Baxendale Guitar & Mandocello Conversions - Ask Zac 112

well hello friends and welcome to
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another Ask Zac today we're going to
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talk about baxendale conversion guitars
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and mandicellos
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and uh yeah we're going to talk about uh
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scott baxendale a little bit of his
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history how i found out about them how i
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ended up getting this mandicello the
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process that they go through in
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remanufacturing
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uh you know an old guitar so just to
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kind of give you the the nickel version
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uh a little over 20 years ago scott
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boxendale uh pioneered the the process
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of taking old
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harmony k regal silvertone acoustic
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guitars that most of them were made in
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Chicago in the same factory and they had
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ladder bracing on them
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and he uh converts it to where it has
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uh x bracing
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and completely redoes the guitar refrets
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it you know resets the neck all this
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stuff so we're gonna
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go into all of that
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and
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and it's it's fun it's a it's a great
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story it's a great story of these
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guitars kind of being redeemed
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let's dive in
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as i kind of alluded to what i really
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like about this is it's kind of a a
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story of redemption
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so these old guitars that were uh you
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know kind of
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upper level student models you know they
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uh
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they kind of got relegated to wall art
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or put in a closet or put underneath the
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bed because they a lot of them are have
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ended up being unplayable because the
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action has gotten so high and
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you know and plus they were a little bit
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thuddy sounding with the the ladder
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bracing on them
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so
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these guitars get
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got a new lease on life because of the
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processes scott vaxendale uh performs on
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them
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so just to you know kind of dive into
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what he does
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is
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he takes one of these guitars so this is
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a a k
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that uh this now this is a mandicello
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but he does this on the guitars also
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he takes the you know either the top of
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the back off but the point is is that he
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gets to the uh the bracing on there and
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like i said there's ladder bracing
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on the back and then also on the top so
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just the bracing on the top
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he removes that and he puts scalloped
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x-bracing on there that's his own design
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then
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he well probably before that he pops the
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neck off
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and the neck is going to be reset but
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also it's going to be the frets are
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going to be removed and the fingerboard
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is going to be planed down
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and what you can do in that process is
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these old necks have kind of moved where
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they're going to move to a degree and so
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you can deal with any irregularities in
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the fretboard at that point
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so then he refrets it puts a new nut on
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here puts new nice tuners on there
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the guitar gets a new bridge and saddle
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and the neck angle
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you know is uh is set to the optimum
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level for uh for best playability and
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tone
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and so what you get
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is you get a guitar that's probably you
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know close to 50 years old it's old wood
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uh usually you know it's you know many
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times it's solid spruce maple mahogany
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sometimes you have some other woods used
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most time the fretboard is Brazilian
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rosewood and that's just kind of what
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was used for
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all level of instruments you know even
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like the dan electro's had big you know
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slab Brazilian rosewood fretboards on
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them
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so you get a really good old guitar that
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now starts to compete with
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vintage instruments made by you know
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martin or Gibson
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and again it's just so nice that these
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old instruments are given another lease
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on life instead of being relegated to
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wall art or
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or just being put underneath the bed
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they get to be played again and and what
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wonderful
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instruments they are you also have the
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green aspect of this
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which
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you know you have these instruments that
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are now being able to be played
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that
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no spraying a finish had to be done very
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little wood was needed for the bracing
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so it's
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it's just kind of a a very uh friendly
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uh you know for on on that aspect but i
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think more than anything i like the fact
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that these old guitars get to have a
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have a new life they get to be redeemed
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so how did a little bit about scott
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uh scott
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you know who's been a repairman and
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builder for many many years
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he worked for George gruen here in
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Nashville for a period of time
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he was in dallas and owned the Mossman
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guitar brand for a while and during that
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time he made this just a fun side note
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for me because I'm a James burton fan
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he uh he made the Mossman acoustic that
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burton played on the Roy Orbison black
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and white night live
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uh you know video so uh you know of
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course he plays his paisley telecaster
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quite a bit but he also plays this
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beautiful uh Mossman guitar that scott
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built for him
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later on
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scott got into this um
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you know process of uh
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of rehabilitating or remanufacturing
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what have you these uh these old guitars
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and he was in Athens Georgia for a while
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and then just at the end of 2021
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beginning of 2022
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he moved to santa fe new Mexico
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which if you haven't been there you
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ought to check it out uh great beautiful
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place and uh and in Santa fe he's uh he
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has his a facility there but he's also
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he's working with stay gold guitars
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which is a shop there that specializes
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in you know high-end acoustics and
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vintage acoustics so they are
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partnering and so he'll be offering his
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instruments for for sale through stay
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gold so you can check their website to
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see what's available as far as these
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conversions also i believe you can still
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send in
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your k harmony regal silvertone acoustic
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you know from the 50s or 60s also
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yeah
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so let's go a little bit into this
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mandicello so this is kind of um
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a lesser you know i mean it's not it's
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an item that that scott doesn't do as
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much but he does this on this certain
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model k
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which I'm sure you've seen these around
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they have you know they have a small you
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know kind of parlor size body
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but what really
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kind of makes them not a great six
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string acoustic is they're pretty narrow
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at the front at the at the nut here
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and so what scott does on these is he
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turns them into mandicellos
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and uh
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i of course uh
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i've always i've been a mandolin player
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but i've always wanted some type of
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lower
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tuned mandolin you know type instrument
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and so that's why my first vaccinedale
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conversion
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is a uh
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a k mandicello
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so the only thing he really does
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different on this of course is he plugs
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the headstock and then re-drills it for
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eight holes
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and then of course you know you have a
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you know you have a custom-made
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uh bridge and saddle here
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so a true mandicello would be tuned down
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to c below the e on a guitar
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and he he sends them
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where they're tuned d
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uh let's see
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it's d-a-e-b that's how he shipped this
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instrument but i kind of liked it tuned
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up a little bit higher and so i tuned it
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up to
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e b
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f-sharp c-sharp
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and if you'll notice here
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all of the strings are
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unisons meaning the same pitch
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and same octave except for
9:09
this f-sharp is is an octave
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and so it gives it a little bit of a
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kind of
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bazooky
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12-string you know kind of sound so here
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i'll just play a little bit more on this
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[Music]
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really really pretty sound
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[Music]
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yeah a lot of uh it's got a lot of
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volume a lot of resonance
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the uh the changing on an instrument
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when you when you take it from ladder to
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x bracing what it does is it kind of
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takes some of the the focus away from
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the mid-range
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and it gives it kind of more high highs
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and low lows it kind of opens it up so
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some people like ladder bracing and
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there's nothing wrong with that but it
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it does open up these guitars and x
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bracing was kind of reserved for
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higher end instruments because it took
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more labor to do it than than to just
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put a couple of pieces of wood across
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the top in a ladder bracing fashion
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so
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that's uh yeah that's kind of again i've
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got this tuned you know e b f sharp c
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sharp
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uh
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really have enjoyed playing it and this
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has really inspired me
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to uh you know at some point find
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a six-string guitar to send off to have
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converted because i've really
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really enjoyed this a whole lot and uh
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you know to have the guitar sent off and
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have it done uh you know you need to
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contact stay gold guitars
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and
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i believe the process is around a
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thousand dollars so because of all the
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heavy work they have to do it also just
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depends on how much has to be done to
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your instrument if you're sending one in
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they can also do a pickup this has a k k
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mini pickup on it
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i need to say that uh
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i had a really good experience with
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scott and stay gold i did not buy this
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new from them i bought this a guide had
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this
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for like a month or two and he sold it
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on reverb and i bought it there
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and it had some issues when it arrived
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and uh
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you know we agreed the seller and i you
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know agreed that we would send it to
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scott and have him look at it and scott
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ended up
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taking care of everything that was on it
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under warranty and it was great to deal
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with as were the stay gold guys so
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highly recommend
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both of them and
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you should really check them out
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the instruments are just really fun i
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think it's it looks like one of the more
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popular models is the harmony sovereign
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to have that uh converted to x bracing
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and all the other mods
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all right
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well appreciate you watching today's
12:37
show hope you'll uh check these out
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they're quite fun see you next time bye