Yamaha PG1 Preamp

Year made = early 80's. This is a very versitile unit. It features a Clean channel with bass mid and treble control, a fat volume pull knob and the treble knob also pulls out for more boost. , The dirty channel features a gain boost pull knob and the treble boost pull knob along with bass and mid control. It has channel switching, a parametric eq that can be switched in or out of either channel with volume and mixing capabilities, a Hi pass and Low pass filter, On board head phone jack, effects loop and a spring pan reverb unit. yes it is solid state but what a unit..

The sound of this unit is fantastic. Being solid state, it has no problem with the clean channel. It is full and clear. The reverb is nice. Granted it is not "fenderish" but it is very useable. I am not a metal player so the dirty channel has plenty of gain for me . The parametric switching is the secret weapon of this unit. I set the clean channel to get a fender type tone, then I set the volume on the parametric channel to switch in over top of the channel and get the amp to clip. The dirty channel can capture the heavy distortion/overdrive sounds, and again you can switch the parametric in or out over the top of it. Its like having 4 channels of gain.
(IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THE PEDAL FOR THIS UNIT YOU ARE MISSING OUT.)I had one made at a local repair shop. I used to use a boss mt2 and a boss bd2, With the foot switch these pedals stay at home. I run this unit into a Marshall 9005 stereo monoblock.

When I first bought it I put it in the shop for cleaning and repairs.
It has been faitful ever since. It is built very well, but heavy for a preamp.

Not applicable

I have been playing for 35 years. I use an 84 elite strat with emg pickups, and a heritage les paul. Again the amp is a marshall 9005 and it runs a 2 12 closed/ported cabinet with a pair of nice old eminence speakers. I get a lot of low end, a very vocal sounding mid range and a smooth controlled top end from this cab. I have a few other preamps, A Realtube dual unit, a blue tube dual unit and a Digitech 2101 with the processing card. The yamaha is my favorite. IF it were stolen Id find another one.

Features: A Channel with bass mid treble volume pull out boost pot. B channel is set upt the same but with a master for overdrive.
There is a parametric eq section and a spring reverb. Headphone jack with volume knob, effect loop.

Guitar pick ups = Emg Sa single coil ins a strat body.
The clean channel is just top notch. No noise. The parametric eq opens up a world of sound. This is a full round sound with a lot of tonal definition. The distortion channel is good for overdrive work but look for this one to be a thrasher. It reminds me of stock boss ds1.

Built like a tank and weighs about 25 pounds or so. No problems

No customer support used

I have been playing since 1970. If it were lost or stolen I would look for another one. I bought it for the parametric shaping and the clean channel. For this alone the unit is golden!

I feel it's right to make an update on my PG1 review as I've been exclusively using the PG1 at home and taken the PG1 to a couple rehearsals played at band volume.

I'm going to have to bump the sound ratings up a bit, classed against other preamps I've played going to give it an 8 for a nice classic metal/hard rock distortion and a very nice clean tone. The tone does have a smooth tube like drive without fizz, the parametric EQ really helps quickly dial in a sound that cuts through in a band situation. I would not hesitate to use this preamp in place of the 5150 or Carvin Quad X I use for gigs IF I could locate the hard-to-find footswitch made for this preamp which is a three button affair with switches for channels, ParaEQ, Reverb and LEDs indicating which of those features are active.

Still works flawlessly.

Emailed Yamaha Support twice wanting some/any information they can provide on the footswitch, completely ignored 2 for 2.

This is a little gem of a preamp if you can find one cheap, eventually I hope to figure out a way to make a footswitch or find one via eBay or whatever, I'd really like to use this preamp live and have the functionality the footswitch can provide. Also this preamp should also make a good base for pedals if that's your thing, the clean is highly tweakable and versatile and quite powerful, the only other amp I've played that exceeds the PG1 cleans is the Carvin Quad X which is thick creamy tube clean, the PG1 is solid state and it does reflect it as it's a little stale and lacks the thick glassyness.

Solid state two-channel one-rack-space preamp with assignable Parametric EQ. The clean and distortion channels have their own EQs with several push/pull pots to access addition tone features (Bright, Fat, etc.). The preamp has built-in spring reverb with quite a healthy sized reverb tank. I believe this model preamp is from around the mid to late 1980s. The PG1 has a front input and headphone output with separate volume control on the front. The rear has an FX loop with level controls, 1/4" mono out and a balanced XLR out. Footswitch can switch channels and turn on/off the reverb, as well I believe turn on/off the Parametric EQ.

I have a number of guitars, the main ones are Jackson Dinky's with a Duncan JB and an old Carvin M22SD pickup. I mostly play metal, but dabble in lots of different rock styles. The clean channel is capable of several quite different tones including a good representation of a JC-120. It's solid state so it has that sterile sort of vibe to it, but I can see it being useful.

Distortion, this is what I find most interesting in amps, and this one, well it's very much like a distortion pedal there's really no pretense of tube emulation or such - the higher the gain the more grainy it gets. But keep the gain turned down and it can give you a overdrive tones and with some Parametric EQ tweaking you should be able to dial in some quite useable tones. This is not a preamp I would use for metal, I don't think it'll cut through in a band situation, then again I haven't tried it as I have quite a bit of gear that I turn to for gigs and rehearsals. I'm rating it a 5 in the "Sounds" section because it's not all that great, but it's certainly not horrible (unless you're looking for smooth high gain tube-like distortion, then it is horrible), I've used and heard plenty worse amps before. It's average IMO. I would say it's suitable for Rock/Blues.

This preamp is probably nearly 20 years old and it doesn't even have a bad pot yet. The quality of construction I'd say is pretty darn good, all metal jacks, etc.

It's very much a legacy product, last time I looked I found no mention of it on Yamaha's web site, who knows.

This was an odd thrift store find, just happened to see it sitting on a table sitting balancing on its side for some reason. Saw it was a guitar preamp and bought it and was glad I did, at the time it blew away the gear I had been using for many years. I don't think I'll ever actually get rid of my PG1, it's not all that useful to me right now, I haven't even played through it in many months, but there's something about it that's cool, it has its own thing going for it. In fact I think tomorrow I'll hook it up to a poweramp and play it a bit, which is probably what I should have done before writing this review...