Paul Reed Smith’s Vintage STRAT Shootout Goes OFF THE RAILS

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hey everybody I have a special guest i
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have two special guests today this is Mr
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paul Reed Smith paul has been on my
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channel before but people some people
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that I know say he's not really a real
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person is he i told that to Paul this
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morning but Paul is a real person my
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wife told me I wasn't real this morning
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and this is Tim of course everyone knows
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Tim Pierce and this is Ken who's if you
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can see him we go to the other camera
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he's engineering our session paul what
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are we doing here where do we start
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where do we start now i challenged you
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you challenged me and I said "Find the
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best Strat you've ever heard in your
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life and let's compare it to some SE
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guitars." And you were like I like that
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idea but then finding
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finding the Strat was interesting so
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there's there's four of them here yes
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there's a 55 Strat there's a two 62s
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made almost on the same day y and a 63
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bastard strut which means it has a few
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other parts on it right yeah and you
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guys got to decide the two of you decide
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which one you like the best to then
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compare so let's actually just talk
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about our um what we're playing through
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here this is a Park uh 45 yeah but it's
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not a vintage one it's a new one but it
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sounds It's a new one mitch Colby built
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that built for me because of Tim uh you
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heard mine and I heard his and I had to
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have one and then we're going through
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three different microphones an SM7 SM57
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and a Sennheiser 421 and then we're
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going through three different 1073s mic
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pres and that's it no EQ nothing and
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we're going through a 71 Marshall
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cabinet with greenbacks what is this
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okay this is my friend Chip's guitar
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chip Dillard it's a 62 this is a 62 uh
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Strat now this is weird so Chip stopped
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by yesterday just randomly I haven't
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seen Chip in forever and I didn't tell
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him anything about making this video and
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he said "Oh I brought this guitar of
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mine for you to check out." I said "What
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is it?" He says "A 62 Strat." I said "No
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way." He said "Why?" I said "Because the
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day before." The day before I said
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"Because we're going to shoot out a
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bunch of 50s and 60s Strats here and can
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you leave it here?" He said "Yeah no
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problem." So there it was when when they
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walked in yesterday he's like "What is
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this?" I said "My friend just brought
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this randomly." And Paul said "It's not
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random." Right Paul i don't think it's
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random the guy was on the grid he got a
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message to bring you the guitar i mean
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I'll probably get shot on the internet
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for saying something spiritual like that
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but I literally I have a friend when I'm
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having a bad day goes "What's wrong
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Paul?" And I go "How'd you know?" Oh
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you're on the grid i mean it's almost
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the whole Joseph Campbell thing you know
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uh the force be with you it it and there
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are people that kind of know what's
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going to happen artists are very very
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known for knowing what's going to happen
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ahead of time
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chip had this guitar since his
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grandfather gave it to him when he was
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nine but his grandfather was the
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original owner of it
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[Music]
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that would be the neck pickup now here's
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the
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[Music]
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middle and the
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bridge which I would step on the pedal
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for but here it is by itself now you
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would play a different part with that
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that would That's a thick That's That's
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for a different part that pedal's a
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thickening agent well it can be whatever
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you want but did you hear I had
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thickened it up yeah with the bridge
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pickup you would play on the low
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string or you would gain it way up and
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play lead up here but it gets pretty
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skinny up there yes i always go to the
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neck to try a Strat
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[Music]
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have we heard this one i think we have
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you want to try the one that was made
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almost the same day i do
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guys tell me about this okay what is
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this Paul so we had decided let's find
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the best one ever so I called Dave
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Rogers at Dave's Guitars in Lacrosse
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Wisconsin okay and I wanted something in
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between the 55 and the 63 that we had
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your friend hadn't showed up with the
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guitar right and so he said "Well I've
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got a 61 slab board." So I he said "I'll
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send it to you." And the next day it
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comes and it's not a slab board i went I
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called him up i went "I thought you said
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this was a slabboard." He says "We did a
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shootout with the whole museum and my
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crew thought this was the best sounding
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guitar in the whole museum it's a late
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62." And I went "Fair enough." And I
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plugged it in and I like the sound of
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the bass pickup
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but the treble pickup was really really
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ice pickicky
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[Music]
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middle very
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delicate here's the
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bridge keep waiting you have to play the
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same play the same way that's not fair
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yeah
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oh you let me touch
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oh no i went Look what I did i went to
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my favorite that's not fair here's a
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lead
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[Music]
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good so that's two guitars right two yep
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tim that was very funny that you just
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Yeah automatically automatically back up
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you know why right cuz he's a guitar
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player and it's it's instantaneously
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viscerally done that's right so Paul
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what is this guitar so I was at Rainbow
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Guitars in Tucson all right
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and Harvey pulled out this guitar and I
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thought it was one of the best Strats
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I'd ever touched and I said "Will you
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sell it to me?" He said "Yes." And that
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the deal was
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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done that was the neck now to the middle
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[Music]
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now the
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[Music]
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[Music]
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bridge so to me what's interesting is
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that most of these if you interview most
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of the rock stars they use 62 63 or 64
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Strats on these records you can hear
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they're louder and the signal noise
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ratio on the 62 63 64 guitars there's
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more it's a louder guitar against the
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noise you can hear this is a quieter
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guitar yeah so why why well because the
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magnets were different okay and and they
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were stronger and and uh the power of a
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pickup is how many turns it has and how
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loud the magnet is that's that is
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fundamentally it and if the magnets are
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louder and and it had a few more turns
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on it the turns were close it it's going
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to be louder but the treble pickup in
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that guitar has got a little sweeter
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mid-range than the other two did you
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hear that it did absolutely does yeah
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well this is all the things that we were
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listening for when we were making the
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SE's yeah paul tell me about this guitar
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okay i found this neck on Reverb it's a
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63 big C neck it turns out that A B C
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and D were all the width of the nut not
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how big they were but when they made the
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nuts wider the neck necks were bigger
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and these were the legend the big ones
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and so we were able to find a piece of
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original pickard material that had never
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been cut so when we cut the pickard out
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of it it wasn't shrunken because all
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those pickards shrank and bent the
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pickup over and all that stuff and then
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we found very slowly over a two-year
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period pickups for sale that came out of
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63 and 64 guitars and put them in here
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okay well this has been our shootout
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guitar to know what an old a really good
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old Strat sounds like what's interesting
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also that I think we all forgot to
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mention was all these guitars are tuned
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to Eflat which is a a trick that Strat
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players use to get the guitar to sound
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bigger otherwise they're a little too
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thin sounding yeah and they always
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blamed on a singer but it was never that
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it was always they wanted the guitar to
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sound bigger if you listen to Machine
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Gun he's got that whole band tuned to D
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to D not drop D and it's a bigger sound
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it made the guitar bigger so that's got
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to I mean people are going to know when
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they learn what Tim's playing that it's
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tuned a half step and I I just want to
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ask Tim what kind of neck do you like uh
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I like a thinner neck yeah but I've been
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liking fatter necks lately okay okay so
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it's kind of seasonal okay uh it just
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depends playabilitywise it It's more
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about the frets and the width of the
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neck it I I can deal with anything back
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here big shoulders small shoulders okay
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but the fret it's I like new frets so I
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might reffret an old Strat if it wasn't
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going to really reduce the value well
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that one's been reffed so yeah and the
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55 have been reffdded yeah they feel
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good
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[Music]
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very nice now we to the middle
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[Music]
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very musical both i like that try this
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guy
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[Music]
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you always step on that green thing
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now that treble pickup's not squealing
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nope no where the other twos were
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squealing through the pedal right yeah
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it lights up in a musical way with the
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pedal with gain so here's the question
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which of the four do you want to shoot
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the SE's out with i really like this one
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the three pickups sounded different from
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each other in a in a really good way i
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don't know there's It has a really
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pleasing sound to it it seems musical
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and
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smooth and even across all the pickups i
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did like Chip's guitar the first guitar
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that we Do you want to try Chip's guitar
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again you want to Yeah yeah that thing
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that the 55 is quieter than the other
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ones is not well known it took me a long
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time to Why was Henry all these people
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playing 63 64 gravity was playing on a
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64 the Hendrickk stuff if you read it
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was 63 55 Strats that's Eric Johnson's
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thing but they're quieter well when I
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tried it out yesterday I didn't have it
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plugged in it was really quiet yeah
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that's funny all right Tim try
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that was the neck here is the
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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middle now here's the bridge
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[Music]
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uh well the bridge on the other guitar
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sounds better than this bridge to me so
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right there tim what do you think you're
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I like the black one the best yeah I
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like the other one better there's one
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thing I want to point out about this
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guitar and that there's a lack of low
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mid-range in the bass pickup which makes
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it sit in the track really well if you
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play the bass pickup again listen to the
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lack of low mid-range
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i like the I like that the bass pickup
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sounds great
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which is what engineers were always
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trying to get rid of mastering engineers
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recording engineers so that part I like
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i thought the bass pickup in this guitar
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was very musical but it started to not
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get musical as it was as you moved on
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yes
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up that's what I heard yes I agree
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[Music]
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heat hey Heat
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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heat heat
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[Music]
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i decided to put the four Strats back to
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back so that you guys could decide what
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you think is the best of the four Strats
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we decided that the black 1963 Strat of
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Paul's would be the best one to shoot
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out against the Silver Sky SE let's hear
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that Strat one more time
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that is the neck here's the middle the
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mid i like that i love and here is the
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bridge
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[Music]
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musical yeah smooth so Tim this and Rick
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this guitar has had
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literally a dozen pickups in it
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because we were trying to find the best
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one for that for this thing and the ones
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you buy on the internet are a crapshoot
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right yeah i'm famous for taking a
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pickup that was I spent be somewhere
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between a,000 and $3,000 for it taking a
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razor blade to it to find out how it was
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waxed inside you know because it makes a
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difference yeah literally destroying the
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pickup yeah well guess what i would
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rather spend the money and make sure
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John Mayer's happy and make sure this
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video goes well than than to worry about
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the money for that lousy pickup right um
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but I thought these three were the best
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thing that we were able to purchase over
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a long period of time yes all right so
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let's start with a Silver Sky SE okay
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now in my belief
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system where it was made doesn't matter
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anywhere near as much as how skilled the
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people are in making it and the design
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of it and all the specs of it right yep
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i mean for me it's really important and
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the idea that you're now going to
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compare sifted through guitars to
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something that came right out of a box
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that's just sacrilege it shouldn't be
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that way but why not okay this was
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basically right out of the box
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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that's the neck here's the middle
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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and here is the bridge
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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i really like the treble pickup on this
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me too
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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i mean that's where the bridge pickup
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gets great for
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chord that's cool
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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so let's talk about this i wasn't trying
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to make it sound exactly like the 63
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when we designed it we were wanting it
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to sound in between the 55 and the 63
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the core guitars which are made in
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Maryland they sound I think even better
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than the black guitar but that's a
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different animal we did something to
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this to these pickups so that they would
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have that treble pickup that didn't take
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your head off what did you do to it Paul
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we put little teeny pieces of metal in
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between the pole pieces to add more iron
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to the magnetic field okay and why how
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did you figure out how to do that we
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tried it and it worked
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it was look how where where do you get
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the idea to hey why don't we try this
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exp experience kind of leads you to a
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spot we were making pickups in that
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facility over there and they were thin
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and I wanted to thicken them up because
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I didn't know that this video was going
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to happen but that treble pickup without
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those pieces of metal would not have
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that kind of beautiful mid-range to it i
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mean it sounds when I pick really
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lightly
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yeah that sounds great
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i know that tune yeah that sounds great
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all right so you want to try another one
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i do okay so they're humumbbuckings
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these are single coils though okay but a
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jazz base is a humucking and we're going
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to get into this the when you have a
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silver sky between the treble and the
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middle pickup it's a humucking okay okay
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but it sounds like a single coil it
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turns out that it being a hum cancelling
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is not why it sounds like it does but we
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can describe all that but this is us
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tuning the the humancelling coils to the
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same notes as you just heard
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[Music]
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that's the neck we move to the
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[Music]
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middle we move to the bridge
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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is that a fiveway switch on there Bo oh
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yeah they both are yeah okay thanks for
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reminding me since the the all the old
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guitars have three-way switches on them
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these have fiveway but Tim only played
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on the rhythm middle and bridge and the
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reason for that is I tried to get the
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middle position and it was eluding me
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and I just want to sit here for like 8
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minutes and it was it would slip off
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everything well we put a fiveway switch
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in the 63 so you want to compare the
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middle sounds on the on the black guitar
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to the middle sounds on this guitar yeah
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let's do that actually
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[Music]
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okay now here is these two together okay
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[Music]
20:28
all right so let's try this one and it's
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got a fiveway in it thank God I'm not a
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liar first these two yep
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[Music]
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now these two
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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hey hey hey
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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so just out of the box these guitars
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play really really well and as a guitar
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player I like necks with no issues i
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love the way vintage guitars sound but
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sometimes they're really hard to get
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around this one I immediately felt freer
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um what's this one called the NF NF yeah
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never played this guitar before right
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never yeah first time I've had in my
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hand
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and there's a fatness to it with the way
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it hits the amp i always say this
22:19
everybody knows I play new newer guitars
22:21
i'm not a vintage guitar guy i recently
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bought a 58 LP special that had never
22:27
been played and I was noticing up high
22:31
that some of the notes were choking out
22:34
so I leveled the frets they'd never been
22:37
leveled at the
22:39
factory and when I leveled it I realized
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that every old guitar I'd ever played a
22:45
really good repairman had worked on of
22:47
course and to me that wasn't okay then
22:52
the neck was really not straight and we
22:55
had to reffret it to fix it and then I
22:57
realized most of the old guitars have
22:59
been leveled and reffreted oh yes okay
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well that's part of why you're liking
23:03
the way this plays because the because
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the neck is straight and the frets are
23:07
level and it's been I'm sorry i was a
23:10
repairman so I've taught all my people
23:11
to do the repair work before it shipped
23:13
okay so if you go back and watch my
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video I did with Paul back in 2018 or so
23:18
this might not even gotten on on video
23:20
we walked into your where you have all
23:23
your guitars ready to go out and you
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opened up a couple guitars and
23:27
apparently this is something that Do you
23:28
still do this Paul like you opened up
23:30
and then you went through and you used
23:32
like a grease pencil or something you
23:33
said "Okay if anything had an issue that
23:37
you would go through and then you and
23:39
you just pick up random boxes and you
23:41
open them up and check things." We have
23:43
a
23:44
meeting regularly where all the managers
23:47
in the room and we open boxes and that
23:49
ma meeting wasn't fun at first because
23:52
we were finding things right but now
23:54
it's become much more of a joy and the
23:57
question is is the customer getting
23:58
their money's worth not did you get out
24:01
of electron microscope and find
24:03
something that that thing
24:05
really doesn't sit well with me what
24:07
sits well with me is has it sound and
24:10
because they're going to shoot it out
24:12
How does it play what is the reaction of
24:14
the artist you know Joe I went and saw
24:18
Joe Walsh's fear he was playing an SE
24:21
guitar he bought that I never touched
24:24
and he it sounded huge and I was like
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"Oh my god that's the theory if Joe
24:30
Walsh buys one and I had nothing to do
24:33
with it it better be doing its job
24:34
right?" Yeah well this one has that
24:36
quality
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[Applause]
24:42
i play better
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[Music]
24:51
[Applause]
24:54
thank you i love having my friends come
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by the studio and doing guitar shootouts
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like this this was really great thank
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you Tim and Paul leave a comment let me
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know what you thought which guitars you
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thought sounded the best hit subscribe
25:09
thanks for watching