Von harmony-central.com
Price Paid: US $under $200
Purchased from: N/A
Sounds Great
Features: 9
This guitar features an adler body, dual humbuckers, and a string-thru body bridge. As everyone else mentioned, these features are almost never heard of at this price point. Mine has the transparent finish( which I love)and is the older model with the pickups mounted to the body. Overall, not a ton of features, but very simple and effective. This baby gets the job done. If your looking for a lot of features, you'll end up paying a lot more and you might not get the quality. I must add that the routs are perfect. I haven't seen routing this good on guitars 3 times as much.
Sound: 8
The sound was great for a guitar at any price range, amazing at this price range. I did end up changing the pickups to an EMG 85 at the neck and an EMG 81 at the bridge. This was for personal taste and the fact that the originals started to get a little microphonic. I play really hard music, and she's done everything sonicly I've asked for. It does lack a little on the low end, but as every one has said-IT ONLY COST AROUND $200!!! I am now using it with a Peavey Supreame Head with a custom 4x12 Fender cab. hooked up through a digitec processor and a BBE. It just screams.
Action, Fit, & Finish: 8
When I got this guitar, it had been on the shelf for awhile and had been pretty well handled. It has since taken alot of abuse ( I'm pretty hard on my guitars-my head hits the back of them for some cool sounds, I beat on the tops for sustain...etc.) and still looks good. The set-up had been done at the store, so I don't know how it shipped. When I got it the set-up was perfect, and I've done very little adjusting since.
Reliability/Durability: 10
This guitar has been put through hell and still preforms like it was new, except for the pickups. It has been my main ax and my backup( I now use a Hamer for my main). As I said before, it has withstood my constant beatings and is only a little worse for the wear. I've had this guitar for 4 years and no major problems
Customer Support: N/A
never dealt with the company, don't suppose I will
Overall Rating: 10
I chose this guitar because i needed a backup to my mexican Strat, but this became my main guitar. I have been playing for close to 15 years and this is the best value I have come across. For the money nothing compares. My lead guitarist is always trying to buy it from me for more than i paid!! If I lost it I would look for another one in a heart beat. It's a simple, well built guitar that puts others twice it's price to shame. I hate to go on, but I've had no bad vibes from this guitar.
Submitted by J Wilson at 03/20/2000 20:13
Price Paid: $CA 259
Purchased from: N/A
Steve''s Music
Features: 7
The only "feature" on this guitar is the two humbucker pickups. No tremolo, no locking tuners, no pickguard, it has a 3-way switch, volume and tone. The good thing about this guitar is that it's made in Alder, the same wood used in american Strats, which costs 4 times the price, that's why I picked this guitar up, I have no need for a 250$ guitar, but it's one heck of a 250$ guitar! The body is Tele-style, but with no pickguard and there's no paint, only a big piece of wood! It's light as hell, it sound quite good unplugged, which is what's important to me, because if it doesn't sound good by itself, no matter what pickup you use, you will never get a real good sound, so I can't wait to put Seymour Duncans on it, probably a JB in the bridge position and a Jazz in the neck position. It would be nice to add a switch to split the coils too for a more Telecaster like sound. It's a string-thru-body bridge, and a bolt-on neck.
Sound: 9
The sound is warm and bright at the same time, it's quite good for a 250$, but it lacks low-end punch, I don't know if it's the wood or the pickup, because the guitar is really light, it feels like it cannot have balls, but it's maybe just an illusion. I'm sure it'll be fine with new pickups. But for rock/blues playing, it sounds better than my other Yamaha (RGX621D) which I paid 3 times the price, it also has a much better clean sound. I like playing this guitar in my Flextone amp, it allows me to get a variety of good tones. It just needs more low-end punch. The pickup seems to feedback, but the noise gate on the amp cut it out. The sustain is pretty good and you can get it to feedback and it keeps singing as long as you want it too. You can't say the same thing about my last inexpensive guitar, a "Barrington" that was selling for 350$ with tremolo, the pickups were so bad it would feedback on the clean channel, and sustain was inexistant. It's not a perfect guitar, but for a 250$ guitar, it deserve at least a 9!
Action, Fit, & Finish: 6
The guitar was pretty good out of the box. The action was just perfect, not too low, not too high, no buzzing, the pickups were maybe a little low. The only problem is that one pickup is not properly aligned with the string, the lowest string is perfectly on top of the pole, but the pole aren't spaced enough and the smallest string is completely beside the pole. The guitar had some minor scratches, but I didn't really care. Hey, 250$! The neck pickup was okay, only the bridge pickup is not aligned, but the sound isn't unbalanced at all. ALl the controls function perfectly without noise. I was impressed mostly. I just wish they will exchange it for another one with properly aligned pickups. That's why it deserves a 6, otherwise it'd be a 10
Reliability/Durability: 8
I bought this as my backup guitar, but I have faith in Yamaha guitars, it won't let me down. And at that price, I don't care abusing it. I just hate one thing, the low E string keeps falling off when I play too hard. I'll have to find a solution to that problem.
Overall Rating: 8
Pros: incredible value, cool look, good sound, fun to play, can't think of any better backup guitars or beginner's guitar, good set-up out of the box, comes with a cord
Cons: some minor flaws in the construction, lack of low-end punch, cheap pickups
Submitted by Yannick Blais at 01/15/2000 06:53
