That Gold Top Les Paul reminds me of a dear friend that I lost a few years ago. In high school, he saved every penny he could so he could buy one and he was so proud of it. He finally got into some bands and that guitar was with him all the time. Brings a smile and a tear to my face at the same time. I really miss his friendship.
RIP Mike. Deepest condolences to his family. CGS Mike was indeed a good guy. taken far too soon. Incredible that he was still finding ways to produce videos almost right up to the end - just shows how deep and true his passion ran for the instrument we all love. He will be missed.
Hey Phill! Thanks so much for your comments and thoughts on Chinese Guitar sceptic, Mike! It’s the first I’ve heard of his passing but having been a long time follower of him and his channel (I started following you both at about the same time three and a half years ago) I have been aware of his and his family’s struggles with his illness. His diagnosis was devastating to everyone who knew him, family, friends and followers of his channel such as myself! He was definitely one of if not the friendliest and most helpful people on UTube! Having been privileged over the years in texting with him on his post’s or on live streams I have gotten a sense of him as a congenial friend! He always had a level of almost unbelievable goodwill, consideration and humor! The world will miss him as it sorely needs more like him not less! My thoughts, prayers and best wishes are with his family, friends and those of us privileged to have gotten to know him over the years. Again thank you Phill for remembering him here! As he made a huge impression and a large difference to me over the years, Watch out for his daughter as she has an incredible voice and will be a vocalist to watch for in the future! He has some great videos of her singing on his channel (while he played in the backing band!) RIP Michael. I Will remember and appreciate him until I’m gone!❤️💕😇🙏🥲
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Mike was so fabulous with his content. I loved his live Sunday weekly broadcasts! May his family find peace in this very difficult season in life. He's now setting up his weekly broadcast in heaven. Rest In Peace.
Mike was a great content creator. He did a fantastic job engaging with his audience. He will leave a big hole in the guitar youtube space and will be missed.
That video in Germany with Mike and yourself hearing those bells going off is just priceless. Such a rapid decline for the guy. Horrible disease. So sad for him and his family. So nice to see all the kind words for him from loads of guitar content creators and friends. RIP Mike.
I gotta say, I agree about the "fancy" stuff. Sometimes, I buy fancy things because they make me smile. One of the big positive things that have come out of Jim Lil and Glen Fricker and others "proving" that "nothing" matters to guitar tone (yes, I know that's an oversimplification)....is that you can play whatever blows your hair back. I'm perfectly capable of dressing a Gibson nut so that it holds tuning as well as anything, and I like them better than most. So, that's most of what I play. I'm not in it to have 300 guitars, so the price almost doesn't matter....if you want something expensive, then you decide if it's worth saving up and making sacrifices to afford it. That's really the long and short of it. The pickups in my "overpriced" Les Paul cost more than a CRAP TON of guitars that would sound the same. I bought them because THEY'RE COOL. And that's really all there is to it.
Have you ever heard of the vintage brand guitars? Their V100s and VSA500s feel and play so much nicer than Epiphones and even other clone/ inspired manufacturers. Their necks are comfortable, their frets are finished well for the most part, all graphtech nuts and their finish and execution is great for the price. Their relics are a bit cheesy but but actually feel amazing. Smart purchase for a working guitar. No matter how much wear you throw on it, itll still holds its value. They make great tele and strat coppies as well
Vintage have been my favourite affordable guitar brand since I started buying up loads of cheap secondhand guitars to train up my guitar repair skills during the covid lockdowns. New, they are a fair price for the quality but secondhand you can get some total bargains. Currently have 3 LP style V100s, a V65 Jazzmaster copy (love the neck) and a few of the strats and tele copies. Used them all for professional session work and they have played and sounded great. For a budget conscious musician who wants a range of tools without breaking the bank, they are well worth checking out - especially secondhand as prices are crazy cheap. So yup, couldn't agree more with you there mate.
Funny thing, i have their version of the Greenie LP reliced and as a reggae/ soul artists, the clarity and spank are above the price range. Its actually replaced my LP Tribute which was my favorite feeling and sounding LP shot out against the standards, classics and the Trad pro V
I had one years before they had the V models . It was back in the earlier days of the brand . It was a gold top Les Paul . It was heavy as hell , and really rough . The frets were awful and hard to play , but it did sound fantastic . It put me off the brand .
BAM Phil hit the nail on the head. Every time I spend money I see it in terms of guitars. Just bought some new farm fencing and was thinking during checkout there goes three Fenders and a couple of Squiers.
The ‘expensive guitars are hype’ conversation is very interesting. When I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s Slash was huge so I gravitated to his guitar. Then I looked more into and a whole army of amazing iconic guitar players played that same guitar. So it became a ‘thing’ But maybe it’s different for young players today? Maybe that’s why they have it different and much more choice etc. Plus, cheap used to be really crap, not today. I just bought my first Harley Benton this week (25th Anniversary Strat in Gold/Copper) and it’s a great guitar. Quality. It cost €298 😮🤯
Agreed, I bought a Harley “Rickenbacker style” 12 string and the “matching bass”… they both look good on the wall …. and when I replaced the 6 slot tailpiece with a 12 slot tailpiece, I was happy with the 12 string. And the Price was what I could afford… I could not justify a real Rick 12 or a real Rick bass. Yes, the fret ends need to be dressed (I’ll get around to it) but even now they are playable and sound good.
Was so sad to hear of Mike's passing. I never meet him in person but we were certainly long distance friends. Spoke with him several times emailed back and first alot. He will be missed. Prayers for his family 🙏
I have a first run Gibson Robot Guitar that I really like. The system is far from intuitive ( I have to dig out the manual every time I want to charge it) and using an always on floor tuner is probably both faster and more reliable even in a gig setting. Having said that, the system is sort of fun in a silly way plus you can just pop out the pegs and it tunes like a normal guitar.
I loved the quote of your Friend Mike about the role you guys have being the people that get to use and hold the gear and that’s what we as subscribers sometimes count on to provide informed opinions on gear that maybe we would want to purchase. For example I’m grabbing one of those Dark Gene Red half watters just coz of your channel. Sometimes you guys provide more of an influence than you may realize. Regardless it’s a sentiment I appreciate and take that however you want, but let me assure you it’s a compliment! Peace
I'm really looking forward to seeing the Firebird. I love the look of Firebirds. I had one of the Epiphone Slash Signature Firebirds. It was a nice guitar, sounded and played great, but the body was so light and the Kluson banjo tuners are so heavy that the neck dive was too much to deal with. If the body had been heavier or it had the Steinberger tuners, I would probably still have it. I ended up trading it towards a Gibsin Trad Pro V, which has become number one guitar and it's fantastic, so I guess it worked out.
Before I bought my first guitar, I spent about a year just learning about guitars because I wanted to get the right one. I had a specific Fender Stratocaster in mind, including the color, and the day I went to buy it, it was sold out. I went home with a cheap, thrift shop Selder I bought for about $25. Thanks to you and Stew Mac, I knew how to make that a great guitar, but that didn't extinguish my desire for a made in USA Fender Stratocaster. Four months later, same thrift shop, I bought Squier Bullet Strat, made by a Taiwanese manufacturer China, which I referred to as a legit Fender instrument, but still I wasn't happy that it didn't say Fender and USA on the headstock. Bit by bit I eventually replaced every part except the body, but while at first I was determined that every part had to at least be a Fender brand authentic part, my guitar today has parts of various brands from around the world. In fact, I think maybe only the neck plate is Fender USA. Altogether, it cost me about $1,000 to build this guitar, and that's given I did all the labor myself, otherwise it probably would have been double that. Point is, I 'had to have' a made in USA, Fender Stratocaster, but now that I've built this custom instrument, I rather have this global guitar. In fact, I think it's better, that even Fender would do well to source its parts from all over the world and assemble them as I've done. If I were to buy a guitar, brand new, where it was made does matter to me, but only as far as that country's reputation for quality goes. I know that manufactured technology made in Japan, Taiwan, Germany, or the USA is going to be first quality. Made in China or Korea, I expect they cut some corners, such as how everything on the Squier is just two millimeters smaller and everything steel is made of pot metal, right down to the screws and frets.
@@PetraKann I am a collector as well as a gigging musician. My main instrument is bass, followed closely by drums (my current band, I'm the drummer), and I picked up guitar again after about 25 years of not playing. I have no wife, and no kids, so I buy and collect gear, as well as practice all three instruments to be as good as I can
I have a Les Paul Less + with a G-Force tuner. I love it. I agree about forgetting how to use it if time goes by and I haven't been playing it often. I got mine when I bought used Gibson LP Less+. The seller had taken it off the guitar and put on Grover gears whose holes line up perfectly on the headstock with the G-Force holes. The seller included the G-Force with the charger and battery. After owning the guitar a few months I got curious and reinstalled the G-Force. I think it works great and will leave it on the guitar from now on. I can't answer for everyone but mine works perfectly. I bought another used G-Force on eBay for aabout $35.00 in order to have a backup and extra battery and charger.
Hi Phil, Sad to hear about China Mike, I always enjoyed his videos. As for the Robot Tuners, yes, I'd love to see a video on them. I thought they were a great idea. I believed at the time that beginner guitar players would be their best customers, gigging musicians don't need to have them. If you have funky tunings live, then chances are you already have 2 or more guitars pre tuned. The ones who'd benefit are those who don't know how to tune. Putting them on epiphone guitars first would have been a win for Gibson.
As to Firebirds, Clarence Gatemouth Brown was masterful with his leather tooled pickgaurd road worn beauty. Coaxing blues, jazz, country and soul from this somewhat under appreciated Gibson model.
I like the chef analogy . . . I grew up in the 60's and had a band in the 70's and all the guitarists I looked to for inspiration were playing Les Pauls, Strats, Gretsch, Rickenbacker and that's what I have ended up with over the years. That said, I have bought 3 Epiphones to mod a bit which is really fun - chasing the logo is not so important to me now when I can find amazing boutique pick-ups and hardware etc. Best of both worlds, really. Also the argument I see so often is that US brands are best for resale - so fine, fair enough, but I don't buy instruments to sell (or just hang on the wall), so each to his own, I guess.
Phil, the problem was never that the Tronical tuner didn't work. The problem was that it didn't work _eventually_ . The gears eventually strip. It's a great system, until it starts to strip or the battery or charger dies or starts overcharging the batteries (which also happened a lot). Yes, the batteries are _technically_ available (they're from Austrialia or New Zealand, I believe), but they're nearly impossible to get because of the shipping issues from their country. That country has problems with allowing people to ship lithium batteries. These are all things I've experienced first hand.
Jane's Addiction is one of the very few bands I can think of that made it and already started off rich because of their families. Nothing to worry about, and playing high end equipment right out of the gate.
God bless you China Mike. I will always remember 250 O'Clock. I appreciate Phil's approach to NAMM, it really makes a lot of sense... Just because you can doesn't mean you should. This year in particular, you could watch any of the YT content creators who went and basically it is like watching old network television news stations covering the same event, different faces saying the same thing about the same event.
There were several problems with the robot tuners on the 2015 Gibsons. One is that you have to charge them - I already have way too many things that have to be charged Another problem is that they worked backwards. If you were going to tune manually, you would have to turn the tuning key in the opposite direction of most normal tuners. And another problem is that if you did tune manually, the motors were not disengaged, so you were actually dragging the motor as you tuned, and that can't be good. And of course, Gibson ruined their guitars in 2015 (wider than normal nut, brass nut that wore down to fast (later they replaced them with titanium nuts), wacky pickup rings / pickguard, and more.
Gutted I missed last night , but I was so tired I had to go to bed . On the subject of expensive gear , of course it's not required to have fun and perform music and enjoy by yourself , or with friends . What I will say , is that affordability is a subjective thing . One man's Mexican Tele , might be too expensive for someone else , whereas another person , would look down at the MIM Tele and only play , hand built custom guitars and handwired custom amps etc... I try not to judge either way and rather enjoy what I have , but it's nice to dream of better gear . I have a US Strat and a Harley Benton Strat , and enjoy both . The Fender sounds better , and feels nicer , but there's absolutely nothing wrong with the Benton . I have a couple of Orange amps and a Fender Blues Jr , but my dream amp , is one of those Amplified Nation amps as they sound incredible and I love how you can customise the covering and grill etc... At the end of the day , it's what you are happy to spend and not leave yourself in a pile of debt due to it . Peace and have a lovely weekend all ❤
Totally agree about the expensive gear. I have the USA Custom Shop BC Rich Chuck Schuldiner Stealth, and while I love it, I play his songs way more on other $300 guitars I own
Hey Phill. Those Cream guitars look beautiful. They're mexican guitars and they are TRULY different and original! The crazy tops are just the icing on the cake! I think you should try to get one on the show. Even if you don't necessarily like it, there will be a ton of things about it to talk about!
The selling of big brand legacy v good quality homages is something I’m struggling with because guitars are what I love and spend my time and money on like many of us. Because I didn’t have the money to buy a legacy brand guitar I spent about 10 months slowly collecting good useable version of all the most popular Gibson and fender style guitars from various stores own brands. I learned that £150 - £300 gets you a very good guitar. Over the past four months I’ve been seeing if a bigger brand, mostly Epiphone, makes much better quality guitars to the in house clones with the price difference in mind. I’ve bought an epi les Paul custom, an epi sg special (classic), an epi bb king Lucille and an Epiphone prophecy Flying V. All of the guitars my hero’s played (legacy) or as close as I could afford. I have to say I ended up still picking up my Harley Benton, Gear4Music, east coast and fazley copies to play more because they are virtually as good and I don’t mind dinging them 😃 now I want to get a Gibson sg again as I had one once but I know I’ll get it and realise the Epiphones were all I needed. I put it down to addiction, reason goes out the window. THE best guitar I’ve bought for the money turned out to be the least legacy one, the prophecy Flying V, it’s so easy to play and always sounds amazing when I use its fish man’s, play blues with it as I bought it to emulate my guitar hero Albert king. Bet he would have loved the ‘metal’ prophecy from Epiphone 😊
Tronicals worked but I found in about 3 songs it drifted flat. Plus it was just frustrating watching a robot take 4 times longer than me to keep the guitar in standard tune. It was a good time to pick up low hours Gibsons for a discount, buy Grovers for $50 at Stratosphere and make a far more satisfying guitar to play with the retrofit. It felt like saving orphans. Where did my tronicals go? I have literally no idea. Don't care.
I've wanted a Firebird since the Bicentennial Edition came out. But I'm not Phil, so it's the Epiphone for me. Three of them showed on Sweetwater this morning, but I had to start work. When I looked up again, it was 9AM and they were gone. Lesson learned. My priorities were clearly not in the right place. 🤣
Yes please do a video on the Tronical. I have a 2015 Premium Quilt Deluxe Ocean Water that is gorgeous and works and plays flawlessly. It is unique and adds value to my collection but to be honest I bought it because of how pretty it is.
Sorry I missed the live show (yeah!-sound-checking! - recording out of the house for once tomorrow :-) ) - cheap gear all the way-leaving hooky bass vi onto a harley 40W bass amp & champ40 with spark 40w as DI to Daw... going out with harley sg clone and squier jazz (modded out, with geezers though) into a hacked zoom multi-stomp bass stereo out to producer's laptop PC with dual rocksmith cables and a line6 backtrack to move around - wish me luck :-P doing VOCALS (bleh!)
OMG Phil I do the same thing with the price of stuff. I think to myself, I could get a nice American Ultra strat for that, or maybe a new Kiesel. It’s so weird lol. I love your channel btw. Been watching for a few years now. I feel like you’re an old friend. Keep up the great work and God bless you and your family.
re: expensive gear - This goes back to the vintage market and aging as well. There’s HISTORY in music and there’s history in holding a guitar. It’s literally living history.
I like Tronicals too, but as cool as it is to get any tuning in a minute, I can't get them to stay in tune for much more than one song. Whereas, traditional tuners go out once in a while.
Slash's guitar on Appetite for Destruction was not a Gibson. The first Les Paul replica in Slash's epic journey, is widely reported to be the work of the late Kris Derrig. Luthier Baranet. The guitar was bought and given to Slash and he still has it till this day. Gibson engineers came in and copied it and then released it as one of their models they sell. He had replica models made before he ever used a Gibson that came later.
I have the 2010 Les Paul limited edition standard with the illuminated MCK knob that controls the robot tuning (as well as a set of analog tone presets). I really like the guitar, and the tuners work great. My problem has been the MCK itself, which actually split down one side after a gig and was hanging off by the wires. I was able to superglue it back together, and it still works, but man! Putting the brain of the system in a push/pull knob that gets used a lot by design seems like a poor choice.
When we were young in the 80's and 90's etc, we thought you had to have a super expensive guitar to sound good. We didn't know shit, we didn't know it was way more the amp and cab. This modern era, cheap guitars have much better build quality, and if you buy a NUXMG400 amp sim pedal for hardly any money, you sound as good as someone with a $2000 tube amp. So all the myths kind of got busted. We know that if you plug in a $300 guitar to a decent amp/cab/pedal, it's gonna sound good.
Nice perspective on Gibson/Tronical automated tuning system, after all the contempt that was being poured on it back in the day. I own a LP deluxe with G-Force tuning system (the last iteration I believe). I managed to buy it dirt cheap (the original owner was selling out most of his gear in a hurry) and what to say... it just works. It is unusual, true, fine-tuning by hand is cumbersome but usually not needed. Restringing is a bit weird ;) Will I upgrade my other guitars to have this sort of tuning automation? Probably not, but the presence of it would not prevent me from buying an instrument. Neither have I any reason to get rid of that thing. And btw, Tronical is from Germany.
Another great show Phil, you are just so down to earth it's refreshing. I would also like to pass on condolances to Mike's family. On a amp related question, I have the wang's mini 5 and was wondering if the red would compliment it, or are they similar enough to not warrant getting the red. I am just starting to try to sort things out as I have a serious case of GAS.
Tronical/G Force tuners are actually quite good if used in the tune-one-string-at-a-time mode, the issue is that it was marketed by using the strum-and-tune-all-strings-at-once mode ... which is terrible and does not work.
Had the G-Force tuners on two Gibsons. I didn't hate them, but I didn't love them either. Sold one guitar, changed the other one over to Hipshots. Like the Hipshots better.
I also tend to think of stuff compared to cost of guitars But I mostly keep it to myself It’s also one of the reasons I don’t have certain things because of what gear I could get instead (People with tattoos sometimes brag how much they paid for each one, and sometimes it would make a nice rig) And when I bought a guitar in high school and another shortly after, people were like you “you could have bought a car” yeah a cheap one that cost me more. I still own those guitars, but a car would have been long gone, like some of the cars i did later own. Not putting down owning a car, i do own one, but a guitar was a priority.
Thunderbird basses are awesome . A little head heavy , but they sound and play great . I had an Epiphone custom one , and really liked it . Awkward to stand up anywhere , and they dont fit in many gig bags or cases for gigging , but they look cool .
Phil..I'm sorry How do zi get to the KYG website? I want to ask you an in-between-podcast question. O want to know the best place to buy a chopper pi 3:55 ckup to get rid of the noise on my Tele. Pr something very similar. Issowat a black pickguard fir the same SquierTele.
So I was in Germany to make a documentary about church bells and I had to keep restarting the shoot because some guys hiding in a tent kept laughing. Life is too short but at least we can fill it with good tone.
They’re one of the most out of touch companies that I have ever supported. Those who are in charge have their heads so far up their asses, they’re only in business because of name brand loyalty it’s gross
@@ramencurry6672 if you don’t know how to tune up or be tuned up for TV appearance, or any pro environment, you probably really shouldn’t be playing professionally, period.
Hey, Phil. Condolences for CGS and his family. I ordered an Epiphone SG special P90 in pelham blue for my birthday. It hasn’t come in yet. Would you be interested in it for a video? Thanks for everything.
I love the food and chef analogy. The claim that you love the food and then appreciate the artist as a result, though... well, that's only as true as the analogy shows. It's the usual, but friends and family cook for you and you love the food for the memories of that person. "Mom's apple pie" and all that. My favorite vocalist? It's the context of her singing that won me over. I have a voice I like to joke "can strip paint" - it gets me misgendered a lot and I'm very insecure as a result. Then here IKASAN, a woman who sounds like an absolute lady's man, a bona fide "ikemen", by default. As "IKASAN" (squid-san), she'll sing eight parts, guys and gals, all on her own in one song. The "girly-girl" voice is "TAKOSAN" (octopus-san), a persona, a secondary. Under her real name, Matsuoka Yuri, she doesn't even bother with the "TAKOSAN" voices. She just sings as-is with all her boy-band rizz. I wanna be that proud of my voice. I think there's plenty of potential for such stories among guitarists.
50:50 its a tough one I do hear difference in the tone between epiphone and gibson, but I hate the prices of the custom shop even the modern les pauls are 4k,
??? Hello Phillip, as always I miss watching anything on time, ( I'm bulding them) I do have a question concerning your Taylor acoustic steel string guitar. It looks like my C214e Taylor also. I noticed the nitro top and sides and back are 2 piece laminate of mahogany inside followed by either of rosewood or other choices for the outside flat or semi-gloss look for the outside look. Mine is the rosewood and my wife has the KC24e all Koa for all sides and top. So, my question is do you enjoy playing that guitar? I also have inherited my Uncle's Martin D28. For some reason my Taylor is just as loud as the Martin. My wife's guitar has more of a higher treble and just as loud also. Do you have an opinion about this. Peace & As for electric guitars I'm making, I will split-coils for any humbucker and add treble-bleed to all my guitars I'm making now. For 10 guitars and 3 basses so 13 guitars will have treble-bleed circuits. I can also add out of phase guitars too. 2 years back, I tested it and didn't care much for it. Maybe, I'll charge extra for it cause on a phase controller make it harder to dial in a gray area where it's easy to wire a 5 way switch or blade, I only need to add a micro switch and reverse polarity with a 2-way micro switch, (built. Anything for other Ideas? 1 can create all types of tone choices from a 5 way plus the micro switch I double up to more than 10 tones. I respect your solution and I love the thumb bump. I also play banjo and I suck - I got no bump. Arthritis yes! Cheers!
