ZAGER EZ Play Guitar ZAD-20!

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Could you open up the card? What? Hold on, guys. Technical difficulty. One second.

Put this. Take that card out. Put this card in. Always protected. The lock button. I accidentally slid it in.

We'll fix that one. That's probably why it couldn't auto focus. Let's try that again. There we go. We're back. All right, autofocus, manual focus, please. The wonderful assistant, Megan. Let's give a round of applause. Thank you for assisting me with that. Apparently, when I slid the memory card into the camera, it locked it. So that's why we're having that little lock message in the beginning. So thank you so much for being here. Yeah, Megan. That's right. We'll give Megan a round of applause here, here. And I'm actually going to move this microphone a little bit closer here so that you guys can hear me a little better. Got a lot of people I saw. We have people from Uganda, California, Portugal. Hello. Afternoon, London. When will you give away? Yes. So the giveaway. So this is the guitar we're giving away. And I'm going to tell you guys a little bit about it shortly. All the details about this brand new guitar. The tags are still on it. The giveaway, it starts today and it lasts for 10 days. So November 17th will be the last day that you can enter to win. And there are some. Some rules. So stick with me here as people hop on and get into this. Hello, everyone. I'm seeing you. Illinois, Germany. India. Lovely. Des Moines, Iowa. Hello, Alabama, first live chat. Jason, well, welcome. And sue from Illinois. Hello, everybody. It's so nice to see you here. And in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I was very, very happy that Zager Guitars reached out to me. Denny sent me an email. He said, lauren, do you want to do a giveaway for your people? And I said, you know what? Absolutely. I would love to. To give away one of these beautiful guitars. This is an easy play guitar. It is the. It's a Zager Z, a D20, a Zad 20. And these retail for about 8.95 on their website. So that's the guitar we're going to be giving away. Okay. And like I said, it starts today. And I pinned a link, so it should be. I'm just clicking over here on the chat. It should be pinned to the chat for you guys to go. Just click on that link and you just enter your email to be entered into the giveaway. It is open for us Residents. It's also open for our residents, Inc. I talked to Mitch today And he confirmed before I went live, we can do this for our Canadian students, our students in the UK and Europe. The caveat for those students outside of the United States, you are going to have to pay for the shipping. Now, shipping has gone up a bit. So you're not just getting the guitar. Let me put this guitar down for a second. And again, I'm going to go into all the details about this lovely guitar. So you know what, you're going to win. We also. It comes in this wonderful hard case. The hard case has a humidity control inside. It's a beautiful case. Hard case. And we're going to wrap it up and ship it to you guys. But just so you know, shipping costs today, they're going up. So if you want to ship one of these babies internationally, it might cost you two or $300. But it's a $900 guitar. All right. If you go on, on Zeger's website and you look up this specific model of guitar, the Zad 20, it's not the Zad 20E, the E has the electronics in it, so that'll cost you an extra, like 2 or $300. But the Zad 20 retails 8.95. Okay. And it's a beautiful guitar. So this is a. Ciao. Hello. I saw someone from Italy. Ciao. You know, I love Italy. My. My grandfather was born in Italy. So this guitar is. It's a spruce top. So you see the lighter color spruce top. It's an African mahogany side and back. So darker color on the back, spruce top. And this will create a brighter sound. So it's not going to be as warm.

Still. Very nice sound. I think it sounds great.

I think it sounds like a. It sounds like a very beautiful guitar. I've only tuned this one. It came shipped to me. It was pretty much still in tune a little bit in shipping. And it's a nice bright, punchy tone. It's not as warm as, say, my Taylor. Some of you guys are used to my Taylor or the darker woods. Like a redwood guitar would be much darker or warmer in sound, but they're also a lot more expensive. So this is a great balance for someone who wants a really, really nice guitar. That sounds good. So spruce top, African mahogany back insides, and gives it that nice punchy, loud, nice punchy, bright sound. I think it's. I think it's, you know, I think it's a nice sounding guitar. Zager had sent me earlier one of their 800 or their ADCE model, and that one was. That one was Beautiful too. They play very well. So this is part of their Easy Play series. And what makes them so easy to play? Well, there's a few features that you get with these guitars, but I want to tell you first I'll tell you a cool story and why I like this company and why I ended up partnering up with them and doing some great things with Zeger about a year ago. Some of you may remember, we gave away a lot of Zeger guitars last year.

Student of mine, I can't remember who it was off the top of my head. A student of mine had reached out. We had a student who was a veteran and we were trying to find a guitar for him to play with and I think he had maybe macular degeneration or something. He couldn't see as well as someone that had 2020 vision. So we were trying to find him a guitar that would work well for him. And this student actually reached out to Zager saying, hey, you know, we have this military student, this veteran who's part of this, you know, Lauren's going to give this person a course. He doesn't have a guitar. Is there something you guys could do? And you know, he had reached out some of the big brand name as well and, and nobody was willing to help. And Zager guitar said, yeah, we'll help, we'll send you a guitar. Well, not only did Zager send us one guitar, they actually sent us six guitars. All right, we asked for one guitar, they sent us six. So me and this other student, we did a giveaway and you guys probably remember, some of you, we did a live and you guys did a lot of shout outs and did some donations and you guys actually paid for the shipping for those veterans. So thank you guys so much when we did that. So I just think they are a really great company. After they did that, I was like, I need to learn more about this company. They're, they're a US based company and Dennis has been making these guitars since 1969 and his son Dennis Jr. Is who I correspond with a lot. And, and they've been wonderful. They've been wonderful to a lot of my students. A lot of my US based students have purchased Zeger guitars and they absolutely love. We'll go along with my Zad 80 CE. That's the one they me Rodney, the Zad 80 CE. And I think it worked out well.

So that's why I love this company. I just want to let you guys know the background of why I ended up working with them because I said anyone who does that? You guys know I love our veterans and we do stuff for our veterans all the time. And I said, any company that's willing to do that is amazing. And let me tell you one other story. This was in our private community, a student, they had bought. They bought a Zeger from someone at a yard sale. Used a used Zeger. And you know, some of the buttons, I think the case was old. Some of the buttons were coming off. And he emailed Zeger to say, hey, could you send me some replacement buttons? I bought this guitar used and the case was a little bit beat up and was missing some buttons. Well, they didn't have that case anymore because I think the guitar was about 20 years old. Zager actually emailed or not emailed, they mailed the student a brand new hard case. That's how much they stick by their product. And I have lots of other stories, but I just want to let you know why I support this company so much. Because the customer service is, is over the top. Good. You just entered. Yes. If you guys want to enter, there's a link in the description below. And I think I pinned the link in the chat. You guys can go and enter. And let's get back into this guitar that you guys are going to be winning again. It's the Zad 80 or not 80. Sorry, that was the one they gave me before the Zad 20. It's about $895 retail. Spruce Top, African mahogany sides and back. And the thing that makes the people like, are they really easier to play? Lauren. And for me, you know, I've been playing guitar so long that where I really feel it is more on the bar chords versus the regular cords. And yes. Someone asked what size is? This is a full size acoustic. This is a Dreadnought model. You know, I know for a lot of you guys, you know, you hear me sometimes say, like, oh, dreadnoughts can. Can be big. For me, this actually feels very comfortable. I feel comfortable. It's. It. It looks like it's a thinner body than my first Ibanez that I had, which was even a, even a wider body. So this is a very comfortable style guitar. It doesn't have the cutout, you know, so there's no cutout on the bottom. But for me holding it, I'm almost five' five. I'm a little under five' five, and this feels very comfortable for me to hold. So, you know, if you're a female and you're thinking about entering to win this, and you're like oh, I'm a small person. Well, I'm not even five' five. I'm only like five' four and a half. And you know, for me it feels, does feel comfortable for me to hold this. So just if you want sizing, that's what this is. It's a full dreadnought size guitar. Now it has a custom bracing system on the bottom of the guitar so that you require less pressure for the strings. That's what makes it easy play is the bracing of the guitar. So. So when you're playing these chords you don't have to press them as much. I'm barely, I'm literally barely pressing the strings and I'm getting the chords to sound so. So that's really great. Especially if you're a beginner player. You haven't built up that finger dexterity or that strength yet. That's great. The other thing that's really cool is these nuts are all custom made up here and they have a slightly wider spacing. Now for those of you who have, you know, you all, I get the emails or glarn, I have sausage fingers. For those of you who have bigger fingers and you have trouble getting the spacing and muting other strings. The spacing on this is just a little bit wider so might be a little bit more comfortable without the neck being too much wider. I think I measured this against my crafter and I actually think my crap, the neck of my crafter was a little bit wider than this or very, very similar size. So we have a little bit of a wider spacing on the strings which makes playing the chords a little bit more comfortable. Less likely that you're going to have dead strings. But, but remember, you know, nothing replaces good technique on a guitar. You still want to have good technique in your playing. So, so keep that in mind too.

I said I'm just looking at my notes because I want to make sure I talk about all the wonderful features of this guitar. The setup initially, you know, the action is pretty good. The for me I might, I might like it a little bit lower and there is an allen wrench. I haven't adjusted anything and they do recommend on the instructions inside that you do a little bit of adjustments because it's a brand new guitar and the wood is going to adjust. Okay. So you will have to make some a little adjustments but there's an Allen wrench that comes inside the guitar with instructions and directions. But up here on the first three frets where most beginners are going to be hanging out, I really like the spacing where I noticed the spacing just a little bit for me would be too high, is further down here. On the 12th fret, I might, you know, I might flatten out the neck a little bit more, get that spacing a little bit closer to the fretboard. But I like my strings as close to the fretboard as I can get them without buzzing that that's how I like to play my guitars. But for most people, I think this, this setup out of the box would be great for an absolute beginner. And then we have a bone saddle, which I thought was important to mention. And you like, you know, like it's a beginner guitar, but it's like $900. Why? This is a, these guitars are custom made. This is not a production line. So this saddle, this is a bone saddle. It's not a plastic saddle that comes off a conveyor belt. And they pick one and they throw it in the guitar and what happens happens. This bone saddle is made specifically for this guitar to make sure that the intonation of the strings is correct so that you have proper tuning whether you're playing at the 12th fret or you're playing at, you know, the open strings of the first fret keeps the tuning of your guitar great. So everything is really custom made on these guitars, and that's why they're expensive and they play so well. Okay. Because honestly, let's. Let's be honest. You get what you pay for, right? You know, you really do get what you pay for. We have the Grover tuning pegs up here. These tuning pegs come. I didn't know this as I was doing my research for this video. These tuning pegs come with a lifetime warranty. So if these ever break or something happens, you, you email Zager and they're going to send you a new one. Okay. And then you can either put it on, you can bring it to your local luthier and they'll put it on for you. But these, these tuning pegs come with a lifetime warranty. They're well made. They, they, they don't feel, they're not flimsy. They're. They're very well made, well constructed. Grover tuning pegs. And another thing that I like about this guitar is where the strap pegs are placed. So not all guitars come with strap pegs, but this has one in the back, which most guitars usually have a peg back here. But it's the placement of this front peg that I really like. I don't know if you guys can see it. You can see the little button here. I love it here. Now why. All right, so on my crafter guitar, this is where the, the strap button is. On my tailor, it's, it's back here on the flat part. And I actually don't like that at all. Things you learn when you try different guitars. The reason I like the button here is the guitar is much better balanced. So when I, if I had a strap on this and I let go of the guitar, the neck would not fall. Okay. With my tailor, the neck tends to fall and sag. Okay. I think with the placement of the strap where it is, it's not properly weighted for the fretboard. Okay. So that's why I, my personal preference, this is not for everyone, but my personal preference is exactly where Zeger put their strap pegs. Okay. Right here on the underside and you know, on the back, that's pretty typical, but there's a few different placements. You could put this one here and this is my preferred placement. So that's why I'm very happy that Zeger does that. Oh, George from Massachusetts. Hello. I also saw Thomas from Wakefield in here as well. So. Hello everyone.

At least in the U.S. you know, if you don't win this guitar, at least in the U.S. if you're, if you're considering a Zeger guitar, they do offer a 30 day money back guarantee. So if you bought one of their guitars and you didn't like it, you can send it back and they pay for the shipping. Or if you were like, you know, if this is what the Zad 20 sounds like, I want to try the 80 or the 90 which a few people here in the chat have had. You can send it back and exchange it a different guitar. All right. They really, really do stand by their product and, and that's why I love them as a company. I like that everything is custom made, which obviously adds to the price point. But you know, for a 900 guitar, if you bought this retail 8.95, it is very well made, very well constructed, and I think you would be very happy with this guitar for a very, very, very long time. So if you're someone who is looking for a guitar, maybe, maybe you just started and, you know, someone gave you a guitar that was sitting in their basement or sitting in a garage, and it's kind of like this little crap, crappy practice guitar and you're looking for a really well constructed guitar that's very comfortable to play, then definitely enter to win. Okay. You'll find out in 10 days. Okay. It's November 7th to November 17th. All you have to do is go to the description below or I pinned into the chat the giveaway link. Or if you're watching this after the live, just go to the description below this video, there's a link and it's going to take you over to Zager's website and it's going to say the Lauren Bateman giveaway. And you're just going to enter your email, all right? And we're going to give away this guitar in 10 days. So you have 10 days to win this guitar. Now, warning, because the last time I did a guitar giveaway and I used YouTube, there are sometimes spammers on here who come in and pretend they're me or they pretend they're Zager. Okay? You are going to get an email. If you get an email from anyone. No one's going to message you on YouTube. If you get a YouTube message, there's tons of spammers out there. Do not send any money to anyone. All right? If you're going to get an email, it's going to come directly from an official Lauren Bateman email, lauren bateman.com or it's going to come from Zager directly. If you get anything that says Zager at Gmail or Zager 2, 5, 6 at Yahoo or any of those weird iterations, do not believe it, all right? You're only going to get something directly from me or directly from Zager's company. No one will contact you on YouTube. All right? So I just want to make sure of that, because I know the last time we did a giveaway, I have one or two people who sent some money to some people somewhere thinking they had won a guitar and that they had to pay for the shipping. So just be aware of that. All right? So we're going to give you guys the link in the description below. Click on that, just enter your email, and in 10 days, we're going to pick the winner. And someone here, all right, Anyone could be one of my students. All right? Anyone here on YouTube that enters is going to win this guitar, all right? And it's a beautiful sounding guitar. It plays very well. I know I'm playing with my fingers. What does it sound sound like with a pick? Let's play with a pick for a bit.

Little palm muting so you can hear. I think it's a nice sounding guitar. I would be happy, I would be happy with this if this were my first guitar. It's way better than my first guitar was. I'll tell you that much. So please go over to Zager's website. Click the link in the description below. Go check out this company. They're an amazing company. I love supporting them. My students love supporting them. And I hope one of you wins a beautiful guitar as a reminder for US Residents. Go right ahead. Enter away if you are outside the United States, if you're in Canada or Europe. Okay, Canada and Europe is kind of what we're opening it up to. You have to pay for the shipping. So before you go and enter, look up the shipping costs. I think someone put down there was like 150 to 200 pounds to ship it over to the UK. Make sure you can afford the shipping before entering to win because we want to make sure that all the emails we get, that's the email we're going to email you back at. So make sure it's a good working email. And we will pick a winner in 10 days. And hopefully it's one of you guys. And we would love to get a picture of you smiling with the guitar because that's why we do these giveaways is because you guys are awesome and I want to support you guys and give back to you as much as possible because you guys have given me so much. Really appreciate it. The thick pant. Yeah, the thick pick is on the headstock. Thank you, Thomas, for reminding me. They have these Zager picks. And let me. I don't want to break it, but it's got little holes in it which are great for holding on to the pick. I've never played with them. I did see that. Thank you, Thomas, for reminding me about that version of this guitar. Is it possible to win? So, yes, this is the Zad20. It's like their entry level, easy play guitar and anyone here can. Can win it. All right, so go enter. If you haven't put your email in, go right now to enter to win the guitar and we'll tell you in 10 days who's got it. So thank you so much, everyone for coming on live today. Really appreciate it and good luck and I'll see you guys in a lesson video real soon. Bye, everyone.