mettelus

I have had instances (and even done it myself) where finish had creeped into the truss nut cavity. Freaked myself out because I had bound one nut (and later thought it was a rod issue and was afraid to torque it enough to break it loose), then a luthier laughed at me and said, "It is damn near impossible to break a truss rod, you worry too much!" Have you tried backing that nut out all the way with no tension on the strings (this will also let you see the max relief you can get sans string guage)? If I ever pull the nut out completely I do the beeswax thing to the threads and outer surface just so it functions as expected afterwards. They shouldn't require undue torque to move for sure. The one I just got did have some overspray on the end of the nut, but it hadn't creeped into the cavity (was recessed); seems the ones that give me grief have a portion of the nut barrel exposed.

A few quick pics for those interested. How it is shipped, plain old cardboard box: The fret access (why I bought it!). The heel of my hand is against the cavity cut on the back of the guitar, so my pinky it parallel to the 24th fret: The front/tremolo - A couple things with this pic... first, you can see the bow on the pickup mounts (they are flat-top mounts on an arch-top guitar)... and second, after actually playing this, I am not so sure that tremolo is a knockoff, but rather a "special buy" from the Wilkinson factory in South Korea. The arm on that tremolo is unique to only two models of Wilkinson that I could find (no plastic end cap). I have never been a big fan of trems, but this one is tight and keeps tune even through some pretty serious usage (that shocked me actually): Have a few others of the front, back, and fretboard, but they are identical to the advertisement. I couldn't get a good picture of the cap edge, but the "binding" IS the flame maple cap peeking out the sides. Overall review of this from getting to run it through the ringer just a bit: Construction - Surprisingly nice, for the price this is extraordinary! A flame maple cap alone (raw) costs more than half of this guitar. Frets - Exceptional.... first guitar EVER I have not had to touch the frets on at all. Pickups - More than adequate. They have "average" output, but also have all 4 coil wires exposed, so could be coil split easily. For tinkerers, the cavity has enough room to work, so mods and pickup replacements would be straight forward. Fret Access/Playability - Exceptional. The neck is slightly thicker than I prefer (just me), but the access, sustain, and playability (because the frets are done RIGHT) makes this stand out right away. Nut - Average. The nut is bone, but was (fairly) high on the low string side. It "could" be played as it was, but not ideal. Fortunately that nut came out without needing to do much more than run a utility knife down the headstock edge (I didn't even need to tap it out). Hardware - Average overall. Tuners are fine. Mounting rings "should" be arch-top variants and they are not incredibly rigid; i.e., the pickups can be moved around inside that mount more easily than they should be. Knobs are plastic, but also easily replaced. The mounting rings, knobs, and tuners are a straightforward upgrade if desired. Tremolo - Above average (not quite sure how to rate tremolos TBH, since I do not cater to them). Again, not quite sure now that this is a knockoff. It has three springs installed (makes the initial tuning a lot of fun), but once tuned it stays there. Definitely usable, but not run it for extended periods yet. Since it comes back to expected tuning, I guess that is all that really matters. Finish/look - Exceptional. Some of the details are taken from the PRS line (exposed cap edge). The fretboard is not finished, and this may very well be intentional, since it would let folks stain that ivy inlay as they see fit. If the fretboard was finished, modifying/customizing that vine would be a significant challenge. Issues - The only issue I had was the bad coil connection on the one pickup (so I may very well own a RETURN, no idea). The "salt environment" (if true) means to check/verify everything (even in the cavities) if you get one. As my issue was something I couldn't see (under shrink wrap tubing), I would advise pulling shrink wrap off so that EVERY solder connection can be visually verified. Although this manufacturing defect was easily fixed, it would be catastrophic to some.

Okay, she is done (yay). @DeeringAmps the PUP issue was sort of a manufacturing "oopsie" and not obvious, but what was very obvious was (very isolated) corrosion in the cavity when I popped the back plates off. Nothing major, but was on the threads to the tremelo spring plate screws (2) and pot stems (I pulled one and seemed to be on the aluminum only). Something to check when you get yours. Mine might be a refugee that swam to the US to get here, but my only assumption from seeing that is that the IYV factory (or wire harness assembly) is in a salt-air environment (near the ocean). Anyway... there are both positives and negatives from me delving into the guts: The humbuckers are 4-wire, so can coil split them if desired without replacing them. Without punching more holes in the body (very little room for extra pots anyway), either push/pull pots or Seymour Duncan Triple Shots (my preference) would be the way to go. The humbuckers are potted and nice and shiny, so no issues with them. The soldering was all done properly to the pots (no corrosion on anything but the pot stems and trem screws). Way more ground connections than I would do, but no harm, no foul. I start checking resistances and was getting flaky readings on the pots and the PUP... so was going to pop that PUP out and do coil/polarity checks... BUT... The coil connection (white to green) on the PUPs was shrink wrapped (I thought that was a nice touch actually), but then pulled the one off to the bad PUP and it was not soldered, only twisted. Of course I untwist it and aluminum oxide rains out of the wires. Grabbed the soldering iron, snipped those ends off (not a "lot" of extra wire in there for playing, but had enough), and soldered them. Checked the other PUP and that one was soldered, but I resoldered it anyway just for good measure. I ran it to the amp before buttoning it back up to check, and all is now GOOD. Bottom line, between that one connection not being soldered and the salty environment, it was causing massive (and erratic) resistance spikes. None of the rest of the guitar shows any salt damage whatsoever, so this could be that they "prefab" the wire harnesses where the salt can get to them. No idea, but wanted to bring your attention to that. Will post pics when I get a chance later but she is DONE (at least till I get a wild hair for some mod)... ZERO fret work required (that alone is worth an honorable mention).

Stroke of luck, setup got completed tonight (neck PUP still outstanding): Nut - The nut had finish against the headstock side, so I ran a utility knife down that to separate it (is also the lower side). Fretboard side is unfinished, so I turned it around and said, "Now if you will just bend over for me..." and it flopped right over! Wasn't expecting that (never works on women), so I figured fine, I will finish the setup tonight. The nut is actually bone (was obvious once out), and was only too tall on the on the low E (0.031") end, the high E was fine (0.012"). I took the low E side down to 0.022" and put the nut back in without any glue for now. Truss rod - I actually added a 1/4 turn of tension before measuring the nut. This link is a good reference for the proper order with things, but I don't quite agree with the values given 100%. Intonation - The saddles were actually loose (weird), so set intonation and tightened them down. Set the pickup heights to where they should be. Played it for a bit after and got another kicker with the electronics... On the bridge PUP (only now), the volume and tone knobs work as expected (tone knob was obvious with the PUP at the right height). With the switch on both or neck, the tone knob also acts as a volume knob. Maybe I didn't fully test the mid position previously (more than likely), but the neck pickup is definitely wired wrong. The neck output is higher raising that PUP height, but that wiring needs to be redone. Ran out of steam for the evening so will tackle that one later on.

I fall into this bucket for sure. Mocha Pro is also a subscription-based product, and Premiere is almost reliant on them.... another nail in the coffin since Resolve Studio includes both (essentially) as a one-time buy. This is akin to owning Melda's MCompleteBundle... how many new plugins entice you after owning that? Just a word of caution with making assumptions over industries being siloed (this is very rare actually). More complex ones will often absorb/overtake others, especially if they fall into a subset. A couple stupid anecdotes... I have worked with DSP in the GHz range, so engineers in that field consider audio frequencies "child's play." Similarly, I asked for a driver update to a system once and the guy said "I can get those to you tomorrow." I followed up with, "Damn, you should help the folks with audio interface drivers." Very few people I work with know my hobbies (and most only remember "cars"), so he gave me this "As if" look... that made me chuckle and say, "Yeah, keep your day job." I just thought that event was particularly comical because he redid drivers to a complex system in a day, when some audio interfaces cannot even make their own. Audio will always be a subset of video in terms of complexity. You can have audio without video, but it is very rare to have video without associated audio. As things flesh out, do not be surprised by what happens. FairLight already includes... ARA , VST3 (and AU), multi-track recording (even instrument tracks) but ONLY 2000 of them!, ADR (people buy ReVoice for this), track layers (aka take lanes), automation, audio repair tools (people by RX/SpectraLayers for this), Dolby Atmos, and video<->audio synchronization tools (how many here have complained about that one?), amongst others. I often tell folks to focus their money wisely, so when debates on DAWs occur, I typically steer towards, "And you 'need' a DAW... for what exactly?" New (especially younger) folks I steer down the video path instead... they are going to gain more marketable skills on that road for the future, including audio skills.

Was the same for me. I kept blowing off that search link and wondering why it kept popping up. I finally broke down and started reading reviews about them... I always read the 1 star reviews first and keep asking myself, "Is this 'issue' something that I cannot fix?" None of them mentioned fretwork or structural issues (all I really care about), but even then I blew it off thinking it was a "Prime Day" thing and I could log in later and say "Oh well, I missed the boat!" That didn't happen, so the "I can always return it" became my fallback excuse for trying it out. The nut issue is more me being OCD, but the PUP issue is not. Just keep that in mind. I am a tinkerer by default anyway, so not intimidated by much, but some folks have a cow if they cannot unbox something and immediately go on tour with it. I joked with Grem about his nut that "They might have just grabbed folks off the street and said 'glue these in there!'".... For my PUP issue, they might have grabbed folks of the street and said "Solder all the lose end wires to 'something'!" The neck PUP on mine would "effectively disable it and warrant a RETURN" for many, so that can help with your "Must resist" 😁

+1, I am in PRS country here (an hour or so drive from corporate) but never owned one. An old friend of mine has two McCarty's... he is going to have a cow when I show him this when I finish it up. As I was measuring the scale length I kept thinking to myself, "Please, PLEASE, be 24.594!" LOL. His are both gold and for some reason I absolutely hate that color on a guitar. Seeing Gibson or Fender guitars in live venues in this area is pretty rare because of the PRS dominance here. I always knock the nut out and file down the bottom edge to get the proper heights, leaving the top edge intact. Not sure if you remember what happened with Grem, but his shattered when he knocked it out because it was literally slathered with glue (and glued on 3 sides)... total overkill. A chunk of that was my fault because I led him down that path (but NEVER seen what he experienced)! Even the leftover fragments gave him grief because of the amount of glue used This nut is wider than I am used to, plastic, and 3 sided contact, so I am bracing myself for a "hefty dose of reality" when I go to knock it out. Worse comes to worst, I will just slot it and crush it, then replace it with a better one.

Two things to check with this. First, all links that are present in file preferences should be set there (no need to make a junction). Second, there have been instances in the past where installing a new version of software will actually break an existing junction or point it to the wrong location. In those cases, try to break the junction manually, then remake it and see if that solves the issue (it should, I cannot remember a situation where it did not).

Resolve is expanding into the DAW realm at an accelerated pace, it seems. Most of that exists in the FairLight module (not available in the FREE version), but Resolve Studio remains a one-time payment for life. As it already supports VST3 and limited MIDI/audio/instruments in FairLight, I would not be surprised if that ends up absorbing DAW users as it fleshes out, especially since the FX included with Studio (both video and audio) negate the need for a lot of 3rd party plugins. I suspect the OP is a sneak peak at what is coming down the pike. It is becoming more uncommon to work audio that is not linked to video "in some way" (posting to YouTube, etc.), so video editors are starting to lean into the "all in one" solution. As far as video editors are concerned, DAW functionality is merely a subset of what they do, so their playing space is becoming "Which video editor is also a fully functional DAW?" Having seen acquisitions with (sometimes quirky) "bridging" between apps, that battle might end up being a simple competition between Adobe and Blackmagic Design in the coming years (I would wager on Blackmagic Design winning, because their hardware line is already very well established).

LOL, sorry Tom!! 🙄 I forgot to mention the guitar is friggin' gorgeous, so maybe that makes up for something?? On a serious note, structurally the one I got was "almost" spot on out of the box, and I always assume there is going to be some tinkering involved with things I haven't had a chance to examine yet (go figure). After my last post I was wondering if this guitar DOES have a "tone" knob and the neck pickup is wired to it directly (?) ... will know for sure in a few days when I set aside time to dismantle it, but the wiring/pots/PUPs almost always fall into the tinkering bucket. Be sure to let us know what you think when they arrive! I was almost laser focused on the "through-body neck" so got what I wanted and then some. I was actually a little concerned to post this, because after I posted on that LP kit I did from StewMac 4 years ago, Gibson went after them and made StewMac stop carrying that kit 😞 LOL, IYV sells their LPs for cheaper than that kit was and they are already assembled and painted!!! Amazon, go figure... even as I clicked "Place Order" I was thinking, "If it is a POS, I can always return it for free!"

Still waiting for this to dry out (has spent days in a humid environment, but only a few hours in a climate controlled environment). I played it about half an hour to check it out further, and here are a few more quick observations: Knobs are just volume controls (that caught me off guard actually.... will check pot setups later on), and plastic. One comment I read previously was the pickup mounting rings are for flat-faced guitars and therefore bowed a little (outward as you face the pickups)... this is true, but not really noticeable. Seymour Duncan Triple Shots have an arched variant, and that will yield 4 more switches as I think about wiring options (with two knobs I prefer volume/tone on the master output, so have sort of bought into a wiring mod from the get go). Sustain is exceptional. I kept doing slides on the high E to the 20th fret just because the sustain was over 10 seconds. I seemed to keep zeroing in on that aspect. The frets are done right (#1 concern with any guitar). They need polishing, but no issues anywhere with them (even the edges are done right). Nut isn't as atrocious as I first thought although it still bothers me. It is out way more on the low end, but because it takes so much motion to detune a low string it isn't really noticeable (more a playability issue). (This one was a surprise) The neck pickup is rather weak. Although they recess pickups during shipping, it is significantly weaker than the bridge PUP (they seem to be the same pickup, but not sure). I didn't adjust height on them yet, but the bridge sounds rather good, and that dominates in the mid switch position; just the neck alone is not so great. This could be a soldering issue, so will dig into this more as things settle out... it may actually be linked to the "two volume knobs" (never seen that before??). Switch is reversed to what I am accustomed to, but simple to fix. Scale length is 24.875. I am used to playing 25.5, so anything shorter feels like putty. I thought that was an oddball length (was expecting 25 actually), but it plays well. Fret access on the upper frets is a dream. No heel to wrap your hand around and that was really my goal with the neck search in the first place. I may get a surprise when I get around to checking the wiring (sort of expecting that now), but with the bridge PUP only it is playable "as is."

@T Boog, this one is probably going to cater to you on here most, but I wanted to share for anyone interested. Past few months I have been on this quest for a through-body neck to build a custom guitar (just the neck), and while searching a particular "IYV" guitar (IP-300-TSB) kept popping up (Amazon of all places!). I sort of blew that off at first, but it popped up so frequently I finally opened it. There is a nice video by "Gear Report"(the 2:25 length one) that caught my attention for a couple of reasons... 1) the depth of that neck cut on the back is fairly extreme, and 2) the "binding" on the guitar is actually the exposed flame maple cap (PRS also does this with a few of their models). Those comments made me sit back and think about that further... the neck pocket doesn't even exist on PRS guitars... a flame maple cap alone (raw) is over half the cost of that guitar... and the company making them probably has the same engineers making the SE line (sad, but true). Since that review mentioned "on the heavier side" I Googled that and said "roughly" 10 lbs... not quite ideal, but not terrible. I actually blew off looking at it again since I thought it was a "Prime Day" deal, but came back a week later and it was still on sale (still is now even), so I ordered one. It just arrived, so wanted to do a quick assessment: That neck cut is so deep, I can butt the heel of my hand to it and lay my entire pinky across the 24th fret. Definite win there. Sure enough, it has a full flame maple cap (one review said it was a veneer) and it is exposed instead of binding on the edge. The guitar is supposedly CNC'd, and I think even the frets are. They need to be polished but are perfectly seated and leveled perfectly. The fretboard is unfinished, so can actually stain that inlay to whatever suits you. Will think about this one a bit. The NUT... not sure why people do this... that nut is plastic (not a huge deal), but is SKY HIGH (is a stock nut, just slapped in so was not trimmed down at all)!!! It is also wrapped on 3 sides, so getting that out might be a challenge (Grem had this issue when fixing one of his old guitars). Will come back to that one when I get time to tackle it, but that is priority #1, then can set the rest up. LOL... a PLEK machine cuts the nut while doing the frets... they could have done that on a CNC machine too!!! Tremelo - knockoff, of course, but fully functional (another reason the price stuck out for this guy). The neck Is a C-shaped neck profile... a little thicker than I prefer, but not a big deal. Weight - 8 lbs on the nose. I guess I will consider that a "win" because I was expecting 10 lbs. I didn't even plug it in (not too concerned about the pups anyway) since I won't really stress test it till that NUT is done properly (or replaced) so I can set it up properly. Potentially might swap tuners down the road, but otherwise the hardware is fine. I will know more once that nut is done, but the fret access is something to drool over. I will update this as I go with it, but "IYV" seems to have one of everything (one review of them cautioned that guitars are done in lots, so a particular model may "come and go" and you need to sort of track them if a particular model sells out).

Not sure if you are new with Melda or not, but to re-iterate Brian's point (both above and below), updates to plugins are free for life and if you own a bundle that a new plugin is included with you get those for free (the Complete Bundle includes everything, both past and future). Melda put a lot of forethought into the modularity of their plugins so there is a lot of commonality between them. Cross talk/awareness between plugins exists to a certain level, but that would be awesome if beefed up over time. Some get hung up on the "look" of the GUI, but as far as processing power their plugins are top notch (the fact you only need to buy them once is a huge perk that is very rare in the software industry... making money from onboarding new customers is totally different than milking your loyal base, which tends to be the norm). My problem with this is I tend to see new things "in passing" but then never delve into them deeply enough to remember what they were. More than once I have had a few months pass before I realized what the new stuff was exactly (shame on me, really).

+1, the real issue with EQs is they are great for removing frequency content, but fall short for content that is vague or not even present. Pianos unto themselves are incredibly versatile due to their designs so they can be a good choice to fill gaps in other stringed instruments. When you have two different pianos in play you pretty much have all the bases covered! For almost 20 years, I left the original (not a great pickup by any means) pickup in the neck position on my main when I replaced the bridge with a PAF Pro just because when those two were melded together it had a dramatic effect on tone that you could not get from either solo. When I went with a Super Seven Switching design I shifted them to D Activator Neck/Bridge... although there is versatility in the switching setup, the tone differences are not as profound as when the PUPs "don't match." The best "mismatch" I can get is with the neck coils in a parallel configuration and the bridge coils in series (then the two HBs in series... my "default"), just because those PUPs sound so similar. Every guitar that has separate tone/volume knobs per pickup since I have left the neck stock, but beefed up the bridge to get that effect back (that PAF Pro is now in the bridge on a 335 and is jet black, so the guitar looks like it has a hole in it instead of a pickup at a distance).

You can get some nice results with layering. There are quite a few A/B-style Kontakt libraries that focus on melding two instruments in this way (two different instruments typically for the A and B). One weird epiphany I hit on several years ago was recording a vocal track. I didn't quite like a condenser take, but then didn't quite like a dynamic take either. I ended up testing runs with both mics simultaneously and layering that result similar to the OP, and the results were far better than I anticipated. It was much simpler to work with the content I wanted from each mic that way. Decades ago, I used to run two very different dynamics at once (live) through mixers (they were literally taped together) so I figured the dynamic/condenser combo wasn't that far of a stretch from what I had already done long ago and was worth the try.

Never heard of them, but that is a bit over the top. Another thing to bear in mind with ANY internet/international company is who they are and where they are located. If something falls into litigation and is based in a country that doesn't care (or if they have NO assets in the country filing the lawsuit - ByteDance does have TikTok (for now)), it can be a dead end even without them forcing the the user to sign an agreement. International litigation and enforcement can be a very slippery slope, so always be careful with whom you do business with.

In addition to this, not all consumer units have the same grade of shielding internal to the unit. Another thing to check is any wireless/electronic devices in the vicinity of the controller (even cell phones). Consumer grade products vary with the shielding they have internally (some shielding designs are much more expensive). As you step up into "non-consumer" products that can get intense... imagine a piece of gear the size of a package of hot dogs that costs $50K.

Not sure if this affects anyone else, but it seems certain VST3 files cause Scaler 3 stand alone to either hang or crash. It is listed in the known issues for Scaler 3.1. For me the solution to this (I was getting an unresponsive GUI in stand alone mode) was to simply rename the "C:\Users[NAME]\AppData\Roaming\Scaler 3\ Scaler 3.settings" file. Although there are clean install instructions at the bottom of that known issues page, renaming that one file solved it (I assume that file records the VST scan, but not sure).

Below is a pretty good, quick overview video that is embedded at the top of this page. One thing that is not mentioned is that oversampling is by plugin (not the overall DAW), so it allows higher detail processing internally. In many cases this is not overly noticeable, but in situations with older, lower-quality samples going in this can have a very audible result. This also depends on what that plugin is actually processing/doing. As mentioned, bear in mind that oversampling adds stress to the CPU. Since he showed Melda plugs in that video, I think that most of their plugins now support 1024x oversampling (which is crazy high). I don't think I have ever used anything over 8x, with 4x being the most common choice if used. Many plugin vendors have oversampling embedded into them, so it is certainly not required to put it on the DAW to achieve this.

I think this is the real differentiator. Even before AI, I would typically bucket folks into "live" or "studio" (aka, post production) bins. DAWs just made post-production simpler and more accessible, and AI will streamline that process, but (good) live performance will always be at the top of the pecking order IMO. Shifting gears a bit... back in the day, a student that turned in a paper that seemed out of character could be checked for plagiarism (Google helped with that). AI tools just make that checking harder, and is not "creativity" but sheer indolence. Even lawyers have been caught doing this; turning in court documents that reference non-existent case files. Paying someone to be lazy goes well beyond my level of tolerance, but some instances even cross the line into legal ramifications.

+1 to this, also check your Master Outputs are correct. There was a similar post recently where that was the issue. I am curious now if you run IKM TR5 in stand alone mode to different outputs (i.e., why would inserting a VST(i) cause the Master Outs to change)?

This was sort of mentioned above, but any registration associated with the TH line should be done through Overloud (support link here), not Cakewalk. Have you tried reaching out to them directly? Overloud was one of the few vendors who bent over backwards to support the SONAR refugees during the great Gibson debacle (even unlocking the Cakewalk-specific plugins for us). Their support team is top notch... I recommend reaching out to them directly and explaining your situation. You most likely have an account with them already if you registered TH3, but your situation is one I am sure they are aware of (the Cakewalk-specific versions "vanished"). Of the few times I have touched base with them, issues were resolved in less than a day with a single email.

Boy, I admit "white pine" stuck out to me initially, but then I thought, "Alder is one of the softer hardwoods, so is white pine really that far of a stretch??" I have played with enough unseasoned white pine over the years, that I tend to think of that rather than the times when I have pulled seasoned white pine out and realized how hard it had become. Thanks for posting that video (very nice)! If you hadn't posted that I might have blown off "white pine" without even thinking about it @Rain I am glad things averted disaster! When I saw the SG comment that just made me cringe!

^^^^ Being new this step probably tripped you up (it does for many). Like a few other drum instruments, Session Drummer comes up with no default kit loaded... sure the GUI is there, but the kit is actually empty (no sounds). Just to reiterate the obvious, MIDI itself is simply note data (cannot hear anything without a virtual instrument to play those notes). Most virtual instruments let you click on the GUI (either virtual keyboard, kit pieces, or even a play/preview button), so you can test the instrument before you get into composing.

It does Because of the fuller sound a piano produces (multiple strings per note), this "trick" can be used to fill out otherwise thin VSTis. Same notes on a piano (essentially layered), but at a significantly lower volume (and maybe tweak the attack to match the instrument you are embellishing, or just use a "soft" piano). Pianos are very versatile to add frequency content without being obvious when desired.