Yamaha Pacifica PAC611VFM DRB Solid-Body Electric Guitar, Dark Red Burst

The Yamaha Pacifica 612 is an outstanding guitar that blends exceptional craftsmanship, versatility, and great tone. With its sleek alder body, stunning flame maple top, and smooth satin neck, it’s a joy to play. The combination of Seymour Duncan pickups delivers a wide range of tones, from sparkling cleans to rich, powerful overdrive. The Wilkinson tremolo stays in tune, and the overall build quality is rock-solid. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned pro, the Pacifica 612 offers incredible value and performance in every note. Highly recommended!

First things first! The hardware on this guitar is worth the purchase alone. The pickups, tuners and Graphtech accessories would cost around $300 combined. Rosewood fretboards are becoming increasingly rare and often replaced by other dark woods so this is a favorable feature, in my opinion. It's an alder body, which is a popular wood for this type of guitar and it also features a flamed maple top which pairs beautifully with what appears to be a tinted gloss finish. The neck is a thin vintage-feeling profile with an amber tint, with the fret ends capped and finished with gloss poly along the fretboard edge. The frets are medium and not too far from vintage-tall frets; which is a nice change from the more common medium jumbo frets. The radius of the neck is 13 3/4 which is relatively flat, but combines nicely with the slightly more narrow neck for playing with a Hendrix-ish "thumb over" technique.The configuration and style of this guitar is not too far off of Fender's Rarities Flame Maple Top Stratocaster, which costs $2,499.99. It's a serious alternative to consider if you don't mind Yamaha's hardtail and pickup configuration.The guitar, however, is not a Fender and while you can finesse classic tones from it, the thin neck profile and nearly-flat fretboard does not feel like a Fender. If anything, it reminds me more of a neck released by PRS, ESP and other "fast" style guitars.The fit and finish of the guitar is amazing--I couldn't find a single flaw. These guitars appear to be made with very tight quality control tolerances. Their configurations are not identical to Fender or Squier, so you are buying something unique instead of a carbon copy of a Strat.So, how does it sound? Amazing. The pickups are hotter than most of my guitars. It breaks up nicely on my Fender Twin and sounds like it runs hotter than my Les Paul. The overall tone of this guitar sounds more warm than bright, but not muddy or sloppy. Trebles are clear but not harsh. There's tons of headroom, too - with the volume pot set mid-way, the guitar is very dynamic.This is a very versatile instrument. If more people knew what they were about, I have a suspicion that they'd be bought up rather quickly.

I have played guitar for over three decades, over that time I have built and modded nearly every guitar I own, which includes Fenders, Gibson's, Yamaha's, Eastman's and others. This guitar is one of the best deals I have come across. Been playing it for over 6 months now and I reach for this more than any of my others. Classic hard tail strat configuration, three way p/u selector with a single tone & volume knob. Simple, straightforward. I love to mod but with this guitar it has everything you need out of the box, the Seymour Duncan P90 is a great p/u perfect for Jazz and Blues and everything in between, the Duncan Custom 5 Trembucker (TB-14) is a perfect pairing for the P90. Throw in a coil tap and you have an incredibly versatile guitar. The finish on this is great and the tuning stability is out of this world. Love the flamed maple top. You could spend twice as much and not get a guitar as good as this one.Update (01-SEP-20): Still playing this guitar put a few dings on it but still one of my favorite playing guitars, still cannot believe that this guitar is less than $600, if that is all you have in your pocket you will not get more guitar than this.

While looking at effects pedals online I saw this guitar and was intrigued. I wanted to play one but nobody seemed to carry Yamaha guitars locally. I loved the SP-90, I loved the idea of the coil tapped Trembucker and along with the Wilkinson Tremolo it seemed like the perfect marriage. I couldn't understand why this configuration proved so elusive. It had everything I wanted. I was hesitant to buy the guitar online because I wanted to see it and play it first. After another two weeks of playing lots of guitars and leaving stores feeling deflated, I was ready to give up but eventually my curiosity got the best of me so I added it to my cart and picked overnight shipping.As soon as I got in the mail and started to restring it, I immediately liked it, the finish is beautiful and the style is classic and cool. I plugged it in, cranked up the gain and was off to pinch harmonic dive bomb paradise. This guitar has attitude and is fun to play. It was already set up and played well out of the box. The soap bar pickup is fat, but loose and laid back. The Trembucker is hot and feisty. The coil tap is great too. I thought it was gonna sound like the single coils in my Strat but it doesn't, its got a distinctive high end and sounds shimmery. Its cool to be able to mix that in with the fat SP-90. I can coax a lot of interesting sounds out of this guitar.There is nothing about this guitar that was a deal breaker, its a great value for the price. There are a few changes I'd make but they are a matter of preference. They seem to use the same pick guard for each color. I think the dark red burst would look better with more contrast between the body and the pick guard so I intend to change it to make it more interesting. It would also be cool to have the Wilkinson Trem set up a little looser so that it had a little give when pulling the vibrato tighter. Also, the volume and tone knobs are very loose and they can move back and forth when playing. That's probably cool for some players but I like mine tight so any change in the volume or tone is deliberate.The only negative thing I have to say is that Amazon and Yamaha should both reconsider the packaging and shipping of guitars. This guitar was shipped to me in a cardboard box with absolutely NO proper packing inside the box. No bubble wrap, no styrofoam peanuts, no braces, no cardboard to hold it in place, no paper to cushion it. I expected it to be wrapped in something, not loosely rattling around in a box. The shoes I just bought for my daughter were packaged and shipped more thoughtfully than the guitar. This came all the way from Indonesia like this? I was seething when I opened the box and immediately considered returning it on that basis alone. After closely inspecting the guitar however, I didn't find any scratches or damage and I loved playing it so much I couldn't part with it even though I was and still am angry about the packaging.This guitar gets 5 stars. The packaging gets -5 stars. Hopefully they will address this in the future but you should definitely make a special request to Amazon to repackage it for you before its shipped. Luckily mine fared well through its journey to me. I hope yours is as lucky.