Yamaha Pacifica Standard Plus BLK RF

I have 2 teles and one strat (with Tonerider Classic Blues pickups). I originally wanted to add a hotter guitar (a Revstar with P90’s) to my collection as all my guitars are single coil. I ordered the Revstar but returned it because it didn’t feel right. However, I was so impressed by the Yamaha quality that I ordered thePacifica Standard Plus, even though I really didn’t need another S style guitar. I was intrigued by the positive reviews and wanted to try it.

I wouldn’t say that the guitar looks anything special (like most other cheaper Pacificas in appearance) and the colours are not exciting. I got black and was happy there’s a choice between rosewood and maple fretboards. I got rosewood. However, when you pick it up and feel the guitar, you can immediately feel the quality. It’s perfectly balanced and everything feels good and solid on it. Its also quite light. I was a little worried at first as this guitar is shipped without any setup at all. I’ve never seen a guitar arrive so badly set up. There was a strong neck bow and the action was set incredibly high. Yet even like that, it was very easy to play. So I quickly did a proper setup - truss rod, action, intonation. Adjusting the truss rod couldn’t be easier as it has a dial at the neck heel. Why don’t all guitars have this??? After the set up it felt great to play. The neck is extremely good, lovely and comfortable with a nice satin finish on the back. The rosewood of the fretboard is a bit thicker than on most guitars. The colour and quality of this rosewood is a lot higher than i have seen on most guitars. The body contour is just right and so is the top of the body which is nicely shaped for resting the arm during playing.

At first, i found the pickups a little strange. They are very bright and clear. Over the last few days, the sound they make has really grown on me. You can get a lot of different tones out of this guitar. But I did have to change the EQ on my amp compared to when I play my other guitars. I have also not experimented with pickup height, which is normally important with single coils. I also found that how they behave with overdrive is very different to how any of my other single coils respond. I’ve found great tones with overdrive but I had to fiddle around a bit with the volume and tone on the guitar and the drive on the amp. It wasn’t intuitive. I particularly like the position 2 setting; humbucker and middle pickup but I think it’s not like the classic positon 2 of a strat. I also like the middle pickup a lot. Difficult to describe the tones. The more I play this guitar the more I like it. It definitely has its own sound. It’s not « just another strat copy ». I’m not disappointed as my strat with tonerider pickups is a great warm sounding and quite hot strat type sound. This Yamaha feels and sounds more refined. I think I will keep discovering new tones that I can get with this guitar. I feel like its a guitar I’m going to learn a lot about over the next months and years. It’s definitely a keeper.

Hardware: The tuning stability on this guitar is very solid. Funnily enough, although the guitar was badly setup, the Gotoh floating tremolo was perfectly set up. I have been string bending and also using the tremolo quite a bit and the tuning is remarkably stable. For a guitar that has new strings and was just set up, including quite a substantial adjustment to the truss rod, that’s quite unusual. The tremolo seems to be very high quality and the tuners are very accurate.

So what didn’t I like about it. Well the frets, while very level, are not well polished. They feel a bit gritty when you bend the strings. Having levelled, crowned and polished frets on 3 guitar necks, a bit of fret polishing is no big deal at the 1st string change. While the back of the neck is satin smooth, oddly the wood on the headstock is rougher. Its more what I would expect on a $200 guitar. It doesn’t change the sound or playability but i thought it was a bit odd. I also think that black with a bright white pickguard doesn’t look very classy. It would look a bit more up-market in cream or parchment. But there are now 3rd party suppliers of pickguards appearing for this guitar. Anyway, this last point is entirely subjective of course.

All in all, this guitar felt almost perfect to me straight after setup. Despite that the Pacifica Standard Plus looks like any other generic strat copy, this guitar is a high quality instrument. I think that the high build quality, coupled with very solid hardware, and really unique pickups make this rather unremarkable-looking guitar really shine. I think that all these points make the guitar well worth its price tag and with little a bit more money spent on a different colour quality pickguard, it’s going to look as good as it sounds. I’m sure that this is a guitar that will be with me for a very long time. It already feels like an old friend when I pick it up :)

J'ai eu beaucoup de Fenders, des partcasters aussi, il manquait souvent quelque chose. Avec cette guitare, tout est là, la précision, le sustain, l'équilibre entre les micros, la dynamique.
Yamaha a mis des composants d'excellente qualité sur cette guitare, le finition est exemplaire, le seul reproche que je puisse leur faire, c'est pourquoi vous avez mis si longtemps à sortir ce modèle, vous m'auriez fait faire beaucoup d'économies en le sortant avant.

Ich mag die neue Pacifica. Getreu dem Vorsatz, weniger ist mehr. Dezent, unaufdringlich und eher understatement aber perfekt. Mir gefällt die Gitarre richtig gut! Sie ist kompakt, eher leicht und makellos verarbeitet. Der Belly Cut und die Unterarmauflage machen die Gitarre leicht und anschmiegsam. Sehr cool! Der Hals ist seidenglatt und schnell und macht spaß. Die dezenten Griffbrett-Inlays sind top eingearbeitet. Einzig höre ich beim Coil-Splitting nur einen Unterschied in der Lautstärke, was vielleicht aber auch genauso sein soll. Der Klang ist aber immer klar, kräftig und eher hell aber nicht schrill oder so, sondern wirklich fein abgestimmt. Gitarre ohne Schnickschnack. Zwei Gotoh Potiknöpfe aus Metall, oben flach und nicht rund, die sich wie in Öl-gelagert fein drehen lassen, die Toggle-Switch mit sattem Klacken. Keine Ahnung, ob sich die Made in Japan so sehr von dieser indonesischen abhebt. Hier ist ein herkömmlicher, top Hals irgendwo zwischen D und C verschraubt, kein Compound-Hals, da hat jeder seine eigenen Vorlieben, nur am Hals ansich gibt's nichts zu makeln. Seitenwechsel spielend leicht und Locking Tuner, die bombenfest halten und wo eine viertel Drehung reicht und sich auch durch intensives Bending oder durchs Tremolo nichts verstimmen lässt. Mit metallenem Yamaha - Stimmgabel-Logo am Kopf als Eye-Catcher und Statement. Mit simpler aber robuster Gitarrentasche mit zwei aufgesetzten Taschen für Noten, Partituren und Zubehör. Prima auch zum Radfahren und in der Bahn. Terima kasih, Indonesia. Arigatō, Yamaha!