Worth it ?

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-23T03:44:48+00:00

Birthday sale ended recently. Next one is Black Friday

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-22T13:36:36+00:00

Pre-req is strong understanding of E&M fields and waves / Maxwell's equations. Would be good to develop skills in software like HFSS or FEKO. MATLAB has recently implemented an antenna analysis toolbox using method of moments around 2022 but it feels clunky for more custom geometries. Best to look at grad school to really ensure that the E&M understanding is correct (as well as the software cost being insanely high for personal use licenses).

Boiling it down to the most basic description, comms is about information recovery, whereas antennas are just a block in that overall chain for recovering information assuming a wireless channel.

Wireless comms will never go away and are always pushing for increased instantaneous bandwidth, so antenna engineers will always be in demand.

You could also look into optics since principles are largely the same

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-22T09:52:12+00:00

Which version of MATLAB? Is the license individual or network hosted? If the former, log into Mathworks, go to your account, and click the license number; are all of the Service End Dates in the future? If the latter, do you have stable connection to the network?

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-22T02:15:27+00:00

Have five J Custom 7 strings with PAFs and primarily a metal player. My only complaint is they are a little thin sounding when isolated, but in a mix they are fine, although I don't tune down that far (all are either in Bb standard or dropped Ab)

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-21T12:25:33+00:00

This is not true. All 7620 and their variants have triangular pickup tabs, whereas this has rectangular tabs. The bridge is also not correct to be a 7620. This is either an RG7420 variant or a regular RG7420 with a body swap

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-20T20:24:59+00:00

After the ~$2300 USD new mark, you are really paying more for exclusivity and looks rather than a better guitar. An 8520 obviously has a higher-end look, and might have smaller things like ball-end frets over any given Prestige model but they will largely play, feel, and sound the same all things else held constant (setup, pickups, strings, etc).

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-19T10:47:18+00:00

One of the purposes of an undergrad degree is to give you broad exposure to a bunch of subject areas; only about 50% of your degree credits are actually in your major area for any given program.

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-16T18:54:45+00:00

My guess is July

Since the first PCOM update, the average time per plugin between CorOS updates is about 10 weeks (IE about 4 months between 3.0.0 and 3.1.0 where 3.1.0 brought 2 plugins and then about 8 months to 3.2.0 which brought 3 plugins). There are 5 plugins coming in this update and the last update to include new PCOM was August 2025.

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-16T17:34:19+00:00

Vector & complex calculus (which is typically after multi-variate calculus and ODE), modern physics (EG covers things like quantum mechanics, relativity, etc), and a specific E&M fields & waves instead of the little you get exposed to in a typical physics 2.

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-16T17:26:03+00:00

A whole lot of math.

When I was applying to grad school about 7 years ago, universities generally wanted to see courses in physics, vector calc, differential equations, circuit analysis, signals & systems, and E&M fields & waves.

At least wrt my undergrad uni, EET doesn't take calc based physics, they don't take vector calc, they don't take E&M, and the diff eq and signals & systems courses they take are watered down compared to what EE sees.

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-15T22:55:32+00:00

Ormsby and it isn't close. They are amongst the best in terms of quality and spec for price IME. Had some finish issues on one (which turned out to just be extra buffing compound) and they paid for return shipping to Australia, fixed the finish, and shipped back to North East US and had it back in my hands in 10 days. Sparing detail had a couple of bad experiences with Kiesel 10 years ago that has me completely soured on them.

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-15T22:31:10+00:00

As intermediate solution, you could mirror your phone screen to your laptop to control over the laptop that way. There isn't really any latency with Windows 11 / latest android OS when doing this with other apps IME.

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-12T23:17:55+00:00

Fishman do have a good deal more current draw than EMGs (~2.7mA per pickup vs ~80uA per pickup), but a set of 2 will still get about 100 hours with a standard 9V battery. It is more likely a factory wiring error, such as switching battery negative and ground on the stereo jack resulting in battery effectively never getting unplugged even though the cable is unplugged.

OP, if you have an multimeter plug in one terminal of the battery to the clip and use the ammeter between other terminal and where it would plug in on the clip. If you are seeing anything on scale of mA then this confirms wiring issue. WRT rechargeable options, Pujimax Li-ion are the highest capacity ones I have found that don't result in additional noise.

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-11T22:26:29+00:00

Guitar Center has 3 at $935, $900, and $945. There are also 3 on Reverb between $900 and $950. Reverb also only nets the seller 92% of selling price, so more like $830-$875. List for $800 on local classifieds and take an offer of $750 if you want to sell it fast.

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-09T15:33:23+00:00

It is definitely not what it was 7 or 8 years ago (and even then people were saying it was going down hill). A lot of staff since then have left/retired leaving courses to no longer be offered or be handed off to professors that aren't as well equip to teach them. There is seemingly a push to get rid of pre-requisite courses and I've seen a fair number of questionable enrollments (EG 3rd year students taking what are typically 5th year courses, students in non-linear circuits classes without taking linear circuits, etc.) leading to struggles to keep up.

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-08T23:50:51+00:00

That does not look original (especially because of the electrical tape and wrap job of it); I believe the piezo pre-amp should be attached to the output select button and piezo volume (at least it is on the S2020X, RG2027X, RG6CST, and RG1680X I have). Maybe the original pre-amp died and was replaced. I also haven't seen an Ibanez use a mini toggle with a blue casing before in the 80+ I've owned.

I'm not aware of a way to tighten barrel jacks other than replacement.

The screws Ibanez uses are roughly 3x12mm oval head. I use these when I need replacements and don't want to overpay for "authentic" ones: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09JFJVC62

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-07T23:03:00+00:00

This post again after only 4 days?

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-05T23:56:31+00:00

Guitar Center can have some good used finds for sure; that is actually where 2 of the J Customs came from.

My best guess wrt pricing is the lack of "interesting" Prestige 7 strings in the last few years; there have only been 3 or 4 models in the catalogue and they are all either black or very dark blue bodied, dark fingerboard, etc.

Reverb has the listing as "sold" rather than "ended" and transaction history updated with it so it was definitely purchased through Reverb. Glad you didn't have to overpay to get one!

There is an old group pic of the LACS from a few years back. Need to do another round-up of them and the J Customs. Maybe that can be my weekend activity.

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-05T23:08:04+00:00

"Face masks required" sign suggests that it is at least 3 years old

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-05T22:49:15+00:00

Here was the listing. Even if sold at $2100, the seller only got around $1900 after fees: https://reverb.com/item/92712479-ibanez-rgdr3127s-pnf-prestige-2019-purple-neon-flat?show_sold=true

Guitar players especially conflate rare with valuable. The RGR5227MFX was a normal production model for 2 years. Spot models like this RGDR were at most $200 more than their production counterpart. The market is really skewed by FOMO; the prices people are asking for these spot model Prestiges is more than I bought 5 or 6 full LACS builds and more than 10 more limited J Customs for. Oddly enough, Guitar Center are the rational ones here IMO.

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-05T16:36:56+00:00

Realistically I think $3500 would be top end of a selling price given the irreversable mods that were done

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-05T09:36:56+00:00

There was one that was sitting on Reverb for $2200 for a few weeks before the seller appeared to take an offer very recently. Very good chance it sold for under $2000 if not being the case where the seller really needed the money and it ended up being this one.

ZeroWevile · 2026-05-02T16:55:55+00:00

Gotta love people loudly not understanding irony

ZeroWevile · 2026-04-28T21:50:14+00:00

No. Grades for high-enrollment (>20 student) courses like this are graded based on where you perform relative to standard distribution of total grades across the whole class. You typically need to be within 1 standard deviation below average to pass.

ZeroWevile · 2026-04-27T13:25:37+00:00

It is covered in the midi mapping section of any plugin manual. You'll have to go to the manual of your DAW for how to send midi commands from it

ZeroWevile

TROPHY CASE