IYV-IRK-300 Semi Hollow Electric Guitar 3T Sunburst (IYV)

I’m actually impressed! I have a friend who I recently got started with guitars. He really admired my FireGlo Rickenbacker 330, which is easy to understand since it is a stunningly beautiful guitar. So for Xmas I decided I would get him this relatively inexpensive guitar. My main thought was that it would be a great piece of wall art for his office and an incentive to keep learning to play. I had actually watched several videos on this guitar and all of them indicated that while the bridge pickup was pretty decent, the neck pickup always sounded totally dull, muted and low output. But I have to say that in the last week that I’ve been “testing” and setting up my friend’s new guitar, I am actually pretty impressed! Both pickups sound pretty decent and have an appropriate sound for each location. Now I’m not saying that this guitar sounds anything like my Rickenbacker, nor does it match any of my Strats, Les Paul’s or others. But I will say that it does have decent sound in all 3 switch settings and sounds like a pretty decent guitar. Which for the price is somewhat amazing! Overall the fit and finish is really pretty danged good! It is a nice looking and feeling guitar. Not just for a “cheap” guitar, but for any under $1000 guitar. Didn’t have any fret sprouts (which many reputable brands do have nowadays), the finish is well done and even the tuners are reasonable. And pretty inexpensive to swap out a great set of Gotoh Locking tuners if you plan on keeping and using this. I have to say that I was expecting a lot less. Been playing and collecting guitars for decades and this one is really fun to play! Obviously not going to replace my Ricky, but I’m sure my friend will really enjoy this! Assuming he keeps up his lessons! 😂

The bar is continually being raised on these cheap guitars from overseas. This IYV Rickenbacker copy is great and an unbelievable value at a buck sixty five. Cosmetically, the fire glow finish is beautiful and the matching paint job on the headstock & back of the neck is classy. The guitar came set up well. Intonation was almost perfect. I had to adjust the low E string a bit. Neck is straight. Frets are perfect. Guitar plays well up and down the neck. Neck is a little narrow. String spacing is a bit tight. Tuners are good. Guitar stays in tune even with aggressive playing. Nut is plastic but slots are cut to the proper height nice & low. The tailpiece and bridge design is quirky but functional. The tailpiece is floating and only attached by the strap button. It relies on the string tension to keep it straight. The bridge is a tune o matic style but it is not attached to the guitar at all. It sits atop a metal plate and relies on the sting pressure to keep it in place. When I took the crappy sounding strings off to change & oil the fretboard, the bridge came tumbling off onto the floor. The slots on the individual bridge saddles are cut shallow. If you bend aggressively the strings will probably occasionally slip out of the groove in the saddle. Out of the box, the neck pickup was considerably louder than the bridge which makes me think they use the same pickup for both positions. Both pickups come set low with a lot of space between the pickup & strings. I tried to raise the bridge pickup but the screws just loosened & the pickup height didn't change so I removed the pickup and discovered the pickups are screwed directly into the body (like a tele neck pickup). There is foam rubber glued to the bottom of the pickup which establishes the height so you can lower the pickups by screwing them down but loosening just makes the pickup all wobbly. I remedied this by putting a piece of foam in the pickup cavity and replacing the pickup so it sits higher. With the strings back on, I adjusted the height so the volume matched the neck. The pickups have a unique sound and I dig them. Real Rickenbacker pickups are single coil but I think these are humbuckers because they are very quiet. Bridge pickup is bright and sounds better with the tone rolled back a bit. Neck is warm and fatter. Guitar sounds best with both pickups on, using the neck volume like a tone knob to blend in more or less of the warmer neck tone. Pickups tone is nice & clear. Pummeling them with distortion yields a cool funky lo-fi kind of vocal growl with no squealing or feedback. If you want a guitar that looks and sounds different than most other electrics, this one is a good choice.

Great value, this guitar required some fine tuning including kissing the fret ends with a fret dressing file and gluing the nut in place and a truss rod adjustment but with a little work this is an amazing playing and sounding guitar.I recently ordered a second one in a different color that I am going to fit with soapbar pickups and I'm expecting a little work but overall build quality is fantastic for the price

First one came a few days ago..but it seemed already well played .tuned it up..jangly vibrating strings and terrible buzz...so I sent it back and replaced it with one that came today..it also seems played or handled somewhat already ( 😂)and has the general surface blemishes but nothing too bad... overall, I love this one..the neck plays great .no string or fret buzz. I'm glad I took the chance. You should too..it a beautiful guitar that cleans and shines up nice. Action is perfect out of the box. This one's a keeper. If you order one ..hope they send you a good one!! It was worth the risk... especially since I don't really recommend anyone buying a guitar unless they've played it.

With Rickenbacker being perpetually, frustratingly behind the times, it's tougher to get a decent 50's/60's semi-hollow than most other guitar styles. Without much competition, my expectations were tempered, but Beatles fans on a budget can rejoice, because this is a remarkably nice instrument for so little money. The looks are great, and not only are the colors lovely, but it has no real flaws anywhere. It feels quite decent, is well balanced, has a nicely shaped neck, doesn't have too much flex anywhere, has reasonably smooth fret edges; it's just a plain good instrument, top to bottom. The strings it came with should be changed right away, but once you do, the sound is lovely, with no need to swap the stock pickups. It's just a bit jangly and bright as it should be, and the pickups are a little lower output than most humbuckers, without being weak enough as to require rebalancing your amp and pedal settings. The bridge isn't quite as convenient to restring as most modern designs, but doesn't really hold you back. The tuners would benefit from being replaced with a nicer set, but are definitely good enough to work with. All in all, I'm thoroughly impressed and very happy to finally have a Rickenbacker styled guitar without spending an arm and a leg.

Great cheap electric guitar. Sounds good, jangly and easy to play. Stays in tune, no major flaws in the paint.

Wow! This is a gorgeous guitar! The colors look great with a smooth glossy finish. The basswood has some nice grain patterns on the sides especially. I didn't realize basswood had good looking grain patterns until this guitar. Well balanced, without neck dive. I can't stop playing it. No gig bag, but comes with 2 allen wrenches. Tuners are ok, but I am putting in locking tuners. Electronics and pickups are decent for the price, but I'm swapping them out for a set of Trisonics. They have some chime though, for humbuckers. The neck feels good, but has some sharp fret ends that need filing. New strings and a proper setup will be necessary, but other than those minor things, this is the the best $127 guitar on earth. I have the black version too, but that doesn't look as pretty as this, and there seems to be more attention to detail and finish on this model. The bridge hardware is cheap but functional. Maybe you can buy a Ricky bridge to complete the illusion, but most likely it won't fit. No need though. Looks great on the wall. I am so happy with this guitar after seeing a used Ricky at Guitar Center for $1700.00.

UPDATE: A price drop convinced me to try a second copy (after returning the one reviewed below). This one shows some actual maple grain on the front and sides (the back looks like agathis). The top feels a bit thicker. The tone is still thin, but pleasant in its own way. The action is much better – it's quite playable. Lots of cosmetic glitches: white primer showing through the bass cutaway (I touched it up with a red Sharpie), 2 weird light spots on the edge of the fingerboard, and a scratch on the pickguard. I decided to keep this one, because it's fun to play, and its Ricky vibe just sparks joy. But I wouldn't recommend this as anyone's first guitar – you're taking a gamble on skimpy, inconsistent materials and quality control. Starter guitars here from recognized brands offer solid QC at comparable prices. And I still feel this is a lost opportunity to build a really good guitar, at a higher price. [ORIGINAL REVIEW:] To avoid disappointment, be realistic about what to expect at this price. You could barely buy an electric guitar at prices this low in the 1950s – and those were 1950s dollars. Here, you're getting something that looks and feels Rickenbackerish, but doesn't sound or play anything like a real Rick. It's lightly made of mystery low-grade woods, and not much of them. There's little resonance, sustain, or low end. Most of its range sounds twangy like an acoustic guitar. Which you might like in an amplified guitar, except that once you get very high on the high E string, it's very shrill, especially on the bridge pickup. So you won't want to play leads on this. Real Real Ricks sound surprisingly warm for their construction, because they're skillfully made from carefully sourced and cured maple. The neck is cramped – narrower than on real Ricks, which are known for skinny necks. (The real problem is the bridge, whose saddles hold the strings too far in from the neck's edges.) It's also cramped vertically, because 24 frets on a 24.75" scale is just silly. The action, out of the box, was punishingly high. The specs say basswood, already a low-grade wood. But the front and back show some grain and glow, so I suspect agathis. (I didn't get flattering Rick-style maple grain, just straight lines, which look accidental.) And if you reach inside the soundhole, the top feels paper-thin. I suspect the back is just as thin – thus the acoustic-guitar timbre. If you love the Rickenbacker aesthetic, you're much better off saving up for a real Rick. (Used models can be surprisingly affordable.) Or at least, looking for a more-substantial replica on other marketplaces. This could actually be a nice instrument if the concept were better executed. It combines the vibe of several Rick guitar and bass models, without being a straight copy of any. The omission of plastic binding is a woody plus. But build it out of a real tonewood (maple), in real thicknesses. Give the strings real spacing. Shorten the fretboard to 21 frets (as contemporary Ricks do), saving a bit on materials there while improving the tone. Charge a bit more to cover the real net cost. The result would still be priced competitively, just appealing to a different demographic. I'd buy that.

decent quality, well worth the price, thanks brighton shop

What a great guitar plays awesome looks fantastic one great deal!!!

Steppenwolf and the Beatles have never sounded so good. A bit of fret sprout was easily fixed... I should have changed the strings, but I'm having too much fun with it out of the box.

In my experience, inconsistent QC is one of the things that go hand in hand with buying inexpensive guitars. One can be nearly perfect and the next one, not so much. What makes this guitar good value is less to do with price versus quality and more to do with the relative lack of options for a Rick-styled guitar. If this were a Strat or LP style guitar, at this price point there are lots of options and as a result, I'd be less forgiving of an imperfection in the finish or some fret sprout or a high fret but for a Rick-styled guitar, I do forgive those things. The finish on mine was perfect and it sounds great. It had a number of frets that weren't fully seated and after addressing that I ended up doing a full fret level, crown and polish. I swapped the tuners (and I usually don't unless they're really clunky). Also not a fan of these bridges but they're part of the vibe of guitars like this so it's fine. In conclusion, you may get a perfect one or you may not. Even if you get one that needs some TLC and don't feel comfortable doing the work yourself, it's probably worth it for this style of guitar (certainly you'll spend way less than you would for the guitar this is styled after).

Looks good , plays well, sound good too! BUT NO, IT IS NOT A RICK ! But hell needier is the price!