Yamaha Pacifica Series PAC012DLX Electric Guitar; Old Violin Sunburst

First let me say I am no stranger to guitars. I own over 20 different ones. I have $150-$2500 versions from all the best brands. I have yet to own a Yamaha Pacifica. I have the "other" brand which includes a Tele, Strat, and a Jazzmaster.The package was packed really, really, well. No damage of any kind from the delivery process. Right out of the box I could see this is a quality product. Fit and finish is a big "WOW." It was almost perfectly in tune. I only needed to tweek each string about a half pitch to be right on. I got the "old violin" finish and it is a real looker.Tone is as good or better than most of my other guitars. Playability and sound is just what I like. I would put this in my top five favorite guitars. I could play this guitar with any other brand and they would like mine a lot.I am going to leave the OEM strings on as they are not bad. In a month or so I will change them out for some upgrades. The rest, I will leave everything OEM. Don't miss out on this one. It is a STEAL for the money.

I am simply amazed at the quality on this instrument. I have taken delivery today and writing this review after playing for a few hours. First fretwork is amazing beautifully polished, tops and ends, The fretboard edge is even beveled slightly, a nice upgrade touch. The neck is straight and true so far no ftet buzzing even after lowering the action. The wood grain finish on the body is subtle but looks great, the neck pocket has no spacings at all. The tuners are smooth we will see if they hold tune but the seem above average for a budget guitar. The rosewood neck shows beautiful grain.The body is full size but not overly heavy, the neck is slim and has a relatively flat 13" radius, accordingly it plays easly and smooth like an Ibanez. The tone and sound are great it sounds "like a stat" i would say with a warmer tone, I really like the bridge humbucker instead of the more twangy single coil. The squatted off Bottom lets the guitar res comfortable on the leg for playing sitting down.I would say this is on part with the EART Strat mode, but without the SS Frets. The nut seems to be cut properly , the volume and tone pots have a nice resistance found on more expensive guitars, CONS the bridge is the "early Type" fender stamped bridge its functional but cheap looking. The guitar has stayed in tune with moderate Trem use.

Best beginner bundle I’ve come across. Items arrived well wrapped. Nothing broken and the amplifier worked magnificent. Guitar is light, strings were intact, ease to tune went smoothly. All accessories listed arrived. The whammy didn’t quite align to the position it needed to be it fell loosely. But a little water pipe tape helped to make it work without over tightening the whammy.

Looks great! After a little break in I swapped out strings to fender .09 set. For first few weeks I had to re tune every time I picked it up. Now keeps tune much better. I’m guessing it just needed time to “settle in”. This is the first time I have ever dealt with a guitar in this low of a price range, so this may be common with other guitars in the price rangeI’m old, so I’m used to tuneing my low E to a note from the keyboard then tuneing each higher string to the fifth fret of the lower string. Oddly, when I do this, the higher notes are “out of tune” when compared to an electronic tuner. I don’t understand this... maybe I’m going tone deft in my old age. Anyway, when I tune using the electronic tuner, the various riffs sound great so I’ll just keep wondering why and leave it at that.Sound wise, it is very good. I would compare the tone to a Mexican strat except at position 1 and 2 on the pickups. Hard to discribe but it’s different not bad. I will be honest here, I play my strat in position 4 almost all the time. 40 years ago, we didn’t have a 5 position pick up switch so I would spend time finding the point between 2 and 3 that was “ just right”. At any rate, IMHO, pos 1 and 2 are a “Yamaha” voice while 3 and 5 are a mex strat voice.The more I play this, the more I’m thinking that pos 5 and 4 are like a Les Paul sound. At any rate, I find my self using pos 1 and 2 for most of my play.The amp is only fair. But what do you exspect at this price? I have no way of testing it, but I think the wattage on the amp is over rated. Frankly, if you plug this guitar into a Roland Jazz Chorus, it is a whole different guitar. I use Yamaha amps for my surround sound systems. Combined with Elac speakers, they are fantastic, so I guess I expected more from the amp. My guess is that this just some made in china junk amp that they nailed the Yamaha name on. I don’t believe the people that design music stuff at Yamaha had any thing to do with it. I was hoping this amp would be in the same class as THR 10 C . It is not. ( if you want a real good practice amp, look at the Yamaha THR 10C)So, should you buy this set up? YES! I will say this is the best under $500 you can buy. If someone asked what I recommend to start out, this setup is one of the best you can get. The most important thing is that someone can play this guitar for many years to come. They won’t have to up grade the guitar, but will upgrade the amp.Blind taste test. Just for the fun of it, I had some friends over, and did a sound test. They could no see which guitar I was playing. I had a guitar my Nephew had bought made by Squier, this Yamaha, and just for the fun of it, and American made Strat. I played the same riffs on each guitar. I was not suprised that all of them picked the Squier as #3. I was also suprised that they had so much trouble deciding between the Strat and the Yamaha. In the end, with a good amp, this guitar can pl ay with the much more expensive guitars.