Ridiculous Kickstarter Guitar Products 

I should kickstart a new jellyfish pick

XPick has done the impossible-beat the Jellyfish Pick in the realm of worst guitar gadgets

This is awesome dude, thank you so much for covering the XPick! (: HOLY CRAP! Thank you for the shoutout man, you didn't have to do that, I really appreciate it! EDIT: Sorry for the confusion, I am NOT associated with XPick, I am the one who originally reviewed it and XPick attacked me over it :p

imagine selling a fridge magnet as a pick for 50 dollars and if people complain you just say: "Skill issue, try again."

The Guitar-Jo actually sounded more like a sitar than a banjo to me.

That stupid robot fighting league kickstarter bit in this video just felt like a fever dream, such a sudden and straight to the point delivery, it's like you woke up in the middle of the subject to your deskmate telling you to read sumthin from the book

My main takeaway from this video is that the Stupid Robot Fighting League is an actual thing that exists.

i remember seeing the x-pick on kickstarter and thinking it was pure snake oil, good on you for exposing their bullshit

@samuraiguitarist Thanks so much for covering Stupid Robot Fighting. I've retired from uploading videos, but it's always neat to see spikes. Do you want me to send you the El Minion Head guitar so you can find people who can't shred to shred on it? I suppose I'll let people that can shred have a go too. But it won't be as cool.

That infinite sustain claim of the fridge magnet pick is basically a free energy claim... Electroboom would be annoyed by that pick as well

I actually use a guitar-jo often. You can get a really strange sympathetic, almost sitar sound when used on an acoustic. It's very fiddly to set up but a lot of fun to play around with

Not gonna lie that stupid robot fighting league sounds right up my alley. I genuinely loved that.

I really like how you exposed that X-pick. Good job Samurai.

"If you want banjo sounds, you're gonna have to play a banjo" *laughs in midi guitar pickup while making my guitar sound like a trumpet*

The Guitarjo is just a non-destructive version of the Buzz Bridge used on the Danelectro Sitars. Sounds like it too.

While the Guitarjo doesn't sound like a banjo, it's enough in the ballpark that I can see the utility of it

About the X-pick, the moment someone talks about "the misterious forces of magnetism" is the moment to close the video and dismiss anything they're saying.

Stupid robot fighting guitar is beautifully. It's not trying to innovate a solution to a non-issue, it's not taking advantage of beginners. It's purely an idea born of comedic genius intended to make people happy. Absolutely love it

The fact that the jellyfish pick has been dethroned is incredibly surprising

The X Pick company sent them to me too. They do nothing but the founder emailed me something about pickup height, happy to share it. I was bummed.

You should mix the design principles of the Jellyfish pick with the X Pick. The advertising writes itself "The jellyfish now with the power of magnetism".

I bought the X Pick when it was first launched way back during the pandemic. It took them almost a year to deliver, and then, same results you had. I found a couple cool tricks with it, but nothing worth that kind of money. I can get the same good effects from a SlideWinder Ring, and those are so much easier to use.

XPick isn't a "bad" guitar product, it's a flat out scam. Snake-oil is dead on the money. Unfortunately, they prey ignorance, the worst kind of scam.

I paid only $999 for the pick of destiny and have never looked back. After 15 years of practice I'm now learning my third chord.

imagine if xpick used sammy's quote and just put "this product wins my award..." -sammyG 2023

The Stupid Robot Fighting reminds me of of this thing I used to see at festivals and block parties as a kid. Some guys made life size Rock'em Sock'em Robots out of pipes and junk. They would rent them out just like a Dunk Tank and other carnival games. It was so cool. I remember the sound of all that pipe and metal clanging around was so loud though

I know this is not related to the video but as a larger person (trying to shrink myself back down), I saw your shirt and wanted one. But I was afraid that like many others you would stop at size 2XL. I was pleasantly surprised that you do go up to 4XL at least. Thank you. Big fan, in more ways than one.

I'm in my 60s. Learning the chords is hard. Changing chords is harder. Being able to do that with a song for me is impossible. But I know for a fact, 2 hours a day practicing chord changes and finger exercises will get me to where I want to be musically. Guitar playing is a sport. Want to play with a friendly band/team? Then train like you want to. Thanks for showing us that if it looks like junk, it is.

I've made the most progress in my guitar playing using Rocksmith. I like that I can sightread the tab and play along to the music track.

Great vid. Thanks for exposing the x pick for the snake 🐍 oil that it is! I financially contributed to their campaign and was essentially gaslighted by their support staff into thinking it was something I was doing wrong as opposed to owning up to the product being misrepresented. I was told I needed more compression, more distortion, to wave the pick faster.. I practiced it for hours until I kind of got it happening until it caught on the strings, stuck to the pickups momentarily before dropping and breaking into 10 different shards on the floor. I contacted the company and they claimed that of course it was fragile and I should have known it was. They offered a discount on buying more… I said, no thanks The effects I could produce were awkward and not much more pronounced than using a metallic or chirpy pick. Stick with an expression pedal or using multi fx instead of wasting time with this. Thanks Sammy G

Most of the iconic and recognizable banjo sound actually comes from the picking style and the much higher note from the top string. That's not something you can fake easily in post processing or with gadgets.

Why did my bullshit-o-meter alarmed in the 1st seconds of this pick?

9:35 "Multi effect guitar and bass pick"... Sammy G gonna gave some Jellyfish pick PTSD flashbacks...

Someone: We are gonna revolutionize guitar picks! SammyG: Oh shi-, here we go again...

I love that your guitar/sitar is in the background when you're playing the guitarjo because...it sounds more like a fake sitar than a fake banjo.

The guitarjo sounds a lot more like a Sitar, which is actually pretty cool, and possibly worth it, if you like that sound!

I should kickstart an invisible pick

That's a bold move keeping the audio with the weird intonation on the first attack of the xpick from 20 cm away in an official demonstration video... You don't even touch your strings and you're already out of tune!

as a customer service worker, chargeback claims make my blood boil. But here... here I hope you did just that opened a dispute for that pick charge...

I think you could get more banjo-ish sound using guitarjo. I think if you pick closer to bridge it will make sound a bit sharper, like, less lows and sharper attack... And maybe play around with the position of the thing.

Haha, that magnet performed just the way I thought it would. Luckily, else my brain wouldn't be able to explain that. Great video!

I can tell this video will be great already. Best guitar channel on yt.

As a New Zealander of course we made stupid robot fighting.

The GuitarJo I could see being used outside of its intended purpose. The Treyner... well, you pretty much hit the nail on the head there. The premise behind the Stupid Robot Fighting Guitar sounds fun 😀 The Amonito... had it somehow been backed successfully and put into production, I could see it tanking very quickly. For one, as you implied, guitarists are notoriously backwards when it comes to gear. Then we already have the Line 6es, Fractal Audios, Kempers etc; unless the Amonito was loaded with features like these are, or was truly groundbreaking, it would've only been steamrolled by the competition (if you could even call it that). And then there's the tube gimmick... because of course 🙄 "X-Pick - No magic, just post production bullshit!" would've been a much more fitting slogan.

I'd like to offer a different opinion. I bought the XPick, and I love it. My playing has never been so smooth and effortless. And the effects you can get are not limited to just the ones shown on their promo videos. For instance: If you hold it diagonally, between your thumb and pinky, and then rotate it counter-clockwise whilst moving your picking hand up and down (roughly in a 1 to 7 clock position on the Y-axis), while simultaneously performing a few semicircles which increase in size over several seconds, you'll get a sound that is not unlike a cat purring. Oh, and you need to have a mouth full of some viscous liquid. Doesn't really matter which. I chose mayonnaise. I've been Wowing crowds with this new trick for months now, and even got a standing ovation at the end of one show at a halfway house for recently paroled former inmates with learning disabilities. My act is also very popular every Mashed Potato Monday at a local nursing home. They love the cat sounds I am able to emulate. All in all, one of the greatest guitar purchases I have ever made. And of course, when not being used to delight my appreciative audiences it's holding invoices on the refrigerator. What a cool bonus! Can YOUR pick do that? At the next show I am thinking about switching from mayo to a honey-mustard dressing. I wonder how it will affect the sound. Buy this wonderful pick now!

Thank you so much for covering the x-pick. I was considering buying that snake oil but I was suspicious of the lack of reviews and demos by anyone but the maker. Thanks for saving me some cash!

He found something that he seems to hate more than the jellyfish pick.

The banjo thing lands in the ‘Acoustic Simulator’ category of… ‘It works in a band for poor guitarists’

I never knew an electric guitar player that said they wished they had a banjo.

You need some time on the Treyner to get the XPick to sound great.

I think back to Keith Richards using the fuzz effect to emulate a saxophone and how that really kicked off a whole guitar thing. I think the banjo thing will be used by someone not trying to be a banjo, but they will get some cool sound that the creators never thought about.

The guitarjo sounds more like a sampled sitar than a banjo.

X-Pick is amazing, all you need is neodymium guitar strings 🤣

X pick would be a pretty good trolling device if it actually work

I love the idea of the first add: They fool you once, then expect you to believe they will not fool you twice hahaha! I honestly think there was a second banjo further right, actually playing the tune.

3:59 I just had this conversation with my 10 year old. I told her we have to learn to do things correctly so when it *is* time to bend or break these "rules" you actually know how

One strum of the guitar in bed and ready to quit? Get the Treyner! 😂

Hi Sammy. Thanks for the great videos. I am completely with you about that BS magnetic pick. But just for the sake of accuracy from the view of an electrical engineer: the sound path does affect the magnetic field. If you are using a passive guitar (which almost all electric are), you have one single circuit between the pickup and the first preamp (either in an effect device or your amp). Even changing your guitar cable can affect your sound, same is with the impedance of the amps input. But of course what they write is still stupid and wrong ;) best regards from Germany! Dirk

Spring 1976-ish. I see an ad in Guitar Player magazine for a device that will let you play your amp cranked, but at bedroom levels. It’s a yellow box with one big knob, sold by Marino Labs for $50.00. For weeks I kept looking at that ad trying to decide if I wanted to spend fifty bucks for it. The ad gave no hint as to how the device worked. I finally decided 'What-the-heck....may as well buy it.' A week later I receive what's nothing more than a rheostat in a box, and that thing got HOT!!!!! (You connected it between the head and cabinet.) I had to keep it on my open windowsill whenever I used it. It wasn’t long before I gave it away, and that dude told me he used it until all of the insulation melted off of the wires, and finally, all of the yellow paint melted away. I’ll see you in hell, Marino Labs!!!!!!

Oh yay... A magical pick that works solely on what everybody lacks. Actual magic.

X-pick is literally just for people who think magnets are magical. The E-bow claim is especially funny to me, since, you know, the real deal uses batteries to power an electromagnet, which turns on and off/alternates periodically, translates into vibration as that changing field tugs on the string periodically, and SOLID MAGNETS DON'T DO THAT BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT MAGIC. At least some of the strumming is sort of believable since it could theoretically tug on the strings, and without understanding the math of magnetic fields one could fall for that, but their demo is so blatantly and obviously fake it's absurd.

That banjo accessory seems like a really good substitute for a Danelectro sitar.

When the Treyner came up, I said “oh nooo…” out loud. 😂

Stupid Robot Fighting League - I... I just cannot handle the awesomeness of that whole concept!

Hoping to see the comeback of the Jellyfish pick.

It actually does sound somewhat like a banjo.

i'll keep my cut up cdrom drive shell mild steel pick. couldn't find my bag of dunlops, so i broke out the dremel and hacked up the top cover of an old cdrom drive. worked a treat. newer ones are probably too thin, though. might try making a few more out of the stainless steel plate i have in the garage.

I think you give great advice. I’m just happy I’m playing with an app and making my own sound. Thanks for the video. You’re right on that. I love it. Don’t get ripped off right right. There’s one thing I don’t believe in and that taking short cuts. I see so many poor teachers on RU-vid with very poor teaching skills and teaching beginners how to take shortcuts. I’ve been playing guitar since 1974. The more I learn the more I like it the harder it gets the harder the challenge the more I love it. Thanks for the video. Have a great day and tell everybody there’s no short catch you get out of it exactly what you put into it.👍🏼👍🏼😁😎

As a Kiwi, I've never been as proud as I am right now. Don't discard your trash.. Robot fight today people!!!

If the X Pick actually worked it would be the coolest thing ever.

10:09 bro is literally hiding that he is dying of laughter

Love your channel and that's a great shirt, Bro. How about a video on the Quad Cortex Gaslighting that continues to this day?

That banjo gimmick reminds me of a guitar my dad's old best friend has, it's an electric that has this clear acrylic plate that comes up and just barely touches the bottom of the strings, makes it sound like a sitar. It's crazy awesome.

Stupid robot fighting>anything we have in the USA

2:41 “never gonna be able to play guitar with nails like that.” Tell that do Dolly Parton!!!! 😂 she has daggers!

I picked up a bunch of various metal picks to try out some new tones. Like Brian May's sixpence etc. I got some brass ones, an aluminium one, a couple of different stainless steel ones, some actual coins of different materials from around the world and some "DADI Steel Metal Guitar Picks for Acoustic and Electric". The Dadi steel pick has one drawback. It's steel. Steel pick + magnetic pickups = pick stuck to pickup. Not a problem when you play between pickups but a bit disconcerting when playing over a pickup and you feel it pulling on the pick while you're playing.

I've watched you for years now. The pick gadget is indeed the biggest hunk of blue ice to ever exist. They should be ashamed of themselves! Rock on.

It's amazing how the X-pick just "Knows" which string you're picking, considering how the video shows the player essentially "Air Strumming" ALL the strings. /s

How can people actually belive that this x-pick could work as shown in the marketing video? And even if we assumed, that it would've any measurable effect on the strings...what would you use it for? In an actually gig or recording environment, I mean? What would any of these gimmicks be good for on stage or in the studio? The old saying is right: there's a sucker born every minute.

The banjo one reminds me of when my 12 string sounded like a sitar because it still needed a truss rod adjustment lol

As soon as I saw them play a chord from a distance, I knew we were in for world-class bullshit.

That device to learn to play is so much more bs and work than just buying a copy of Rocksmith and learning through a game that can also take you through a little more advanced lessons.

9:55 Is it just me or does anyone else feel like they would need to quickly turn off the XPick advert if their parents walked into the room? "Hot guitar picks are waiting to talk to you right now for just 10 bucks a minute..." 😂

Hey. Quality like always. I love your videos. Greets from Germany

as someone who plays both guitar and bass that treyner one really just bothered me because the thing i've always said about guitar is that it's easy to learn, hard to master and unless the "treyner" has some mega technology that can tell you exactly much pressure to ally to get clean and consistent pinch harmonics, once you've learnt tab, basic chord positions and scales, that treyner will be put in a closet somewhere where it will gather dust for the foreseeable future, because at that point you already KNOW all of the building blocks to learn literally any song or write songs, it's then all just about practice, finesse and honing those skills and learning things that are not necessarily more complex, but definitely more complex than that machine could teach you or that it could pick up on you doing and give you feedback things like slides, hammer ons, pull offs, harmonics, texture, sound engineering (on an electric instrument), tapping etc and that's not even to mention that it doesn't look like it has any form of like right hand/stroke/fingering technique teaching or picking up so genuinely that to me i feel is the BIGGEST waste of £180 ive possible ever heard 😂😭

That first one is actually pretty cool. No, it doesn’t sound like a banjo, but if it was cleverly rebranded into something else? I mean, it sounds interesting of it’s own accord.

The stupid robot fighting league has gotta be one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while. It’s also absurd that the guitar made out of the champ’s face wont be played be guitarists, so that way the “shredding” sounds awful during the matches. 😂

"I honestly think that this is taking my award...!" -Sammy G, X Pick user

You can literally hear someone playing the guitar off camera (with the pick snap sounds) while the x-pick guy does the rehearsed motions.

Attak pick stealth is my new favorite pick. It's like a jazz with a better shaped body and tip. I was using green Dunlop for twenty whatever years

You can get the same functional experience of the Treyner by loading up a Guitar Pro tab with the fretboard view on.

magnetic fields are big, round, and continuous. Even if you could impart enough energy to the strings to make them ring out by swinging a magnet by them, it wouldn't sound like a pluck, and you certainly wouldn't be able to select one string.

The Amonito has gone for the old nautilus shell shape. They possibly have _Fibonacci sequence_ in their spiel somwhere (each number is the sum of the two previous numbers). What affect the shape would have at these dimensions I've no idea.

I think that something LIKE the Treyner could work if you simplified it down: for very new learners, a "board" like that next along the guitar neck with all the fret numbers could help. Again, this would be for very, very new beginners (basically as a learning aid when first trying out tabs, etc.) for people who get easily frustrated by miscounting frets repeatedly. Start by training a fair bit with the tab numbers on the guitar, then train a bit without it, then finish by polishing up things like speed/dynamics/etc.

X-pick. The worst idea ever. I found a coin-sized neo magnet in my junk drawer and tested the claims. Epic fail! 😆

Weary: tired. Wary: suspicious of.

Stupid Robot fighting is anything but stupid, you are a legend for bringing them up.

2:17 - the easiest way to learn is to use the video game Rocksmith and plug your bass or electric guitar into the PC/Xbox etc. I use it to practice and have fun mock up jams.

Hey bro, I really love your channel and content!

The audio on the X-Pick ads are not "doctored". They're straight-up lying. In addition, assuming it is a strong magnet, it can damage your pickups. Magnets that are significantly stronger than the magnets in your pickups can demagnetize the pickup magnets.