Yamaha SLG200S NT Steel String Silent Guitar with Hard Gig Bag, Natural

I had been looking for a guitar that I could take with me on business trips so that I could use the downtime to practice. I initially settled on the Washburn Rover - size, price and the fact that it came with a great travel case all factored into it. The reality of using it however was a bit disappointing, with the size and weight (especially the ratio of the weight of the body to the neck) making it a bit unusual (uncomfortable) to hold, and the sound was tinny - all of which I anticipated. That being said - it was nice to have a small, yet full sized for practice purposes guitar to travel with. Most of my travel is via car so the size wasn't a big deal, but I did want something I could take on an airplane and the Washburn fit the bill but I was never that excited to play it - and found myself taking a old full size acoustic with me on car trips when I didn't care about size - which was what I was doing before hand anyways. So about 2 weeks after purchase I stumbled on to the Yamaha SLG series and was blown away. Not only did it appear to be the perfect travel companion, but also play beautiful tones - AND solve the secondary problem of noise which my wife and kids have often complained about (what?!! you mean not everyone wants to hear my beautiful music? - must be the hours of scales and playing songs over and over until even I'm sick of them ha ha) and "taking over the house" with my guitar and worse when play along to music. Both the guitar and music get louder and louder. AND - I often wanted to practice in the living room while watching mindless TV but that wasn't possible with the Washburn or my full size acoustic either. The Yamaha SLG seemed to fit the bill on all accounts. Plus I loved the high end look of it. So I sent back the Rover and started stalking every seller on the internet to find one - seemed supply was pretty limited and I was set on the Tobacco which by the way is just gorgeous. The pictures dont really do it justice. So - the price differential was a bit steep, but really you can't compare the two products and Amazon - LOVE AMAZON - was the first to show up with inventory AND the lowest price AND let me use some American Express Points AND had the refund in hand from the Washburn so I pulled the trigger.The Review:Arrived in 1 day - (thank you Prime) and everything was in the box as expected. What wasn't expected was that the setup was good right out of the box in terms of the action and intonation. I turned on the built in tuner and was playing in about 5 minutes. Built in tuner was accurate. So there are lots of videos on the web that are very detailed in terms of review of all the features so I wont go into those and will try to concentrate on things that I didn't see in reviews. So the sound is great. Build quality is great - the finish and fit of everything really stellar. It looks and feels like a high end device and I love the wood, makes for a cool interaction of the technology vs craftsmanship. Its heavier than I expected, listed at 4.5lbs which gives it a substantial feel without being tiring. Balance is good and the ergonomics of holding/playing it are also good. Comfortable neck. One thing I did was purchase a used ipod nano and put all the songs on there that I like to play along with. Using a small 3.5mm plug, I used double sided tape to attach the nano to the back of the guitar and plug it into the input jack on the bottom. Its invisible, but now I can easily push music, mixed in with the guitar to the headphones. I also purchased a small bluetooth adapter that I can plug in that lets me easily push the output of the guitar to a Bluetooth enabled amp and/or speaker (including the blended output of the guitar and the ipod). Would be nice to see bluetooth actually integrated in (next version Yamaha?) Its not a silent guitar - the ambient noise of playing it is exactly the same as if you were playing an electric guitar that wasn't plugged into an amplifier - but its obviously way quieter than playing any acoustic. Sound quality is amazing - AND if I push the output through a pedal I have a very useful electric with effects. I mean that's what this guitar is at its core, a nice portable electric guitar with a built in amplifier and digital acoustic modeler (SRT) to deliver a high end acoustic sound with 3 built in effects - which are done nicely by the way, and I also appreciate the ability to control both the input (ipod) mix, and the mix between the natural pickup and the SRT. I typically leave it blended more on the SRT side because I like the sound. Tone controls are nice as well. The guitar stays in tune amazingly well - I was surprised even during break in that I didn't have to re-tune much as the new strings were broken in. I have played it alot, and am still using the batteries it came with - so battery life seems strong and I appreciate that it uses standard batteries that I can get from anywhere. I bought a third party adapter for less than 10$ (thanks amazon) but I have yet to use it other than to test - threw it in my gig bag just in case - but battery life is great so far.So for me it has completely met my expectations as a travel guitar. Its really met every expectation that I would have as a "guitar" without the travel qualification. Really nice job Yamaha. Adding the ipod (I got a used one for 75$ on ebay) made it a fully self contained play along guitar setup that I can take anywhere. I think its the best 'travel' guitar out there - and by the way - its a great straight "guitar". It also solved the challenge of playing where it needs to be quiet, yet still sounds GREAT and as loud as I want it to be in my headphones which I love. And I'm practicing more because I can. I find myself picking it up just to play it, even when no one is home because it is easy to play and the sound is amazing. Its a very nice addition to my collection and worth every penny. I highly recommend it - even as a first guitar or only guitar due to its playablity, versatility and flexibility.I was trying to explain what it was when I ordered it to my guitar teacher (amazing player, music scientist and guru of all things guitar), and he was like uh...ok. When i got it and showed it to him he was blown away and within 5 minutes of playing he was like "I want one!". That more than anything told me that I had made the right choice.Now to nitpick which is going to be hard to do with this guitar:On the "cons" side, while it packs down to a nice form factor, the case is more of a gig bag - not a ton of padding. No way I'd check it on a flight. As for carry on, it will fit in overhead for sure, but you wouldn't want anyone to put a bag on top of it and too long to put under your feet (probably). I haven't taken it on a plane yet, but I will and I'll be sure to get there early so I can claim a bin. Its almost as long as a standard dreadnought, even if it is way more narrow/wide so its going to take up some space and I wish the case was more of a hard case or at least reinforced. Small complaint that, but I would have paid more (or would appreciate the option) to have a hard(er) case. Even for the back of my car just to have more protection. As stated earlier it is not silent. I think that expectation is unreasonable, strings make noise - it is what it is. I suspect the Nylon version would be better in this respect, but that being said I now am able to bring it into the living room where wife and kids are in the kitchen or even watching TV and work scales without complaint either with or without headphones for me. I also find myself playing it in my office when I really want to get loud and the only complaint I get now is that apparently my singing along to music and guitar that is only in my headphones is extremely annoying and apparently awful (hey it sounds good to me!). HA HA. On the plus side - an unexpected benefit which I don't really understand the mechanics of, is that when I'm playing with headphones and singing its a bit easier and has improved my ability to sing and play at the same time. I'm not sure if its what I'm currently playing or as a result of the winter/humidly in my house but I just recently noticed that a couple of the frets seem to be a bit sharp on the ends when I play certain notes in scales. I am going to take it to my local shop and have them polish them a bit - they aren't sticking out (which would be a typical profile of a slightly shrinking neck due to humidity), but I'm noticing them rubbing a bit on the inside of my pinky. Nothing awful - but a new development which is easily fixed but perhaps worth mentioning as a real nitpick. Like I said, I've had it for a couple months and never noticed anything - for that matter I actually find it more comfortable to play than my full sized Epi acoustic neck, but just noticed it recently and only when working on some specific scales. Everything else is smooth and elegant, great neck profile, smooth wood and fast action. No fret buzz. If the biggest complaint is a bit of a weak bag and some fret ends that could use a bit of polish in the face of all the other things this guitar does so well (especially at this price point), stop reading and add it to your cart.So no real complaints here. Its better than you will expect I think. Check YouTube for some great video reviews, unboxing and some amazing guitar players showing what they can do with this guitar.

I got the Yamaha SLG200N (nylon string) Silent Guitar primarily as a travel guitar after reading and watching several reviews of the other options out there. I only considered those travel guitars that have a full 650-654 mm scale length. I was initially put off by the slightly larger size of the SLG200N guitar relative to some really compact travel guitars but the reviews both from customers and from professional reviewers (e.g. Classical Guitar Magazine [...]) convinced me that the larger size was worth the risk considering the poor reviews of my other options and the excellent reviews of the SLG.I am very glad I went with this guitar. The feel is great and the string dimensions almost exactly match my primary nylon guitar which is a custom Juan Miguel Carmona flamenco/classical (mixta) guitar I got in Granada, Spain. Scale length is slightly shorter in the SLG (650 mm) compared to the mixta (654 mm) and the nut width of the SLG (50 mm) is off by only a mm compared to my mixta (51 mm). I know that a full traditional classical has a nut width typically around 52-53 mm but for me, the 1 mm difference is really not an issue. Frankly, it forces me to really think about proper left hand finger placement which is good for my practicing anyway. I would think a full classical player would feel the same.OK. On to the sound. The sound is amazing. However, the sound of the stock guitar as shipped was quite poor. It was WAY too strong on the bass end. I had to turn the bass knob of the guitar down to its minimum setting and max out the treble and that was barely workable. I was going to return it (thinking the piezo pickup was messed up) when I called up GearTree and they were very helpful. The key is to get the saddle piece to have uniform contact with the piezo right underneath. Also, getting high tension strings to add brightness to the sound and to get the treble strings to have a good vibration signal to transfer to the piezo completely changed the sound. Bottom line: replace the strings when you first get the guitar and make sure the piezo and the saddle make uniform contact.The real benefit comes when you are playing and you can adjust the pure piezo signal with the Yamaha advanced classical guitar modeling signal for a tone surprisingly nice for a solid body “travel” guitar. For practicing (using the headphone output), you can also feed in an input from your iPhone/MP3 player via the AUX jack. For performance (yes, performance), you can plug into an amp via the “Strat-like” jack and you also have a wickedly cool looking guitar. Add in an on-board chromatic tuner and you have one amazing and surprisingly versatile guitar for practice AND (amazingly enough) for performance as well. Note: a proper recital still demands your best classical guitar but for a gig at a club or wine bar, etc., this could work out quite nicely.And finally, as I mentioned above, BIG callout to the folks at GearTree - absolutely fantastic customer service. They emailed me directly about my shipment (in addition to the auto emails) AND added in a guitar stand and headphones even though the package I bought didn’t include them. They did that since other competitor Amazon sellers were making these fancy bundles. I just had to ask. Wow…Bottom line: 5 stars (with the right strings) and get the Tobacco Sunburst version - it's beautiful.