BYO Jem Style DIY Guitar Unboxing and Overview

[Music] hello and welcome to fulton street today we're going to answer a few questions about the byo electric guitar kit this is a gem style kit and it's not this particular one that's in front of me this is the leo james kit that we completed if you watch the series um was a fun build a quite fun build and turned out to be a quite expensive build but has amazing playability so what will byo bring to the table let's take a look today it has arrived we're going to do an unboxing we're going to see what components come with this guitar the quality of the components the fit the finish how does the neck fit into the neck pocket and how will it compare with the guitar kit world dyi gem style kit which is also on the way should be here any day now can't wait to do that comparison but an important question because what it boils right down to when we get into these matters of do-it-yourself guitars is it worth it to build a do-it-yourself guitar versus buying a name brand that's already done and already set up is it worth it to you to set the guitar up your way make it playable your way or do you really want that branded name such as gibson ibanez jackson or what have you those questions hopefully we can answer a little bit today on fulton street beats i hope you'll stick around don't forget don't forget to hit that like button share subscribe and really hit that notification bell because you don't want to miss these episodes we're going to dive really deep into these do-it-yourself hit guitars and um hopefully we have a lot of fun along the way i will be right back with that unboxing stay right there and poof here we are gotta apologize did an unboxing video and the video kind of got a little corrupted so we're gonna start from this point um so my apologies um we got it unboxed i'm going over some of the parts and i would have give you the whole spiel but we had some audio difficulties with the recording so but let's start over okay so this kit was ordered from byo guitars and it's right now they got a list price of 299. they're going for 219. what are you getting for your 219 now the leo james kit which is behind me and you guys have all seen this it turned out to be a beautiful beautiful kit we got uh dimarzio dark matter pickups in it we got some new switches and another a new uh i've been this flat five-way switch and uh it turned out very very very very nice now the things that i didn't like about this kit and i say i didn't like i love this kit it went together very nice the playability is excellent and everything works fantastic it had an excellent fretboard the fretwork was really really decent on it already although we did uh take the time to make it perfect um i've upgraded the tuners and i never got a chance to play with the with the factory tuners that come with but i'll tell you when the body came it's really close to done it didn't take much work my gripes were the the monkey grip right here didn't have a really the right cut here still looks amazing but it's not quite the right cut and it does not have the recessed cavity plate cover which i would have liked and also the input jack didn't have the downward facing input jack so your cord doesn't pull out like the like the real ivan as wood miner my new things for a guitar with great playability also this one has a scarf joint neck as you can see but like i said it's a nice maple neck and everything works fantastic it does not have the string tree up top which is really not a problem because the angle of the neck keeps the strings at the at the precise angle it needs to be anyhow um playability of this guitar was excellent so this is the one we're doing our comparison to right now because it's the one that we have and it is as you can see my uh trim is a little high right now a little high and that's because i've ran a different gauge string on it with a different tuning that's going to vary but generally i like to keep my whammy bar at a uh two inch height like steve by so when i set these up that's what i set it up to i don't set it up to the angle for the angle of the tremolo i set it up to the end to the height from the pick guard to the end of the trim bar um for two inches so there's a reason i'm taking this off because we're gonna do some because this this is this is actually a proper trend bar and it's the right angles and such so let's get to this kit what are you getting for your 219 well here's your body and right off the bat you'll notice that this one has the the tiger claw cut out where this gem does not and that was another difference although it does look good and like i said playability is great it does not have the tiger claw so right there byo tiger claw nice this is a total different system inside um some people might hate it some people might like it i'm on the fence because it doesn't have the cutout pockets for the uh for your pickups it's one opening um how is that going to change the guitar tone in the long run i don't know yet but we're going to find out but it does make putting your wiring inside of it much easier especially if you're going to go with some aftermarket pickups or pots or what have you and you have to rewire sometimes it's a pain to get your wiring correct to fit in all the cavities and and with the leo james i had to do quite a bit to make them fit properly i had to take the time to do that now to start we're going to be running these pickups that come with it and these do look like dimarzio pickups they have the texture but they're not um are they bad i don't know we'll have to see how they sound because honestly i never tested the one on the leo james kit um are they the same as the one on the leo james kit i don't know they seem to be a bit heavier so we'll have to see the pick guard is it's a nice pick guard this the plies seem to be done nicely there's no rough edges around the edge um and there should be hopefully a protective coating because if it's not it'd be pretty dull um so but we're gonna check that out if there's not a protective coating on here that would be the first i've ever seen but um i'm gonna use my fingernails and see if i can peel back anything usually they're usually on these there's not just one but two and i am not feeling one at the moment however there is a protective coating on the cavity cover for the back now this is where we start running into some things that i'm not very keen to um while we're on the subject so if we got the cab that the right tiger claw and we have our cut out for our jack this is where we start running into some issues with this kit and this shows me that quality control is kind of not where it should be because this cavity cover for the jack does not fit into the hole no matter which way you turn it it is not cut right to fit into the hole which means i'm going to have to trim this because we're not going to get into re sanding this out because it's a certain design and i'm not going to ruin the room the uh take away the integrity of the wood um so we're gonna we'll have to trim this out but it's just not right it doesn't fit so a little bad quality control there also something that kind of bothers me and i wasn't expecting is this not to be recessed for this cavity cover now i expected it on the leo james kit because it was such a cheap kit however this one obviously since they've done it here you think it'd be routed out for the for the cover and it's simply not and that kind of bothers me a little bit however the monkey grip does have the proper cuts and it is the right size it does need a little bit of finishing around the edges but it's it's decent the body's nice it's nice mahogany there's no damage i think it's going to make an excellent looking body it is mahogany um and i think playability will be okay the routing on this guitar seems nice um but we'll have to you know it's going to be really easy to to uh shield this for sure if you watch my other video on the leo james putting the shielding inside was kind of a pain um this one's going to be a little bit easier to do so let me get this down out of the way and we'll move on to uh truss rod cover now we have a truss rod cover here i believe this one i'm hoping that these are not this dull and there is a coating over i believe there's a coating over these guys so i just can't don't have the fingernails to get it off but i believe that there is coatings over these almost positive anyhow there's our truss rod cover ibanez look we do have a string tree um does require gonna need some polishing up on that does have some mars in it we just have standard tunes tuners are the exact same thing that comes with pretty much any kit these are from the leo james these are from the byo they're the exact same tuners cheap strings we won't be using because we have these slinky cobalts we're gonna be running a 9 to 42 on these and there's some good things about this and this is the neck this is a five piece neck um and it's a legit five piece neck it's not a five piece look it literally is a five piece neck it does have the proper head stock look to it it does have a very finished and clean truss rod cover and i think that when you get this kit this is the part of the kit where you're paying the extra money really is for this neck it's it's a very nice neck um now keep in mind these warehouses they go through shipping different climates and you're going to definitely need to do some adjustment to the neck even after you string up the guitar you're going to need to adjust these because with a floating trim system it does put pressures on the neck and it does change the way your truss rod is so you're going to have to do your fine adjustments with your truss rod after you get the guitar together make sure everything's acclimated to your temperature um that's the best way to do it i'd get the guitar together personally i put them together and i hang the guitar in the uh environment it's gonna be in and i wait a couple days and then i adjust everything out the locking nut appears to be of decent quality um and it's the right size for the uh for the neck um yeah most impressive for for the neck i like it the inlays are absolutely stunning the frets on these are appear to be already polished there's no sharp edges as a matter of fact i don't think i'm really going to need to do as far as the uh as far as sanding the edges of the frets down there's not much to do because they're very very smooth um will i need to do fret work well i don't know yet we'll have to dive into that to see i'm thinking i'm gonna because i'm thinking that i'm seeing some kind of high frets that are a little a little high um but it looks really nice does have the green leaves um on these as well as the pearl white and it does have a scalloped fretboard um in the first four frets which is also nice now there is some other things if you are a knit picker um and you're a knit picker and you're expecting this to be set up just like a i've been as gem i will tell you when you put this neck into now the lip let me let me back up the leo james kit the way this neck was and the reason i'm referring to this is because the kit went together so well and i didn't have any issues now this doesn't have the first four scalp but it does have a beautiful beautiful fretboard on this now your when your body meets on these generally the point where the body meets is supposed to meet on this dot on the fretboard here they're a perfect line up a perfect match and why suppose should line up perfectly with your with your cutout with your route out for your pick or your your humbucker and your humbucker should almost touch the neck not quite almost when you get everything together um that's pretty much a standard with all jet ibanez gems and this kit was made so well that was the right way to do it and it turned out perfectly and it meant perfectly across so um the fitting the fitment was really good with this guitar this guitar is a bit off about a quarter inch if you want to take those exact ibanez measurements into account now it does have a neck that fits nicely into the pocket and you're not going to slide this neck in like this you're going to come in from the top from the here and you're gonna pull it back okay and when you pull this neck back you're gonna put it until it meets the routing point here okay and when you do that you'll notice that you're off a quarter the body's coming up a quarter of an inch past the dot so what we have to find out is really is the measurements is it the way the body was cut which i'm going to almost guarantee it is because it looks like there's a bit more meat right here than is on the other one um but it's just past it is it going to affect playability i doubt it but it's just one of those things that you pay attention to because when you put one of these together and you actually know how they go then you pay attention to things like that because you want everything to line up perfectly these scalp frets are going to make a huge difference in playability up top i really do like that i am really mostly digging the neck and the trem system let's go to that real quick because you guys know when we get these kits i'll give you a for instance here's a gold trim and this is brand new and i bought it and i was gonna use this on a on a different kit um and it probably appears fantastic to look at right now but it's not fantastic um and most of the kits most of these trims that you get with kits aren't fantastic the one that came with the leo james the black one is very fine-tunable very adjustable it appears to be very strong it doesn't lose tune it holds very well this one appears to be the plating on it is not so hot um and we're licensed under floyd rose we have that up in here but when we take a look at the one that just came with this this is let's let's do a comparison let's weigh the two so there is a difference in trims and even between guitar kit brands so we're gonna weigh this one and we are at well 10.75 ounces okay so then we're gonna go play this one 12.30 ounces so it's a much heavier trim and when you turn your fine tuners on these you'll notice that it's much smoother with no grit more adjustability just all around looks better and feels better and definitely has a heavier block even though they do look the same when you look at them now the funny thing about that is if you look at the thickness of your base plate it's thicker on the lighter trim than the heavier trim so it's quality of steel this is probably going to be more of a potted steel than this is so definitely a better trim now we're gonna move on to the trend bars and like i said this black one is spot on this is the way it should be if you're gonna do your setup and when you get it in there and you want your two inch i say two inches because that's where steve vice that's his that's where i set mine and that's going to vary your your angle of your bridge of your tremolo or your free flow so these are different and this makes a big difference also so the black one's spot-on and when we line these up you'll see that that chrome one see how much farther that comes up in the air well in order to get your two inch your two inch um your distance of two inches from your from your pick guard your trim has to drop down that much to get it so geez what are we looking at for a distance there i'll give you a rough estimate so if we're looking at two inches and then we add another inch that's a big difference that means the trim is going to sit in to do it to two inches your trim is actually going to sit in and not even with steve vice it's not flush it's raised a little bit to get that two inch with the correct bar but we put that that if we use that trim bar it's going to be up just like that to get the two inches in we don't want that so i'm probably going to be looking for another trend bar and i've i've even seen them worse than this i have the gold one that came with this that's even higher very very strange um we can heat them we can bend them and that's probably what i'll do i'll probably just uh manipulate a little bit to get it in the position it's supposed to be until we upgrade the trim system in general and put probably a floyd rose special on it and uh maybe even upgrade the block so that's where we're at with this kit um as far as fitting everything together um like i said just did that we do have problems this will not fit and the cut out and the recess in the back will not fit and man it sucks having to trim these because it's just it's just a pain i do have a blade to do it but it's just a pain and while we're here it does come with your cable it does come with all your allen wrenches and it does come with your with your truss rod allen it does come with a very nice input the input jack actually i was really surprised because that's a nice quality input jack right there that impressed me the pickups look good and i'm trying to figure some things out about these pickups and we'll touch on that later on um i don't know what brand they are i don't know how they're gonna sound we'll have to see they are different from the leo james james kit um and it's really weird we'll touch on it later on i think when we start the build we will touch on it later on um chrome knobs very nice not gritty the pots seem nice are they labeled anything i don't see any labeling on them leo james kit did say 500k on them the switch on this is odd to the switch on this appears to be much better than the one that came with the leo james kit and it's and uh different it's wired differently too so this is more close to an ibanez which was which is pretty good so i'm having i'm hoping everything works out right not impressed with the packaging i expected i expected the byo kit to be more of a presentation this is the exact same box that the leo the 149 kit came in um exact same packaging so no frills there comes in a box who knows how long it's been in a warehouse and and what have you is it a perfect guitar um is it going to be perfect no it's not going to be is it going to be playable probably um how is it going to compare to guitar kit world guitar we're going to have to see i have high hopes for the guitar kit world guitar really high hopes um for many reasons that we'll get into later on but for 219 is this worth 219 it's worth it if you're into building guitars and you want to set up something to be your own the neck is i'll be honest the neck's really what you're paying for um five piece neck scalp frets so that's really what you're paying for am i gonna have to put work into this neck man i don't know we'll have to see we'll we'll get there um i'm almost tempted to build this kit up temporarily to see how it plays out of the box i don't think i've seen anybody do that but um it's just a hassle taking everything apart again and and uh starting over after you're done so let's just do it the regular way we're supposed to do it um get the body right stain it we're gonna use a stain on this i'm gonna use uh what they call it's a wood stain they call it barn red but we're going to be doing uh some highlights underneath first and then we're going to be using um some lacquer over this body all right guys thanks for tuning in to fulton street beats if you have any questions drop them in the comment section below if you want to know anything anything particular if i missed something let me know i think um i'm looking at the claw and everything's pretty pretty standard uh i'm trying to see the wiring this there's no and another thing this kit is nothing the leo james kit has a wiring harness that's plug and play it's 149 kit this kit's not plug and play does require soldering things like that leo james kit came with the ground wire already soldered to the claw and ready to quick connect to the uh to the ground for your pickups and your switch in your pods so difference is there and i think you should be aware of those differences i do like the fact that it came with a string tree even though some people say with the angle of the neck it doesn't need a string tree um i i think it's a good thing for for fine adjustments so you don't have any sharp notes or flat notes or or whatever you can adjust your tree so that's pretty cool once again thanks for watching fulton street beats um if i missed anything like i said let me know hit that like button share subscribe hit that notification bell because we're going to start this build and then we also have the guitar kit world kit that's on its way right now should be here any day we will do an unboxing of that one also not like a pseudo unboxing like we just did here i apologize for that um but we will do an unboxing of that and see the comparison and that also has a five piece neck with scalp frets it was more money uh sixty dollars more but i believe the components and the cavity cover and all that stuff is is routed out properly so we'll have to see thanks for watching guys [Music] so [Music] so uh [Music] um [Music]

Channel: FULTON STREET BEATS

Views: 811

Keywords: byo guitar kit, BYO guitar, BYO guitar kit review, BYO jem guitar kit, guitar kit world, Steve vai Guitar, Steve VAi, Ibanez Jem clone, Ibanez Jem copy, DIY ibanez JEm, guitar kit, diy guitar kit, guitar

Id: rhH9bOg1h1w

Length: 25min 59sec (1559 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 01 2021