I FINALLY Gigged the Yamaha Pacifica Professional - My Verdict
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I bought a Yamaha Revstar professional in Japan and took it back with me on the plane to the U.S. the next day. I got home to play it and didn’t even have to re-tune it. Liked the action, so I got my tools out to set up intonation…dead on intonated already. I can’t believe I traveled thousands of miles from a humid climate to super dry climate and didn’t need adjustments, not even re-tuning. All I could do was laugh. The build quality and attention on Yamaha Professional lines is top notch
I feel the same about my Yamaha basses. Bought my dream BB5000. Made in 1987 and all it needed when it shipped across the country was a little more tension on the truss rod which adjusted without a fuss.
@@jc8liter2388 love hearing that. They’re not just great build quality now, they always have been. Such reliable consistency. I’ve talked to two guitar techs recently who separately said, unsolicited, that Yamaha is the brand they respect most. Very telling comments from guys who handle all kinds of brands every day
Man, you have to take and compile all of these fantastic intros together into a track list or something so we can listen to them whenever! Bea did this with his stuff and I jam it all the time.
The intro jam was fantastic!
I was going to say the same! Rockin’ John Cordy is my favorite.
Loved the tone and playing in the Intro jam. Glad to hear you enjoyed the Pacifica so much during the the Gig. When your instrument inspires you, the Maker has got it right. Congrats Yamaha 😎
Ibanez AZ Prestige is the obvious comparison to this guitar IMO
I will always maintain that the Yamaha Pacifica is the most important guitar of the last 30 or so years. It showed the other manufacturers that they can’t get away with making rubbish guitars at the lower price points. When they came out they were head and shoulders over the likes of Squier, Encore etc
Obviously the range has expanded hugely since then but they still seem to punch above their price point.
+1
Ibanez AZ prestige series would be the obvious comparison to me.
Yes! Exactly! I’m still saving up, but I’m quite stuck on deciding between the two for my next guitar…
Yep, pretty sure this is considered the best HSS strat. I think the Fender stuff is like 500 bucks more expensive and the other stuff around its price-range is clearly inferior.
Here in Canada, the AZ2204's are $600 more
I have the Indonesian model of this guitar and just love it. You mentioned FGN, I also have a Fujigen Odyssey and it also plays great. It has a compound radius and FGN's CFS frets (circular fretting system) where the frets are slightly curved to improve intonation. The FGN was challenging to purchase in Canada since we don't have any dealers so I had to purchase it direct from a broker in the US.
One heck of a great sounding opening!!! Sounded Great!!!
Great insights John. I gig a LOT. Bought a used 90s Pacifica 812W 10 years ago, very much the precursor to this. I'd looked at Suhrs etc with similar specs, this was much cheaper and every bit as good. I'm into the high hundreds of gigs and thousands of hours playing, utterly reliable.
It's not got as much personality as my favourite old Tokai strat, tele and les paul but it looks after me - as a daily driver it is excellent. I bet these new ones are REALLY nice.
I'd love to try one - looking forward to the day they show up in some guitar stores!
Have a 90's Tele Pacifica 120SD and apart from the smaller frets compared to modern medium jumbo stainless steel it feels great I really should play it more!
I've toured the Fujigen factory in Japan and can vouch that the wood aging chamber is for real - they let us walk through it - they actually play classical music in the chamber to impart good vibes to the aging wood LOL. Or something like that - may have lost a bit in translation. More seriously though i believe they age the wood for months in the chamber - i can say the necks are the best ive seen - ive got 3FGNs - strat, tele, "supertele" (semibaritone scale tele style with EMGS) - had them 3-4 years through heavy Japanese winters (and i just hang them on my wall with no climate control) and they are still perfect. I may be buying a FGN Les Paul Gold Top with p90s in today if I'm lucky - 110000 yen (thats about $US700 at the moment and its almost certainly better quality than a $2700 Gibson)
Was that tour of the factory on business or is that something they have open to the public?
Would be worth going out to Matsumoto-shi to see that if it’s possible.
@@89ji76 Public tours - but its only 1 day per month - always a friday afternoon - so plan in advance and call them to book (free of charge they just want to know in advance). At the end they show you the jam room and you can even buy some demo stock about 30% below retail - thats how i got 2 of my 3 FGNs. The 3rd one i bought new after trying to find a 2nd hand one for FOUR YEARS and not seeing a single one - i eventually thought that must show how good they are - no one wants to sell theirs. LOL
FGN are up there, in terms of quality instruments.
That Gold Top LP model is so damn nice. Love me some P90s singing!
Greaat intro, and for me i use and tour with a yamaha pacifica 611vfm for 10 years now its waay better than my strat usa
My Revstar Left me with such a great Impression, Im Thinking of Getting the New Pacifica
That’s a great addition to any lefty’s collection. My Standard feels really nice and can produce any times from jazz to metal.
Same here.
Hey man. Revstar Pro or Standard? (I'm itching to get one but can't decide pro or standard)
@@dvespa if you have the money to burn, the pro is great. (I'm a Japanese Guitar snob.)
If not, the standard on both the Revstar and Pacifica have very little downside, to be honest. Pretty much the same hardware, construction (except some extra carbon fiber bracing) and Pick Ups.
I'm a long time Yamaha player, so I've been through a lot of the Gen 1 Revstars and the 620 and 820 especially, were similar to the Pro model. There's even less difference in the Gen 2, to my understandin.
Hope this helps a bit.
Good to see that Yamaha are continuing to stand behind their Pacificas, particularly the higher end ones.
I love my old PAC611 for playability, and Now that I've made it into a 2 x P90 by putting a HB shaped P90 at the bridge it sounds as good as it plays. 👍
I felt that the SD Custom 5 humbucker was more suited, as a match, to the S type pickups in their PAC612 than the P90 in the PAC611.
They actually put out a 2 p90 version
Enjoyed the jam - as always. Great feeling, great play.
I own a couple of Suhrs and love them, but totally agree with the weight. For my last built I pressed them really hard to stay at or under 3.3kg (7.45lbs) and from the reaction of my dealer I can tell, they did not like to give any guarantees. A guitar north of $4k should be lightweight.
I think this could be the best opening tune from you yet
The pacifica pro with the neve pickups is my current favorite guitar. It has a solid sound, ergonomics, looks, versatility! It is a phenomenal strat style guitar besting everything else I've come across! I'm especially enjoying playing finger style jazz rock and the neck and string spacing and stable tuning all support that brilliantly.
I have an older Pacifica in the same H/S/S setup, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. It's the one I pick up most, even over my Les Paul - and I've had the LP the longest.
Shijie makes the best stratocaster and telecaster type models I've ever played, in the Fender custom shop quality range for about $!,000 USD.
I played a gig a couple nights ago with my PRS CE24 for the first time and after a solo the 1st string was a whole step flat. My Revstar doesn’t even need to be tuned after pulling it out of the gig bag from the last gig.
I know you’re not lying because I bought a Revstar in Japan, took it on a plane back to the U.S. the next day, got home to play, and didn’t even need to re-tune! I was shocked, all I could do was chuckle
My main gigging electric is an FGN Expert Odyssey and it isn’t quite up with this spec wise.
Would appreciate the stainless frets and heel adjust truss rod mechanism on an FGN guitar.
Basically with FGN you get great woods and craftsmanship but they kinda fall short on everything else. Pickups that are nothing to write home about. Pickguard and knobs seem to be made from relatively cheap plastic.
But you can upgrade hardware. You can’t upgrade craftsmanship. So I still think it’s an incredible guitar.
Lift-worthy riffage aplenty. Excellent. Don't stop 'til you get enough.
2k is kind of the price where you stop having to compromise. these guitars have basically anything you could ask for. I got an Ibanez AZ prestige. i see no reason to buy a more expensive guitar.
John, PLEASE look up Lacello guitars. The pricing is insane and he is absolutely incredible to work with. A single luthier, with extremely high quality work.
I bought the Pacifica Standard Plus. I absolutely love it. The build quality and tone are phenomenal. It’s my best S style guitar.
The guitar I have that does everything is my Japanese Ibanez AZ HSS 7 string. Fantastic to play with a wonderful neck. Needed a good set up though.
I really want to try the Pacifica Standard Plus. I love S-Style guitars and ever since buying a Revstar (RSS02T) ive been very interested in Yamaha.
I recently bought a Mike Stern Yamaha. It plays itself. I would like more Tele shaped models from Yamaha. Nice job on your
Review BTW.
Mike knows what he’s doing.
I own 1.
It's the highest up on my 'never sell' list, the one I'd save if my house was burning...after my kid, of course. ❤
The intro tune was great 😊
Smokin' intro!
Since you asked: PRS CE24 USA version has a great neck that PRS call "wide thin" but it's a bit of a misnomer, as the neck fills the hand nicely without being "Fat." This is a sleeper model in the PRS line, as it's a bolt-on, satin neck, weighs around the 7-pound mark, and the thing just sings like nobody's business. Price all day long for around $2300 depending on the top. A serious guitar for not a lot of money, and it's not a full-bling thing-- it's the PRS work horse.
I honestly thought you were heading into 'don't stop till you get enough'. This was way better!
wow, loved this intro... smooth as buttttta
Love yamaha guitars.
Both of my Suhr guitars, Modern Satin ( 6.5 lbs ) and Pete Thorn Standard( 7.7 lbs ), arrived with perfect setups. Yamaha are always great though. A good comparison might be the ESP EII series.
Smokin intro as usual!
Intro jam, reminiscent of "Dont stop til U get enough"
The new Sire S10 might be a good shout!
I have an Ibanez AZ2204 Prestige, which retails for about $1999 in the US, about $200 less than the Pacifica. Absolutely fantastic guitar. Maybe a Keisel would hit this price and quality depending on how you spec it. Fender Strat Ultra is about the same price. Suhr guitars are in the untouchable price range for me. There's a used one on marketplace that is listed for $3100.
I know i've said it before on another vid, but i'm really quite gutted they didn't base this on the Hindmarsh prototype, a layback reverse headstock with no string trees would have sold this to me in an instant...
Is it possible to put a humbucker in the neck position? and which one could mix well with the other 2 ? THANKS !
They've got a version below this that goes for about $1350, and I'd love to try one of those. With what PRS and other companies have coming out of Indonesia now, it could be very seriously good. Still out of my price range,but maybe one of the cheaper ones at some time? Never played a truly bad Pacifica, when you consider price. They seem to have been punching above their price class, wherever they were made, for a long time.
I knew Yamaha won't disappoint, but about the PRS, i have tusq nut in one guitar, and it went quite out of tune first, but when i just used it brutally, the Tusq nut started to be slicker and now it works much better, try with your PRS the same , just go wildly divebonbing until the nut starts to work better.
How's the pickup selector in the same spot as a strat? I always find those in the way when chugging on the bridge humbucker.
Just got a tokai strat sss under 1k recently and gotta say it’s an absolute beauty.
I 100% trust this guirar will make anyone happy. Yamaha has its own thing going on.
The price/quality ratio is still great.
But I invested in an Ibanez Andy Timmons AZT100 Japan with the 3 Dimarzio Cruise "single" coils, and it rules too much to justify going Yamaha.
I saw the Professional from up close in a store in Japan, it looked extremely well built, Japanese craftsmanship at its finest, i.e. it doesn't get any better than this. The price is actually very good. The sunburst one was especially beautiful. One thing I wonder though, can it do traditional Strat tones? From the demos I've heard including John's, that doesn't seem to be the case?
Will you check the brand new NAM Player pedal from Dimehead Audio?
What is the string action on yours?
I think price for value for a production (non-custom) guitar, nothng on the planet beats a Schecter PT SLS Elite. Fully bound body / neck / headstock, Fishman Active Pickups, Compound radius Ebony fretboard, locking tuners, Stainless steel jumbo frets, 5 piece neck through body design, compensated nut. Cheaper than the Yamaha on this video by a wide margin...and plays like a dream. JNC you should check them out.
It would be good to compare them to the Fender Ultra and Ibanez AZ.
Any chance you could test the levingson Blade RH4?
Man, you weren't kidding about the recent price hike! I got a Japanese Revstar, direct from Yamaha London, for £1,579 last August (cheapest I could find anywhere). That exact same guitar (RSP20X) is now listed at £2,233 🤯 Hands down the best guitar I've ever owned and I've said to friends on multiple occasions that I was amazed it was under £2k. I also have a Pacifica 612 which has gone up by about £400 as well! Yamaha must have been listening 👀
It looks like a more expensive version of the Fender Player Plus HSS Strat. I wonder how that compares.
Freddy Dobbs just went to his parents' place in Cornwall, too.
Keep in mind that Suhr is making s-class guitars with the intention of being very faithful to the Fender design, with some very important upgrades and tweaks. The Pacifica, on the other hand, despite its appearance, is its own design. I would also give Suhr the benefit of the doubt because air travel (if that's how it came) entails more drastic changes in temperature and air pressure than would be normal. It needs to rest and be setup.
So, this is really an "apple/oranges" comparison. If I were to look into a new guitar that covers as many bases as possible, with an excellent reputation, I would definitely look at the Pacifica. If I were looking for a top level s-class guitar, I would look at the Suhr. What WOULD be an interesting comparison would be the Suhr v. the Ultra series Fenders. String them w/ 10's and set them up properly (1 week of acclimation for each) and see how they measure up. I would REALLY like to see that.
LOL....first I've ever heard of getting a button stuck in the back plate. You might have come up with a strapless solution for playing!
Similar to the old yamaha pacifica 812v, very versatile guitar I would say.
Little bit of a countdown quote there? Haha
The jam is so good!! As usual! TY! What is the Preset and is this backing track available?
Not familiar with Michael Jackson, huh?
😂 I guess I should have clarified the question…
No idea about these but maybe Vola? Or of course Ibanez az
I bought the Ibanez AZ2204NW.
It would be nice in red.
Love Yamaha guitars. So funny about "professional" guitars. What makes it "pro"? Most pro musicians I know don't take out their high-end instruments to gigs. I personally find there's little difference between a lot of expensive guitars and just great intermediate (lower priced) guitars. Schecter, PRS, and even Harley Bentons play well enough for a fraction of the price.
But some people buy guitars for fashion, and fashion is always overpriced.
It may not always be as big of a difference as people sometimes make it out to be but I don’t find anything outlandish or “funny” about a “professional” guitar either. It’s not just “fashion.” There can be lots of objective differences between higher level “professional” guitars and lower level ones. Now whether they matter to you individually or fit your subjective preferences for feel or sound is a valid consideration, but some of the other guitars you named don’t play well enough for other people’s desires.
Pros play whatever's in the room.
@@adamdoran235 so do amateurs haha
Can you play thrash metal on it
Once you admit it it makes your guitar life easier. I have had it all. The overseas stuff is starting to really show several things. CNC has changed the game. With the same hardware and electronics it is just super good quality now. Guitar players are living in the golden age of cheap quality gear. All of this has shown that many US built instruments are just not up to the task for the money charged.
Ibanez AZ
FGN
Shiji
Charvel mij Guthrie
It’s basically just a couple hundred bucks cheaper than an Eric Johnson Strat. Would you rather have this?
I paid £820 for my EJ Strat in barely used condition. Ok, was a few years ago now but you can't beat that kind of value
I don't know about Suhr using less mature wood, but I do know that they are made in Lake Elsinore California, with an elevation of 1,296 feet. Compare that to London's (I don't know your exact location so I just used London) elevation of just 36 ft, along with the wildly different climates, and you've got a recipe for guitar neck TORTURE. I looked all this up because its the first thing that came to my mind when you said that the Suhrs had come "Straight out of the box". Lovely video as always, I am super impressed with your display of the instrument. Then again, I think you could make a board with twine sound stellar.
I KNOW - Not an FGN review but you did mention the FGN :)
I own one of the FGN Professional guitars (Strat). I have owned other Strats including the Fender Strat American Standard. I was never really happy with it.
The FGN is WAY better than the Fender on all the points you are using to review the Pacifica with. The FGN was significantly less money than the Pacifica.
I’m not sure you can compare a factory made, mass produced guitar with a custom shop built guitar, John. I feel like this is a bit rage bait-y for suhr fanboys, which I can respect. 😅
He’s not the first person to have made that statement, so it must be a team effort haha. Yamaha’s Professional lines (Revstar and Pacifica) are actually produced in quite small quantities because they are hand assembled by a single Japanese luthier craftsman rather than produced in a more traditional factory setting. Yamaha is…sort of terrible at marketing and doesn’t really emphasize that enough imo. I’m not necessarily saying that makes it as good as a Suhr, just that the attention it gets when it’s being made makes it not as far of a reach to compare the two. Cheers
If they could just improve that pickguard ;-)
Get the 611
Nice guitar but the price is weak imo, you could buy a Kiesel Aries with a full figured top of your choice for under $2000. You could also buy a MIJ Vola with a full figured Top for under $1600. I would purchase either of the above before buying that Yamaha for $2000. I would also take a new (Upgraded) PRS S2 over that Yamaha all day long.
nice guitar, but reselling at fair value could be hard
👍👍
Saito guitars are Japanese and in the same price range
Try a Vola. Reasonably priced MIJ, superb build, Gotoh hardware.😊
It’s amusing that there weren’t a lot of guitars around that price point that came to mind, considering that’s almost exactly where these fall:
Gibson SG standard
Fender American Vintage II series
Fender American Ultra series
SRV and Eric Clapton signature Strats
PRS S2 series
(If I’m off on any of these it’s probably because I just converted pounds to dollars. )
I think it’s telling that these aren’t really even candidates? I expect that’s commentary on where Fender sits in the musical landscape (I’ll give the SG/PRS a pass for now since they aren’t really his type of guitar) or John’s (probably deserved) 😊opinion on them, one!
Fx truefire ads
I love the pacifica but just wondering why they went with that ugly pickguard
always been well made guitars just terribly boring design
It’s ugly
This episode takes the cake. Cordy has zero credibility. Guitar shipping 101: any guitar shipped overseas is likely going to need a setup. Of course, he fails to disclose 1. his fiduciary relationship with Yamaha/Line 6 and 2. his dispute with Suhr.
i believe they missed opportunity to change the headstock to a more appealing one...
I have two japan made Yamahas (revstar and SG1820), they are just the best guitars for the price.