I would say 100% cotton. You can do flannel or microfiber have that dry. Don't you don't need chemicals. You don't need to spray anything on it. You don't need to just dry it all off. And that's great. You don't need to wet it. Don't worry about, you know, just wipe it off. If you wipe it off when it's wet, if you wipe off your sweat, when it's wet, you should be fine. You just wipe it off. If your sweat has dried, you're going to need something to clean it. That's up to you. You could use a guitar polish. You can probably use Windex. Whatever it is, just keep in mind that anything that you pick, you know, just make sure it doesn't get on the screws too because the screws can rust and stuff. That's not really what you're worried about. You're worried about the gold plating kind of stuff, but definitely keep it dry. That's the biggest thing you can do. One trick that I saw a guy do and he did it for years and I used to think it was crazy and I kind of think now it worked was he would use sweat bands.

1:10:12And I remember thinking it was so weird that he would play on stage with sweat bands, you know, and I used to do his repairs, his work. And he told me because he sweats so much that it got on his guitar and it ruined his guitars. It destroyed the finish on his chrome, on his hardware, it ate through his strings. And so he would put sweat bands on and that way it would soak up the sweat plus he could use them to wipe off any of the wet of his guitar. So, I don't know me. Maybe sweat bands are the key. I don't know. Just passing the information. Frank says, hey Phil, he's in the market for an attenuator. Would you recommend something like the Tonking? I love the Tonking Iron Man. It's one of my top favorite tenures from moving up more expensive Oxbox solution. The Oxbox is the worst attenuator ever in the history of tenuators. I'm going to call it that. Michael Nielsen and I were talking yesterday. It seems to be a drop today a lot, but we were talking for a little bit. And he said, he said, the five-way switch on, I hope I don't get in trouble for this. He, Michael, says that he's called the five-way switch on the Oxbox.

1:11:19The blankets. It's like, how many blankets do you want on your sound? One, two, three. I said, actually, I don't think that's accurate. I think it's two, I think it's the blankets pillow. So if the Oxbox is one blanket, two blanket, then two blankets and a pillow, then it's two blankets and two pillows. Oxbox has the worst attenuator, but the Oxbox has one of the best direct sounds. I absolutely love it. So I love my Oxbox. If I was, and I'm working on this as maybe as an idea for a video, the ten pieces of gear that I can't live without, I don't mean right now, or that company sent me. I'm talking about, like, just in my whole life, this is what I've had. If this was gone, it would change me for the worst. The Oxbox is definitely in that top 10, no problem. But not as an attenuator. I use it sometimes as an attenuator, but it just darkens the amp up a lot. And it's just not something I like, but I love it for direct. In fact, I like it better than most. Intenuators, I've owned a lot. I have a lot currently right now. There's a lot. Somebody says the fry power station. The fry power station, like the boss waza, which I think the fry is way better than the boss waza, but like that.

1:12:22They're different kind of animal, right? Because now what they're doing is they're putting themselves in place of your power section. And that's really cool and a unique feature. But to me, if you're looking at the Ironman's, one thing I like about Tonking Ironman is you're just, you know, like if you're like me and you have like a little 12 watt combo or a 21 amp, and you just want to put something in front of it. I would highly suggest the smaller version of the Ironman, the more affordable and like $500 versus the bigger one. I have both. But if you're absolutely under 30 watts, go with the smaller one. I don't think you'll ever regret it. It's really good sounding, you know, attenuator. So think about something like that. There's a bunch of others. I have like the sir one. I have looked there and somebody always does any time you say anything good about attenuators means I was going to mention their attenuator. There are a lot of good ones. Very few to know bad ones and any if they are any bad ones, they're just because they're old outdated stuff and they just have gotten better at it now.

1:13:22But I would say Ironman is one of my favorites, especially for the price points, but also the sir ones are really good too. But I'm talking about just if you just straight up just need attenuation, no other freels. You don't need it to be a power section. So you have an effects loop in the thing. You don't need it. You know, option, you know, you don't need the other options. But the oxbox, like I said, I recommend the oxbox only if you're going to use it for either direct recording or you're going to use it on stage to run it to front house. Oxbox, I think is one of the best choices you can get out there. Nella says it's oxbox is expensive. It's super expensive and I've sold this story so many times and I just want to be very clear. The oxbox, I don't have a thing with UA audio. I don't have a relationship with them. So when the oxbox came out, every YouTuber was like, it's the greatest things since everything. And that's what happens when it all comes out, right? And I'm like, you guys are skeptical. You should be skeptical. Hey, be skeptical of me. You know, you know, you don't know why. Like sometimes I'm like, hey, this company work with me and their response in the video, even knowing that maybe you're skeptical.

1:14:25It's fine. I try to be as transparent as I can. But still, you can have honeymoon, not only with a piece of gear and then, you know, you don't trust everything because they're in love with it. But also I can have a honeymoon rush with the company. Maybe I like the company a little bit. That's why I try to tell you who's my friend and who's not, you know, not as a brag. Not as a brag, but as a, hey, I have a relationship with this person. I like them. So I'm kind of probably talk about them like I don't, you know, a little bit nicer. I try not to, but I try to pick friends that can take a little abuse. But, you know, it goes on the way it goes. My point is, oxbox, I was skeptical and so I was going to buy one, but I was really afraid to buy one because everyone got one for free. Which means it's probably not good. If they sit, like when a company sends every YouTuber or something, I'm always like, oh, that's the trigger for me as a YouTuber. If I see, you know, a channel, get some piece of gear sent to my company, I don't think anything of it. That's just the company wants to get it advertised.

1:15:25They probably worked out a thing like, I had they like it and does it. When I see almost half the channels that I'm watching with the same piece of gear, I know it's a marketing push, but then I'm a little skeptical. Not because it's a marketing push because I'm like, everyone likes it. That's a lot of people to like something, you know, in a very short period of time of having access to it. But anyways, back to the oxbox. I was skeptical, skeptical, skeptical. And I, I did not, it's hard to say. How do you look at this? Okay. I did not buy my oxbox, but oxbox, but you a audio did not give me the oxbox. I was very upfront about this when I, on many podcasts before. Sweetwater reached out to me and asked me to do a video for them in which they offered to pay me. And I said, I actually would really want an oxbox. Will you send me an oxbox? And, because I want to try one. And I did that as the compensation for, so instead of payment, which is dumb, because I could have just got the money and just bought an oxbox.

1:16:25I don't know why I didn't do it. You know, I get to do it either way. I guess it didn't matter. But I took it as compensation. And then I made a video of the oxbox, but I was just not. I think in the video, so you guys know, it says product provided, which implies that it's sponsored. I was not required to do a video of the product in any way. It's just the way I do product provided is, if I know something to the company, it's product provided. If a company loaned it to me, but they're getting it back, it's product provided. If a company's paying me, it's product. I just tell it like kind of like I tell everybody it's sponsored, even if it's not even remotely sponsored, even if I just, I worked with them five years ago and I haven't worked with them since, and I bought a product, I'm going to put product sponsored. So, just so you guys know, because I, you know, why not? So anyways, the reason I'm telling you that is, I'm telling you as someone who's had an oxbox now for three, four years. I absolutely love it and it's a super craze expensive and you can find deals on them. So if you're interested, find a deal on one, but it's worth it. To me, like I said, I couldn't live without it.

1:17:26Let's see. Oh, I'm not only finished as the blood screen marketing on the Acoustasonic made me decide would never buy one. Yeah, it's probably where I got a lot of my skepticism for the Acoustasonic. And I'm different. So you guys know, you guys are looking at it like, oh, it's the YouTube community and the corporations against me. I have a little bit of paranoia baked in that you guys wouldn't have, which means when I see, when I see like, you know, some great channels, right? Some channels that are way better than mine. And I don't, I don't mean more viewers. I'm not talking about that at all. That's, that's irrelevant. In fact, doesn't even usually factor anymore. When I see a channel that I go, oh, that's a really good channel. And they were sent this product. And I go, okay, I don't think you think of it. When I see a couple more channels, I go, okay, I don't think I got it. When I see like 90% of the guitar community and they're all promoting a product. And yet, no, that company's not reaching out to me. I get a little paranoid, not because I'm like, they should be talking to me. It's more like, oh, they don't, that's like specifically, they don't want to talk to me.

1:18:34What does that mean? I should take it as they just don't like my content, which is probably all it is. But sometimes I'm like, you know, sometimes I'm like, oh, maybe they don't. So Acoustasonic. And that, and you know, the perfect example of Acoustasonic. It was promoted by everyone. One of my favorite bands in the world, Bullying for Soup. He's got one. He plays it. He loves it. Some people, Dolby Doss got sent one. He's a friend of mine. And he still plays his. See, I look at that way. Are they still keeping it? Did they keep it? And sometimes that tells you a lot too. In fact, I tell you, I think it tells you the most and sometimes. But what's my point? My point is is, but then they tanked as a product. So by the time I thought I'd buy one and pull one on the channel, maybe do a D type, they tanked. So I'm like, why do it? No, you guys want one because it tanked. Okay, we got to get back to guitar stuff. Let's finish it up. Let's finish up the show. What are we going to talk about? Something. Let me refresh this.

1:19:39And go here. Oh, that was that one. The pick 5663 says, Phil, if you reopen your store now, do you think you would have made a killing? I don't know. I was doing really well then. So, you know, I we did not, you know, we weren't not huge. But as a business, we were doing fine. I mean, I started my store. We started a store in a like 49 square foot, not even 14 square foot store front. And within the first two years, we moved it to 3500 square feet. We moved our lesson. We built our lesson rooms from two to 10. And then I think 1.12, I'd have to ask Sean, a 12 lesson rooms at some point. And then of course repair was always backlog. Now, does that mean like, you know, you're killing it and you're making millions of dollars? No.

1:20:44But as a business, if you can open a business and do well, I mean, the bills were all paid, you know, employees were paid, everything's fine. We weren't really having issues. And then when I started doing YouTube, it was kind of helping a little bit, but it wasn't the goal. So if I open it today for, I guess the answer question, let me answer your question. What I make killing, if I open a store today, I would, it would be nothing like my store. My store is a was a dated platform that is now dead. It is not why I closed it. But it is now currently a dated platform that is dead. I was a top tier for an independent small store. I was a top tier Fender dealer. I wouldn't be a Fender dealer now has nothing to do with Fender's problems. It's just, you know, there's, you can be, there's so much better ways to make money in the music industry as a dealer now. I would probably had changed about five different things with the store. So, you know, so to, to modernize it. I see lots of stores.

1:21:49The reason I know this is I see lots of stores and I know friends that have stores and I go in and I'll, and say, you know, I have to worry, I don't have to worry about them paranoid. You're talking to me, they all know if I've told them all what I think everybody that I'm a friend with the store knows what I think. A lot of them have what I, like I go in there and I go, yes, like my stores is dated. You need to change this. So, so if I open a store, I wouldn't be anything like that. But I would do a totally different business model. But if you're a question is more tying into the YouTube, would YouTube being a YouTube channel help me? It could, I guess, I mean, obviously it puts you on the radar. I'd have a social media following to pursue. But, and that regards I could probably just promote anything at that point. Couldn't I just be like, you know, you know, as you guys, you can tell and when I make my decisions, how I keep adjusting, I'm trying to focus mostly on the YouTube platform and not so much the outside lingering monetary platforms.

1:22:49So, I hope that kind of answers the question. Let's see, trivial nonsense 95 says, hey Phil, how often do you see Tom style bridges with a collapsing radius recently got a boutique 24 model where the 12 inch radius bridge has already flattened to 20. Huh, collapsing. So, what he's talking about is like the bridge sinking. So, in other words, it was radius that I think what he's saying is 12 and it's flattened out to 20. I would say, you know, I don't have any real memories of seeing it on the regular. I would imagine it happens if the bridge is too soft. A lot of the bridges are not as good built as well as others. So, maybe that's a problem with it. Maybe it's stronger tension strings that can flatten out. It's not something, because again, when I come across guitars now, they're usually new guitars. So, we're focusing on how they were built, not the issues they would have like a repair issue.

1:23:49When I was doing repair issues, it's a problem business. So, if somebody has a problem with it, my guess is that most people that that happens to they don't notice so they didn't bring it in to be fixed. So, generally speaking, when you do repair, you know, usually you're dealing with what they see, sometimes like they'd bring it in and you find other additional problems, but I don't know if I would necessarily I can think of any time where I've noticed that that problem more than maybe once or twice. And again, I always give myself a caveat for that, like because I could say I haven't seen it, but I've definitely probably seen it a couple of times. It just didn't stick in my head as being something to think about and remember. Bruce on the coast says, hey, our strings mostly made by a few OEM suppliers, or do most of the many companies selling strings manufacturing own. You know, when I started in this business, I was told there was only three string manufacturers, and they make all the strings. Everybody said that everywhere they went. Everywhere, you would go into the store and they would all say that everywhere they went. And it was not true. When we started the store, we had multiple counts. We had GHS.

1:24:58And I know you're talking about builders versus, you know, making the strings, but but there was actually GHS was making their strings. And then there was the Daria was definitely making strings or anybody was definitely making their strings. D.R. was definitely making their strings. Arcoco was at that time definitely making their strings. La Bella, Tomas Dick, trying to think of us a couple others, right? So different accounts and generally speaking, everybody was kind of making their own strings. Not in every case, but in most of the cases. And then over time, it kept dwindling and dwindling and dwindling down. And yes, you know, Fender was making it strings in in Sonata in Mexico. And then one day Fender stopped making its own strings. By the way, when Fender bought Squire, Squire was a string manufacturer. And that's why they bought them. They got all the string equipment and they were making strings. So they were making their own strings. And now D'Dario makes Fender strings. And D'Dario makes a lot of strings. Oh, Lyxor doesn't make their own strings. As far as I know, nothing's changed, but that could be a little dated because I can only tell you up to about two or three years ago.

1:25:58So sometimes they OEM their strings. But, but yeah, there's a lot of companies down that OEM strings for a lot of companies. But there are still not quite a few, but they're still a good amount of string manufacturers out there making their own strings. So if the concern you have, and this is the answer to the question you didn't ask, but I think it's the intent of that question. Are you being duped? Are M.I. buying? And I'm not saying you asked that. But I mean, that's really the core of a question like that, whether you realize or not. You know, am I really buying the thing I'm buying? Because that's, you know, it's your money. You worked hard for it and you want to get the thing that you want. You're like, hey, I want to buy this brand and I don't want to be buying the brand I just walked away from, right? But even if a manufacturer, OEM strings for other manufacturers, they have other requirements like in how the string is constructed, the metallurgy in it, the construction style, whether or not it's a hex core, a round core, the thickness of the wrap wire versus the thickness of the core wire, the make up of those two wires, the wrap style.

1:27:05All of that stuff, right, gets factored in and when they make strings. So what I'm getting at is even if let's say in theory, and not all cases, I'm just saying in theory, that didario makes strings and you go, I don't want to buy didario, I want to buy somebody else's strings. And you go to another manufacturer and you find out that didario is making their strings like in the case of Fender. I'm not saying this is true in the case of Fender. I'm saying it can be true with some manufacturers where you're like, I'm just buying a didario string. It's not entirely true because they could have a different specification for that wire and the string construction and therefore it's a different string, even if it's made by the same people. And so there you have it. If you're concerned, I can tell you that didario makes their strings so you can trust that Ernie ball makes their strings so you can trust that. String joy makes their strings so you can trust that. I'm assuming, so notice how I said yes, yes, yes, these are things confirmed. Yes, I assume the DR strings is still making their strings, at least I'm still buying them from DR because I don't believe they're made by somebody else.

1:28:12I just I think they still are. And then I thought I heard GHS is no longer making it strings. And again, if that's not true, I don't want to spread that rumor. I'm just saying I heard that like I'm heard a rumor. I'm not telling you that so you can spread that rumor. I'm saying that in case somebody can mention it like no, that's not true. Like I work with GHS and that's not true. That'd be really nice to know. And stuff like that. But but yeah, the biggest I I stick to mostly I would I do use DR strings a lot. I stick to mostly Ernie ball to Dario and string joy. Those are the three I use on the regular. For some of you guys love elixirs. I totally understand that because a lot of people are die hard love elixirs. I think I have one of the most loyal customer fallings out there strings. I just don't use them because I don't use coded strings very often. So when I use code strings, I'll use elixir. And I've tried a bunch of brands like some brand sent me stuff and I've been in some videos form and I've used those and then I stopped getting access to those. So, you know, I couldn't find them to buy. But I use code strings sometimes. I think I mentioned this before. So I mentioned right now. If I use coded strings, it's only on guitars that I don't use.

1:29:20The logic being like if I have a guitar like a perfect example, let's have a guitar. And I know I don't pick it up very often. It's a once in a while guitar because I'm using it for something or maybe I'm inspired to play that. I'll put code strings on it that way in six months for when I pick it up. I don't pick it up strumming go all these strings are dead. And now the one time I want to play it in the last half a year. It's not, you know, so I put code strings. So it's almost like it can tell you right now if you walk in the room and you pick a guitar and you go, this code strings just know that that means I don't play it very often. And so that's something to think about. And then this just ties in. We'll end on this note. Although I will have this last thing. I saw a question I want to grab. You know, perfect example was last week. This guitar, the keyzo was supposed to be guitar of the week. I had, I had decided this guitar would be guitar of the week last week. And I was going to share this guitar and story with you. Instead I didn't I, I, I did the, the IKEA caster.

1:30:22The reason I did that is I could not get this guitar to sound or play good. I was just picking it up and it was just it just was not it was like I don't know something was something was off. Like it was brittle and the I was playing it and I just feel like I needed to change the strings to a different style of string. I have a really light gauge of strings. This is nine to 52 and I was like, I got to put a 56. I bought a 56 for it. Because I was like, okay, I got to make this thing play red. I don't know what's wrong with me. And then I picked it up again after off course I didn't do guitar the week. And the opposite happened. I was like, oh man, this thing rings. And I was like, what is going on here? And I just loved it. And it plugged it in and it was sounding great. And the reason I'm sharing this story with you is it's a perfect example of of what I'm talking about. When I say sometimes I don't play guitar for a while. It's not because I have too many guitars. I don't tell my wife that. I don't have too many guitars. But sometimes a guitar just doesn't, I don't know man, it doesn't do anything for me. And almost like, why did I buy this?

1:31:31I just put this away. Maybe I'll get rid of that. And then you pick it up again and it's amazing. And that's why sometimes having a bunch of guitars is good. It's not just a placebo effect. It's not just somebody justifying crap in their head. It actually has a real function to it. I told Sean it today. I said, it's funny. I never get in my truck and go, man, this truck drives like crap today. And the next day you get in and go, man, it drives really nice today. I don't feel that way, but guitars. I have an emotional reaction to my guitars all the time. I pick them up strumming and I go, just mud. What is this? I need to change the pickups and this thing is so bad. And I put it on the wall or put it in the rack and then I play something else and I play that for days and things are fine. And then I go back and try that guitar again and I all of a sudden it's great. So I don't know. So yeah, so I love talking about that. And it's like said, my favorite subject to talk about is the emotional aspect of guitar playing more so than technical. I think technical helps you guys in making decisions, especially on YouTube. But emotional to me is the thing I'm interested in talking about.

1:32:31On that note, somebody asked me, do I still have a fender Mustang? I do not. I have converted to the katana. I am the house of Katana now. I am part of the Katana family. And we'll end on this funny joke, because it's not a funny joke. It's just so funny to tell you. I'd like to tell you that I love the katana. I'm using the katana. I don't work with boss. I've never worked with boss. So you guys know, boss has never sponsored an entire video ever since the channel is going. And in fact, I've only had one conversation with boss and if anyone at boss hears me tell this story, I have the email. Okay, so I'm just going to say that. I keep all my emails with everybody. I have the email. I don't think the person who's sending the email works at boss anymore by one and only time. And the reason I tell you that is because I talk about bias all the time, right? Which is a bias? Well, here's the thing. I love the boss katana. I love boss pedals. I collect boss pedals, as you know, not as much as I used to, but still. And this will tell you, and sometimes you're like, always probably because boss pays them or boss gives them free stuff. I've never had a sponsored content with boss and I've only had one email.

1:33:34And the email to this day makes me laugh and I can't believe I'm sharing it with you. I once boss reached out to me and asked me if I would check out a piece of boss equipment. And I was like, sure, I'd love to. And at the time, I was taught by another YouTube channel that you always respond with what's your budget? Because I didn't know what to say. What do you say? And so you guys know this not about money, even though you think it is. Because sometimes companies for some reason, even if you try to be easy and like, hey, we want to see you in this new pedal, you want to check it out? You're like, yeah, send it. I'll do the video. It's great. Some companies want you to charge them or have some kind of compensation thing. Because then it's more like a contract. They know they're going to get their video. Life is good. It just works out great. I'm not saying this is the case. I'm just saying with boss. I'm just saying some of this. So what I did back then, I hadn't done this in years. This is years and years ago. Years and years and years ago. So boss reaches out and says, hey, would you like to check out this piece of gear? And I said, absolutely. I go, I love to. I love boss. I collect boss. I said all this nice stuff because that's what I do. Because I'm like, hey, let him know. Let him know I'm a true fan.

1:34:38You know, right? That's more motivation to work with me. And I said, sure, what's your budget? Well, keep in mind, if they would have said nothing, I'd be like, okay, send the gear out. Or if they said, hey, our budget's $300 on the video, whatever it was at the time, I would have took whatever they said. They responded with, oh, we'd love to pay you, but we paid Rob Chapman and Mary Spender too much and we don't have any money for the rest of the year. Oh, my goodness. Lost my voice. Rest the army trade. Sir, apparently you can't say those two names too fast. I'll lose my, they said, I don't think this is true, but I'm just telling you what the email says. Again, I have the email. They said, we paid them and we don't have anything left in our marketing contract, our marketing department for social media. And I remember thinking, wow, that hurt. I was like, you could have just said, you don't have anything in your budget. You didn't have to tell me like, yeah, we picked the better channels than you. You didn't say it like that, but that's how I felt.

1:35:38What I was saying is, I want you to understand when I say I like the Boss Katana, that was my interaction with Boss and I still love their stuff. So there. So I love the Mustang. I loved all the amps I've ever tried in the idea that I liked them, unless I said I hated them specifically. The Mustang I really liked, but for some reason I just go back to the Boss Katana. I was talking about this recently. I think the new Black Star ID50 is sounds better than the Katana. I think the catalyst sounds better than the Katana. For some reason, I just end up back at the Katana. I think it's because it's just tried and true. It's portable. It's easy. It's great. That's my answer. All right. I hope that makes that all makes sense. Anyways, on that note, I want to let you guys go. You guys, there was a video today. We released two videos on the second channel. I'll put a link down below to the second channel. If you guys don't know, we have two channels. There's the Know Your Gear channel, which is not this one. It's the other one, where you can see clips of the podcast with more context. And by the way, if you saw a guitar the week, last week with the junk guitar, we called the junk guitar in the title of the video,

1:36:42but it's called the IKEA Caster. There was some new information discovered that I shared. In fact, PB reached out and gave us the exact, not only the neck that's on that guitar, the date who originally bought it, all kinds of stuff. You can check that out. So you can check out the second channel. If you would like to do that, I'd appreciate that. By the way, the second channel is killing it. I want to thank you all for that. It hit 600,000 views this month, almost 700,000 views, which is impressive for a channel. And it's closing up on 40,000 subscribers. I want to thank you for that on this channel. We hit 462,000 subscribers a week. So I want to say thank you for that. Also, if you guys want to join Patreon, just keep in mind. There are three tiers for $5. You're supporting this podcast. And I appreciate you doing that. And it means a lot to me. And if you pay for the year, you get a discount. There's a second tier that includes guitar clinics and guitar maintenance and repair clinics, all kinds of clinics. And if you do that, it is, if you want to do it for one month, it's $19 for the one month. But what we did is we raised the price the monthly per month up.

1:37:48But we decreased the yearly down. So instead of paying 120 bucks for the year, now you just pay one something, 108 or 114, something like that. It's less. So we dropped the rate. So you can check it out and support the channel that way. And then of course, there's a top tier if you so inclined to do that. But the main two things we focus on is the $5 tier, supporting the podcast and the $10 tier. If you want to support the podcast and get additional repair and maintenance videos, information and of course live clinics where you can ask me questions specifically. And we can actually go through your problem with pictures and stuff. So that is the speech on that note. I want to thank you for your time. Until the next time, know your gear. Then know your gear podcast.

1:38:55You