The Industry Is Taking Notice To Us Not Buying

the know your gear podcast hey everyone welcome to the new your gear podcast episode 357 I hope you guys had an amazing week I know uh I was gonna say I know I did I don't know if I did maybe maybe I didn't I don't know it was a it was a week I got through it I'm here and that's the important part uh so uh let's see uh uh you know normally I do the announcements and all this stuff but I got to jump around on this Super Chat that I saw from clan of house cats said I did my first jumbo stainless refelt uh refret refelt refret got cut a bit uh you know I have talked about this before I only do stainless steel refret now when I refret guitars it's just because it was just it's just easier for me I don't do that many refret anymore uh and when I do it's just I bought a ton of jessar um stand still wire that I like and um I basically use it over and over again and I like it and um I don't find it's hard to work with in any way and the one thing I do notice is exactly what you said it feel it feels like uh it gets a little a little easy to cut yourself Nick yourself it's just got a little bit more of a Barb to it when it's when it's rough so uh there you go Brian says I think this is 358 it might be let's check let me double check oh it is 358 so it duplicated last week's 357 so we'll update that uh later this is episode 358 no one cares they're like no one's like I don't care what episode it is that's that's what I get get from it but I appreciate Brian keeping track of it okay so uh let's uh let's do a couple things there's no announcements this week nothing really going on that's that crazy or important uh there's no merch uh thing or nothing like that to talk about so I'm just going to get into topics and questions if you will and uh let me pull this up and uh we do have a guitar of the week so that's coming and we do have some early comments and questions I want to hit um uh 251 wants to know Phil I love your Soulful playing what Tim Pierce lesson inspired that so when I was going through the Tim Pierce lessons uh you know I first went through it as a like I was looking for an epiphany like okay he's going to say something and it's just going to all make sense to me and um that that really didn't happen you know and there was no like click like oh I get it all now um and um I feel like there's this weird tracking issue with the camera does anyone else see it too it's like weird how I'm moving just not to get sidetracked but I don't know what that is and why the camera's having trouble with that every once a while um but anyways uh so those listening won't know what I'm talking about um but anyways uh then what happened was I started picking out licks you know there was a couple licks he was doing I was like okay this is really great and um I once uh when I was at Sweetwater I once uh when I met uh don car I said I I take a lot of your licks because I like the some of his phrasings I like those and um so I was taking some Tim Pierce phrasings and uh so then what I did is I just started letting the lessons play and sometimes I would kind of go with one and sometimes I just let it in the background um and um yeah somebody saying it is weird that it's doing this weird track let's make sure it's not doing it anymore I don't see it now it might have stopped I don't know what that was so you got to love technical difficult there it is again there's like a weird thing so we'll just have to deal with it just how it goes anyways um and so when I was letting it list uh when I was letting them kind of play in the background listening to him um he said something and when he said it it just kind of hit which was more so not about technique in the idea of difficulty but technique in feel in other words you know he was talking about in the lessons uh about the way something should feel more so than its uh technical ability and you know I've said this for many years as a as a bass player primarily and then you know I would do guitar obviously promote primarily on the YouTube Channel um what would happen is I would um I got of scooted in a little bit okay um what would happen is I would first when I started doing videos I would play things that I thought people wanted to hear like a cover song and then I thought well maybe I'll play things see if I could play a little tricky thing and I really couldn't because I'm not that kind of player and then I kind of dumbed it down to just chords and it was always an experiment you know people think when you're making when you're making your content that you have it figured out you're figuring out your content as you go you're just trying to figure out what it is that people like or don't like and you know what it is that's appealing to them um so anyways the the the thing that kind of resonated with me with Tim Pierce was kind of just play play in the pocket so to speak play something that feels right and that's what I started focusing that attention on to so then when I would watch a lesson I would look for exactly that a phrasing a feel a technique but not to copy his feel and sound but to kind of put more of a Polish on what I was already playing and so that's what you're probably noticing in the the last you know year or so in the videos uh I see the comments a lot they'll say oh your play is improved um it's weird how it's there's this line in the video um and um it's not so much that it's improved it's I think it's just a little bit more polished technically I'm not playing any better in fact technically I'm not playing any different I'm just it's more polished off so and um you know trying to own what it is I'm actually playing and not worrying about if it's technical or not so if that is gives you any insight um and I I would say you I would say if you have the Tim Pierce course you should do the same thing just let it play in the background let it permeate in the background um I was trying to go through them but what I learned is you can just play them and sometimes you know you're doing something and it literally uh it literally catches your ear and your mind and you just kind of pay attention to what he's talking about so um okay what else do we have okay hold on a second I thought I saw a great question hold on I'm looking for okay here it is uh bet beton beton wants to know hey Phil have you tried the any Pensa guitars I have not I love their quality and the Brand Story it would be great to see one on your channel cheers from Argentina no I haven't uh tried them or seen them or anything you know most the uh like you know obviously uh like the Valente guitar right there or the Texas toast guitar that's behind my head um you know smaller Builders like that I I could be wrong I don't want to insult anybody I don't know if pen is a small Builder I'm just assuming because it's you know it's not it doesn't I haven't heard of it so I'm thinking it's not like Fender or Gibson um those guys usually uh they reach out to us you know that's usually how it works I mean you just can't you know uh uh very rarely do I reach out to the smaller Builders um it's because um the small Builders know when it's time to reach out you know they they maybe want to see some getting their their product in front of some people or maybe they want to get highlighted and I'm happy to do that for them and uh we work the the best agreement we can out to make it as easy for them as possible to do it and so yeah but uh thank you for putting them on radar um let's see um let's see hold on a second okay so Michael neelson is like doing guitar demos is super weird simple is the best to show gear but there's a pressure to play something fancy I get sucked in rarely goes well I don't think that's true at all Michael I think you're playing is uh is above par by far and um and that's the showcase for you you know um I try to stay away from the YouTube talk so much on the podcast because it's a guitar Channel thing but sometimes the YouTube is part of this you know obviously right it it's no different than if if I was a musician on stage talking about stage performance I believe that if you want to be successful on this platform you want to showcase uh the thing that is your best skill set and in my case I I decided and I I leaned into uh the repair or the guitar knowledge part of it um not to say I was I was above par anyone else but I was like that's where I have an asset so I'll push on that and and that's why in my review video it's going to be mostly diagnosing the guitar mostly talking about the guitar and then some demonstration as just to kind of put that frosting on that cake and call it a day um Michael I think with you um you're in there with like you know uh Sean tubs and Pete Thorne and those guys RJ rilio where your level players you know Tim pierce your knowledge is important it is and your recording experience engineering experience and stuff all that's in in important in your H in your knowledge of the history of the industry but you would you would suffer if you didn't show case or put forward that amazing talent of playing because then that lets people see what the what the instrument or the amp or the pedal is capable of you know it's kind of like um you know when you see a great player play a piece of equipment it's nice to know what it can do I I've had this theory for many years when it comes to signature guitars I believe signature guitars are one uh you have people um who just love the artist okay of course who doesn't fall into that you know they love the artist and they just wanted their guitar okay you know I'm a Nuno bit Court freak there's my noo bit Court guitar so that's that's where I land on that however I also believe that artists if I don't lose my voice hold in I'm actually losing my voice excuse me I apologize I was looking for the mute button while I was trying not to cough artists also um have another aspect which is cool which is they can when Eddie Van Halen plays a 5150 evh 5150 or the PV 5150 um and you hear his amazing tone you know it's him but what's great about that is is and this is what I love if I grab the 5150 and I play through it and it sounds horrible it's me I know it's me because the didn't make Eddie sound worse right I don't think I never thought that an amp um would make an artist sound better somebody with talent I don't think gear makes people with Talent sound better I think uh gear can hinder Talent uh it's it's a subtractive thing that's how you have to look at it um we talk about the inspiration of gear all the time because we're gear channels and there's just something that we want to really believe which is that gear makes us better and and can Inspire us to play you know one more guitar it will inspire me to play but the reality is when you're really working and you're actually doing what you're supposed to do it's just play the instruments and play music and do the stuff you realize that instruments don't make anything better they just make things worse they hold you back um they can do that that's for sure and so when you hear an artist with some amazing talent playing a piece of equipment and they sound fantastic you you know that that in that product isn't going to hinder you you that's the thought process that's what I believe so I think that's why sometimes like if I if I grab a and I'm just using Eddie cuz I'm of course you know he's Eddie but I mean if I take a Wolf Gang guitar and I plug it into a 5150 amp and I play something and I play my heart out and it sounds horrible I'm assuming it's it's me it's not the gear because Eddie made it sound amazing and I don't think although I think he can make a piece of bad gear sound pretty good I I think gear hinders people and so it doesn't hinder him that's just kind of what I think um so um John wants to know how did you like the Ernie Ball man jp15 I have a seven string in Sierra burst coming um the jp15 the neck was just a little too thin for me the guitar was fantastic look there's no music man makes the best guitars um what I learned with the JP series of instruments is that uh the painted necks are just a a little bit thicker just just a little bit and that makes a huge difference to me as that neck's just a little too thin um for me so I wanted the neck a little thicker so that's why I switched to a jp13 I believe is what I have now um and that's the only reason I did it is just get the neck a little thicker um now I would be remiss if I didn't say that you know you can't sometimes get past you know a piece of gear you love so if you really love an instrument if you love an instrument if you love a guitar like I I have guitars that I just love on every level if you love them then then it won't matter if there is a uh guitar that is better and in this case as much as I think the seven string uh JP is better and the strandberg Seven string is better I always play my rg7620 that I is right there that I bought for 350 bucks um if I could only have one seven string that would be it as soon as I point at it it goes out of goes out of focus and uh it is absolutely uh an amazing instrument on every level and I just love it and it's the neck is just a little thick but not too thick it kind of works out great but uh you're going to love that guitar because it's fantastic um so there you go and I would say there you go um hold on I'm just looking at comments I get too sometimes too sidetracked looking at the comments um hold on there was one thing I was going to do real quick oh you know what it was was I wanted to see can I can I there it is okay so what I did uh to what I did on the just now in the settings somebody was saying there's a lot of ads I did a pre-loaded uh live show so I'm I'm reset it so hopefully the ads will stop for the for the live show we'll see so let me know and uh but let me know in a few minutes because I'm sure it takes time to update it okay um okay hold on a second okay as I jump around and look okay we have Andrew says hey Phil sorry for the off topic are you still happy with your Pedigo bikes that's funny uh with spring here I'm looking for a great ebike so a couple years ago was that it feels like two years ago but it might have been a year ago or so uh my wife and I bought uh electric bikes and I think I told you guys a story we bought we went to a bike B shop and uh hope you guys don't mind a little Bike Shop Story we went to a bike shop and we uh we went to a bunch of bike shops looking for some recreational fun bicycles that were ebikes to cuz we wanted to try them and it was very difficult to buy them uh difficult not only for the price but difficult because the information was very confusing and we ended up buying some bikes that we didn't like um they were just a little too uh streamlined street bike for us you know we wanted more something like a cruising bike so then we ended up getting the cruising bikes which were the pigos so Pedigo is a brand of bikes you can look them up they're they're rather expensive so if you're going to Google search what I'm talking about right now be prepared to get a little shocked now some of you guys that really like high-end bikes aren't going to really get shocked at this but you know these are like I think they're like $3,000 a piece kind of thing $2500 to $3500 a piece very expensive and um we absolutely love them so we got them and we like it because we use the pedal assist and it's nice when you're going up hills or when the wind's blowing you know you just kind of just do your thing and your pedal and so we've been using them quite often however um it s as strange as it's going to sound we liked them so much that we ended up just started hiking more I know it sounds weird but we were like biking all the time and then we're like that kind of got uh and I'll just say me more so me kind of got me into a shape where I wanted to like we could hike a little better you know hike a little bit more and so we started hiking more and um so here's where it's at and it's just me it has to do with mostly me but um now I hike more than I use the electric bikes and I have to tell you I would I would personally rather ride the bikes they are so much fun they are absolutely a joy to to ride around um however when I look at my calorie uh burn and you know and all that stuff I like the hiking more I burn so much more um we do about a five to six well we average about a four to 6 mile hike uh last month I think sha was saying we did 121 miles is what we did last month um and so it's it's tough because you ride the bikes and it's pedal assist but it's still you're pedaling but it's a pedal assist and you in the bike run and you ride bikes for like we'll ride for two three four hours on right easy you come back and you're like oh 300 calories you're like cool and then I go for a 2hour hike or a you know a walk extreme walk uh a fast-paced walk and it's like a th000 calories and so it's just I just feel like I'm getting more uh from the Walking than I am from the biking um but so you know it's also easy now because um the uh the uh um the temperature here has really been really cold so it's also nice to walk as it warms up here in Arizona we already plan to go back to biking when it's 90° cuz you know at least you'll have some Breeze from the bikes and stuff but um and then Dewey says what Pedigo bike did you get I don't know let me look I can only I we're going to become a Pedigo biking Channel okay let's see uh if they sell my my bike still I assume they die do ebikes oh yeah this looks like it right here Comfort Cruiser see the bike I'm pretty sure that's it I'm going to share the pictures this so funny okay really all right let me let me let me share my screen here it is this is it it's the Comfort Cruiser electric bike um I liked it because I I get to sit on a blanket while Shauna wears a sun hat and no I'm just kidding I like it because um I sit upright on the bike and not forward and and it's because I'm not trying to go for Speed we're trying to go for distance the whole point of the electric bikes was we thought it would be really fun to go far and this is going to I'm going to get so much crap for this I know you guys you just feel free Hammer the comments the only thing that sucks about ebikes is that you ride so long your ass just hurts so bad there's we've I've tried different seats I've tried everything you just you know I mean when you're riding three hours 4 hours on a bike it's just it's it's brutal in fact so you know we love them so much that we would ride even longer but it's just it's just too brutal after a while you're like God I can't take it anymore so um so uh you know that's but that's the comfort bike I was hoping it was going to says see the bike and then it's just a picture of these people do you scroll nothing huh oh here it is more pictures of people here on let me share this is the bike so that's I ours looks a little different than this so they might have updated or changed it but that's essentially the bike right there so it looks just like that very exciting uh not really um and there was another reason why we did that we didn't want any uh super fancy looking bikes as well because again we just want to keep it all low-key so all right okay uh somebody says butt hurt so um okay uh okay I don't know now I see we got so far off topics that now we're not going to be able to get back on topic let me figure out where we're at here let me get back to the screen I need to get to here we go update that much better okay we have Aaron short music what's up Aaron Aaron short music sh short music no s uh please check out his channel he's got a great Channel especially if you want to learn a lot about acoustic he does cover other things but specializes at least I feel he specializes in acoustic he's kind of my go-to for acoustic video stuff he says Phil what are your thoughts on acoustic intonation I like him to be intonated uh he says I have a guitar where the D string is flat on at the 12 fret by 15 cents would would a pleck help um I don't think so uh Erin here's here's why so first of all it's funny that you mentioned 15 cents it's a magic number that you mention I believe I read a long time ago that the human ear can only detect within 15 cents of a pitch uh uh what I did I say 15 I meant 14 I said I read your I see that's why I can't read and talk at the same time um I read the human ear can only detect about 14 cents in difference um and that most tuners now are accurate within like two cents that's why it's kind of funny cuz some of the really especially like the Peterson strobe tuners stuff but a lot of these nicer tuners now they're so accurate that they're more accurate than what we can actually hear in most cases but um I I understand what you're saying about it being 15 cents out on the D string um do the pleck so here's what the pleck the pleck would not fix that and here's why I don't believe the ple would fix that any because the ple um that minor of it you know and even though that's a big deal especially in acoustic because those c those cords can get sour especially on acoustic um the the idea thought is that the more we crown that fret the more we round it uh the more precise the string that touches the tip of the Fret would be more accurate the distance would be accurate to the bridge right I mean that's really what we're talking about now so so imagine what you're saying you're basically saying if we rounded that fret like the pleck machine uh leveled the Frets and then round rounded them over and it did it so well that that minor difference in fact how it changed the the end of the string from going from this part of the the to the Fret to this part that little distance right there that's what he's talking about I hope this is kind of making sense to people is going to uh adjust out that 15 cents is not very likely it is possible because anything is possible but here is my concern with this question you're talking about like $250 to $350 to to adjust out that 15 cents of of of whatever it was I don't know if you said it was flat or sharp by 15 cents um let me go back to it I don't think you mentioned I don't think you did oh you were dead it was flat okay I would imagine like if you gave that problem to me as a tech I would focus more on the saddle the saddle would be where I can make the biggest difference with the least amount of effort um because and so I would reshape that saddle and then you have to understand when you are talking in the way you're talking with Acoustics this is why you really want to um uh Jerry says I'm sorry 15 cents is insanely Out Of Tune it again again it can be it it intonation is a very strange thing okay um Leland says he can hear within three cents well again I'm just telling you what what I read it was a it was a Peterson strobe article I read once it was really interesting but the point to this is the point to this is is that um I would say the saddle is the massive adjustment Point that's what I would focus on um and and having a new saddle carved if you don't know how to do it if it's not something you do but that's where I would put it it would be one it would be a lot less expensive two what's in uh which which is more important is um they can do that you know you cut you a new uh saddle U and and you still have the original one too so you can put it in and you'll be able to compare and actually hear it change but that's what I would focus on more so than Frets Frets can affect intonation but it is so minor it's not going to make enough it's not going to move that that difference enough so Jeremy says shim the saddle a little bit you could shim it up because that does that but I still don't think that would either uh create enough of a difference but again all we're doing is is kind of giving a um uh we're giving a guess of what I would do to attack the problem if you gave the problem to me I would put all my focus on making sure the saddle was cut and and set up correctly that's where I would focus on that guitar and ironically it's going to be not the not inexpensive but the least expensive thing to do and it's going to it's going to make the biggest difference okay Chris wants to know what the dollar Euro's conversion for tuning is so um I I always talk you know it's funny one thing about everybody's input about intonation and I know I have this uh and I always want to just be always upfront and clear with why I say and think the way I do after you set up a few thousand guitars you have to understand that although I think a lot of you are amazing because I'm sure you are I would say and I have had many discussions with everybody from Paul Reed Smith to you know uh luers that are small Builders to guitar techs that have been doing it for 40 years to guitar techs who have been doing it for 10 years and it always seems to the stories always seem rolve around the fact that most the people that that that talk about intonation a lot of players can't even hear it intonation being out it's it's one of those things it's one of those things so reason why I say that is because when you everybody says I can hear it I can hear it I I'm sure you can but you have to understand that most players don't hear as well as you probably think they do and so intonation is um it's the problem with intonation is is that when a player can hear intonation out it is a Nails on a chalkboard thing you can really tell when they're when they really hear it out and when they're guessing it's out um and so the so like so that's why I said I always have to be General because one of the things I worry about sometimes is some players can play with a guitar unproperly intonated and sound fantastic um as Strang as that say I always point this out the Frankenstein guitar the the Edie Halen Franken guitar is not intonated correctly it was it is not and it still is not intonated correctly it was played on those albums with improper intonation that it still has um and uh interviewing guitar players a lot of guitar players from the 80s even were will tell you that they play guitars on albums and didn't uh there's a famous story George Lynch told me uh famous to me I don't know if it's famous to you guys um he said that when he was recording a lot of the docking albums he didn't use a tuner at all and it made it a nightmare for retracking because he'd have to go back to track and he he was just tuning by ear and it wasn't even specifically in specific 440 tuning was slightly out and he'd have to kind of listen to the album and kind of read trust it and he said it's one of his biggest um regrets is not using like an actual tuner and tuning everything to a standard 440 tuning on those albums because it was just a nightmare to go back to it and the Takeaway on that is exactly what I've been saying is that a lot of players just play and they kind of feel uh the intonation and they kind of feel the the tone and they play it um we Andre flood uh and I did a bonus podcast it'll be out soon and Andre is uh said this amazing thing where he was talking about he uses a trim because he always feels everything's out of intonation he uses the trim kind of kind of blend it into intonation and and uh into tune so to speak and he feels everything's Out Of Tune and he Blends it into tune so I I like these kind of talks I I like they're really cool but it's funny I I have to be weary always because I've I've I've had so many conversations with so many guitar players and some really understand what is out and they hear it and some just say it's out because again they're reading it off a tuner and they don't really understand um and and I've learned I learned this the hard way I learned from a player whose ear was so amazing that he used to have me set up his guitars which made me absolutely nuts but I did it anyways and I I'm proud I did it he would make me in's guitar slightly out because he had figured out with what his pressure he pushes down where the intonation comes back in from his playing it was really crazy and he was right so it's it's your interesting talk but I always caution everybody to to um be be weary because you know you don't want to be miserable if you're not Miserable Now um Aon says I tried to adjust the saddle but I couldn't get it send it to the sent the guitar to Sweetwater for evaluation I'll make some kind of video about this when I get it back there's not much info on the uh on AC intonation um so okay so the adjustment of the saddle that that that is like I said that's the that's the first thing you did which isn't was the first thing I would do so one of two things can happen either a then yes maybe the Frets do need to be dressed and and rounded over or B they might have a different adjustment you know this happened to me both ways I've talked about this in the past as a guitar tech I've had it happened both ways where I did a setup on a guitar and somebody's like it's wrong and I'm like I did it again and they go it's wrong and they take it to another tech and they go he had it for 5 seconds and now it's right and I've had it the opposite way where a tech worked on a guitar for hours and hours wrong wrong wrong brought to me and I put it back or I put it into thing and it was right it's it is not every Situation's super easy and and uh sometimes you might you know might uh they might see something and and do adjustment on that saddle and and still be right or they might uh decide that you are right your adjustment was correct and then do the Frets but I my my again not seeing it not knowing not dealing with it my gut says stick with the bridge until you absolutely know it's not that because that is the biggest culprit of that so uh Gary davlin says guitars and a lot of demos have bad intonation drives me nuts it is it is Gary perfectly said when it's out it will drive you crazy that's how I can kind of tell who can hear it and who can't because when people mention it being out like it's out I find that they have a theory or they think it's out but people what I've learned is players um who can really hear you know like Perfect Pitch even it is more than just it's they're telling you it's out it's it's literally grading on them you can see they're having an emotional reaction to it they don't like it um you know uh uh Shauna reminded me this recently somebody you know people always ask like you had a music store was what was the song you hated to hear all the time were you sick of Metallica were you sick of you know steroid Heaven and the reality was there was no song that I ever bugged me that anyone played ever ever and same with Shauna same with Ralph we all agreed um the thing that would drive me bonkers and Shauna as well too and Ralph as as as well was people who' pick up guitars Out Of Tune and play them and uh one of my favorite memories was a a person who picked up a Guitar was playing the guitar Out Of Tune just playing it like they're just like not like strumming on it and and not doing anything they were like playing songs but the songs are all Out Of Tune and I was like oh I can't take it anymore and then I walked up and I said hey here's a clip on tuner uh if you want we'll tune up the guitar but if you want to tune in you go and they go oh no it's fine and I go and I just remember like glass shattering in my brain like I can't take this anymore but we just let him play so um yeah out ofune guitars were the worst thing and people would just play them out of tune all the time and to this day I don't know do they know they're out of tune or they don't care or do they not know they're out of tune it's it was crazy so all right uh let's see um Perfect Pitch Leland says Perfect Pitch can be a curse relative pitch is a gift you know uh I remember one day uh Shauna uh she goes I wonder if who has Perfect Pitch so she started asking people uh you know cuz we're in you know the lesson Academy and she had all of our teachers take a test on on uh Perfect Pitch and only one teacher had Perfect Pitch his name is Mario and he was a a bass teacher and he had literally perfect pitch and he didn't know isn't that funny he didn't know it he took the test in fact he was like she's like um because she got all the test results from all the teachers and then she gave him their you know the results back and she's like Mario Perfect Pitch and he's like I didn't I didn't know and didn't care but it was absolute he had absolute perfect pitch so so all right um let's see let's go back to more topics questions as we jump around uh we have the next one is from Glide 7575 best way to fix a fender strip dual Flex truss rod um well if it's stripped out at the top uh basically Ally there is a tool that you can get from stac that'll make life easy you don't have to use it but it's really great and you can just um on take the C the end of the trust Rod off and replace it with a new one that's without looking at it and seeing it if you don't have access to stac stuff there you just basically have to take the trust Rod uh end off and replace it uh the the word I love to hear is stripped trust Rod is stripped um the um because that means it's not broken right you can break the off um the other thing you can do if you don't want to do that is um you can buy these tapered Allen wrenches that they sell that kind of come like to a point and you use them I use them all the time they're really great and what happens is if it's kind of stripped out eventually they kind of bite in and then you can turn the trust Rod so that will work as well but um there is a truss rod uh in removing tool that I have that I would recommend that works really great um Andrew and here's why I say that I'm assuming you don't know how to do it already so the tool would be the the Catalyst the thing that you need right if you don't have the that's great about some tools so some tools involve skill and you need to kind of you learn to use them and some tools are made to be almost dummy proof and that's sometimes what's great this is one of those tools where it's made to kind of basically you know you buy it as a as a guitar player not as a luier and go ahead and fix it so I would definitely check on their website and then um watch the tutorial video on that as well so um and then if it looks scary to you then take it to somebody and have it done um and I would and I would use a fender certified warranty sender uh for it and the reason I say that is because not because they're going to cover it which they might depends on how old the fender is and what it is most likely they're not going to do it though um but usually you think of the warranty center as someone who's done that exact guitar a couple times and so they're going to look at it as a oh yeah seen this I can do it real quick or man this is the problem okay so Andrew says hey I'm sorry oh I already did his off to topic Dan Dan says last night I was finally able to become a patron uh TGs crew thank you for that I appreciate that glad I can finally support and give back uh for all the information and help you and help youve given man thank you so much for that I I know you know I talk about the the patreons and the channel members supporting the podcast and stuff but you know it was funny I saw a bunch of new patrons lately and um as you can tell from the video content I've been putting out recently and the mive amounts of it I've been a little extra busy and so I haven't been able to introduce myself as much as when I go in there but I've been posting on patreon extra stuff and um I really got to tell you and I always say this over I understand if everyone doesn't can't sponsor you know and hey you know Patron or become channel members and stuff totally like I said it's an elective thing so I just want to thank you that do it because it really does help um with with so many things okay um and and here's why I say that it is the uh you know I I I talk about this privately all the time and maybe I should talk about a little bit more publicly um the main thing that Patron does for this channel is it allows me to make decisions that I feel are more ethical and more congruent with who I am as a person and what I mean by that is look it's not like I'm like oh I got a family to feed and therefore you know I I don't have to do YouTube to feed my family I I can do other things but YouTube does tend to take a big chunk of time and you and and I have been successful at it and so I want to continue to do it I enjoy it you guys seem to enjoy it and I want to keep doing it and I want to keep growing it and but I I need to do it the way I feel is important to me and um you know this question came in his email I'm tying it in because it it's just I need I I feel like sometimes this is where I suck you know it's kind of like I don't self-promote enough maybe I do I don't know but I got this email question and I wanted I wanted to talk about it uh it says hey Phil have you tried Teemu for guitar stuff um Teemu has reached out to us and if you don't know who teu is good I'm not going to tell you um but if you do know who Teo is Teo has reached out to us and it's going to be a huge payout like $510,000 at least at least in fact five is definitely in 10 is probable for a payout to do a video I am not doing the Teemu video I don't have any intense negative feelings towards Teemu I just don't have any positive feelings towards Teemu and um the first discussion that came up about Teemu was with with Shauna cuz Sha the one handles all the advertisers and stuff was about getting a another phone to put the Teemo app because there might be issues where you know there was concerns security concerns with Teemo and uh so long story short I'm not doing Teemo te whatever they call I think they call it TAMU now themselves Now call it but it was everybody was calling teu and it's when you see that kind of money that's not so when I talk about that money that I just said that's not normal YouTuber money for me that's not like what companies pay that's not even close right uh that's way way higher and so they uh I just couldn't do it and um and that decision I could say oh yeah it's like I don't care about money I'm good but the reality is is I have this patreon sponsorship coming from you guys and when I sit there and I I kind of analyze where I'm at I go all right I don't need to do that I don't have to make that decision I'm not I'm not saying anything bad about it I'm just saying I don't want to do it and I'm not doing it um because I don't want to use their app and I don't want to use their product it's bad enough I already talk about Amazon all the time and that already pushes it for me but I use Amazon unfortunately I use Amazon the same way I use Walmart I against my own better judgment but I do it um so but I'm not going that far that way and um and that's just it you know like I said I I just want to and I want to thank you for that because when that came up this week as a discussion it was like it it felt good to say no but it felt really good to know that it doesn't mean I'm actually out anything I'm actually sponsored by you guys too and that lets me think like this is the better for the community kind of idea so and that and that light lends into it um so so there you go that that helps um and then a couple you now talking about other YouTubers and how they did I have to first let me explain this cuz again this this podcast is about information so let me give you the information um I don't other channels of M dtim you understand they might not have been offered anything close to that they might have been offered just a free couple free things they might have offered a couple hundred bucks um different channels uh not the subscriber counts but just your grading and how you're graded as a channel um as you guys know I have a second channel so just to give you a reference of this um so you know I'm not guessing I have a second Channel and and last month my second channel did 800,000 views and my main channel did a million views which is about what my channel does and so if you were doing the math on that I'm sure you would think that my second Channel made 80% of what my main channel did and I'm here to tell you that it didn't even do 25% oh no about 25% it did about 25% of what my main channel does because they are not graded the same they're not the same level of channels so so you get so you understand there's different value points and you you have to understand other channels have a luxury which is some channels can do content because it's fun or they're interested in it um I it's for me I'm not interested in that I'm not interested in that I already told you I I tried um when I did the Amazon guitar recently the um the RJ Guitar that that was not a paid sponsored video because I didn't I wanted to hit it as hard as I could because I kind of had you know I wanted to be able to say you know whatever I wanted and not worry about them uh getting upset so that like I said I just just want to tell you it's a luxury that I I'm afforded from you guys and to me to make my personal decisions and other channels will make their own personal decisions but it's not an indictment of those channels by the way I liked a lot of the channels uh that did teu videos obviously that's where I did some more research about what I was thinking about doing but for me I don't use the app so I couldn't do the video that you see what I'm saying that's that's the important part it's not something I would use ever um it's just for me personally so there you go um what else um and since so because uh you know this is how the the drama starts they're like somebody's like Phil says Teemo sucks and other YouTubers do it let me just tell you what I stepped in this week so it thank you guys first for uh we brought shra Max back um that was because Shauna was watching the podcast and so many you guys brought up Shan Max and I explained to you why I don't want to do it anymore and how it was costing us money and doesn't really net any positive result to me personally um not so much financially but personally because it's like three four days of work and it doesn't yet yield very many views and you guys were basically explaining why you liked it and the value it brought to you Shauna then brought the case to me and said hey these people said these things I don't know if you caught it because you were talking while they were typing this stuff and I want to bring it back and so we brought it back this week I want to thank you guys so much the comments were some of the most positive comments I've ever seen on any video I've ever done and the likes to uh view ratio is one of the highest likes to view ratios I've seen in and in recent times and uh that was amazing too however here was the the the mistake and I want to talk about it um uh we negotiated a deal with true fire to sponsor the video true fire um and this is why I'm just telling this because it just I want it upfront out there this week we had some issues and so TR fires no longer on that video and the issue was um when truefire asked me to do the video they didn't give me any instructions on how to promote it or what to do with it they gave me a sample course which I took and I I watched a bunch of other YouTube channels do true fire and one of them was Keith from 5watt world and he recommended the bamasa course so I purchased and I did the botam Masa course and um to get an insight on that just like when I did skillshare right just try to get some insight on it I really like promoting a lesson program over a product it's just really it feels better right like kind of like instead of you buying stuff that could be Garbage I'd rather uh promote something that will better your lives so anyways um uh they didn't give me any footage so what happened was I copied some footage including Keith from firewal World's footage uh when I mean by logos I copied the logos and stuff and I sent that I made the integration which is what they call the thing where you put the little commercial in there and we sent that to truefire truefire said it looked great go ahead and put it out and what happened was it was not great because it was Keith from five World wat worlds uh he created that from scratch which makes sense because that would probably make sense why I didn't have what I needed any footage from truefire so we removed it to respect Keith from 5 world's footage right because that's his stuff he worked on it he put his hard work money into doing that and obviously we're not going to be sponsored by TR TR TR fire on this um but that is because obviously um the mistake was first we didn't we made the mistake by using that footage and then TruFire made a mistake by uh when we send it to them for approval um to say hey is this what we're is this what it's supposed to look like um they said yes so obviously I feel like we were both at to blame the reason I tell you that is that again this ties into Pat thank you guys so much because otherwise I just work for 3 days and that video although you guys loved it did not produce probably it's going to make me about $35 so I didn't make just $35 because I have you guys and I want to thank you for that and also apologize to Keith at five World for for that because obviously he puts a lot of work into what he does and um I really like I said I I really uh I really liked his true fire uh ads the most which makes sense now that that that's why I liked his the most uh because he was making his from scratch so uh that would so there you go so um that's great I should probably if you guys have it can somebody put the Keith from five wat worlds um true fire link for the 30% off for True fire and um in fact I'll put it on that video as well so you guys can use it I believe does somebody know it if somebody knows it put it in now and when I timestamp this I will put it in the index what Keith from 5w World's actual link is so he can get credit for that and um and like I said but this is what I talk about uh when I talk about YouTube it's not just to tell you how great hey I got 400,000 subscribers my channel is amazing it's this is the things that you deal with I tell you guys all the time we're all learning as we go um what I was trying to do and what Sean was trying to do is to find more integration type product uh videos uh to where we could do more sharp my axes the good news is we're still doing sharp and myx nothing has deterred that we're doing more of the videos and um and basically uh you know if we find sponsors that work great we'll do it and if they don't we don't we have you guys so I think that makes sense so let's see anything else so um you know what's funny uh hold on I just want to do this uh Drew says Love Keith but cut F some slack you know it's funny he did so you know uh Keith uh was very very professional as you can imagine if you know five what world you know his channel is professional okay and he was very professional and I really appreciate that the his first thought was I don't know if Phil knows that this is my footage or not knows but knows this this wasn't true fire footage and he's absolutely right I since trile did not send me a file I captured the first file I saw because I was like oh this is easy you know right just capture a file uh another file means images capture these images and I go that's probably what it's supposed to look like and do it um so again he was correct and then um and I sent it again I just one more time just because I'm out out in myself I want to add out everybody too I did send it to True fire and said is this what it's supposed to is this what it supposed to look like is this what you want and they were like yeah it looks great I'm like okay cool we'll put it out and so it happens it's important but the important part is the reason why I say it's important one that he was very professional and he did take the high road uh when discussing me in this also to Keith's uh Point uh attribute is it is his work he created it we all are creators on here and it's it kind of is deflating when somebody takes your work so to me I didn't see it as his work I saw it as an advertisment like screenshot of his of the ad so um that's where the confusion is like I wouldn't obviously I wouldn't take anybody's actual work work but uh if I knew it was you know their work more so than just it was a screenshot of the ad so so there you go so and that's the Learning lesson now so now we've we've talked about it we've discussed it and going forward um we'll will only work with the companies that that we feel like we can work within the parameters of what they ask and not not the vagueness because it is tricky man I am not I like to point out as much as somebody will say hey man hav you been on YouTube for like seven eight years I am still not unfortunately a camera person an editing person a a soci social media mle Mogul I am a guitar nut who likes to make content and I have worked hard to make my content a little better looking I've worked hard to make it a little bit more professional I've worked hard to do all this stuff but I'm still look I'm not I probably should be spending hours and hours looking up camera stuff but that stuff disinterest me so much that I I just want to I just want to make guitar stuff all right uh let's see what else we got to talk about let's go on to guitar stuffs again let's like go back to guitar stuff um and by the way like the Pedigo uh feel free to R me about any of those mistakes I recently made too so okay um we have uh oh we have a lot of questions that piled up and I didn't pay attention I apologize um okay um uh Growler Growler says hey Phil any pointers on how to introduce launch or sell a new guitar design brand into the market um goal allinone guitar for serial gigar $11,000 is cons I'd consider made in USA made in Japan made in so you want well obviously yeah that's something I do how to do so uh any pointers on how to introduce and launch a uh a and sell a guitar design yes I have all that information uh I've done now about a half a dozen of them uh some associated with me and most of them not associated me in any way um obviously uh and I'm kind of redoing it right now with another company uh and and their I want to say their relaunch as in as as so to speak is what's coming um so this is what I would say Jay I could give you a couple pointers I could also tell you that the SM hard thing you can do if you don't know how to do it is learn you know invest the time into learning it like how I did and how other people have um or you can hire a consultant I do Consulting all the time um to that to that degree um you know it's it's not something I charge a whole lot of money for but I mean I do got to get compensated for some time but more importantly on this um there are so many things that you need to make sure before I would say yes this is what you do to launch your brand there are so many things that you need to think and get done before the one thing I would tell you about launching a product or a brand um that you need to consider is everything else needs to be done and perfect before that happens so you do not want to release a guitar and then immediately announce that you've changed it no changes okay so you have to be ready um I know this sounds silly but this is the important part this is the step that probably most are going to miss um your LLC needs to be put in place your trademarking needs to be put in place you know there used to be a time where you could get away doing stuff without doing proper you know uh legal documentation because you know you'd make a thing in your garage and then you'd sell at the local swap meet and a couple people buy your things you have to understand now that you're going to make a product and put it on the internet and the internet is the world okay that's the important part the the the community that's sitting here before you is a community of the world it's Argentina it's USA it's it's Europe it's Asia it's everywhere it's Australia it's everywhere and so you have to understand that once you do this you are public and in the Public's eye your mistakes are going to be like I just talked about one of my big mistakes you know and you're going to have to either decide if you're going to want to be public about your mistakes or you're going to try to avoid them avoiding them is probably the the best thing to do um but more importantly um you want to make sure that you don't want to start with uh like a perfect example is you don't want to go hey my new guitar brand brand is called Kel and then your first in your first 500 views of your first video it's Kel saying yeah no it's not right um so you want to make sure everything is done beforehand uh and that includes like I said all your design work all your trademarking all your legal stuff again if you're trying to go internet if you're trying to go social media if you're going to do it from your bootstraps a at home and sell one to one with people and maybe put it on your local Facebook maybe you get away with just doing it the old way but the new way definitely got has to be everything has to be done right um and then you have to also be available uh or not available you also be have to be aware of the fact that your product could do very well and you need to be prepared for that you have to prepare for a success and you have to prepare for the failure and then what's your next step and that's like a game of chess you have to know exactly what's going to happen once that happens so when you release your product if it does really well you want to know what what's next if your product doesn't do really well you need to know what's next all of those things are going to be the most important thing and so here's what's funny if you were to pay me to talk to me on the phone and have a a you know a you know like I said like a Consulting thing this is what would suck is because you would pay me basically to tell you that I don't want to talk to you about the social media part until you've proven to me all those things are in place and some more and then I would go okay let's let's go ahead and get social media out there you know let's get it out there um and um this is what's great about what's great about uh me I'm sorry what I mean nothing's really great about me but what's great about this is is I've stepped in this crap so many times that I'm not telling you my theories and I'm not telling you that I figured it out I'm telling you what every mistake I've made and this is why you need to be prepared that these have to be avoided um I've done all these uh mistakes publicly and they're all bad and um and I'm better for it now but I'm also smart enough to tell you how to avoid them those are all the things I would do um if you're going to start a new brand of guitars and then and then after you've done everything that we just discussed then you have to do the financial due diligence which is to figure out if it's even feasible to make any money doing what you're doing it is very hard to make money in this industry I mean I'm I'm sure a lot of Industries are hard to make money but this industry is one of the ones that's tough the people who succeed this is this is what I I I kind of feel like this is what needs to be said the people that you rever as successful in this industry have made millions of dollars not tens of millions of dollars millions um I won't name them because I don't think that's classy but I'm because you know because I'm trying to give you their to to to tell you how you respect them but basically these you're I doesn't matter who you're thinking of I already know you're probably thinking of 10 people I'm already kind of thinking of too when you think of 10 people I don't mean companies I'm not talking about like Fender guitar Corporation fmic I'm talking about people when you think of successful people in this industry and you think wow they are doing great you could be wrong but you could be right but most likely they are making millions of dollars if you're if they're lucky some of them not some of them hundreds of thousands not very many to few of them are making tens of millions of dollars and I know some of you are like well I'd be happy with Millions well who wouldn't but it's the same this is once it was kind of hit to me as a a very leveling comment it's the same amount of Sweat Equity and tears and time to make a guitar company is to make a sock company you know you see what I'm saying and and make you know a company that makes a billion dollars in other words companies think about this there are companies that started 20 years ago that are now billion companies and their companies in this industry started 20 years ago and now they're they're doing 1.8 million a year and they I bet you if you were to interview both those people the billionaire and the person with a million dollars maybe they're both happy that's the important part but financially I bet you they don't look at it like they put in one put in less or more work it's a lot of work to do this industry and it doesn't have a huge payout and and that's the winners and that's why I'm trying to tell you that I'm not saying you should you wouldn't be happy if you got millions I'm sure you'd be static but those the winners so you understand when we say the losers it's like winners make a couple hundred grand or a million or a couple million then the next winners are lucky to make a living you know and then underneath that is a lot of people it's all in the middle like I would tell every it's everybody always thinks business and especially in this industry is failure failure and success you know you either go out of business or you make a million dollars and I'm here to tell you that a lot of this industry especially ones I I know and interviewed for a long time uh are just limping through it and a lot of them are happy so you know they're just happy to exist and do the thing they love but they can't they're not doing bad enough to go out physically go out of business but they're not doing good enough to actually you know do the next strategy or do the next level so um uh so that's that's the thing and that's not even talking about all the people who are probably going to come out of the woodwork and sue you cuz you [Laughter] I laugh because somebody just mentioned uh you know the the big company like to sue people man I don't know anybody in this industry hasn't got served a a letter or hasn't served a letter I mean I don't think I have maybe one or two so I don't know so it happens okay Jay says happy Friday Phil how do I convert a direct Mount pickup Kel lithium to be mounted to a pickup pickup ring oh that's a super easy thing um basically you just uh you put the pickup ring you want to you Center up Center it up you know the pickup ring is going to Center up with the lines of that of that route which is great and um you install the pickup ring I mean I've done it a ton of times essentially you just Center up the Picker ring you're then you're going to drill the holes so you know you want to make sure you measure twice cut once you know make sure your pickup ring is exactly where you want it you've put the pickup in there you've you've kind of made sure it's seating correctly um you want to make sure that can uh lower and raise without any issues that your you know your your pickup screws are not too long once you've done that then you're ready use the pickup uh the pickup frame I've just used the actual pickup frame taped it down definitely don't want it to move and once I know I'm ready and I've measured two or three times and everything looks good I take my drill and I drill the four little pilot holes for the screws I install the pickup ring but you know and then I remove the pickup ring UND the screws take the pickup ring out then install the pickup in the pick a ring and put it in if you want to do it that way so yeah it's not that hard it's uh the hard way is the question that goes the other way how do you take a mounted one to pickup ring and put a direct Mount that's a little harder because you have those holes to fill and then try to blend out and then sometimes need some finish work but what you're trying to do is a little bit on the easier side uh grumpy my guitar says uh huge thanks uh for the sharp Max video thank you man uh this week I did the same repair on an epone about four or five years ago yeah you know it was really great um Dave I mentioned in the video that the viewer is named Dave what I didn't mention because it was you know a video and now I can talk about it in long term um Dave is actually a longtime customer in my store he took lessons at our lesson Academy for many years I've done many repairs for him in the past um you know I've sold him many as his guitars he is probably one of the biggest pickup Guru Geeks that I know he's super into guitar pickups on a level that even I you know can't kind of P up too um you know he would he's very excited about pickups in fact I I don't want to say he got me into pickups but he was definitely like I was into pickups and then he would talk about pickups and you know the conversations always go towards pickups and um and uh and what was great was we you know we were talking about like let's do the sharp sharpa Max we have another sharpa Max coming should be this month uh I'm hoping on the 19th and um you know we were working this out and that one just kind of worked out and I thought and sharpen my axe in my opinion obviously is about taking you know a guitar and making it a little better but it's about things you can do sharpa Max the theory of the the the series um was things that you could do as a project at home for either your first or your next project and not have to take it to a repair person so that's why I don't try to make them to over the top you know I don't want to be like you know I don't want to make it to where something like yeah you really need to do five or six of these before your first one this is one of those like yeah if you ever thought about gluing a neck this would be a perfect first time glue repair for a neck a a you know a lifted fretboard like that is like the perfect guitar um to do that because it's not the neck is structurally sound um so you don't have to worry about it re-breaking or anything the fretboard once you glue it down I mean the idea the the the idea the odds of it cracking again is just so uh um not likely it's not likely so it was really cool so I was really uh great to to do it and um so you know he didn't know that I was making the video because um that guitar came as a as a favor he asked me if I would do it he didn't ask me if I do it to be honest he texted me like what would I where I suggest him to take it and stuff and I said just bring it I'll just do it and then when I shaa heard I was doing it she's like you know I'm trying to get sharp my ax back on this would be a great way to do it and I'm like all right and I go let's uh let's do it so thank you to Dave for letting us see his guitar thank you um grumpy Mike for the thank you on that and I'm glad you did it too it's it's a really cool thing so um there you go um I don't have to say this name so I'm just going to say the question it says hey Phil here's some beer money for the weekend and I have a question okay how do you go about removing Bridge screws when the head broke off it's a four screw bridge for a Telecaster oh I'm thinking the headstock broke up what does have to do the bridge the bridge I get it the the the the the um the head of the screw broke off um you can drill them out out you can use a tap to tap amount uh there's a tap it there's a there's a a set I'm not even say sure if I'm saying it right isn't it funny um let me look it up it is a steel carbon steel tap set that's what I have I have a bunch of them um that I bought a long time ago you know it's such a in my mind it's such a mechanics tool and you know for doing that stuff I very rarely do you deal with broken uh you know screw heads in guitars I mean it's becoming more so because the cheap metal they're using you know they strip out or they break off but um you would use a it's a drill set that has a tap and you can you can do it out that way or you can drill it out um both those work and and and basically what you do is you're just trying to get it to come back out a little bit and and then you get some Vice scripts on it and then I just take it out you know manually um but but yeah the tap and die set would be the way to go and um you know it's one of those things you can just look up online and see what size you need um I bought mine so long ago you know um the um uh one of the thing oh somebody said Steve thank you Steve is like Harbor Freight yeah Harbor Freight would be great for that I don't I I don't think mine came from there but it might have so it's one of those things like I said um you know it's just one of those things I only knew and first time I ever had to do that as a good hard repair is funny I I didn't I didn't I knew what to do but only because when I was in the Army we had to use them sometimes to get out you know bolts that snapped off and we would do it and I'd be like oh yeah that's what we used and I I just went I think I probably went to Home Depot and bought one a set and it works and yeah that's what you're going to use and then and like I said it works if that helps uh Mr s thank you for the super sticker Leo says I can't give 10K but of us can give $10 you know look man there's no way you I don't make there's no I I understand what you're saying but I'm not out 10K I mean I am in the theory of the you know I'm saying no to to Teemu but no one was going to give me 10K anyways no one else so it's not like I you know there was another 10K I would get after that it' be a you know one thing time you know they would gave me money and but you know hey it is what it is um and then uh Fast Freddy said here for the sh sharp Max video thank you thank you I appreciate that stuff like I said it it's just nice I appreciate you guys doing that I just and you know what it is sometimes I really want you to know what your money is going towards what I'm doing with it you know I use uh any funds that I'm giv like this the super chats or the the patron fundies funds it's all used for the infrastructure of the channel the you know I don't so and and and that allows me to keep the money I make on YouTube which is nice because you know sometimes it's it's in my experience uh as you do better better on these platforms it gets harder not easier and then you're you have to make decisions that you don't want to make I and I think and it's not judging anybody for that I still have to do them too I still have to make decisions and go okay I'm going to make this do this thing because it gets you know the video made you know the sponsor but man it's just so much nicer when you don't have to to think about that or do that um jam Jam cinti says how do you price use guitars how do I personally price them it's not probably a good way uh you know I mean back you know when I had a store we would price Used Guitars based on uh what the current market was selling for so we would use eBay and Reverb both of those you can go into sold in you know sold items look at what had recent ones had sold for and then that gives you and then you want the recent stuff because you want to know where the market is right now not where it was a year ago or 6 months ago you want to know where is right now and then you would price them accordingly and so when you would take a guitar buy a guitar or trade a guitar um because we mostly did trade you would go okay um it looks like they're selling for $600 I want to make 20% to 30% on this use gear you usually double your money so it depends you know it really like here's how it works I made a comment the other week about sand to the beach you know if you brought me something I had five of them I I would be like okay I can sell it for 100 bucks I'll give you 50 you know that's just how it's going to go however if it's something I knew I could flip really easy and it's fast and it's really desirable I'd probably give you 80% or 70% of what I think I could sell it for because you know it's going to be a faster flip so I don't need the the money so much to you know I don't need more money because it's not going to sit that long um now how do I how do I price what I'm going to sell I basically price it at below what I what things are going for most of the stuff you can see it on my Reverb account all the time you know most of my stuff is priced extremely Fair on the lower end patrons get a super uh you know get a super discount first if they're interested in it you know like you know again just you know a support kind of thing and then if they're not interested which happens a lot it goes on reverb and I put it a little lower and um mostly it's just because I want rid of it you know in my world now most used gear when I'm getting rid of it it's just physically I need rid of it I either want to churn the money back into something I'm doing with the channel or I just physically you know can't get to my restroom because there's just too many things in the way um so that's how I do it but I mean how I would do it how I suggest you to do it is to do to research what they're going for and then uh gauge your product based on that and then you know put it in a fair fair price point um okay let's do guitar of the week well I drink yeah I thought I'd do guitar the week it's a little late but we'll do guitar the week so um as you know I do guitar of the week now it's where I show you guys a guitar that I think you guys would be interested in or a guitar that you're constantly asking about this guitar is probably the second most asked about guitar on the channel and it's never been technically on the channel as a standalone video although I do have a video of one just like it so let me go ahead and grab it because it's right next to me and share it with you this is a framus television [Music] ooh with dual P90s so what is a framus television well it is a very thin guitar that is hollow um so it is I believe there's a center block so it's semih Hollow there's a center block up the center right here this side is hollow this side is hollow which is why it sounds like that and it has a uh beautiful stained blue flame top right there and I should work on the thumbnail here hold on there's the thumbnail no okay and has a beautiful flamed back and then the center is mahogany and you can see right here you look at the neck you can see the flamed Maple right there look at how nice that is so you can see where it's nice nice okay so then you have a uh Tone Pro style Bridge you have a three-way switch which is a uh uh threeway switch you have it volume and tone control and two Seymour Duncan P90s that's what it came stock with and it has a unfinished mahogany neck where you can actually fill the grain uh very cool and then it has uh ratio tuning keys and if you're not familiar with those graph teac ratio tuning Keys is each tuning Keys is a different ratio uh so that they feel the same when you turn them so not one's more dramatic than the other has a graphite nut ebony fretboard with 22 uh medium jumbo nickel silver Frets with ball ends they're uh set in with the ball ends and then of course has an ebony truss rod right here and it is a set neck as you can see and I believe the neck is three pieces yep it's a three piece neck I think is it no it's a one piece neck huh okay and I I probably should tell you I might be a little confused because I had two of these at one point um this is the Master Bill one so I had another one that was regular uh Ralph currently owns that one this is the master belt one which is an amazing instrument to every level and this was um just one of those guitars that I have to tell you is just freaking amazing so let me go ahead and share a little bit more with you okay and I always thought it was funny let me go ahead and switch to the guitar view aha look at that and we're running through my Fender Princeton okay oh [Music] we okay let me move that mic so you can hear it and uh beautiful sounding instrument beautiful playing instrument of course it's a Masterbuilt german-made uh guitar that has just I mean the neck and the wood all the wood has been properly dried for many years and of course the P90s staying with the neck pickup let's give it a playr and let's see what you can hear [Music] okay so then you have the middle [Music] position and of course the bridge [Music] [Applause] okay so today I'm going to show you I'm going to use my Boost pedal through my od1 with a little delay okay and uh so I run the the overdrive just light and then I put a boost in front of it we're going to start with the neck pickup on this here's the overdrive sound [Music] okay now let's go to the bridge I'm going to turn off the delay here we go [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay so this guitar story is very simple uh this is the most expensive guitar I own when it comes to retail price so just be aware of that it is way expensive this is a guitar that is very rare you don't see a lot of them they don't make a lot of them it is even though framus German instruments are very expensive this is on the high end of that spectrum because it's their Masterbuilt grade instrument um and on on par with my Warwick base that I have and this instrument was an accommodation instrument in other words I got it from Fram with Warwick like I got my Warwick um working with them and it's one of those things like again you know is this something I could have got without them no you know it's just not something that would have been available to me um and it's it's um it's my wife Shauna's favorite guitar without a doubt okay and uh not only is it her favorite guitar that I own she steals it all the time she's rolling her eyes I'm sure she's watching the show because she doesn't steal all the time but she has stolen it many times one time I went out of town for the weekend I came back she had taken it out of my office and she puts I have one in our our family room where we watch TV you know you have the couch in your TV on one side of the TV I have a wall hanger for guitar and on the other side I have a beautiful uh photograph frame photograph of Eddie Van Halen that uh Larry de Mario took and had printed and gave to me as a gift and so that's what I look at when I look at my TV and she takes it all the time and she puts it in the front room so she can stare at it and so um and I um I don't like it there because next to that corner is a window and I'm afraid that the sun will damage the the Finish cuz it's a satin finish and I don't want to bleach out the blue blue uh finishes if you don't know blue finishes on guitars can be problematic they can bleach out they can uh green a little bit they can fade to clear so it's always scary I really have a lot of faith in how well they did this guitar but I also uh have fear of this kind of finish um but she literally uh this is and I think uh the patrons once on a on a podcast asked her and she said this is her absolute favorite guitar but I'm mean I'm not kidding um and this if you wanted to ask her but it's absolutely true uh so you don't have to ask her um if I was to pass away this would be the guitar she would keep it's her favorite guitar it's by far it is uh very nice so um and oh somebody's going to want to know how heavy is it uh it is under uh it's under six lbs it's about five a little less than 52 lbs and um it's not it's topheavy oh go to uh let's go to guitar view it is topheavy on your lap because it is so light see it wants to dive it is not topheavy with the strap because the horn is so long okay but uh yeah in your lap um there's a little bit of a a nose dive uh to it but the way your arm sits right here kind of positions it to hold and it's just because like I said the headstock you could probably solve that if they went to ult light tuning Keys like hip shot that would definitely help that situation whoops that would definitely help that situation um but uh you know they framus really likes the graphtech ratio tuners and that's why they use them so it is super light in fact um it is so light that's one of those things if you guys probably understand this hopefully you understand this when somebody says oh it's 8 lb or 9 lb or 7 lb I'm sure gives you gauge of it but you ever felt a guitar that was maybe heavy it was like eight and half pounds but it felt like 12 and you feel sometimes a guitar that's like seven pounds but it feels like five you know some guitars can feel even lighter than they are heavier than they are this guitar feels like it's air uh to the point where anyone who picks it up I have to warn them at first like hey it just so you know it's going to feel really really light and even saying that every single person without fail that picks this guitar up goes wow wow I mean it feels like three and a half four lbs tops tops if that so um so there you go it's a a very beautiful instrument it's constantly on the you know in the background and people are constantly asking about it and uh funny enough I have a video of one like it but it's not this one and so that's why sometime people I thought let's do it as the guitar of the week week week week week and uh and uh that way we can share and that's the whole idea of doing guitar of the week is share guitars that are interesting or or you know maybe you guys are curious about and it uh so it's it is an amazing guitar it is so great so um so a lot of you people are guessing the price I see it all over the place um uh so so you know somebody so here's here's what it is like I said more more importantly again I did not pay the price for this guitar um like I said uh just like my Warwick Bas that would be unobtainable logically for me if it wasn't for accommodation of you know discounts uh what they call they call it artist pricing I try to be call accommodation pricing because I don't like this think of myself as an artist uh I'm just a dude on YouTube but um the price wise somebody says uh somebody uh eston says wow less than I imagine $4,100 plus um and here's so I'm just curious somebody says $1 million somebody says a $10,000 nose Di that's interesting uh so here's what I can tell you about the television guitars um you can get the import version I think in the $1,000 to $1,200 range you can get a German made one in the three to $5,000 range and then Master Built would start above that this is uh and then this is probably the the most important thing this is framus is equivalent of a private stock so imagine so if you want to know the price just remember just think of this imagine I pulled out a semih hollow Paul Reed Smith Private Stock instrument what would that cost framus is PRI this is they call it Master belt this is Private Stock it's uh just like Fender Master belt versus custom shop it's their highest tier this is there is no tier higher than this guitar at framus so there you go all right somebody says $1 okay let's go somebody says please don't chip the headstock oh yeah it would kill me I would like' be so sad so sad um okay let's go to the next question what do we got let's refresh this a good time to drink some water uh John thank you for the Super Chat Seth says hey I have a vintage Shor Strat with a left-handed neck I.E upside down what is the easiest way to add side dots to neck stickers uh sounds cheesy but you can get really nice luminlay style stickers to stick on there um yeah I mean if you want you know if you want to do it easy that's the easiest way by far um if you don't want to do that then the easiest way would be to um do all the measurements correctly measure everything out and then drill out the pilot holes for all them and then insert um plastic I would get glow-in-dark plastic like luminlay insert it in and then uh it's going to be a little hard to blend out I'm assuming the finish on the neck is a little glossy or a little finished if it is it's going to be a little tricky it's why you really want to do that afterwards but it can be done um you might have to do you might have to do a thing where when you you might have to do some light sanding on it and if you do that you might have to do some then buffing to buff the the sand marks out but um but me personally what I would do I would get alumin lay stickers side dot stickers um I know um famous professional rock stars who have luminlay style side dots on their guitars on stages absolutely so um nothing wrong with doing that so um I would I would think about that okay um oh uh Dave says fluff has a recent video on side side stickers there you go go check out fluff video cuz I've seen them before like I said I probably have used them in the past once or twice but not really I tend not to look at the side dots I tend to I don't know what I look at I never thought about if I'm looking at the front not looking at all because I I think at this point you know I lucked out some people some players have issues with different inlays like no inlays on that one bird inlays on that one green dots on that one uh those weird dots that go the dots to go like a swirly thing on the Valente um you know block block inlays on this one I'm pointing at um I I don't notice or care you know um funny though funny you should say that that actually interesting enough my Custom Shop Warwick base one of the things that makes it Custom Shop is I had them put do inlays and they usually don't put inlays do inlays on their bases and they were like uh but I had them do it and so it was one of the up charges on that base um but but uh but it uh you know it I did it just because I thought I thought it looked better I didn't do it because I physically needed the dots okay um somebody says I missed a Super Chat well I haven't got through them all so let's just keep going okay Alex says if you have a guitar set up as well as possible and the high strings choke out on the highest Frets so I'm assuming highest we're going by ear right so we're talking about the between the you know know the 12 probably even higher let's say 14 to 22 or 24 Frets that's what I'm assuming so I'm going to assume that because you said highest Frets so I'm assuming it's High by ear towards the towards the body uh what else can be done this is on a less Paul but could be others um well here's the deal if your Frets or if your notes are if your strings are choking out and dying on your high Frets in other words between on the L Paul between let's say 14 and 22 you would rate raise the bridge that's how you would alleviate that and you would want to make sure that the neck and then once you raise the bridge how you would adjust that down is you would want make sure if your neck has any relief you can straighten out your neck a little bit more and that would solve that problem if you mean by highest Frets and it could be because some people just refer to them visually more than you know audibly and you're saying High Frets meaning your first to fifth fret first to fif fifth fret Wow first to fifth fret if those uh notes are choking out then you would need to relieve your trust Rod a little bit that's where that would do or it could be the nut needs to be recut you know the slots are cut too deep but in but I would bet not looking at it it's relief in the trust Rod just a little bit of relief will kind of fix that problem that's the two ways you you start the process of figuring out where the problem is is like I said above the 12 fret it's your bridge and below the fifth fret to the first fret it's the neck is where you would do the adjustments and then if the neck is correct and adjusted correctly and everything feels good then look at the nut um the nut tends to be the nut being wrong tends to always be the open strings so for those of you are like no it's the nut the nut though is that's how you solve if it's the nut or not if you hit a string and the string is buzzing open it's the nut possibly but if you hit a string open it's fine and then the first to fifth fret are bad then it's not the nut it's the it's the it's an over bow the neck needs to be relieved needs some relief in the truss rod so uh that's where you want to look at I saw one HK nope that was last week okay I thought I saw one I missed too hold on a second I'm gonna get back to it hold on a second I did that I did that one oh maybe I didn't miss one huh okay I'll come back I'm going to come back and look at those again uh Amanda sent me some cool questions I want to hit too as well as we're moving along right so we can button up he uh Amanda sent me from uh says what is your thoughts on the new ePhone inspired by Gibson 330 355 is this the best bang for buck in es style guitar so uh if you don't know what they're talking about they're talking about uh Gibson just released a new run of inspired by Gibson epon with the basically the open book headstock right that's what I saw in the pictures if it's slightly a variance of that I know that they did one version where a variance of that I I looked at like you know a screenshot um so I don't I don't know if it was so somebody put in the comments if it was the exact is it an exact Gibson open book headstock or is it a variant just more like the Gibson headstock um you know I want the epone headstock to look like the Gibson headstock one of the things I really like about Squire I've said this before is I like that they use the fender headstock I think that should be one in the same um some people have a different opinion some people like the epone headstock better I understand it's like you get trapped into what you did so epone being different than Gibson headstock for so many years you're going to have people get upset if it goes to the Gibson headstock some people want the Gibson headstock because they want the epone on stage to look like a Gibson or they just want it to look like a Gibson because they like the headstock better just like how you know the Squire looks like the the fender me I'm of the camp I'd like the he epone headstocks to look just like the Gibson that to me is one of my favorite uh phones is like the V because I like the headstock looks like the Gibson I like that you know I like that it looks like that um and oh Brian says it's a little shorter than the Gibson thank you Brian so uh you know I guess the cour of question why do I think of that stuff I I like it you know epone is a little tough for me right now because their prices are just getting so expensive so fast and I'm I feel like I'm losing touch really quickly with this because it's not a about where they're made it's not about anything else it's just literally like okay um I used I felt this way when the made in Mexico Fender strats prices started Skyrock very quickly you know and it got weird the first time I and it didn't get exact like this but it got close where you looked at a new M Mexico Fender and I'm like I can buy a used made americ one for that and I really like made Mexico fenders and probably more so than the American ones but you know you think about it like I said it's your money and you want to you want to spend it the way you want I I think like it's hard for me to think like that like in other words it's hard for me to think of an epone new being more expensive than I can buy used Gibson so it's it's a little weird that way but when we're not talking about the money part of it we're just talking about the guitar I I mean I love where they're going with it it's just expensive um and it seems it seems like now this is not the best time to have more expensive stuff come out but I would say Let me let me put it this way let me go here real quick because I want to pull it up and I want to do two things real quick hold on a second and this will kind of okay all right um okay so let me let me kind of go into this I'm pulling up the EP phone stuff guys give me thanks for giving me a second and I'm hoping it's just going to come right up and maybe it will and maybe won't collection new collection is this the newest one accept ah it doesn't come up um I saw the group picture of them and when I P type in inspired for gibs and epon what's coming up is something else I thought a Guitar World did a thing on it we can pull up theirs and see if they talked about it because I'm trying to remember where I saw it I saw the picture yes this is it okay cool um all right let's go here let me get around all this stuff okay so this is what we're talking about these guitars were here and of course they're not showing really the whole headstock so there you go there's a little bit of headstock um so there's your es33 355 you're were talking about and of course they have this beautiful SG and this pink acoustic and then of course you have the celest Pauls and stuff and one thing I will say about this is it really ties into the video I made this week with the new Paul Reed Smith S2s and why it uh ties into this is I think it it's smart I think it's smart right now remember I talked about uh a long time ago I talked about the last recession and about how you needed more interesting things to get people to buy not cheaper things you know cheaper is important because everybody's feeling a pinch you know from the inflation but these are all luxury goods okay and people spend money on luxury goods differently than necessities and you know I know whenever I talk about this it's going to fill the comment sections with you know the price everything's gone crazy because it has But please understand this is a luxury good we're this is a channel about guitars which are luxury goods we're talking about luxury goods if you're watching this channel to learn about guitars I understand that but if you're watching this channel because we're talking about products that you're interested in these are luxury products and whether you're looking at a $100 uh Amazon guitar or you're looking at a $10,000 Uh custom shop instrument these are luxury goods and right now to get most people to spend luxury you have to make them feel a certain way you have to make them feel good and yes lowering the price can sometimes make them feel um good but also feel a little less apprehensive about purchasing but in but my experience in the last recession having to sell guitars in during the recession and feed my kids with it was what really brought the purchases in when the market gets a little hard and the competition goes up is to make better products to give them more value because because they they they it's the feeling you're trying to incite so obviously Paul re Smith S2s adding in the core pickups the real deal pickups and and making the S2s feel more premium so that somebody who because really what you're trying to do is you're not trying to get somebody who was like I was thinking about getting an S2 because that's what I know a lot of you thought you know like somebody's thinking about getting an S2 and now they got real Paul Reed Smith core pickups and for a couple hundred bucks more they're going to buy that I don't think that's what exactly what they're doing I think what they're doing is is they're thinking they're trying to grab all the people who are thinking about buying a four or $5,000 Paul Reed Smith core to go why not just buy this for $2,000 that is an easier person to convert into a sale they were already maybe kind of maybe thinking four grand and now you're telling them for two grand and then you need them to rationalize this like wow I'm going to get the same sounds I'm going to get this I'm going to get a same finish I don't really need all that fancy wood top stuff I don't need the fancy things I I'll just get the more barebones instrument and it's a quality instrument and I think epone is probably doing a little bit of the same strategy a little bit of saying hey um plus let's be honest uh Jack higinbotham deserves the respect one but also the Accolade he could be putting the pressure on Gibson to upgrade the epon because what he's done with Paul re Smith SE has set the industry standard for the new more obtainable uh cuz I notice I'm not saying affordable more obtainable instrument line which is SE the Paul re Smith SE guitar punches so far above its weight in not only its quality CU look we can sit here and we can give accolades to Harley Bon we can give accolades to all there's all ER guitars there are a ton of guitars that you can buy for 100 to two $300 $400 that are good guitars we we'll all agree they're well not all of us but a lot of us agree they're good guitars and do you need more you don't but we're talking about premium brand with better features it's a better resale value which makes people feel more comfortable about their purchase their Venture purpose per purchase this is something I'll keep hitting on for probably years when people go why do you guys always talk about resale value and it's because every guitar purchase is a venture purchase it means you're guessing you're going to like this it's and again it's not a necessity it's a luxury you know if you're like I need a hammer and you go and look at hammers you're going to look at go I'm only going to use it a couple times I'm going to Harbor Freight if you're like I'm going to use this hammer for the rest of my life you're going to go and buy maybe a better quality Hammer you know but it's a tool and you're going to use it a guitar is not it is a tool like musicians get upset when I say it's a luxury because they're like well it's my tools that I need for my trade I'm like yes but as someone who makes entertainment we're a luxury trade um every time a guitar player who who gigs tries to talk to me like we're not in the same boat we're in the same boat dude it this people if if times get tough they are not watching YouTubers talk about guitars okay they're not going to the bars and watching music I mean we're luxury I'm in the luxury world I'm no different than a band playing on a cruise ship you know if people can't afford this stuff no one's going to watch me talk about it no one's going to watch you play it um and so they're going to have to work harder for these luxury purchases and I see Paul re Smith really jumping on that quickly you know with the SE think how fast the SE upgrades came right out of the pandemic right after the boom was like pow we're ready and I think uh epone could be coincidence they were thinking the same thing possible but it also could be reactionary they could look at that and go hey we got to get on this you know are people going to buy epon if you know they're far removed from a Gibson where the se's are getting closer to the core ps's I think that sets a standard we've seen this before this isn't new to the industry in the 80s we saw the 80s metal guitar companies make everybody take notice you know uh you know their fret work was better their guitars played a little better you know we got to up the standard you know somebody's always pushing the market for either price or for quality or something or sometimes hopefully both and um and uh you know I I wish I could tell you what's coming next because I can't but stuff's coming next that's going to be in that line too more affordable really cool stuff from some cool Brands but back to the ePhone in the uh guitars what my thought on that 355 I think it's cool man I mean you know the the Gibson guitars are expensive just like the B Smith core guitars they are they are the most some of the most expensive guitars you can get I mean if you're not going you know to small Builders who are extremely you know that take that you know to the next level but um hold on I'm just looking to see what you guys are talking about PRS SE okay H all right um H this is interesting I like this it kind of It kind of goes into the discussion defunk defund oh no funny okay I got it uh okay defund I'm gonna call him defund you guys are gonna read a sign on it says pH we're not a political Channel it says Phil do you think a time will come when we will strip 80s and 90s guitars to reuse their good wood to build new guitar with like I see so many cheap plywood guitars with nice dark Rosewood fret um you know that repurposing in other words you know it's possible what would have to happen is the same thing that's happened in the other industries that have done the same thing whether it's repurposing Construction Supplies um is there would have to be a demand uh you know they're already doing repurpose wood guitars where they're taking old Barns and making guitars and stuff like that so is is this a thing where they take old guitars you know this is a a fun little let's pontificate for a second shall we kind of moment where we're like yeah is there a time where people will look back at old old Squire guitars and literally you know I've thought about this for years well you know young lers buy up cheap choirs and then turn them into amazing beautiful custom shop level graded Fender guitars maybe not put the fender logo on them maybe put you know some other logo um you know making a new sub genre of guitar and another words a sub genre of of style of selling in other words you take like I said what what if you took an epone less Paul what if you took an Apple phone Les Paul stripped it down you know like one of the ones that you know that we Reve maybe a made in Korea one where we thought the woods were better and stuff take strip that down to the wood repaint the whole thing new pickups new hardware and re Rel maybe change the headstock a little bit and then relabel it as a new brand and sell it to you for a premium because it's been reworked in every way as a beautiful instrument the answer to that is the market will decide that do I think it's a good idea well I think it's a great idea would I put my money into that idea right now no because I don't know again what I was talking about earlier about you know uh Consulting for someone who trying to start a brand um what I I don't know if there's a customer for it you're talking about a customer because to do that it would cost no less in fact it would cost more so what would have to happen is the expensive stuff would have to get so expensive that you know it it creates a market that you know it's it's like anything else it's like okay I'm not paying $225,000 for a Gibson Les Paul but I'll pay this guy Mike in Minnesota to repurpose an EP aone for four grand what I can tell you as someone who's worked on guitars more so than built guitars is it's more timec consuming to refinish re redo guitar um than it is to build from scratch the proof in that is like I've said many times look at manufacturers they a lot of times not all the time but a lot of times they will start from scratch then fix because fixing sometimes can take longer than building so yeah I mean I love the idea and if it could be done more practical I think it's good I I mean I think there's people for it I think there's an interest in it obviously I can see some of the comments right now you guys are like that's a really good idea we should do that you know like somebody should do that I think somebody should do that and give it a try and I think it could be done but you know it's it's going to be the market that decides it it's going to be you know I I don't know you know um but repurposing is as my guess in my lifespan what I've seen in the world repurposing is definitely a future thing um you know that's just the reality of anything you know recycle repurpose it's it's going to be a thing whether whether it is or isn't is now is hard to say but it will be a thing um libertine 19 Liber 19 something I don't saying the name okay he says a Miss Super Chat let me hit that oh there it is okay says trust Rod cover screw head broke off How can I ex ract the screw without damaging the finish on the headstock I broke it flush with the surface I don't know sadly enough I don't know what kind of guitar you're talking about trust Rod cover screw broke off so I don't I don't understand enough to know exactly I'm thinking you're talking about the head I thought I talked about this I was talking about same thing as the bridge you're talking about the head of the screw that holds the trust Rod cover on your guitar broke off and now it's you got to get it out of there um well if there's something to bite on to you can do it with some vice grips and but if not you're going to have to use a tap and die set again and I would definitely in that area um earlier when we were talking about Telecaster bridge I didn't really push it this hard but I will push it with the headstock this hard you're really going to have to tape everything off and protect the area so that you don't slip off and damage any part of the headstock but that's what I would assume from which what you're saying what you're going to need to do um there you go I'm going to have to invest in tap and die sets and Link them thank you vims uh I thank you so much for the Super Chat Let's uh let's do like one more shall we one more Amanda sent a bunch so I kind of want to hit um um huh okay let's see okay here's one if I open it up there it is okay so I have one here it says uh jordo's toad hole Jesus you guys come up the craziest names it's just I I like it don't get me wrong I like your name I'm just like sometimes you know I got to read all this stuff it's like it's like it's like a game when you're you know you're in your car and you're reading people's personalized license plates reading your guys' sign on is like trying to decipher personalized license plates it just gets like I don't know okay so anyways uh jordo he says buying my first new electric in 20 years okay so his first one in 20 years between an epone Explorer and a sire S7 vintage how's the QC on the Chinese ePhone stuff and are the sers really as great as people say all of the sers I reviewed were fantastic all the sers I have picked up and played have been F fantastic and so what I would say to you is you'd have to go into this is the sad part you have to go into my channel and look at the reviews and see when the last sire review was which is probably about two years ago and then I don't have any reference for anything future I have not touched a sire since the last one up until that point I was extremely impressed and I had nothing but good things to say I've heard no negatives or positive since then so I have no information but I I just don't know since then I have put my hands on new er phones and the fit and finish has been fantastic um I actually you know I have uh you know I like them um you know the the only thing with epone and sire is that epone I don't know what I'm trying to say sire is to me a little bit more premium than epone in the way that it's been fit and finished in the past but you know both are good here's the good news I love this because you're again we've talked about this in the past you're asking me between good and good it's not like I'm saying stay away from one brand that's what you really should pay attention to it's not that I'm not praising one enough it's that I'm not saying anything bad about either one uh reviewing them both I I would say though of all the sers I've played and reviewed I would say I would give them on average an eight and a half so I'm talking about all of them so if I had to say My overall experience of all sers eight and a half now if I was to say the overall experience with epon obviously I've touched a lot more epon so it's not really fair but I'm just talking about on the channel okay because it's about the same maybe a few more epon in sire I would say on average the EP phones are about a seven so that's what I would expect if you were going to purchase one that The Sire will probably have a little better fit and finish on average than the epone based on my experiences with those guitars and that so do with that what you may I mean if it makes you if that pushes you over the edge what I would say is if if you really want an epone over a sire but you're worried about quality that difference isn't enough to me to that you should be worried by that epone but if the fit and finish is all you really care about and you just don't want any grief I would definitely look towards those sers um because I think they just work a little harder so um okay okay [Laughter] Eddie junor says Phil I broke off my pick card I broke off the pick card screw any thoughts I would get [Laughter] a I'm just kidding it's kind of funny um all right uh okay then this is uh R reckon reckon dog reckon dog says hey Phil what do you think will happen with with the PRS core guitars now that the S2 is much closer to it would they get new features or just some more uh be more obscure I actually think the some of the uh refinements in the uh core already happened we saw them change to the plastic tuning Keys obviously already has uh you know tuning heads I'm sorry on the tuning Keys um and you know making them more like a bird as much as that sounds silly saying it out loud like well plastic tuning heads you know heads on tuning Keys is more premium but in my experience when you're talking about Brands and that's what Paul reith is it's a brand it's a high-end brand that brings in a customer that is wanting either The Prestige of that brand that's a factor why people buy ps's look they're called Dr lawyer guitars and I don't think that's fair because I think engineers make a lot of money too and I think more Engineers play guitar than doctors and lawyers but I could be wrong but um my point is is that Paul Reed Smith built a prestigious brand a premium brand and he wants to sell guitars in that premium brand and and so he he's probably aware of something that we're all not aware of which is he probably knows what really drives the purchasing of us more than we even do and I was going to if I was going to guess I would say that owning a core PRS is more of a bragging right than it has a physical quality to it because we know know that because he doesn't make crappy SE and he doesn't make crappy S2s I mean they're all really good to the point where you're like you know when people go oh my my core is so much better than my SE I'm like it's better is it so much better I don't know if so much better is something I can actually attest to I think it's better I agree with you I don't I'm not arguing but so much better I think um so I think aesthetic changes to the core which is what I think he's done recently with the tuning key change and maybe some finish changes and stuff is enough to push people into the core cuz they just want it you know um we've talked about how stupid we all are not all of you me how stupid I am to go want a binding on a Gibson L Paul the studio is fine especially with the maple cap it's really at that point with the same pickups is the same guitar but to have the binding is a big deal I don't think they're any different than Paul R Smith I think Paul R Smith is going to be like yeah if you want the core it's going to be a a look so much so than it is uh the sound quality because we know the pickups are going to be a big driver of the sound quality in those guitars um and of course you know holding back the bridges that and the old tuning Keys the the what are they the number twos versus the threes on the S2s is enough to make people go you know I need more premium um there is that there is that you know uh so I think that might be enough I think what S2 is really about is them answering the question to the problem we were all having with which is what is really different about SE and S2 because I have to tell you one thing that was getting really tough as someone who makes content to explain to you without reading their ad copy okay um and I'm so glad I don't do it because uh like for instance on my S2 video um I uh Sweetwater has the specs on the satin 24 wrong they're saying it's a pattern regular neck it's not I measured it it's patter it's pattern thin so I'm think goodness I usually go to Sweet Water for my specs but theirs was wrong and I learned that after I made the video cuz I trust my own tools um but um but here's my point my point is is that it was getting really hard making videos explaining the difference between SE and S2 without saying that one stupid thing that I hate saying which is this one's made Indonesia and this one's made in the USA and if you buy the USA one people in USA are happy and if you buy the Indonesia one people in Indonesia are happy I mean it gets really like hard to to to qualify that as a reason for purchase you know and I know some of you guys mostly us maybe us people like me in the US you know that are old school um you know focus on that because we're Americans and we're like America all right but remember I talked to the internet the internet like I said earlier is the world this is in this group of people sitting here a thousand people plus you're not a thousand Americans not even close I bet you if I'm lucky 65% of you are from America maybe 70 which is a good amount but not all the truth is not everybody has the same value points as us okay so because of that it gets hard for me as a channel that's trying to be respected for taking the time to explain the actual difference in the guitar to just say this one's made in one country and this one's made another and that's the value proposition difference the SE were making that tough because when somebody would ask me an honest question of like what's really the difference in the quality of an SE versus an S2 and I'm like well they have different finishes it's polyurethane versus um versus Nitros lacquer now now that the SE S2s have Nitro uh pickups were the same bridge and was the same the S2s have locking keys but this is where it's tough somebody goes well why is it double I'm like I don't know labor it's the American labor is double right it's more it's cost more to build it in the USA that's true and as a patriotic American I'm like yeah pay that labor those are my people pay them right that's not a thing I can attest to Quality that's a thing I can attest to the value I find I find Value in supporting like I said I I support my local restaurants more than the chain restaurants I like to support my local work work um more than you know work from on the other side of the country much less outside the country I mean that's us everybody's going to be the same that way you want you know people in Italy want people in Italy to be working right people in America want people uh working in America so um but that's not something I can qualify in a video as as VA uh that's value in that aspect but in a quality when I'm abing product quality it's almost impossible to come up with an answer so having S2 level up a little bit was a smart decision and the reality is this they up the prices about two 250 bucks a guitar that doesn't matter here's why it doesn't matter $2,200 you know somebody's like they were 2,22 that's ridiculous it's not really that it's they were 2,000 and almost like $1,000 SE and now they're $2,200 and they're leveled up from an SE so is it double the quality of an SE no but it's more 30% more I don't know how to Value I don't know how to put a percentage on it but it's more valuable because it has more valuable pieces in it pro you know um like I said I think the finish I like the Nitro finish on it um but I mean you know that's just a preference I don't really like nro finishes but I like the finish that PRS is using on that it feels really good on my hands and I like it on my arm I I like the it feels so so to answer your question I think the level up the S2 was a perfect strategy that doesn't really require the core guitars to be leveled up next um and I told you guys because of my relationships with certain companies that's the there's a good and bad thing one of the bad things is when a company tells me like right now I'm working on my June videos so I mean for a lot of companies and so obviously there there's stuff I know it's coming out in June and I can't talk talk about it so but one thing I will tell you is I can tell you what I'm not doing and what I'm not seeing um I know a bunch of stuff that's coming out with PRS in the future and like let's say through the next quarter this next quarter second quarter and none of it is in the upgrades in the USA guitars and if anything USA guitars got their upgrade in January this first quarter if you saw I did a review of the new 248 uh core that was part of the new lineup and so I I think core got its update which is mostly an Aesthetics I I think S2 got its update mostly in componentry you know and and sound quality and then I don't I I know what's coming next in SE it'll be interesting but um se's already got an upgrade too so I think that I think your your decision is simple now it's do you want the core guitar that premium guitar or do you just want a p Smith that sounds great I have another video coming on S2s by the way I was going to release it this week but the uh sharp my ax video got a little combobulated a little messed up and that's how it came out so it'll might go out tomorrow or by Sunday but it'll be by Sunday the new Paul R Smith um I have another S2 review and why it's special to me so look for that video and it may answer some of these questions even a little better than just me on the cuff on the podcast uh we tuned to see is our last question he says I just bought an E2 Eclipse which is an amazing guitar with a full with full thickness body and passive Duncan now I cringe every time I pick up my gives and let Paul yeah you're the second person this week to tell me that exact same thing I won't say who it is but he might be listening this show right now and I'm talking about you because he was talking about him on the phone with it this week uh saying the same thing that he just got an E2 eclips uh and um he's like it blows his Gibson R7 away uh and uh of course yeah of course come on uh I look it's a preference thing for sure I mean there's just something vibing about Gibson Les Paul's that there's a Vibe you know to it um I would never take that away from anybody we we talk about quality because I'm a repair guy so it's like um I don't want to confuse people and this is their last my last sign out but I'll end on I don't want to confuse people like a mechanic would confuse people on a car review a mechanic think of me like a mechanic for guitars I'm going to talk about Dependable reliable right um you know price value to price those things factor into me because that's my mindset but just like probably any car-loving mechanic I'm also going to go but it's really cool Gibson to me sells on the it's really cool factor and right now a couple of you going I don't think it's cool well then guess what then you probably don't like the guitars at all because I think that's the only thing they really have to offer as a whole but if you care about those other three things you know dependability you know and reliability uh cost to Value then yeah I mean there's a lot of great guitars out there and I definitely think the e2s although my one complaint about E2 and I just because I don't I got to say it is I wish they weren't called e2s I just wish they would just call esps and be done with it to me just make LTD ESP Japan ESP USA and be done with it be done with it I hate E2 I don't understand it there are so many companies that don't do that the the the the the idea look pss2 it's a Paul Reed Smith S2 it's a Paul Reed Smith core it's a Paul Reed Smith Private Stock it's a Paul Reed Smith SE just ESP LTD ESP Japan ESP USA and just call it a day um but you know that's my only stupid complaint and it's not based on anything other than I think it's because I I have no problem admitting that you know I think guitars are cool and sometimes I think I'm cool because I have a certain guitar I was brainwashed you know that's what happens when you grow up like I said with guitar magazines and MTV and to me paying $2,000 or $3,000 for an esp2 I kind of for that kind of money I want to feel like I got the ESP and the fact that they still hold the brand now to even higher price point is just really tough for me to you know value now that there's S2 now that Gibson's making you know more affordable line Gibsons or they continue to make those and Fender makes more affordable fendors it just I I hate holding the brand out for such a high price I get you don't get Gibson unless you have you know 1,500 bucks I get that you don't get Fender if you don't have at least, 1500 bucks I get you don't get Paul Reed well no you get Paul Reed Smith at any price point at $500 you get Paul Reed Smith on the lay on but you get the idea I hate that ESP is hold held back to such a high price point um and especially since uh as much as I love the current s ESP lineup and the quality is fantastic I don't need just like S2 I don't feel I need core over S2 I don't feel I need ESP over the e2s I think E2 is just the perfect amount of quality for me for that price point I just want the ESP name all right that is that is the show I appreciate you guys hanging out with me as always every week I appreciate it so much um and uh on that note uh now it's probably time to go play guitar so go play guitar enjoy your family enjoy your friends enjoy your guitar playing have an amazing weekend and uh the know your gear podcast know your gear

Channel: Phillip McKnight

Views: 58,899

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Id: qVl1pp5CtQQ

Length: 127min 10sec (7630 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 06 2024