The Guitologist
Education • Science & Tech • Music
If you're a fan of my YouTube channel "The Guitologist" this is the place to reach me, support the channel, and just hang out with like-minded guitarists who love freedom and hate wussies.
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New Computer on the Way! Thanks for Making it Possible!

I am placing a hold on new videos until this new computer arrives. The goal is for all videos going forward on YouTube will have a 4K option. My issue has been anything beyond 1080p FULL HD bogs down my system and it's impossible to edit. Even the 1080p stuff is so slow that something just had to give.

I've been slogging along on machines that were made for internet surfing, not professional video production. The catalyst was buying a new 4K action camera and deciding to shoot in 4K at the recent Dallas Guitar Show. While I had 4K capability all along with my Sony AX53, which I used over the bench, I didn't see a need to shoot in 4K for amp repairs. It just didn't seem worth the additional time and disk space. Plus, 1080p always looked pretty great to me, especially on the devices most people watch on, like phones.

Deciding to shoot all that video in 4K was an attempt to see how good the camera could be at full capability. Little did I know, when trying to compress that video down to 1080p for editing, my computer would take abut 5 HOURS to render about an hour worth of video, which was the straw that broke the camel's back.

So here's what I got coming. It's an MSI Katana. They bumped the price up by almost $200 AFTER I bought it! Mistake in the listing??? I'm guessing yes. Before spotting this one on Amazon, I bought n HP Envy with the same i9 processor, but with a lesser Geforce RTX 4060, 32gb DDR5 RAM, a 120hz monitor, and 1TB SSD. It was a nice machine which would have worked, but after tax, it cost over $1600. So the Katana for $1400 AFTER TAX looked like a steal. I sent the HP back today and bought the MSI instead. I splurge so rarely on anything that my credit card company put a hold on the payment, flagging it as possible fraud. What's worse, they didn't send me a text letting me know. Only an email (which I never check). Luckily I caught it just in time before they upped the price on the thing. PHEW!

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Modding a Hiwatt DR504

This is a video response to Tone Priest's question about modding a Hiwatt clone build. If you are a paid member here on Locals and have tech or other questions, I'll be happy to give you a similar video response when I get time! Thanks so much for all your continued support.

00:14:42
1931 Gibson L1 Extended Jam

This was the full jam session on the Gibson L1 I did recently. As you probably know, I usually will jam for a while on something and then pick a few highlights to show in a final video. A ton of stuff got edited out. It's not all great, but it's not all bad either. I find it kind of soothing, this quiet acoustic stuff. I'm never sure where the mood will take me.

00:36:32
10 Minute Crash Course in Open Tuning and Open D Licks

I made this quick video the other day for a friend and figured I'd post it here as well. He wants to get started in slide, so I was quickly showing him some open tuning concepts to make the transition to slide a bit easier. Kind of like learning slide without a slide.

00:11:02
January 04, 2026

Are you going to be making a big video of your trip to your buddy's? Seems like a treasure trove.

I think he may be onto something with phase matching in that weird network. If they just wanted to cut gain wouldn't they just put in a voltage divider? What amp is that? Curiosity has got me on that one.

When I built my 'Prince of Darkness' amp I copied the front end of an ancient Gibson amp and I gotta say, it sounds really good.

New Fixoloigst Joint!

This is why I will NEVER buy another front-load washing machine, unless it's industrial grade!

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