How to 3D PRINT A GUITAR - the challenges, how it sounds, and how much it costs
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- Опубликовано: 11 июл 2024
- Full article - blog.prusa3d.com/the-prusacas...
Download the guitar model from Printables - www.printables.com/model/3987...
0:00 Intro montage
1:37 Solving the neck and bridge
3:25 Material choice
3:55 Guitar hardware + first test
5:00 Material Creep
5:45 Design
9:00 Assembly + grounding
10:24 DEMO - playing the guitar 
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you wouldn't download a guitar they said...
Design your own. That way it looks cool.
Hell yeah 🤠
Don’t you dare screenshot my *schematics*
Orange and blue is a match made in hell. 🤢 Cool build and video though.
I really hope he can make a bass guitar model version of this!
I think a better solution to the bridge problem would be to make it a string-through body design. That way, the ends of the strings would be applying pressure to the printed body piece itself, and you could use any compatible bridge you wanted
string through would benefit tons
Yeah plus those three barrel telecaster bridges aren't the best
I think this would be a better alternative to a tailpiece, because it would put the stress on the center of the body, effectively preventing any bows or bends, whereas a tailpiece puts the stress on the bottom end of the body, which is still good, but it may not be as effective, as the whole body could potentially bend over time.
it would make it harder to nail the intonation, though. It's a tradeoff
@@Empinada no reason it would, you still have a tailpiece with adjustments
I printed one last year, absolutely AMAZING!!! Coolest thing I've made
So where's your video then?
@@julianreverse In his "music porn" folder, where it belongs.
I did too. My job has one so big that I did one full body
Anyone know what song he play at 10:36?
@@julianreverse Is uploading a video a requirement? We're not all wanna be youtubers fiending for influence
I love the offset body with tele pickups so much but this is a next level guitar design
@@damianmontagner1691 already done lmao
Fender did a very limited run of them a few years ago, but the Squier Paranormal Offset Telecaster is still available!
I would think the biggest issue with a guitar like this is neck dive. Where the balance of the guitar is neck heavy and doesn't like to rest on your body or on a strap. You can nail a bridge to a tree stump, slap some pickups and tuners on it and it'll play. But it wont be comfortable or balanced. If you could put weights in the body somewhere you could create a wonderfully balanced body/neck combo.
What if you 3d printed it as a headless? Removes the weight of those tuning pegs
@@lossibinks How much weight would you be subtracting though?
@Commander Grub most of the wieght of the headstock is in the machine heads, it takes about 10% of the weight of a strat being just under 4kg, surely this body is far lighter than a strat so the wood and heavy machine heads would take up a larger percentage of that. Headless guitars are mostly near perfectly balanced with no neck dive.
@@lossibinks Putting on a headless sounds pretty simple. That's a good idea.
@@Commander_Grub A lot and from the most distant point actually, so it makes quite a difference actually.
All differences aside, thank you Josef, for igniting this fire. I had never thought about this, but the end results can/will be incredible!
you could embed small drawers in the hexagons for picks/tools too!!
That's a big brain idea :D Now I wanna make one of these just to see how many secret compartments I can fit in it!
Thank you for figuring this out for us.
Yes!! I looked into this a year ago, its a great topic! Didnt finish the project sadly, but now when reminded i want to pick it up again.
hehe. Pickup. Good one!!
Is that an LTT screw driver I spot? I love mine! Cool to see it out in the wild!
Zajímavej a za mě i povedenej nápad a výtvor. Palec hore 👍
This is incredible work, man!
Started the core immediately after watching this. Ordered my kit from Thomman too! Can't wait. Will post a make when done!
I loved the forbidden riff medley near the end.
Cool idea, fun to watch. You discovered the future of guitars! ))
Absolutely brilliant. Thanks for this !
as someone that made multiple 3d printed guitars can confirm, they can sound really good. its mostly dependant on the set up and kind of parts you use. I used tele style layouts for the pickups and used actual fender / squire parts (some cheapo 2nd hand finds haha) and the 3d printed sounds better than my pre built cheap brand guitar...... they also look so cool tho and you can get real crazy with designs, love it
I actually would have never thought about doing this. The reasons I had in mind were: It's plastic, it'll surely bow easily and be junk, and it would sound like crap. I'm pretty sure printing material isn't just plastic, but you'll have to teach me about that. After watching this video, I found it convincing, but not entirely. After reading this, and knowing that they can sound really good, I am convinced this can be a good and practical project!
@YOLOnline how do you find the balance between neck and body weight? Do they neck dive a lot or for example using higher body imprint % solves that?
@@Commander_Grub the bowing problem I solved by basically having a small wooden insert (the width of the neck) that slides into the body from the backside. So thats a little different in my design than this one from the video.
@@lemonbrothers3462 @lemon Brothers my design might be even more lightweight than this one as it's very open and has many holes. Mostly because of strength and to add some weight , I filled it with epoxy resin tho to fill in between the imprint fill structures. It does neckdive slightly but with a nice strap not as much and the lightweight overall feel is pretty nice when playing
@@YOLOnline - they make balancing kits for ceiling fans that add weights onto the fan blades to get a better balance. You could probably borrow some of the ideas they use to help in adding weights to the best places on the body to give a better balance between neck and body.
Printing the whole body definitely opens up some cool possibilities. Embedding effects/modulation tools into the body would be easy.
Stunningly beautiful prints!
Great classics you played!
2:02 you could always have the bridge mounting screws go all the way through the body (using long bolts instead of screws). Then use longer bolts that can screw into a counter-sank nut on the backside of the body piece.
That's a good idea!
The colour you picked give me big portal vibesI
already ordered the kit lol
Very cool project guys!
This is easily one of the coolest things I've ever seen
Someone: "3D Printers are just for making toys!"
Prusa: "Hold my beer..."
Fender is laughing ATM with their cardboard stratocaster.
Okey, new challenge! I already printed a guitar, Stratocaster with voron design and I did it in pretty much the same way with Harley Benton ST kit. Guitar plays really great, holds tune and I only had to adjust the truss rod once, so the action is in order. I never had a telecaster, so this is going to be my first one 🤭🤭
are u in the US? I would love to buy one of this from any of you
I ADORE the idea !
Wow what an incredible share!!!!
Would love to see that amazing hexagon design concept being added/embedded (in)to the guitars headstock as well. JFTR
…and a refit of the mediocre neck base (the gap between the neck and the body (11:25) is far too big).
have a peek at crimson guitars...theres a cyberpunk guitar you might like....
@@agn855 It has to be that big because the body wouldn't be able to withstand the tension otherwise, even at 100% infill. The only company which is capable of making a plastic composite guitar which can do that is Aristides and those guitars are not 3D printed.
This might be more visible at time stamp 11:16
you can try use kahler bridge, it has 4 screw holes and gives you a tremolo without the springs on the back of the guitar!
This is genuinely wildly cool
Great work, congratulations
I did this for my high-school capstone project, try printing the neck as well... GL. Its doable, materials and printer have improved enough in the last decade for it to work "better" now. Interesting options for infill patterns and cavity sizes can be used to print a body with internal resonators, the main thing I noticed on my first print was how light and loud it was even without amplification. Still have the thing sitting in a corner, its held up ok, but could be better.
How can you print a neck on a 3d printer, it's too long!
@joeking433 You have to print in sections and then connect them together. You could also just have a massive printer (but at the time, I had a makerbot replicator 3x, which was quite small)
I may give this a try. I think if I do this project, I will fork over some extra cash for better internals. Pretty Awesome!
That looks so cool
Very cool project
The myth of tone wood is long busted! It’s all in everything else and especially in how your fingers play! Cool!
Well, maybe for electrics but definitely not acoustics lol
+ @rbae Not even for electrics. People just like simple answers even though both of them are wrong. Of course the wood can make a difference in the sound. Is it huge? Maybe not but here comes the twist. So you might have a difference between two guitars in sound depending on the wood they're built of and it logically shows in the overtone spectrum and you will notice the difference when playing the instrument not being plugged in (but who does) now you use a pickup that doesn't pick up these differences and suddenly they sound the "same" ...
I will never understand why it is so hard to understand, that from you fingers, the strings, the pick, the wood, the build of the guitar, the electronics, cables, the amplification, the room ... everything has an influence on the sound that is just simple physics. Depending on the constellation some influences can be bigger, some smaller, some can be elevated, some suppressed. To a certain degree you can compensate bad playing techniques, think compressor for bad dynamics, like you can add high frequencies or lower bass and so on ...
So stop the blaming/shaming game take all variables into account and try to use them to your advance to create your sound. Even the thing with the fingers depends on which sound your looking for. If your sound is an all compressed and distorted stoner wall of sound you might find that it doesn't make a big difference any more how you "touch" the strings ...
Sorry, but there is no "myth of tone wood" just your need for simple answers to complex questions ...
BTW: I didn't like the sound of the printed guitar - which can have a lot of reasons, just to name a few: 9 strings, choice of pickups, playing style, plastic body, choice of amp, settings of amp, the recording, my listening variables: speakers, room, me having a cold, my taste vs. the taste of the people involved ... the body being printed only being one! of the possible reasons. I need at least to hear the thomann telecaster build played by the same guy, same amp, settings to make an "informed" decision.
What a cool looking guitar! Even if it might not be comfortable to play, it's still a great piece of art to hang on your wall
Thats pretty cool!
I think I might print one of these as a birthday gift for my dad as he always wanted to get into playing on electric guitars instead of just on the acoustic guitar he got for his birthday 50 years ago.
this is so cool!
Three years ago, I set about printing a classic violin.
Not the Hovalin or other 'no bridge' designs.
How hard can it be?
First one sounded like wet cardboard.
I took the second one to a Lutheir, a violin maker.
He made a bridge and sound-post from proper wood, fitted them expertly to the instrument.
Amazing improvement, but it still sounded muted.
I got busy, trying to print panels that sounded like a similar piece of wood when dropped on the floor.
Despite being absurdly thick (8-10 mm!) having a single-layer top/bottom, no perimeter walls and over 60% infill, I found several useful 'sound wood' replicas.
Printed up a new violin with 9.5mm thick bottom deck, 7.5mm top deck; Luthier did his magic and I had an actual Violin!
The sound 'filled the room', getting the strings to sing took no bowing effort at all.
After five glorious day of me learning how to play, the upper deck collapsed under the tension of the strings.
'Bang!' and it was split.
Didn't have the heart to go through all that again.
Yes, you can print a useful instrument, but you gotta keep the limits of the materials in mind.
Constant tension from strings or a taught drum-head can ruin a 3d print, given time.
Slacking the strings and drawing them tight every day isn't a good solution either, as it took forever to tune the thing!
Violin needs proper building materials that has good tonality
There is actually good reason why acoustic instruments has term tone wood because some materials has different properties
What comes down to electric instruments, you free to do anything with it
As long you have scale lenght in mind, tuners and mics you are running with, you can make almost any material work as guitar base build
in the end you are generating electromagnetic signal what you manipulate with effects and amps eq then that is blasted out from speaker
If anything that is most important in that signal chain is speaker
Anything i would be concerned about 3d printed guitars are can they handle string tension
There are already amazing 3d made guitars or carbon fiber guitars in the market so this isnt anything new
Just that community is slowly aproving these things in time
I know this would add a good bit of design challenge, but I would love to see a build where you can easily swap the electronics. Being able to switch from single coils to humbuckers on the fly would be incredible. (I know there was a kickstarter guitar that did this, but it also fits this type of build really well)
Not sure if this is the brand you're referring to but Relish Guitars have a really cool system for this, where the pickups pop in and out with magnets
@Fraser Kahl - Just install a hotrail humbucker with a push/pull pot. It's easy. Then you can separate the two rails to get a single coil when you want.
@@asmongoldsmouth9839 push pull coil splits are not a perfect stand in for single coils
Actually this is quite easy. Each humbucker actually has two more wires which are usually just soldered together, but you can rewire it and add a switch to your guitar (there exist potentiometers with built-in switch), so switch from single coil to humbucker. Just google for "humbucker coil split wiring"
There's something called "coil tapping" or "split coil" that does this.
Oh damn, I didn't even realize this was a Prusa video. Only noticed when the lad said "our Prusament". Good shit!
Great project!
The Stratocasters have a floating bridge where most of the pulling force is absorbed by screws connected to springs on the back of the guitar. Can also be a good contender since you can make those screws as beefy as you want.
Most of the string tension on a Strat bridge is on the screws or studs at the front of the bridge plate, not to mention the pressure of the knife edge into the body just in front of that.
I would worry about the screws pulling out.
This is crazy cool. I think I'll try making one of these as a gift for my brother.
Very easy-to-follow, pleasant and informative video. Thanks.
How are you going so far?
@@urielgranados4371 Haven't started yet, troubleshooting my printer. Getting poor adhesion and chronic symptoms typical to partial clogging even after several nozzle changes and cold-pulls, so i think i need a new hot-end. This hobby sure demands patience.
Thanks for asking.
@@AudioBombProductions good luck bro, keep it up, solving one barrier at a time, you're almost in there
One idea to make less tension of the bridge pulling away from the body's face is to use a string-through body approach as seen in a number of schecter guitars (e.g. the c1-platinum) combined with tune-o-matic styled saddle. It doesnt solve the material deform problem (you already solved that), but it does mean that you dont need a "beefy" telecaster styled bridge to distribute the load on the face.
Either way, this is one of the coolest projects ive seen with a 3d printer.
Awesome guys!
Ok, so I can get a guitar, all I need to do now is figure out how to play it
That’s the easy part… just practice.
Thinking about making a project out of this that would be fully modular. Imagine swapping out the body and choosing between 5 other bodies within 10 minutes. Super cool idea. I might even make the pickup area a heavier wood to counteract any neck-dive
Did essentially this with a ukulele as a final group project for my engineering degree. The body was from a donor ukulele, as was the neck. The neck was mounted to a 3D printed plate that slid into the body and locked in place with clasps. It was basically the test piece from this video, with quick-swap bodies. It was acoustic though; didn't sound great tbh and couldn't hold a tuning, but you could theoretically improve the design to enable swapping to a larger body or a different material to get a different sound.
If you don't go with the pre set kit you could probably get away with modeling it off of a travel guitar and making the "body" sections interlock somehow
I've never been into just having different body designs. I do like that every body has it's special function, such as the tremolo bridge and single coils and body cuts of the Strat, the ashtray bridge and twang of the Tele, the maple top and humbuckers of a Les Paul, the fast neck of an Ibanez, etc.
i have the exact same DIY on amazon, i think i know what to print next on my Kobra 2 Pro, cheers mate, subscribed
The songs you played on the guitar throughout the video are absolutely amazing! I love Led Zeppelin!
I would actually love like a headless with just the centerpiece
Considering only the player, strings and hardware, and basic construction affect tone, you can make an electric guitar out of almost anything. Tonewood only matters in acoustics.
This is 100% something i agree on
You would get suprised how many people who still believes that there is term tonewood used in electronic instruments, when they just generate electronic signal that is being manipulated with effects, amps eq and most importantly speaker that blasts that signal back to the physical world
There is one yt channel of this very topic where that person makes basic guitars almost from any material he can gets his hands on
@@mozkuthehermit5909 what channel?
ruclips.net/video/n02tImce3AE/видео.html
@@aindoria idk which one he means but a few come to mind. My fav is Burls Art who built guitar out of anything ranging from coffee beans to newspapers. And if you're curious about why tonewood doesn't matter in electric guitars, check out Jim Lill.
So basically you believe that everything! but the wood affects the tone? Let me tell you what, that is a stupid believe. In fact, logically and scientifically everything affects the sound, depending on the setup and the final sound everything can be more or less important, can be elevated or suppressed.
You can end up with similar sounding recordings of two pretty different sounding acoustics, when suppressing the differences with your choice of mics, recording techniques, eq settings and so on.
I used to be a recording guitar player for quite a while and was never happy with the typical sm57 on the speaker, off the middle whatever - approach. It never reflected what I was hearing, when I dialed in my sound. In a recording situation, where I am in the same room with the amp I am usually 1.5m to 3m away from my amp, with my ears being at a height of roughly 1.70m ... I never stick my head into the speaker to adjust my sound - never!
So I asked for a mike that is known for its neutral sound to be setup at this distance and height et voila the sound of the recording was suddenly way closer to my sound than before. Just for fun we set up a second mike, pretty close to the first, made it a stereo recording ... That was the closest we got.
And, yes I know, that my ideal guitar sound is maybe not the sound that will end up in a final mix, but all the engineers that I worked with agreed, that it is a good idea to capture what is there as close to the reality as possible first.
So long story short: everything is influencing the sound, tone wood included. The differences between different woods might be subtle (and sometimes suppressed or altered by other influences e.g. tremolo systems) but because they are standing at the beginning of the sound defining process (go fingers/pick/strings/bridge/saddle and wood, then! pickups ->), if you ignore them you might miss out on some opportunities your setup is offering.
Just because you don't care doesn't mean they don't exist ;- )
Defo trying to build this!
sounds amazing
Love to see the LTT screwdriver ;)
I didn't expect it to be so good, but honestly, I fell in love with it during the course of building the guitar. Quallity you can feel!
This is a really cool project, and I love the colors and the hexagon feature. However, I noticed that the reveal (i.e., the distance between the edge of the fretboard and the string) of your E strings are not equal; the low E string is much closer to the edge of the fretboard than the high E. You had mentioned that the neck should be "perfectly aligned" with the bridge, and it seems like it is not. Do the available designs correct this? I think it would have been nice to acknowledge this discrepancy in the reveal during the demo.
There are "remixed" files available at the same site as the originals, and one of them has shifted things over a little to better accomodate the strings.
the height can be adjusted as well. If you look closely there are 2 vertical screws oneach bed.
But TBH you want the high E to be less close to the edge than the low E.
I love that it's an offset telecaster. Definitely making one. I've already got half the hardware I need.
it's actually cool that you uploaded it for free ! I would even pay for one guitar that would have a humbucker in bridge and constriction that can stand the drop B tuning :)
My son just asked about getting a guitar. He also just got a printer for xmas. Can't wait to show him this I think he will be stoked to print one rather than just buying one.
What a scam. Get the boy a real guitar please
The Harley Benton guitar kit shown in the video comes with a wood body. If you and your son are not happy with the look, feel, or sound of the 3D printed body then you can rebuild the guitar using the wood body.
@@Ottophil this guitar should play just as well as any other, assuming that whoever assembles it knows how to do a proper setup. But a lot of guitars you buy in store aren't set up properly, either, so that's not much of an argument anyway.
... you chose these riffs on purpose, didn't you?
All the forbidden ones in one video....
One Tony Iommi riff would have put this over the top.
What riffs from 10:36?
Excellent
I'm doing this for a school project, but only the orange bits, very cool to see it for myself on the internet
Any plans to make an XL optimized version with bigger sections?
I'll be happy to include it. I actually have a test XL unit here in the office, but I figured it would be better to primarily target people will more common printer size. Easier to connect pieces back together then splitting them in the first place. :)
Even as Prusa start to loose its printer leader status, its still has high impact, and work it do for comunity is amazing. Thank you a lot
Who would you say is current leader though?
@@harusora970125 i sold my prusa to get a bambulabs, 0 regrets only benefits
@@harusora970125 bambu labs and prusa are TIED in my books currently
Anyone know what song he play at 10:36?
Thank you !
That body looks so good!
I was most excited to see how the neck was printed. If using a pre-fab neck, there's not much reason to believe there would be any problems unless the body design was particularly weak.
A 6 string set exerts around 20-80 Kg of tension on the neck. Even at 100% infill, a printed neck would crack under tension, even with a truss rod or graphite reinforcement rods. If you go for a printed fretboard, how do you attach the frets without destroying the plastic? 3D printed necks are not possible for guitars atm. The only company which does manufacture a neck through guitar made of plastic is Aristides and that's a carbon composite molded body.
@@BrunodeSouzaLino I'm not entirely sure that's true. PLA is like half as stiff as the wood that is normally used for making necks, and necks are more than stiff enough as they are typically made. Adding reinforcement seems like it could plausibly make the neck stiff enough. Maybe not, but I'd like to see tests instead of just going on the internet and telling people it definitely wouldn't work.
As for frets, I definitely wouldn't want plastic frets. If nickel frets are already soft enough to dent over time, I'd imagine the printable thermoplastics would go fast.
@@MattMcConaha While that's true, eventually the plastic will bend and start being destroyed over time due to the strong tension. Someone already tried to print a guitar neck and eventually it became impossible for the neck to even hold the tuning.
@@MattMcConaha You can definitely 3d print necks if you add supports to it and are careful with your printing pattern. A buddy of mine has printed a bunch to see if he could make it work. Warping is going to be more of an issue than snapping. And having the neck snap was far less of an issue than the frets. You'll want to still use fret wire as basically no 3d printed material we tested lasts long before the strings grind them down throwing off the tuning. Hell, given enough time metal frets get ground down, so most plastics are just screwed. And getting the fret wire inlayed without compromising stability is tricky.
That said, there's another problem that everyone always forgets about... raw 3d printed necks feel awful. If anyone makes one, be prepared to experiment with finishing options because you're not going to want to leave it as the raw print.
One huge issue I see with that jagstang is the neck dive. If yr new body is even half pound lighter, it should neck dive a lot. Only way to correct would be strap it high as yr badge of honour or place all the electronics in the far aft pit by the jack . I can't imagine playing this in an active live show to be a well balanced kit.
Believe me, 3D printed bodies are usually pretty much heavier (my startocaster is like 1,5kg heavier than the wooden one :D )
You can always add weight in various ways. Could use lead weights. Could print solid panels instead of honeycomb. Could use denser infill. Etc.
Nice video, thanks :)
Awesome 👏🏻
Great project. I love that you can print it on an i3.
Would it be possible to transform it into a bass? The first problem in mind is the string tension and possible body bending
I printed a fender precision bass that I got free on thingiverse, came out great
A 4-string bass with fairly light gauge strings is going to be about 70kg, which is almost twice what they suggested here. It's also going to be over a longer distance of 3D-printed body. This might be ameliorated somewhat by using a short-scale bass.
Bass strings put an unbelievable tension on the strings!
Fun project!
I want one, it sounds beautiful
The true name should be the prusamaster for the jazzmaster shape. Otherwise cool project
If you make 2 apertures for carbon fibre rods and place them inside during a print pause this will stiffen up the body no end.
I talk about that in the video. While totally reasonable way to stiffen the guitar, I really wanted to avoid using it. It would slightly complicate the build, mainly because people would have to source another specific part. And as I found out, it was not needed in the end at all.
I have actually done this, but with steel rods instead of carbon rods. The problem is that the plastic is still what the neck is attached to, and with enough tension, it will just deform and pull itself away from the rod.
Amazing
This is DIY Hall Of Fame Worth!!!! Thank You!!!!
I’m kinda curious how a 3d printed hollow or semi hollow body guitar might turn out, something like a 339 or a casino. I guess there’s only one way to find out 😳
You could perhaps look at an Ovation if you want to hear what a plastic acoustic guitar sounds like - they do sound different (not as nice as wood imo). It would be worth considering that a lot of an Ovation's sound however may be assisted by the shape - I would *imagine* that a flat plastic back would sound markedly worse/barely sustain (in the same fashion as a normal semi-hollow) at all, and printing curvy things on a 3D printer doesn't tend to be easy!
@@Sir83chris I've seen a couple. What you imagine is pretty spot on.
How the HELL did you do do that opening shot?
Blender was involved. :)
@@TheMikolasZuza my guess is slice the model, export toolpath as obj, then import that into blender, and finally: keyframe a boolean to recreate the look of an ocotoprint timelapse
@@Zubbbz You nailed it! That's it. Of course, quite a few steps in that process. Perfectly aligning the digital camera with the real shot. And also I captured 360 HDRI of the studio, so the rendered model is lit exactly the same as the real one. For that, I had to create a workflow of creating equrectangular 360 HDRI pictures, but now that I have it, it should be easier to do again. :)
she sounds great and looks super nice !
This is cool. You can use one of the hex holes to store picks.
Another great video! Especially liked the appearance of the LTT screwdriver.
I'd have done something to the headstock, like, just cut a straight like on the wood, then make a 3D printed piece to complete the shape of a 60s Fender headstock, but honeycombed like the body.
Love it!
Cool man 🎸👍😎
Here's another idea: a 3D printed LED add-on that teaches you how to play, like those commercial ones.
It's been debunked a thousand times, the material the body is made out of or shape has no effect on the sound of an electric guitar
That's gorgeous! Ahhh I wanna make it too now x)
Incredible
You printed guitar body and not a guitar...
Very nice
it begins!!
That's Totally Righteous Dude !!!
Thanks for the very good wrawings. Can you please advise which software used to draw the guitar? Thanks in advance
it's a beauty
That is the coolest looking guitar I've ever seen
Facinating