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All right, I'm here with Matt Fatale, man.
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:How's it going?
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:Speaker 2: It's going good.
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:Speaker: We're here at the ITG,
and you have a new product,
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:and I want to talk about it.
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:It's really cool, and it's
it's, my understanding of it
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:is like how powerful it is.
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:Gymnasts put chalk or tape on their hands
and it gives them a better grip on the the
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:bars where they're doing their things and
somehow you've come up with a concoction.
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:The
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:Speaker 2: equivalent for brass, yeah.
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:Speaker: The equivalent for brass.
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:Tell us about it, buddy.
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:Speaker 2: It all started
with a crazy idea.
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:If anybody's heard the Louis
Primatune, The Lip, it's actually
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:referenced from long, long ago, this
magical what's the secret of the lip?
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:Why does he play the high notes?
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:And it's because he rubs a little high
note grease on his mouthpiece every night.
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:And that's not where that idea came
from, but it's looking back, it's funny,
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:that was already a thing, that's now
70 years ago or something like that.
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:I, don't quote me on the date
of that tune, but I think it was
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:from the, he was singing in the
50s, so it's definitely that old.
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:But I thought, a few years ago, I was
sitting with a buddy of mine that's an
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:amazing lead player named Mark Oates.
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:Sorry Mark for name dropping you if
you're listening, but he's just amazing.
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:He's got it all.
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:He's got it all worked out.
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:He's just the guy that gets the job done.
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:So I was analyzing him and
saying, why do you have a limit?
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:Why, what's your weakness?
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:And the answer was rhetorical
because he's doing everything right.
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:It's the seal.
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:It's the connection to the mouthpiece.
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:That's where everything
goes out the window.
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:If you start getting tired, your
facial muscles start getting tired.
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:Your lips start spreading.
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:Speaker: So by seal you're referring
to the actual lips on the mouthpiece.
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:And, The connection to the mouthpiece.
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:The connection to the mouthpiece.
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:Air or maybe saliva comes
out of the mouthpiece.
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:Describe the problem with that.
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:In a perfect
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:Speaker 2: system, from diaphragm to
bell, that's the only weakness in this
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:perfect system of air, and if all the
fundamentals are there, and you're
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:doing everything right, supported right,
you don't have any tension, and you've
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:got good embouchure, and you've worked
on trumpet, and everything's there,
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:that's the weakest thing, because When
we start to get fatigued, this is,
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:I'm not a doctor, I don't, I didn't
go to school for music or anything.
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:We start to get fatigued, and the
muscles get tired, and you have to work,
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:and you have to work harder, you have
to work harder to get that keep that
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:shape, pushing all this air through.
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:You're gonna edit this into
swimming, so do you want to?
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:No, just keep
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:Speaker: going.
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:You
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:Speaker 2: have to work harder to to keep
that shape and eventually the muscles
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:are just gonna give out and or you're
gonna start getting inflammation or,
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:or the lip, the tissue can become raw.
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:For whatever reason, the lips spreading
is what is gonna cause that deformity and
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:you're gonna lose the vibration, whether
it's a bad sound now or no sound at all.
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:So I was like how can we fix that?
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:We all know that you clean your
mouthpiece is clean, you instantly
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:play better, it feels more comfortable,
it's it might not last very long.
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:Speaker: Can you define lip spreading?
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:Speaker 2: I could be wrong about
my understanding of this, but my
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:understanding is that, you're forming an
embouchure, and you're putting this air
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:through, and You have to struggle to keep
that shape and keep that that squeeze, as
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:it were, as you're putting air through.
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:Speaker: You can't keep the
muscles fully functioning.
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:Yeah, when there's
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:Speaker 2: compression.
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:Because of fatigue?
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:This is like a, this is like a slit
in the side of this compression
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:chamber that, Eventually air will
start blowing out of it, or the sides
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:of that chamber will start opening
up for it to tear and open up.
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:And that's it's not a leak exactly,
you won't necessarily have air coming
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:out, but it's starting to spread open
and you lose that, that vibrating
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:surface presented to the air.
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:I said, I'm gonna, I'm
going to solve this.
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:And this is three years ago.
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:And Mark was like, if only there was
some sticky stuff you could put on the
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:mouthpiece and instantly, I've got a
triple C or whatever, and it's funny.
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:So I said, you joke, but
I'm going to figure it out.
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:And I tried everything.
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:I tried everything under the sun.
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:I'm assuming it must've been done.
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:People, it's no, it's not a
new concept that grip is king.
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:Speaker: Of course.
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:Speaker 2: So essentially I'm taking
the clean mouthpiece and putting the
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:only thing I've discovered on earth so
far That actually improves the grip for
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:a trumpet player on that mouthpiece.
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:Do you want me to talk
about the discovery?
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:Speaker: Can you tell, yeah, so
let's talk about the discovery and
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:as much as you're comfortable or
yeah, I'll say actual ingredients.
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:Speaker 2: So yeah, I'll tell you
the actual, so the ingredient, so I,
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:the discovery came, and I'm not gonna
get into what exactly it was, but
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:the discovery came when I had this
resin, toxic kind of waste on my hand.
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:It was just like some grease
essentially on my hand and I
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:should have been wearing gloves.
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:And so I'm washing my
hands with this solvent.
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:And I can say some of these things
because we actually two, no, three
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:days ago, now we filed a patent for
this formulation for the application
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:method for application methods in a wide
array of other industries and stuff.
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:It's really broad and we're
really confident in that.
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:And it was really hard and crazy.
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:But that's how serious we are about it.
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:We're, it's not just
like some snake oil crap.
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:Cause I spent I'll just say
way too much money on just a
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:piece of paper essentially.
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:But that's what you gotta do.
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:It was a solvent and I was trying to get
this stuff off my hands and it was gone.
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:Like you couldn't see
it on your hands at all.
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:It was gone, but it still was there and
it still was like this weird surface.
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:And so I've got this stuff on
my hands and I've washed it a
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:few times now with this solvent.
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:And it just remained and I'm like,
geez, I should have worn gloves.
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:And I was like upset.
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:And then all of a sudden it hit me like
a ton of bricks and I get goosebumps
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:almost every time I tell the story.
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:I'm literally going to try not
to get goosebumps now, but it
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:hit me like a ton of bricks.
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:And I went, Oh my God, this
is about nine months ago.
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:I went, that is it.
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:If ever there's something I want my chops
to feel like every second of every day,
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:it's this feeling on my fingers right now.
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:And I went, I called markup.
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:I've solved it.
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:I've done it.
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:We're going to, we're going to be rich,
we've solved trumpet, and he's great.
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:So except it's a toxic substance.
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:It smells really bad and it's
alcohol and all this stuff.
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:You can't just sell it
to kids, or whatever.
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:And I was like you bring
up a very good point.
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:So I think if anybody went this far
ever with an idea like this is the
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:point at which it goes, Oh yeah,
I had a great idea, but it's just
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:not possible to bring to market.
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:And so I set out to find an alternative
material and source material.
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:That is skin safe and through the
properties of what it is, I was able to go
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:through lots of plants and I experimented
with other, pine resin and other things
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:already in the adhesive industry.
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:And the only thing that works is hemp.
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:And we're fortunate that in 2018,
industrial hemp became accessible to
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:smaller businesses with the Farm Bill Act.
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:And maybe that's the only reason
this hasn't been done before.
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:Who knows?
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:But it hasn't been done
thousands of years of trumpet.
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:There
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:Speaker: wasn't a need for it.
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:Speaker 2: Yeah.
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:Speaker: Because the trumpet wasn't
a commercial product until recently
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:in the last couple of hundred years.
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:Speaker 2: Yeah.
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:It wasn't brought yeah.
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:And then the system already works.
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:We're improving other and adding on to it.
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:But so we did the first prototype testing.
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:And it's really been a challenge.
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:We've gone through we
started at version 1.
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:0 which was just this
gunk dissolved in alcohol.
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:And it worked and immediately
slotting felt better.
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:I felt like I was using less
energy, something like that.
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:But I'm just one guy.
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:I'm biased as the inventor, of course.
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:I got I'm gonna just give him a
shout out, cause I love Austin
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:Custom Brass, but Josh McDonald,
I ran into him on a big band gig.
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:Didn't even know he lived
in the same area as me.
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:I'm just kidding.
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:And I had him sign an NDA and confided
in him this, cause I was like, I
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:need somebody that knows something
about the industry to tell me whether
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:this is like snake oil or something
that people would be interested in.
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:And he helped me as much as he could,
I tried to get him to buy in and
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:stuff and he's just a good friend.
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:And he was the first beta
tester besides myself.
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:Okay.
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:And he went yeah man, I dig it.
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:I think you got something
here, keep working on it.
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:And he encouraged me to, I think
you can get this done before ITG.
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:And so that was my, the
goal I set out with.
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:This is nine months ago and we're here
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:Speaker: in almost June 24th.
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:So this is like October.
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:Yeah it's the date, the timestamps
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:Speaker 2: on the text messages of the
first oh my gosh, I've done it to people.
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:I think it was like November 8th
when I really had the discovery.
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:And so sometime around
then, and then It's crazy.
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:I also have, I was, I have dialogue.
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:I developed the brand before I even
made this discovery as like a project.
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:I've got an army trumpet player, Mitchell
Dunham, a really great trumpet player.
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:He, now he's out in Kansas.
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:He's on video going try
Maffetal's MF lip grip.
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:It's going to blah, blah.
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:And it was before it was ever reality.
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:So we've done from 1.
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:0 all the way up to 4.
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:2 going decimal points for each
significant change in the formula
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:and stuff like that to find the
right strain of flour with the right
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:terpene profile and resin, properties.
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:And it's essentially, it's hard
to find sticky hemp because hemp
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:is not the same as marijuana
that's used, for THC properties.
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:So it's not as sticky because
it doesn't have all of those
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:other cannabinoids in it.
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:And so it's been tough.
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:We've refined it.
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:This It was really scary.
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:We, I'm like three months behind on my
mortgage because everything went into
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:this, but I believed in it that much
had about 15, like dozen to 15 testers
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:with signed confidentiality agreements
that were really testing generally
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:from, some of my pals that are just,
regular old trumpet players, that are
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:freelancers to some of the world's
greatest have tested and give me feedback.
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:It's not for everybody, but 70 percent
of everyone I could comfortably say that
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:goes, I think you got something here.
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:We're here and we basically our pitch
has been, you're not going to believe
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:anything I have to say, so take this
card and just read it and come back
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:and I'll, and then you can, you can
call me out on my bluff, or whatever.
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:What's
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:Speaker: been the reaction
or response here at the
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:Speaker 2: conference?
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:It's pretty amazing, actually.
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:So we sold out the first day.
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:We didn't have, I won't say how many
units, but we had what we thought
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:we could do if we just did okay.
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:And we sold out of that pretty quickly.
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:We had another shipment come
in the following day early.
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:We thought we were going to
be out for another 24 hours.
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:So then we tripled sales
yesterday, day two.
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:Today I'm actually, I don't
know if Yeah, I should ask,
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:but it's a clean environment.
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:It's a clean process, but I'm
actually setting up a lab here.
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:Some, maybe not here in the hotel, maybe
somewhere outside the hotel or whatever.
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:It's nothing, there's nothing crazy
toxic going on or anything, but I have
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:to make more right now because we're
about to, we're about to sell out.
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:A few people have been like no.
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:And we're confident enough in
it that I'm like, look, try
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:this in a lot of different ways.
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:Try this for, and I'm just giving bottles
out saying, you're not a believer.
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:Take this and analyze it.
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:It's free to you.
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:See if, what can you tell me about
why it doesn't work for you to,
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:because it, I'm so sure of it.
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:And until the, like yesterday I was still
looking in the mirror going ah, you're an
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:imposter, you're selling this fake stuff.
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:But I'm like, the only thing I know and
I'm sure about in life is trumpet playing.
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:And so I'm like, I can't be
this wrong about being so sure.
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:We.
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:Real quick, I know we're limited on
time, but this morning early when we were
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:opening up, we had this guy come in, and
I don't think he'd mind me telling the
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:story because he's pretty open about it.
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:Go for it.
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:He got bit by a dog in the face way
back when, sometime before the 90s, and
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:has still been practicing every single
day trying to deal with this problem.
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:And he plays.
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:And he's got a really unstable visible
spasm when he engages his embouchure.
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:Really?
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:And it affects his tone, and
he struggles to play a high C
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:with any kind of stable tone.
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:Sure.
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:And he's you think this will help me?
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:I was like, I don't know, cause this is
like something we've never done before.
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:But it should enhance your grip,
because that's just physics.
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:So if that helps you,
a little more comfort.
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:Long story short.
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:Instantaneously.
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:Instantly with this on the mouthpiece.
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:He had a more stable tone.
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:It was just like boom.
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:There was no question about it.
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:Then I'm like, okay,
maybe this is in my head.
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:It's biased or a placebo effect for him.
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:He plays all the way up to high C.
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:And he was playing a C.
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:There was like a little
tremble like twice in the C.
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:But before it was like, like that.
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:This was just, there's the high C.
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:Then the D.
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:Then the E came out.
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:And we're just like looking at this ah.
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:And he bought two of the big bottles.
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:And I'm like.
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:If nothing else, if it gives him 1
percent more comfort on this journey and
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:this struggle, lifelong struggle he's
still he's still working on trumpet,
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:he's still getting better, he had to
come back and everything it's cool.
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:That's the gist of it.
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:The big
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:Speaker: takeaway for me is if you want a
free bottle, just say it's not working for
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:me, and Matt will give you a free bottle.
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:Speaker 2: So we said that like we made
some copies for a friend over here another
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:one of the vendors at FedEx you you were
the one that you organized the deal as
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:it were, we need 40 copies of this thing.
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:And they were like, how much do I owe you?
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:I was like, just come
by and buy some product.
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:And then they were just
coming over and I was like no.
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:Don't buy any product.
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:Don't buy any products.
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:We're about to run out.
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:So we can't give it away free
to everybody for that reason.
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:But yeah, if you I'm
good BS detector though.
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:So You can come try.
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:Sure, come try and pretend
that you don't like it.
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:And I'll probably just tell you
it doesn't matter because you're
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:just missing it in this case.
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:Because it's physics.
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:A baseball player wears gloves
because he puts more power into
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:the ball with less energy output
and that is a fact of physics.
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:There's no arguing it.
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:Yeah, absolutely.
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:So the same should apply that if
you have If you're more set and you
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:have to work less to remain set,
you're saving energy in the face.
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:And it's just, you feel
it after several hours.
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:Speaker: So what's the web address?
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:Speaker 2: It's lipgrip.
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:us and it's super official.
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:I feel like Mazda dot, DE
or something, one of those.
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:But because we're an American business
and it's a very real product, we
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:were able to get the dot us domain.
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:And that's That's it, Lipcrip.
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:us, patent pending sorry, anybody that's
been, any spies at the booth picking up a
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:bottle, go ahead, dissect it, do whatever
you want with it, but we'll let you, we'll
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:let you sell it for super, super cheap.
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:We're selling it super cheap, it's
eight bucks for like a hundred drops,
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:and I'm the inventor and I only use two
or three drops a couple times a week.
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:Okay.
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:Because I only use it when I really
just need a little extra help,
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:I need a little extra support.
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:I'm going to be smacking lots of high
notes or I have two gigs in one day and I
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:need to really be on my game the next day.
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:I'll use it that whole
previous day, save energy.
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:But the lingering feeling from just
using it semi regularly, there hasn't
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:been a day since I started using
it that my chops don't feel great.
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:Speaker: Do you think this would
be applicable for low brass players
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:with the bigger mouthpieces?
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:Speaker 2: I know for a
fact it'll work on horn.
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:That's a smaller mouthpiece.
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:I've had only a couple trombone testers.
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:I've had one tuba tester yesterday
that has to get back to me.
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:He's one of the guys from the
brass, one of the brass quintets.
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:I wouldn't make any claims in the other
brass areas because we've had to focus
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:on what I know and what I can communicate
with the testers about, so I wouldn't make
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:any claims for these other instruments.
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:I'm sure without a doubt, it does
something because grip matters
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:for those instruments as well.
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:Of course, but there might be some
opposite benefits to trumpet players
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:for a tuba player or something
where they're, it helps them.
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:Somehow with their overtone series
and the upper register or whatever,
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:when they, I don't understand enough
about a truck, a two bar amateur to,
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:to make claims there, but we're going
to go to these other conferences and
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:probably it won't be from a strong
we're really confident with sales here.
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:It won't be from that strong
sales confidence stance.
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:It'll be more research and development.
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:Hey, we'll give you a free bottle.
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:Just give us some honest feedback
on this for those other instruments.
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:But.
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:I'm certain that it will be beneficial to
some, almost undoubtedly, for those other
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:Speaker: instruments.
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:Speaker 2: With the money we it looks
like we're gonna make off this, our plan
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:is not to like, like I make jokes about
having a jazz yacht from this, which if
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:I am ever a millionaire, I will have a
yacht with live jazz music everyday and
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:you're all invited to come hang out on it.
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:But, before that point, we're gonna
spend this money on like a real lab and
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:real scientists and stuff because we
might be able to take your lips, James.
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:And put them under a microscope and
see what the surface texture of your
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:particular vibrating surface is.
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:And create a product specifically for
you that sort of fills in those gaps.
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:Because That layer is
left after evaporation.
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:So we can maybe create a pattern that,
that brings your lips, not that they
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:don't already vibrate perfectly and
resonate beautifully, but it might
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:bring them closer to that optimal
range or whatever you're looking for
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:some it could be crazy like that.
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:Speaker: That's an ambitious idea.
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:And you seem to be like the kind of
person that acts on ambitious ideas.
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:I'm super passionate about
my hat is off to you.
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:Thanks so
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:Speaker 2: much, man.
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:Appreciate
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:you.