How & Why I started my Guitar Related "Ask Zac" Channel using 2 iPhones and a lapel mic - Ask Zac 92

well hello friends and welcome to
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another Ask Zac today
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I'm going to tell you how
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i was able to get
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20 000 subs using two iPhone and a 70
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road mic
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so I've gotten tons and tons of
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questions
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over the last you know year and a half
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that I've done the show
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and uh
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about how do you how do you get your amp
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sounds how do you get the sound the show
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and part of me was kind of hesitant to
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do it but then finally it was like okay
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you know I'm just gonna I'm just gonna
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throw it out there so you know because
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i'm not a super technical guy
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and but i had some help and some good
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advice from some important people so I'm
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also gonna give a little bit of the why
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i ended up
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doing this show
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so there you have it
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all right well if you haven't if you've
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been enjoying the show and you haven't
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subscribed yet well please please go
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down in the corner and do so
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if you've already subscribed then i
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appreciate you supporting the channel so
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there's tip jar information in the
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description or you can go to ask
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zach.com where you can pick up a t-shirt
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or a mug if you've already done that and
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if you want to continue to support the
2:17
show
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then you can find out about friends of
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Ask Zac which is a way to support the
2:21
channel on a monthly basis
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all right
Why I did the show
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enough of that let's let's dive in
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so first the why i did the show
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so
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i had written for vintage guitar
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magazine for i guess 13 or 14 years at
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that point
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and life was just kind of chugging along
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well things were going going nicely
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and my good friend Austin skinner that
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I've known since i was 20 and he was 10
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and we're a lot older than that now
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he kept telling me you need to do
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a YouTube channel
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and i had no interest i was already
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doing interviews on the true tone lounge
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and of course i was writing for vintage
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guitar magazine
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and i was just i don't have you know and
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i had some other playing things going on
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i was just like i don't have time to do
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a YouTube channel
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so
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life as as it does it kind of twisted
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around and things changed
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and i got really unhappy about some
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situations in my life
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and
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uh
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[Music]
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that's when you have the opportunity to
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make changes
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and because when everything's going
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great you're
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probably not going to change anything
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because everything's going great so
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things weren't going great
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and so i decided i wanted to start a
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YouTube channel and it just seemed so
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daunting because people were telling me
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well you need to buy ten or twenty
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thousand dollars worth of gear you need
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to learn how to use this software you
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need to learn how to do all this stuff
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and yada yada yada
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and that was just
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very intimidating
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and scary
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and i just it would it made me kind of
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want to shut down
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but
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while doing interviews for the true tone
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lounge
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i had become friends with Keith Williams
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and Keith Williams has a wonderful
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amazing huge fantastic channel called
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five watt world he does these great
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short histories he also does kind of
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some philosophical things about you know
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what do you need you know how many
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guitars do you need and things like that
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and i really enjoyed his his show and he
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was a fan of the true tone lounge
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and uh
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and i was honored and he's you know
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great guy
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and so i kind of stepped out and i said
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hey could i get your phone number and
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could i pick your brain
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and he said sure so i talked to him and
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i said i want to do a YouTube channel
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and i was afraid to even say that
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because it's kind of like saying hey i
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want to compete with you which
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in a way we are but in many ways we're
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not because it's not like we're
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traveling down the same road you know
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trying to
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you know do the exact same kind of thing
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so
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Keith was very kind
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and imparted a lot of wisdom
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and one of his great bits of wisdom that
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i cling to to this day
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is
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just use what you have do you have an
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iPhone
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and i said yes he said well do an
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episode with an iPhone
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he said now know this
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your first episodes
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you will soon hate them
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because you would learn you will have
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learned a lot from them so that's how we
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learn is we do
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so those first episodes that I've done
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i now i don't really like to watch them
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because
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i did them and then i learned a lot from
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my mistakes
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but I'm not going to like take them down
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and you know they're out there
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so
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but i started out just using an iPhone
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just a single iPhone and an iPhone 10
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and it was you know its internal mic was
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capturing
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my voice and the sound of my amp
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and the first thing i learned was that
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you know i need
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to have
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a better sound but i don't i still don't
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want to invest in a bunch of stuff
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because i don't know whether
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i want to do this for long term yet or
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not i don't know whether people are
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going to even like my show
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so
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i liked i thought the amp sounded pretty
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good you know through the uh the iPhone
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mic but the big problem was my voice
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because
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a little room sound on a guitar or a
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guitar amp
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or an instrument sounds nice
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however when you hear a lot of room
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sound
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with a voice
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it loses its its impact it it's not as
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authoritative sounding
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so
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i found a 70
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rode mic
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that with a little converter i could
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plug it into my iPhone 10
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and i could use
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my wife's iPhone for audio so at this
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point I'm using an iPhone 10
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to record the video
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and it's capturing the audio for my amp
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then I'm using a second iPhone
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that's connected to a rode you know your
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kind of lapel mic and it's going to
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another iPhone that's just using the
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voice recorder you know program that
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it's not nothing fancy it's just
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you know it's just one of the apps that
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comes on the iPhone
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and so now at that point i had to start
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enlisting some help and so i had a
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friend that would take the time to uh
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to edit them in that
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you know he would
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he would basically switch audio between
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the two different sources so when i was
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playing you'd get the audio off the
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iPhone that's doing video also and then
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when i was talking
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it would take the audio recording you
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know track and use that
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so then you know so there was that bit
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of editing now i have to do a brief
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aside here and say
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most episodes i do in one take i don't
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do a lot of editing you know because i
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don't know how to do a lot of editing
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and i didn't want that to be something
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that stopped me so in the beginning
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you know i always did episodes that
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would just be a one-take there's no
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edits there's no cuts no no anything
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they would just you know we would add on
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the the bumper at the front and the back
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of me playing the Ask Zac theme and
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that was it otherwise it's just one take
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no edits
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now since then i have had some episodes
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where for playing examples or
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comparisons where I've had some edits
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and things like that but most of the
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time
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an episode is one take
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so
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i found out immediately
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by switching to where i had the lapel
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mic and of course i tape it to my chest
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so it's it's under my t-shirt and i just
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use you know i use some tape
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you know and i stick it to my chest
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and then i have the you know the cord
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going down beside me and so at my feet
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is
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my wife's iPhone 10
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and then of course i have my
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and now i have an iPhone 12 that I'm
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using now and that produces a higher
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quality video
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but that's how i i got started i got
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started with just a single iPhone and
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then i added a second one
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and at the beginning
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uh
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you know i i started out in January of
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2020 i had 70 subscribers
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okay
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and i started putting out two episodes a
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week
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because you know i was trying to get
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people to subscribe because you're
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trying to monetize and of course to
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monetize you have to have a thousand
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subscribers and you have to have like 10
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000 hours of views
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so
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to get there quicker
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i was putting out two episodes a week
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and it was it was challenging but
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you know because I've spent a lifetime
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you know in the guitar world you know
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working for true tone working for brad
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paisley writing for guitar magazine
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doing all this research all these
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interviews I've done
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i was just downloading you know i didn't
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have to do a lot of research i could
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just you know i could just punch out a
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bunch of episodes and so that's what i
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did and the reason i did it was when
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when
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people were going to check out my
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channel i didn't want them to see two or
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three videos and that's it i wanted them
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to see 10 to 20 videos and to do that i
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had to really
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churn them out in the beginning
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and so i
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i did that and lo and behold i was able
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to monetize
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about two months in and that was that
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was pretty quick
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and uh
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yeah i just you know one thing i learned
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about the importance of thumbnails
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how you know you have to have a
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thumbnail you know in titles
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you know all these things are extr it's
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just as important as the content that
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you're that you're creating is like you
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have to have
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good thumbnails and you have to have
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good titles
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yet you don't want to be click baitish
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so there's there's a fine line in there
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and so another thing that happened was
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you learn that you need to have
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different streams of income
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you know to make it
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you know make sense
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and uh you know for the amount of of
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work that you're doing and frankly
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people don't understand sometimes how
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little
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uh you and i don't want to be horribly
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derogatory but
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basically for every thousand
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views that you get you get somewhere in
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between three and five dollars for every
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thousand views
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and so you have to be a really big
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channel and get a lot of views to make
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to make good money
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so
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i thought i was gonna have to get you
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know way up there before i started
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adding merch well again Keith Williams
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from five watt world he told me go ahead
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and start merch
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and i you know i only had like maybe
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2 000 subs at that point but i did it
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and those people
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they were just waiting to support me and
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i was very appreciative of everyone that
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did that and they bought a lot of merch
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i added a tip jar
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and uh you know people started putting
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money in there and started you know
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supporting me
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and uh yeah and then i've been able to
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continue
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to to do this as a really
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fun
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uh
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you know project that's really been a
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lot of fun for me it's been especially
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fun over the last you know two years to
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get to know a lot of you via email some
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of you I've met up with you in person
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some guys I've given zoom you know
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guitar lessons too or I've talked to
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I've met all sorts of great people
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through this
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also it finally came to the point where
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this became
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um
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it became where i didn't have enough
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time to continue to write for vintage
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guitar magazine so a couple months ago
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i gave my resignation to Alan greenwood
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who's the uh the publisher of vintage
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guitar magazine and to ward maker the uh
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the editor so i had written for that
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magazine for 15 years and it had been a
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wonderful situation and I'm very
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grateful to to both of them but
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i was able to to build up
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enough
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uh going on with my channel that
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all of a sudden i didn't have enough
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time to do both and
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it was more lucrative to continue to do
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something where i owned the content and
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uh
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and had control over it and
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so it was it was a wonderful thing but
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yet i am you know very grateful to Alan
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and to to ward for all that time that
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I've got got to write for a vintage
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guitar magazine so
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this has really really been a
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a fun thing to do
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and
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i think the lesson here is
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don't let anyone tell you that you need
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to buy
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you know
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20 000 worth of gear you need to learn
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how to use all this stuff or what have
14:24
you
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you know if you want to do a channel
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then
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just do it start doing it
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and know just like Keith Williams said
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that you are not going to like those
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first episodes you're going to hate them
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because you're going to grow
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you're going to grow you're going to
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learn from your mistakes you're going to
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say oh i hated the way my guitar sounded
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there or
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i hated the way my voice ended there or
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i have some mannerisms that i need to
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get rid of
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so
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and it's really important to watch your
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shows and learn from them learn from
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your mistakes learn from the things
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you're doing don't just you know throw
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them out there
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but
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thank you to everyone that has supported
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the show
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and
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and if you're inspired by this to uh to
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do your own show well please do it and
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please send me a link when you put out
15:19
your first episode so that i can
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check it out
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give you a thumbs up and and write
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hopefully out you know most assuredly a
15:28
nice comment
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all right guys well i hope you've
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enjoyed today's episode one uh
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quick aside the the thing i was playing
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at the beginning is a variation of a
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tune that i was having to relearn to
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play a gig with a
15:43
Paul bogart and
Outro
15:46
and i just love this
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this kind of drop d thing and then you
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kind of leave the first string open this
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and you know the fact that you can
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you know pull it up an octave and kind
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of you know give it a little rattle
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there so
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all right guys i hope you have a great
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week and I'll see you next time bye