Let's Definitely Not Buy A Guitar: Episode 9

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Check out my Reverb store to buy the guitars I review: reverb.grsm.io/theguitarpitshop
The signal chain was AxeFX3 (Friedman BE, AC-20, Double Verb) with the Horizon Devices Precision Drive pedal. Check out the pedal here: amzn.to/2w2lUd0
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See what's next on Instagram: / theguitarpit

[@onesandzeros]

Glad to see a Guitar Pit video. Hope you are having a good Labor Day, Chris. Take care.

[@TheGuitarPit]

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the day off!

[@kevinstarofficial]

My experience on Reverb this past year is this: low volume, boring listings, everything new and used is massively overpriced, while on the local ecommerce websites I saw deal after deal after deal on rare and awesome exciting models. The game has moved out of Reverb as far as I'm concerned. Even Ebay has better stuff now. Just bought a guitar through eBay last week.

[@eddiejr540]

You talking about buying directly from the store (online)???

[@TheGuitarPit]

Fees, taxes, etc, have been backbreaking. I usually call the store direct these days.

[@chadbouterse8617]

Just bought a CE24 from a shop in england... no tax, only $99 shipping and it showed up in 4 days! Got it for $1750 new (instead of $1950 in USA) and no import tax since its an american made product coming back to USA!

[@CompleteProducer84]

@@chadbouterse8617 I just did the same exact thing! I wonder if we got it from the same site. I bought a Custom 24 from the UK, no import tax and $99 shipping. Glad to hear it arrived quickly. That was my one concern, due to customs + Covid combination

[@kevincorbin9875]

You've been such a proponent of Suhr that I finally bought one (2017 Throwback S2). I'll say it: it's freaking great. Well worth the cost.

[@TheGuitarPit]

I'm glad you like it! They are a bulletproof recommendation for an S-style guitar. If you have really specific preferences maybe there are better brands for a certain thing...but a S-type Suhr is going to be my #1 pick up a all-around great guitar. Love mine still!

[@kevincorbin9875]

@@TheGuitarPit Next up: A Suhr Aura. Only $12K on Reverb. :-)

[@TheGuitarPit]

@@kevincorbin9875 ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch

[@taylorstecker2235]

Great show as always. Keep it up brotha!

[@TheGuitarPit]

Thanks for watching, Taylor! Cheers dude.

[@rancosteel]

Stop using a browser that tracks your searches. I use duckduckgo and I am never tracked. Works great.

[@TheGuitarPit]

Interesting. So you think moving away from Chrome would impact the feed sorting? I'll give that a shot.

[@rancosteel]

The Guitar Pit use Chrome to change your browser. Select duckduckgo as your default browser after you download it. I use a Macbook Air. I haven’t seen any of my searches pop up anywhere since I installed it and I search a lot. Either that or you can pay a small fee for a VPN.

[@eddiejr540]

Im such a loser, reverb won’t even let me have a feed...this is the only way i can see these crazy, boutique guitars..rock on Chris!!!!

[@TheGuitarPit]

Did you register an account? You should be able to set that up and start adding things one by one! Let me know if you need a hand.

[@eddiejr540]

The Guitar Pit ....thanks ....will do

[@chadbouterse8617]

Hey Chris, Have you noticed any change in the amount of gear reverb since the raised their selling fees? On a low end guitar no biggie, but 1.5% on a 4k guitar is a significant change. Ebay still is at 3.5% for guitars, so I moved my expensive gear to it... for as much as you surf reverb, curious if you noticed a difference?

[@TheGuitarPit]

Yeah it really adds up on 4K. Factor in the buyer paying tax too, and it’s brutal. Not uncommon to receive $4500 for a $5500 sale after taxes, fees, payment processing, insurance, and shipping. Ouch!

[@LAME_MMA]

if youre looking for a custom shop level strat, i really recommend Nash guitars. They are custom shop level quality at a reasonable price. plus it would be cool if you reviewed one!

[@TheGuitarPit]

I've heard great things about those. Prices seem pretty fair too. I'll check one out eventually...hopefully haha.

[@yhzh2002]

My feed is all ibanez stuff too, and I don't click Ibanez stuff. I went ahead and cleaned out some searches that I'm not very interested in anymore. If the damage on the Angel really hasn't gone through the finish, you could consider getting it refinished. I got a refinish on a Tom Anderson done by Pat Wilkins, who used to work at Tom Anderson, and it cost about 500$ along with a fairly quick turnaround time. I got the guitar for around $1650 and it was in a color/finish that I didn't like along with some dings, but it looks really good now.

[@TheGuitarPit]

Agreed, and that said, it's crazy to get specs like that for $2500. I might ask him for some very detailed photos and consider it.

[@rhabs2895]

Hey Chris - Yup my feed has been off over the past several days. I have 80% of Fender Princeton FSR on page one and any sea-foam color guitars. Weird. BTW - great channel. Always appreciate the insight into high end guitars.

[@TheGuitarPit]

Thanks R Habs! And interesting to hear, you're the 3rd or 4th person to confirm that. I think they're making some less-than-ideal changes to the back end stuff...

[@Oilid]

Happy usual monday! 😀 Same happened with Duesenberg which I searched *once.* I was like: "Damn, I'm really lucky that all these Duesenbergs are for sale when I'm hunting for one!"

[@TheGuitarPit]

HRMMM. Yeah I think they are up to something. It makes me sad because I feel like I'll miss something really rare in the flood of regular stuff. I just removed prestige...maybe that'll help lol. Sorry about your regular Monday :P

[@Oilid]

@@TheGuitarPit 😀👍

[@JimDewdGuitars]

Man I'd love to jump on that TA but that damage scares me. That quilt body suhr is amazing too.

[@TheGuitarPit]

Yeah same. $2500 for a TA like that is insane, but I guess the damage is priced in. I wish there were some more clear pictures of exactly what is going on there.

[@JimDewdGuitars]

@@TheGuitarPit yeah definitely need more pics before buying. Also seeing that headstock with the cap on it reminds me of what kiesel does on their kiesel editions which is where they use all unique tops for the front and back of body and headstock and do crazy multi piece necks. Its pretty much their version of a private stock and they go all out. They run around 5500 to 7500 so out of my price range atm but I'd love to get one someday! Should be getting email for my 2 in the works very soon.

[@papasmamas1]

Its funny how guitar addict Iam I enjoy a dude going throw his feedback on reverb.

[@TheGuitarPit]

😂

[@homeskateco.538]

CC is the Charlie Christian style pickup

[@Eventual420]

I don’t use the feed feature, just search for random items when I need to know the going rates.

[@TheGuitarPit]

Sadly I think I'll be doing the same. It's not reliable at all anymore. Sometimes I see "new" listings that are 5+ days old. Other times I don't see listings at all, then search for them and see something that went up in the last day or two. Pretty bad.

[@Eventual420]

The Guitar Pit, good that you’re well, though! I laughed my ass off when you were knocking that guitar around on it’s stand demo, keep em coming!

[@silvioschurig749]

Noticed the same thing about Reverb with the same AZ effect on my feed ... used to be that the feed has just a lag of a couple of hours versus direct searches but something feels weird for sure

[@TheGuitarPit]

There are a couple guitars that have been listed for 5+ days appearing up top. There is an Arisitides 080 that was listed 5 days ago and is on page 2, which is kinda weird. It's been near the top since it was listed.

[@johnwalker7632]

My Reverb feed is useless. It’s either hours (or days) long lags, or not at all. Example, I added Dunable to my feed (and granted there’s not a ton of stuff listed in general) but I’ve yet to see even 1 Dunable listing in my feed.

[@TheGuitarPit]

That's exactly my worry. If you want a Dunable, you'll never find it unless its purely chronological, or you open a new tab and search specifically for Dunable each day. Super stupid. I guess you could try Reverb Email alerts, but those tend to be pretty annoying. The other downside is like you said...GREAT deals dont appear in the feed for a day, so you'll miss em to someone doing manual searches. Super lame.

[@daniwest1370]

Lollar CC is the Charlie Christian, great pickup, sort of jazz oriented. I belive Charlie him self came up with it.

[@TheGuitarPit]

Awesome! I checked a video out, they seem to sound pretty neat!

[@TheGuitarPit]

Misspoke on the PRS ME:V. The PRS Experience version is a separate version than the $10k Private Stock one. It's half the price...but you get a little bit less. Still fair, I guess?

[@jayd9707]

To be fair, a used one never really is "used"..... it goes from the case, to the shaking hands for 20 minutes, back to the safe confines of the case. Never leaves the house to be gigged. I'd buy those used every time to save some cash!

[@TheGuitarPit]

@@jayd9707 Hah! I don't think you're half wrong there :P There was already a PRS Exp MEV "used" for $4700. I think it sold pretty fast.

[@jayd9707]

That's the cat and mouse game I guess. I saw on AMS a Modern Eagle for $5500. So the buyer of the one you're talking about probably figured that the one he bought was as good as new condition, so he might as well save 800 bucks and get it used. Others might not have thought 800 off new price was enough. But you have to know what you're dealing with I guess. I think by now most people know those guitars never get used so eight hundred bucks off is a good deal. 🤷‍♂️. I agree with you about the Exotic guitars.. something about them...If you haven't already, there's a video buy Peach guitars that compares high-end strats. Xotic held their own if not let the race in my opinion in that video

[@vaibhavjoshi9141]

Hey Chris, hope you're doing well! As to your Reverb feed ponderings, yeah, it seems they have applied an alogrithm similar to the ones used by Amazon etc. They analyse your search patterns and feed you product ads based on that. It sucks for all the reasons you've mentioned and more. Our life is so governed by 'data' these days, the modern trend is to dissect a person into small routines and capitalise on those using algorithms. This is where all the buzz words (Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning, Big Data) come in. This also kills individuality because it creates micro trends and people have been following trends since ages. Now they just have too many to follow, in all aspects of life. It's not just sad, it's sinister.

[@TheGuitarPit]

Well said. Yeah, it seems now the best thing to do is search used -> solid body -> over $500. You have to dig through a ton of trash still, but at least it updates in a timely fashion.

[@vaibhavjoshi9141]

@@TheGuitarPit Haha, that's a tedious alternative. Man! guitars are expensive and far too few in Canada. I thought I'll buy a used PRS CE or Kiesel Vader when I move there. But for now, it seems practical to carry my PRS SE std till I can get a hang of my expenses.

[@TheGuitarPit]

@@vaibhavjoshi9141 Yeah prices are bad here too now. Pre-lockdown there were a couple blowouts on nice PRS CE24's. $1200 out the door. I really should have picked one up...they were 2020 models too.

[@vaibhavjoshi9141]

​@@TheGuitarPit Wow! 2020 CE24s for $1200. I don't even want to think about it.

[@hibernative]

Wonder if he'd release that Angel Player for $2100.

[@TheGuitarPit]

For $1200 it probably needs a broken off headstock lol. $2100 maybe? :P

[@davefargo452]

my feed is all messed up also

[@TheGuitarPit]

Mine seems to be an average of 4 days behind on used gear now. New stuff seems to show up fast, from what I can tell. Pretty crappy :(

[@robertclarkguitar]

Oh man,...all those shopping vids have turned you slightly gray brother. Hahahah

[@robertclarkguitar]

No worries ive the both gray now and balding. You got only one coming in. Hahah.

[@TheGuitarPit]

Hah, usually I keep my hair short but haven't had a hair cut since Feb. All the grays are flyin free! haha.

[@robertclarkguitar]

@@TheGuitarPit Hahah. They call it the salt and pepper. Hell, i have the salt but no pepper really and like I said I started losing my cool hair at 21. Hahah. I tried to keep it man. It was mid 80s Bruce Dickenson length. All the way to Phil colins in 99. I said screw it. Started shaving it. Hhehehe

[@ftkforte]

PRS DC3 is a great SSS guitar.

[@TheGuitarPit]

Sure is! Killer. I have a couple too many PRS guitars already though. Wanted to broaden my horizons a little bit :)

[@ftkforte]

@@TheGuitarPit Love your video's.

[@24ZEPACDC]

What happened to Cheddar?

[@TheGuitarPit]

Guess he wanted to focus on other stuff. KZbin is a huge time sink so he probably made the smarter choice! :P

[@kionihernandez356]

that TA while not outright sketchy, kinda breaks Reverb 101. You have to be upfront with that kind of stuff, and no upfront upclose pics? I have a hunch he'll sell it anyway, so why make it a bigger hassle for HIM, in case the customer gets the disappointing upclose IN PERSON? brutal. :( . Great episode though.

[@TheGuitarPit]

Yeah the buyer can force a return (and the seller pays shipping) if you can make a case for it not being an honest representation of the damage. I like to be extra careful because paying for TWO shipping labels on a guitar you are refunding is...not fun.

[@BrianSGuitars]

I must be the only one buying guitars! 😄

[@TheGuitarPit]

Propping the entire economy up by yourself! :P

[@BrianSGuitars]

@@TheGuitarPit To be honest I sold three, and only bought two... I did buy American though! LOL

[@rickychau7687]

It could have been all Novos

[@TheGuitarPit]

Haha! All 3 of them for sale, would be a short feed :P

[@tonlarj37]

Thanks for the plug! 🤘

[@TheGuitarPit]

I wish I could afford it right now, I’d probably take the dive :)

[@tonlarj37]

@@TheGuitarPit Yeah... It's a great one! I'm just gonna grab a different color. Also, big discount to anyone who wants it outside of using Reverb. ;)