IYV IVB-500 CS Bass Solid-Body Electric Guitar, Cherry Sunburst

I always wanted a cheap Beatle bass to play around with and for that use case, this is an excellent instrument for the price. That said, if you don't know how to set up guitars, you may be better off avoiding this instrument because it's likely that it will take a few hours of work to get it performing the way it should. When mine arrived I was almost certain that I was going to send it back. The neck was practically back-bowed, the fretboard was so dry it was discolored, the frets had sharp edges, and the bridge was completely out of whack and had a dent from shipping damage. It's clear this was sitting in a hot warehouse for a long time before it made it to my door. I figured that if I was going to send it back, I may as well set it up and see if it was worth it to do an exchange. I did the following work: - Loosened the truss rod almost 2 full turns to get the neck to bow the right direction. I set the relief to my preference. - Adjusted the bridge height to eliminate buzz - Adjusted the bridge position to intonate the strings correctly - Oiled the fretboard, and boy did it soak it up. The wood completely changed color once it was properly oiled. It now looks beautiful and dark. - Replaced the tailpiece with a Hofner copy available on Amazon - Replaced the strings with LaBella Beatle Bass flatwounds - Smoothed the fret ends with a sanding block - Tapped down a couple high frets with a brass hammer - Adjusted pickup heights - Installed strap lock buttons After all this, it plays and sounds excellent. It has some obvious craftsmanship issues, but they're all cosmetic only and don't affect the playability or the sound. I personally love how it sounds with the flatwounds and the settings I found in another review, which are the following: Solo: on Bass: on Treble: on Neck volume: 10/10 Bridge volume: 7/10 It's woody, thumpy, and can sound like McCartney or a standup bass. Exactly what I wanted! The tuners are a weak point and have slop, but seem to hold tune. I'm going to replace them just for the peace of mind. All in all this is an excellent cheap instrument. Just prepare yourself for it to be completely unplayable out of the box. If you're okay with putting in the work, you will be rewarded. Update 9/17/23: I Installed some Guyker tuners which were a drop-in replacement and tuning stability is completely fixed. They're still a little sloppy, but I can hang it on the wall and pick it up days later and it will still be in tune just fine. I replaced the dented bridge with a cheap replacement available on Amazon for about $12. It took some sanding and fitting, which should be expected on a semi-hollow instrument, but I no longer have a low string due to the dent in the bridge. Action is excellent and intonation is perfect. I did find a weird quirk where the on/off switches for each pickup were wired wrong. The "bass" switch turned on and off the bridge pickup and the "treble" switch was connected to the neck pickup. I fixed this while leaving the rest of the wiring alone. Still sounds great and now the switches actually do what they say they do. This is now my go-to bass and I'm having a blast with it. It sounds and plays great and the short scale works really well for me.

Received my IYV Beatle Bass today, and I am pleased. As with all three IYV guitars I have seen or owned, it looks much better in person than it does in the awful marketing photos IYV uses. In fact, it is beautiful. Construction and assembly quality are excellent. Cosmetics are what I would call excellent. If a tiny, tiny bit or cherry red on one spot of cream colored binding is a killer for you at this price, that's your decision. The top has a little bit of what looks like real maple flame. The back of mine is also a nice sunburst with nice grain but no flame. Looks nice. Binding looks nice. Neck is straight with just a hint of relief which to me is perfect. The nut appears to be some sort of nylon and is cut nicely, but that doesn't matter that much because there is a zero fret to set the height at the top of the neck. I'm picky about fret ends. There is just a bit of sharpness on the top of the fret ends but no sprouting to the sides of the fingerboard. I have some very light buzzing on the low E string but only above the 12th fret. I don't know if it is the string action height at the adjustable bridge or perhaps we need more relief. When I replace the strings, I will look at that. Out of the box, the intonation was great and almost perfect. The two lower strings needed a bit of adjustment, and angling the moveable bridge took care of that. When it was perfect, the bridge was completely square to the bridge pickup, and that the intonated saddle is designed well. Electronics work fine. When you first turn the on/off switches on, they make electrical noise, but it must be just a bit of internal corrosion because it completely disappears after you open and close the switches a couple of times. People want different things from pickups, bu to me these sound great. The classic Hofner control panel is not your typical on in that there are two volume controls and no tone controls, but there is a sol/rhythm switch that to me sounds a lot like a tone setting. If you want active pickups and an equalizer, better shop for something else or do that through your amp or foot switches. I'll be keeping this and enjoying it. Looks great hanging in my living room, too. What a classic. I am thinking of putting flat-wound strings on it, and that would be the perfect time to see if I can optimize the setup. As it came out of the box, it was clearly set up at the factory by someone who knew how to set up a guitar while keeping up with an assembly line output. All it really needed was to be tuned back up after being detuned for shipping. And the standard tuners work just fine. Always tune up to pitch, not down. My experience with IYV is that their guitars always look great and much better than the IVY photos. They are well constructed and obviously benefit from in-house setup and QC before they leave the factory. If you get an IYV with some sort of problem, it is the exception rather than the rule.

If you ever wanted a violin bass to modify later then this is a good starting point I plan on upgrading the pickups and fixing the wiring soon but it is playable from the start it’s not a hoffner but it is a solid bass update I decided shortly after it arrived to have it professionally setup and restrung with d adario flatwounds it really does sound as to an upright bass as an electric bass guitar can it is easy to play and sound awesome i plan to replace the plastic nut with a new bone nut later and this bass uses medium scale strings I am very happy with my purchase and it’s awesome sounding through my rumble 100 gen one amp it doesn’t really have much power with my amp maxed out I can hear a friend playing his electric guitar through a ion game day party speaker I set the pickup volume to five because I live in a house with three people who don’t really appreciate bass or guitar

Good buy if you get it from amazon for a 2 hundred. Resellers asking 400 are crazy

The bass is good, sounds good, but seemed used when i got it, the body has "spider web" like marks of frenetic rubbing to make it new, also, the pickup were dirty. Did not return it, as it was the last one a the time, and by playing it, i became happy with it, cause it sounds real good! And exchange could have brought me more problems. Chose to keep it, and happy with my decision

Guitar arrived today missing wrenches and a few things but got refunded a bit to buy them and went down to music store and got them come home and fixed the neck as it had a small bend but all fixed now plays and sounds awesome this is one great copy of the Hofner 500/1 bass neck is great everything on this is now mint top notch !!!

Thank you, this guitar has fulfilled a dream of mine at a price I could afford. Good things are going to come from my bass, which plays beautifully, and sounds and looks great. I can't see that for many years to come I would have a wonderful bass like this to play had it not been sold to me as it was, I really feel a great service to society is being done providing such excellent guitars people can afford. Thank you. I treasure it and enjoy it.

Looks great. Blemish free. It Plays well. IYV make great budget guitars. I have purchased 4 different models and each one has surpassed its price point for quality and playability. This Hofner 500/1 copy is no different.