IYV ILS-300D Electric Guitar, Cherry Sunburst

This is a good one. The flame on the top veneer is subtle depending on the light but it has a really cool vertical grain too. The satin finish is nice. The “carved” top is built convincingly enough. It’s lighter than a real Les Paul. Feels like a chambered one. Binding is real, not painted on. Relic job is tasteful and looks like the pictures.Pickups are decent. Sound like Alnico 5. A little microphonic but really articulate. You may want to swap in your pups of choice but these are good, lively and musical.Setup is pretty close to perfect out of the box on this one - action is low and intonation is good. Tuners work. Fretwork is good. No sharp ends. Hardware seems solid. Knobs feel better than I expected them to. Very smooth.Overall, this guitar is a great value. It looks great and plays great out of the box. I’d recommend this to a beginner over a guitar with a tremolo system as it is easier to keep in tune and maintain. I’d also recommend it to modders and pros who aren’t brand snobs.

Plays great, sounds great, great price. Swap out the strings, tighten up the tuners and it is ready to go. This one just has a great mojo to it, really good neck, fast action, and a great sustain. The pickups are good enough and the setup is pretty quick here. Pick this up if you want a really great LP replica at a fraction of the cost. Also, the weight is very manageable if you are used to playing lighter guitars.

It seems like I've waited over a year for this guitar and finally they are available and mine came yesterday. For the most part pleased with only two issues. when backing off on the tone knobs you experience a disproportionate volume drop. It's the same with each one. The other issue is that the thing has a bad smell. When checking it out I started to get a headache. I'm hoping this will go away in time. Other than that it's all good. I was anticipating the need for the usual adjustments, but unless things change after I restring it, it's just fine as is. Neck relief, action, intonation are fine. Pickups sound great, no fret issues, the neck feel is just pleasantly chunky, and I couldn't find any cosmetic flaws ( other than the intended distressed areas). Now I restring, polish frets, and hydrate. I recommend this if you want an inexpensive Greeny. Best regards to you all

I got this on sale, after taxes it was 125. Seriously. How?I polished it up to a semi gloss, put guyker tuners on it and potted the pickups. Took a few hours over a couple of days. This plays better than any Epi I have played. The tuners are not great, but will work for beginners. The guitar arrived with no damage. The satin finish was rough, I’ll be honest. It was gritty and textured. Not a beautiful satin type thing, but even when not on sale it’s not very expensive. And that was easily taken care of. I have included pics of the guitar before and after polishing. Just know, this isn’t a 5 star guitar at a 2,000 price point, this is a 5 star guitar for a sub 200 price point. I’d go so far as to say even 450(?) from what many companies are selling. It’s like being shocked at how tasty a random fast food hamburger might be, and somehow find you right when you need it. It’s not a steak from a fancy place. It’s a good burger from a place you might not even know.If you have a techy based mind and can take care of very small details, you’ll be happy. It was fun and easy getting this fixed up to gigging level.

I’m trying to break the addiction to buying IYVs on Amazon. I told my wife that I was on the last one several times before. I got the Hoffner style bass first because I wanted a lighter instrument for doing gigs. I wasn’t sure if it would be gig worthy but I tried it out and after adding Gotoh tuners for neck dive alongside flat wound strings, I was very impressed with how well it plays. Then I had to try the PRS style hollow body and it is my featherweight guitar, only 5 lbs 4 ounces. Then I had to have a Gibson style 335 so voila it was next. Then I realized that I didn’t have a “Strat”, even though it was back ordered I found a used one in good condition for $95.That brings me to the Les Paul style. Ive always wanted a Les Paul but the weight was a turn off. I’ve had a broken back and I can’t handle the weight after an hour of standing in my band practice. Also the cost was too formidable for me. Then I saw a review of this guitar on Fulton Street beats. The host had a high score for this guitar. Once I received it I was not sure I liked the relic effect out of the box, so I decided to give it the budget Murphy Lab treatment. I’m a fan of the Gibson relic treatment but I couldn’t stomach the $20,000. price of a Murphy Lab Kirk Hammet Greeny.I did some research and found that it was a lot of fun to try my hand at it. I’m a painting contractor with an art background so finishes are a familiar thing for me. I stripped the finish down to the base coat. It’s a very intense yellow finish underneath the orange sun burst. I believe the base coat is a polyurethane finish because it’s pretty sturdy. The orangey finish came off with some wet sanding. The body also sanded off easily. I had to employ some different techniques to get the aged effects. There’s a lot more to it than just a colored laquer finish.And then I flipped the magnet in the neck pickup. It gives a very convincing out of phase sound. I’m very happy with my Peter Green clone-art project. And the weight is under 7 pounds which is due to the fact that the body is a poplar wood sandwiched between the maple and mahogany. The tone and resonance are excellent. The action was very good out of the box. I’ve left all standard hardware alone except for the tuners (Gotoh) and the two chrome knobs for the Greeny look. Overall I like this guitar more than all of my other ones. It’s got character and tone.Get yourself one and enjoy!

I have played guitar forever and been in bands and all, and I quit playing years ago and I saw this guitar and the price was so low, I figured, you know, I would like something hanging in the living room that looked cool and this was at such a good price($158), I had to get it. It showed up looking exactly like the picture, which was critical for me. Then it actually played fine, and I could set the intonation exactly. The bridge height was basically correct, the neck was pretty much straight. The frets were ok. It sounds a bit weak with the pickups in there, but it does play totally fine. Both pickups work, volume and tone work, switch works. It weighs nothing, which is because the wood is not mahogany which would weigh a ton, so its a knock off. Its a copy and they got the best parts right, which is fully playable and looks really cool. If I was still really playing, I would replace the pickups. The very low weight is where the corners were cut, but the parts that matter are all there and it looks cool. You could gig with this, but it doesnt feel like a real guitar from a weight perspective and the scale seems small, but I didnt check it. Overall, thrilled with something that looks cool and actually can be set up correctly. It is what it is, a knock off, but for the price, I cannot imagine you could beat this.

Despite already owning a great IYV violin bass (pictured), I was going to joke about this being too good to be true:*This guitar plays and sounds as good as my $1000+ guitar!* If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you.*How does IYV make something of such quality for such little money?* IYV pays their workers (unbelievably skilled luthiers) with bowls of rice and packs of smokes. If you don't believe me, I have three magical beans I can sell you.*Photo flame maple should be used because real flame maple veneer won't look like the picture and is rare and going extinct!* I don't have anything to sell you if you really think photo flame (plastic) is better than actual wood or that flame maple is a different species of maple, one of the most sustainable tonewoods. Just a facepalm.End of jokes. I ordered this back in October, had a couple of shipping delays once it shipped. I was hoping for a Dave Meniketti tribute display piece, would've been happy with something somewhat playable.And damn, I got a good one. Mine came ready to go, just 3 strings out of tune. I literally just started playing once in tune. Intonation perfect, action perfect. Electronics all work, tuners are perfect. Nut cut well, might be bone? Fingerboard is jatoba, like the bass; just dry and needs some mineral oil. Strings not old, frets a bit scratchy but that'll take care of itself from playing. I'm not a huge fan of relic'ing, but mine was tastefully done. The workers could've cut corners because of it, but didn't.Amazon re-taped the single box, and despite seemingly no scarf joint (!) no broken headstock. My Amazon delivery driver carried this to my door with one hand. So not a boat anchor.Sorry for the bad pic, but the neck heel is slanted as advertised, not squared. Super easy to play every note.Hopefully you get a good one, too. I might get a second. Highly recommended.

This is my third IYV. My first IYV and first guitar was the green ILS-300EGR. It was a little heavy and the neck seemed pretty fat for my liking so I sold it. To be fair, I was just starting out and had no idea what made a good playing guitar. I'm no professional now, but I have owned and played several guitars since then.I was looking for a honey colored LP and this popped up under $200 so I figured why not try it.Glad I did. I owned a couple Firefly heavy relics and loved the look. This, it's just right. Not perfect, but just right. The flame top shows the natural wood grain as well and looks sublte, but amazing. I wouldn't call it cherry sunburst though.The neck feels great to play. Pick ups are better than most stock pickups I have played. The POTS and switch feel good and work very well.I'm very happy with this guitar.

This guitar is way better then I ever expected! The frets are perfectly level and that allows incredibly low action to be attained. I've owned real and also lower name brand Les Paul type guitars and none of them had action this low. The tuners and pots are all smooth and the guitar holds tuning well.. It came perfectly intonated. The only thing I had to do was widen two nut slots a little bit but the slot depth was cut perfectly. The pickups sound great and the paint and relic job look even better in person!. A super easy and fun guitar to play! I'm super happy I got one!

Two things I'm can’t figure out. How do they get this level of quality at this price? Why do they not charge three or four times more? This is my second IYV, and once again, I couldn’t be happier. I will never buy another Gibson cause they sold out their customers, which is how I ended up with my first IYV. This latest purchase is on par with a good example Les Paul. I own many guitars ranging from 10k to 500 bucks. This guitar lands in the middle. Bang for buck is off the charts.

It's a nice guitar once I gave it new strings, juiced up the tinder dry fret board. Frets are good, no sharp edges but they could've been polished as they are a little gritty sounding. The neck is comfortable to play, no typical Gibson Louisville slugger to contend with. Holds tune fairly well. Intonation good. Pups are ok, low output, could be hotter, more bite, crunch. The guitar is light which is nice but maybe a bit too much weight relief in the back end as the neck dive is annoying. The packaging was abysmal. I'm surprised it got here in 1 piece