Tips & Tricks for Soundhole Pickups - ASK ZAC EP 4

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well hello I'm Zack Childs and welcome
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to another Ask Zack today I wanted to
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look at acoustic guitars and
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specifically acoustic guitar sound hold
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pickups so I was at one of my favorite
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record shops here in Nashville it's been
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around for a long time it's called Fona
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Lux it's on no-one's Ville road and saw
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this book so it's called soul mining a
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musical life by Daniel Lanois
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so I was reading through it and got to a
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point where he started talking about
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using a Bill Lawrence sound hole pickup
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in recording and using it for isolation
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and it was a trick that he had picked up
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from from the edge and but he would use
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it to get unique sounds or to isolate
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the acoustic guitar away from the vocal
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like when he was working with Bob Dylan
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apparently Bob Dylan would change the
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words and because of the leakage between
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the acoustic guitar which he was
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recording with while he did his vocal he
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started using this Bill Lawrence sound
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hole pick up to to record the acoustic
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guitar through a guitar e up in another
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room well it made me think about an
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interview that I had done earlier with
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John Leventhal and John had mentioned
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that in his live setup
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he used an acoustic guitar that had a
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two pickup system and it said had a
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normal kind of transducer that was
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inside the guitar to get more of a
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natural sound that went directly to the
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PA and then he had a sound hole pickup
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in his case a Fishman that went through
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his guitar pedals and into his guitar
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amp and that was blended together live
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so I started thinking about that after
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reading the the Lanois autobiography
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started thinking about whoa hmm maybe
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yeah maybe that's something worth you
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know checking out so the Fishman pickup
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was somewhere near $200 and so these
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Lawrence pickups you can find him you
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know used you know for around 50 bucks
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so I picked one of the Lawrence pickups
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up and live what I did was I have a K
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and K mini pickup in the guitar and I
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plugged that through a DI which I like
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the LR bags session di and that you know
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go straight to the PA and then I used a
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selection of while use a volume pedal
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and then a couple of you know effects
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pedals into my guitar amp and ended up
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really liking the sound and getting a
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lot of compliments on it so that's what
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I wanted to talk about today is using
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the mix of quote the normal acoustic
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guitar sound and this sound hole pick up
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through pedals it creates a bigger sound
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so it might not necessarily be the right
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thing for certain situations but in the
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situation where you need your acoustic
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guitar to have more command to it or to
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just be wider sounding it's a really
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great thing in a large band where you're
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really needing to just fill a very small
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niche or a little small you know part of
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the soundscape you might not want to do
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this but so yeah so today I've got to my
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this is a Waterloo guitar made by
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Collings this is their WL 14 this is the
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latter braced model I picked this guitar
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up because I went over to JD Simo's
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house and you know he had all these nice
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vintage 3 45s and 335 s and I think he
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had a burst at his house at that point
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and he had one of these guitars and I
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just couldn't put it down
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and so I went over to Carter vintage and
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they had a couple of them and this was
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the one I liked and so I picked it up
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and I've been using it for the last
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couple of years and I loved it I loved
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the small bodied guitar it really works
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better for recording it works better
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live because
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it doesn't have all that booming low-end
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you can play voicings you know where the
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you know where the third is in the base
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and it doesn't get all Bhumi especially
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plugged in great guitar have been very
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happy with it also the the K and K mini
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is a great pickup it kind of does a
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pretty good job of reproducing the
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natural sound of the guitar doesn't hype
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it a lot of pickups hype the guitars
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sound and will add these low lows and
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these really high highs to it that
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really don't help so this again is a $50
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used Laurens pickup and this is actually
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one from the 80s and what I could tell
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that was it had the original brass
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solderless end on it so which I guess it
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could be from the 70s so those
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solderless ends were something that Bill
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Lawrence and George Lewis developed when
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they were working together and of course
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they parted ways and then he have George
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L's and you have Bill Lawrence so before
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while there they work together as LnL
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sales so yeah and I'm just running
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through a volume pedal and I have a boss
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tremolo at tr2 and I'm using a little
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echo from an echo part pedal and I'm
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using my you know my deluxe reverb so
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this is the sound of the guitar without
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the pickup so and this is you're just
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hearing you know the normal you know
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over mic the sound of the guitar
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and here this is unaffected
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[Music]
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now it starts getting more interesting
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when you start adding echo and tremolo
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so I'm going to add echo first so you
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start getting you know that wonderful
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thing which we all love on electric
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guitar
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[Music]
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and now I'm gonna add the tremolo
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[Music]
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it's a great effect so in in studying
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John Leventhal more and some of his
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recordings of course I was able to find
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live footage of him using this kind of
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system with Rosanne Cash and and it was
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you know kind of you know yeah it kind
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of blew my mind again this is a really
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great thing to do live and again this is
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completely stolen from John Leventhal so
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it's this you know the this dual source
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system using the the knk pickup you know
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to the PA to give you your normal
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acoustic sound and then using the the
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sound hole pickup through your through
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your pedals and you through your guitar
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amp to get a that other sound that you
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can blend in that's what's it's great to
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use a volume pedal with it because you
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can kind of be playing normal rhythm
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and then you could at certain points of
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the song let's say maybe you wanted to
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play some diamonds or something like
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that well it might not have as much
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effect you can by itself but all of a
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sudden if you
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[Music]
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so there I was going back and forth so
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here I'm going to kind of slowly fade up
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from the national side of the guitar to
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having the the electric you know sound
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hole pickup blend in so
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[Music]
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and I've purposely left the the tremolo
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on there because it kind of helps you
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you know hear it come in so this is a
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great great kind of trick to have in
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your bag you know I hope you'll mess
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with it if you really get into it then
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and if you want to switch back and forth
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between this set up an electric guitar
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what you'll need is an a/b box and so
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you'll plug this into the a/b box and
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then your electric guitar also into the
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a/b box and and then you'll be choosing
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in-between which one of the inputs go
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into the input on your electric guitar
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pedal board and so that's how you could
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utilize that live along with a regular
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electric guitar rig and it's very
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effective so I'm just going to play a
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little bit of us out again thank you for
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watching I hope you've enjoyed this
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episode I hope this episode makes you
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think about some different things that
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you can do with acoustic guitar you know
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again a sound hole pickup is a pretty
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cheap investment so thank you for
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watching I hope you will subscribe I
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hope you will comment below I hope you
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will try this technique out for yourself
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and please share this with others so we
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can keep this show going and growing so
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thanks a lot there's a little bit more
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[Music]
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goodbye