FA Q

Hi! My name is Kris. Pleasure to meet you. Oh, you want more? I'm a family man with 2 children who rekindled my love of guitars again back around 2016. I was always playing, but not as knee deep as I've become since. Yes, I've played in various bands as both a guitar player and drummer. These days, I'm simply rediscovering my passion for guitars in general, between restoring, setting them up, maintaining, and playing.

The other person is behind the scenes, with a collection of gear equally as large as mine. However, at this moment in time, they prefer their name not to be mentioned ...yet.

Music store? No, not exactly. While I do have a small, little used Reverb shop, I'm not currently an actual store. I worked at many musical instrument shops throughout the years, but unfortunately being an employee of musical instrument retail pays very little to support a family (plus, there's only so much a person can tolerate hearing "Enter Sandman" and "Come As You Are" played poorly all day long). Instead, you could rather consider me like the salesperson you'd always wish were deeply honest with my opinions.

From me, only if I list the actual item I showcased on Reverb or eBay. While one day it'd be awesome to blossom the 11th Fret brand into retail sales, right now the focus is on reviews, demos, sharing unbiased opinions, and maybe even a few biased ones as well. If you want to purchase something I've reviewed, I'll always do my best to help you get the best deal from whatever source (should a deal be available).

Every year.

One of the best periods of my life was working at a small, independently-owned musical instrument store where I grew up. Working there barely paid any bills, but the connections I had with the local community were invaluable. Every day, local musicians and other friends of the shop would stop by and we'd all just talk gear. All day long it was gear, gear, gear combined with discovering new items I never knew I always wanted. The 11th Fret is my way of staying connected with you and the rest of the community, but on a much larger scale. I can talk gear with you, share my knowledge, learn from your own experiences, and continue to grow personally and professionally until the day I inevitably take my one and only dirt nap.

Most of my gear was purchased used. I have little to no issue with buying used gear. Most of the time, I actually prefer it. As for the volume of gear in my collection, most of what I own isn't always considered top shelf or vintage. The bulk of it is professional grade, but modestly priced. In the majority of cases, I tend to buy used gear that was priced to move - even if I never actually wanted it. Once I get it back to the studio, I either discover that it's something I never knew I always wanted, or realized I could trade it away for something I actually want (aka: trade fodder). Trading for a nice piece of gear I really want for the small price I paid on the item I didn't want is kind of a rewarding feeling. But all that said, most of it was collected surrounding either a low selling price or as part of an advantageous trade offer.

That's none of your business! Also ...no, not exactly. But all kidding aside, it'd be nice to make a comfortable living doing something like this. The road to get there currently is to subscribe to the 11th Fret YouTube Channel, "like" the videos (thumbs-up button), actually watch them (let them autoplay while you shower up - I won't tell), and share with your friends. Most people appreciate getting paid to do the things they love, and that'd truly be a dream come true for us.

While there's a couple of us fueling the YouTube channel, Kris is the only one currently writing, filming, and editing all the content. Kris uses Apple Final Cut Pro X to edit content, and it usually takes him around 8-10 hours just to get a 15-minute video edited in a way he would be okay with releasing. Even then, the video gets watched multiple times before being rendered out to a video file, then uploaded to YouTube. Sometimes it can take up to 2 weeks depending on what's happening in life at the moment.

Since the channel isn't currently paying the bills where we can do this full-time, Kris has to find the time to do this whenever he is able to break away from family and work life. That's why it's important for us when we have viewers like our videos, comment below them, and subscribe to the channel. More engagement and watch hours helps the channel grow from Google's eyes, to which they could start compensating us for our time and equipment invested. These other channels are either born presenters with rarely any errors to their dialog, have a minimal production value channel (iPhone, built-in mic, little to no post-editing, etc), or have a healthy monetization status where not only this had become their full-time job every single day but can also hire staff to do some post-production heavy lifting. When that day happens here, you bet we'll upload way way way more often. ...We promise.

Yes

Honestly, it's whatever combination that stokes your inspiration. If you're excited about playing, that's the best combination. Most guitarists we strive to emulate used almost any piece of gear they could get their hands on with simply an itch to play and express themselves. Simply put: They made their humble gear work for them. As for the rest of us, it was their compositions, phrasings, and overall skill that served as our inspiration.

If this whole 11th Fret thing doesn't pan out, maybe. We'll learn then how the public appreciates chubby, middle-aged dudes stripping on camera.

Likely no. The idea is interesting as that's been a booming YouTube category. However, I don't want to risk diluting the 11th Fret brand with imposing my opinions over someone else's art. Basically, if I react negatively to a song, film, or video clip, that's more of a reflection of the person reacting rather than of the art they're reacting to. And that's not the kind of energy we want to put out into the world.