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I seemed to get the idea you got the stand charger with the guitar. However, you have to buy it separately. No idea how much they are though. On the website it says they are out of stock and does not give a price
My son’s cello teacher had a carbon fiber cello. It cost him $5K, but it sounded amazing and have zero tuning issues. It also looked pretty cool, it had that black/grey pattern that you used to see everywhere.
@@jefffritts68 I’m sure you’re right, I was just repeating what the owner told me, and he may have just been justifying his expenditure. I would think it would be more stable than wood, but I’m not meaning to simp for carbon fiber.
The one good thing this got going is travel durability and weather resistance. The built in speaker with some of the effects can be some fun but mostly gimmicky. The down side is the touch screen tech components and software side of things will get outdated. Years down the line you are stuck with just a carbon fiber guitar. They’ve done a great job marketing this thing, but the quality and feel of the guitar itself is subpar at best. I see this positioned towards new guitar players with steep pockets that buys into the idea of acoustic + electric + built in effect.
Honestly, I'd just try to find a Rainsong carbon fiber guitar, sounds better acoustically and looks nicer too. No gimmicky stuff to get in the way either.
I bought and own the Lava Me 3 guitar. It’s a great travel guitar. It’s also a great training guitar. The tones aren’t the same as a high end acoustic. But they’re good! I really like this 3/4 guitar as a practice and travel guitar. I’m glad Trogly reviewed it. It’s not as good as my Martin acoustic. But I’m bringing that to a campground. It’s not nearly like my Fenders, Gibson, or my Brian May. But it’s really nice for what it is. I’m still learning. I’ve only had it a month. But thanks Trogly.
I love how much Metallica Trogly has been using. Even in a channel like this, metal still creeps it's way in. But man that guitar is awesome. Would be cool to have but nothing beats a classical in terms of an acoustic. And this is incomparable to electrics. I'd take a Jackson or Epiphone over this for the Metallica stuff. But still a cool guitar none the less
Agreed I think it would look better camouflaged or just solid Olive Drab, anything to hide its shape. Otherwise I'd much prefer something like this to take outside or camping.
Interesting guitar for sure sounds nice personally I've never seen or heard of these. Great practice piece with a boat load of features. In 1973 my mom bought me for Christmas a 1973 ovation electric ecoustic called the balledeer. They had a fiber bowl and spruce top and maple neck and rosewood finger board. 50 years later I still have it. Used on stage and home great guitar. In 73 it was state ofthe art.
I've had the guitar for about two months. I bought it myself, so I wasn't as biased as some reviewers that were given guitars. If you're interested here's my pros & Cons: Pros: Guitar does sound great. it is a decent electric/acoustic, but really shines in being able to get on board effects without amplification The guitar has nice finish & feel, however I'm used to playing a well set-up Taylor 614 so the action is just a smidge high for my taste. I may shave the bridge a bit eventually. FX are great. Playing un-amped they add a good flavor. Forget about the distortion setting unless you're running through an amp. Case is nice and solid and protects the guitar well. More on the case below. Charger cradles the guitar snuggly and automatically charges the guitar. It's USB-C and doesn't come with a charger, so you may need an adapter for the cable. Other than that, most reviews give a far better report on the capabilities of the instrument, so check them out like I did. Cons. These are things no reviewer seems to be addressing: My lava has a nice blue metallic finish. Looks very cool. While the guitar is made of carbon fiber, I'm not sure how well the finish will hold up. I'm pretty careful with all my guitars and most I've owned for decades and they still look almost showroom. My lava has a couple of minor scratches already that I have no idea where they came from. ELECTRONICS. The touch screen is very sensitive and at the same time has a bit more of a lag than you would be used to on a smart phone. Most notable is the absence of any home button. You'll have to page back to get there. Additionally, due to the rounded shape, I have a tendency to lean over the body when I'm sitting and playing and my chest triggers the screen. I can tell when that happens, because the most annoying loud click accompanies any changes. If you're playing out, be prepared to settle on a set sound or template for the whole song. Shifting to another one is not as easy as hitting a button on a pedal. I mentioned my chest activating the touch screen. Usually that would not be a problem. What is a problem is the Lava uses a nice machined strap peg THAT DOESN'T FIT ANY STRAP. If you like any kind of strap lock, forget about using it. Dimensionally the strap pegs are larger than the throat of any standard peg. I would have bought the Lava strap, but they have been out of stock. I use d'Addario straps with locking ends and it would take major modifications. So I broke down and bought a ice leather strap which I now have to ream out the hole to make it fit. I'm not sure if you could even swap out the stap pegs as they have no screw and I'm not ready to twist them off and create another problem. CASE: It's amazing that you can drop a thousand bucks on a guitar and have to pay extra for a proprietary case, but hey, I'm made of money so I went for it. Case fits very well and is form fitting. It doesn't leave room for a strap (If I finally get one to fit) The case has nice padded shoulder pads, and looks like the type that a Japanese school girl would have. I personally don't care to strap a guitar on my back unless I'm trail hiking. The straps do not come off so love them or live with them. The case has a nice soft handle, but is nowhere near the center of balance and like a Gibson SG, suffers from severe neck dive. Seriously walk with this case for twenty steps and you'll opt for the school girl straps. MOST DISSAPOINTING FEATURE: Support, period. Guitar came with no instructions other than to turn it on. The web site is absolutely no help. As I mentioned, being intrigued by the novelty of the guitar, I had to rely on reviewers, most of which were given the guitar. I do wonder what will happen when the rechargable battery goes south, or worse the electonic module. As far as I can see there's no parts support on the website. CONCLUSION:With all this, I bought the guitar for the FX novelty and more importantly for the Carbon Fiber construction. I bought it so that I could have a guitar I could leave out in my studio and grab as I needed to practice or work out asome inspiration. My studio is in my basement and although it's dry, the winter requires me to fill a 5 gallon humidifier to keep optimum moisture levels. So it's a guitar that is not subject to temperature and humidity. That said,I'll keep it for what I intended. I doubt it will ever play out unless it's a barbeque or around a camp fire.
I saw someone else review this and theirs froze several times. So if this happens in your review let us be aware cause might be a problem with software/hardware!
Very cool how they have developed this over the last couple of years. The originals were mega just using effects however the new interface has captured everything, very impressive.
I'd almost buy one immediately if it were styled differently. I have a difficult time getting past the sound hole and the head stock design. Maybe if it were finished in all Olive Drab or Desert Camouflage!
If you want a traditional acoustic that looks proper, and is made of beautiful visible carbon fiber weave, look for one made by Rainsong years ago. Sounds much better acoustically too!
Or throw an AC-Pad at yr acoustyc really nice everything you could want for under 500 full enjoyment computer studio walk it anyware hook yr mic aah just YTube it, ac pad
This looks pretty nice. I like the way it sounds It's pricey, but not high end acoustic prices. Nice thoughtful features. If they can guarantee that touch screen will last or they will repair it for a fair price, it's a damn sight better than an Ovation
I really enjoyed your review. I´ve owned a Lava Me 2 for two years now and it has become my go-to guitar, since it´s smaller format(somilar to Taylors GS Mini) makes it easy to bring along everywhere. Besides that I can easily "grab" and hold it/use it wherever I sit without it either hitting the furniture or getting in the way with armchair elbow rests. I have a Lava Me 3 in the mail now and am eager every day to see when it will arrive. The looping and beat/percussion choices will be of great value for practising. I don´t look as Lava Me as an either /or choice in guitars, but rather as a tool in my music arsenal. Happy Tunes :-)
What's that on your head at 22:20 Trogly? 😂 I like this product, very modern but it is no fluke. Loop, effects and practice tools are genius. This is the way to make guitars cool and futuristic, I want that on an electric
I love the idea of carbon fiber guitars, most of the ones I’ve played have been great. Idk if I’d use all (or any lol) the bells and whistles when playing for others besides the tuner, but they seem like amazing practice and song writing tools.
this whole thing will be so cool in a acoustasonic body / semi hollow body besides this acoustic body shape. Since it's amplified with volume control , the softer natural volume for those bodies shouldn't be a real concern.
Interesting Lava ME guitar, the natural evolution and improvement from the Spark, bypass the amp all together. Ear training is awesome, I like the looper (Spark has no looper) and handy that there's screen mirroring via USB-C/HDMI, if you're in a home studio. There's no obvious process at the website to service/replace the touchscreen/battery, isn't it important to have a repair/replacement strategy in place before customers commit close to $2000? Or is this touchscreen module condemned like every mobile phone with a battery that wears out in two years to end up in the recycle bin?
You can turn off the touchscreen as you play by quickly depressing the power button. Effects keep going and that solves the issue of accidentally changing your settings if you unintentionally touch the screen during play.
Rainsong made a carbon fiber acoustic guitar many many years ago that sounded phenomenal. I think it was Rainsong anyway. Scott Grove covered it. Sounded better than most acoustic guitars. Its the bracing designs that play a significance in acoustic tone more than anything. This is nothing new really.
Lava me means “Wash me” in Spanish…. Not bad sounding though. Reminds me of when desktop publishing came out. Too many people thought they knew what they were doing…😞
First from the old guy in the room. I'm not digging the look. I have a Tonewood Amp so the effects don't impress me all that much. But It may sound impressive in person. I'm listening with a fairly nice sound bar and I'm sure youtube compression is screwing it as much as they can. But, I might pick it up in a music store if I didn't have to reach up too high.
Loved that you went into more detail than most reviews have done. I actually appreciate the green screen showcase. I was considering getting either the white or getting the blue specifically for changing the color. How well does a color key effect maintain- the sheen of the surface seemed like it would be too much?
Hated it. lol I returned it. Mine had all sorts of tech issues. And i couldnt for the life of me figure out why they would use such terrible presets. The BIg Ben was solid. My guess is this is best played when everyone is on shrooms. Just weird trippy effects that i would never use. The charge time was brutal. I waited like 2 hours just to get over 50% so i could restart it. Got to 50% finally and the restart or shut off slider screen froze. Held the off button down and nada. I was so frustrated with my initial use that i said F it. 1K im buying a Taylor Academy and Amp/effects combo.
I was ready to hate this one but I've got to say for what it is they did it up right. A smart guitar. Well, that's where we are in 2022. Its strummed tone is not much to my ear but I've got to say the single-note and finger picked stuff really has a lovely ring to it. This would make an excellent gypsy-jazz guitar except for the fact that no self-respecting gypsy jazz band would want anybody parading this thing on stage.
Generally think I found one of the best goodwill finds ever, the other day I found a bought a Mexican made fender telecaster, was made in 2003 and I bought for exactly 42 dollars.
Hey bud, another AWESOME video! An excellent review of a very interesting product in most of our price range! Thanks always brother! Now, you HAVE to do a deep dive review of the GTRS 801! PLEASE!!! Asking for a friend....lol
Thats pretty cool. I live on Vancouver island and the humidity really screws with my guitars. The carbon fiber would be very stable in my climate, mitigate the seasonal truss rod adjustments.
I liked and owned a MIDI guitar from a partnership between Ibanez and Casio PG780 then sold it due to service abilities were disappointing due to no techs that didn't know how to fix them so I have the Roland GK-3 and a GI20 and Roland sound modules with live sounds over FM synthesizer sounds. I traded up from the MT30. Luna is your speed for new ideas in guitars today is not my thing. I want heart moving wood maples and other woods like sinker redwood logs that sunk in lakes for 100s of years that vibrates like cedars and some spruce woods. They have maple characters in them!
Thx for you overview of the guitar’s functionality; its the best I’ve seen and I’ve watched the surprisingly few I’ve been able to find. I owned a Me 3 for over a month but returned it for reasons detailed below. I was enticed to buy it when hearing of its looping and effect features and that it was made of carbon fiber thus thinking it’d be very lightweight (spoiler alert: It’s not). Unfortunately for me, for $1000 the guitar’s potential missed the mark. It’s speaker is very tinny sounding and my screen kept freezing forcing me to frequently turn it off and on to reset things. Maddening. I tried to reach customer support (in Hong Kong) 6-7 times over the course of the month asking for help via email but NEVER got a reply. Too, I had great hopes for the looper but the sound of the recordings were consistently weak and tinny. Because of the weak speaker, don’t expect any of the effects to be heard without an amp if your jamming with as little as 2-3 folks. Too, I though many of the effects sounded very similar though to be fair I didn’t try to tweak them like trogly. It not heavy but it’s not lightweight. I found it heavier than any of my other five acoustic guitars probably because it’s a carbon fiber COMPOSITE guitar, not strictly or mostly just carbon fiber. I wasn’t aware of the distinctions between the two when I bought it. On the plus side, the composite is supposedly the stronger of the two and to that end the Me 3 looks and feels like it could sustain lots of abuse without a sweat (or scratch) and be ideal for folks who live in climates that can mess with guitars (excessively humid, hot, cold, arid temps). It also sounds decent without any effects or amplification. I play sitting down but for me I kept fighting it from sliding away thx to it’s rounded body and smooth finish (kinda like an ovation) which I really don’t like. Had the internal speaker been more substantial sounding, had it been less expensive and I had been able to reach anyone at Lava to help with fixing my screen freeze issue I might have kept it. The tuning feature is nice and for beginners the practice section could be very useful and you don’t need to buy the base charger; the guitar has a usb-c port that you can plug cables into for charging. The case, which must be purchased separately, is nice though it’s white…Why? There’s a very good reason and not so dirty secret why most cases are black
4:32 I'm curious if you can change the tuning reference of 440 Hz? Is a 432 Hz tuning possible? The LAVA page is not providing this information... but thanks for that cool video!
Great little toy for tech savy types, the organics of creating music are disappearing fast to technology. I prefer the old fashioned way of individual members contributing to the vibe. Cool non the less.
Sure carbon fiber is resilient, but what happens if you need repairs? What happens if the onboard computer fails, or the ui updates and exceeds the ram capabilities? I feel like there are wood guitars at this price point that will reliably last a lifetime and can always be serviced.
What next they're going to think of guitars that you can electronically changes color? I've got a couple guitars with built in tuners and a few different brand clip on tuners that have not only the option of different timings but also a setting to tune several different instruments. The only thing I have that has a built in metronome setting is my Spark bias amp which I just got an email telling me my wireless pedal is shipping soon. I've only ever heard one manufacturer talk about plecking their instruments before selling and shipping.
I've played one. They sound very lively. However that touchscreen and the app turns me off big time. I would never consider it with that stuff. I just want an instrument not an experience.
Who would’ve thought Austin was so creative as a songwriter?! Very cool demo! I’m tempted to get this guitar… if only they came up with a nicer headstock design
Dammm, Now this is innovation in a domain that has been asleep in terms of technology for way too long. and at around the 1000$ price range! not too bad at all when you consider it is an Acoustic and an electric guitar and an effect pedal all in one!
Just remember, a jack of all trades is a master of none. It's not as good sounding as a dedicated acoustic, a dedicated electric or dedicated independent effects. It's just a higher priced combo for beginners who don't need everything at usable quality but wants at home variety. Jack of all trades after all.
@@tinystar3010 The full phrase goes “a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” I somewhat agree it is not the best acoustic nor is it the best electric guitar but at least it is innovative, that being said would I buy one? IDK probably not then again maybe I would, however one thing is for sure, it will be interesting seeing what the big companies like Gibson, Fender and Yamaha... come up with to compete in this untapped market, I'm sure before long little combo guitars like this will become better than a dedicated guitar. What is with the childish cartoon avatar Tina? lol are you 12 years old or something?
My only disappointment with this review was the lack of the usual Trogly tear down and measurements. Personally, I have been looking for an acoustic and this might be an option.
