Yamaha 812W

purchased around 2005, new from Electromusic Doncaster, price ??450 including gigbag.I wanted back up for 1989 Strat plus deluxe with daft roller bridge replaced. Wilkinson trem is good, had to add tremsetter to be interchangable with main guitar which has to accommodate country bends at times so no probs with flattened open basses. Locking tuners as per strat.

Very authentic glassy sc sound on neck and middle pickups ( duncan ) is a welcome addition to my sound pallet and more "stratty" than my plus deluxes lace sensors. Bridge is a "59 " and as you would expect from a stock Gibby `bucker. I use with pod fx to Peavey classic 30 in theatre pit gigs and it sounds fine. Heavy rock players might prefer a higher gain `bucker.

No problems ( other than the slightly too narrow string spacing at the nut IMHO ).

I guess I could swop the roles of my 2 guitars if i spent enough time with the 812 and it seems pretty solid.

Pro teacher/freelance 35 years, Taylor acoustics, Ramirez 1a classical, Musicman Stingray bass, Ashdown 300/10 amp, Trace-Elliott TA50 acoustic amp, Pod XT live, bespoke "les-paul" made by ex-student with birdseye maple top, all rosewood / sycamore pu surrounds, multi-binding and control knobs.
A strat for half the money.

BRAND NEW 2005 812V MODEL IN BEAUTIFUL FLAMED-MAPEL WITH VIOLIN FINISH,S.D.PICK-UPS H-S-S WITH POP-UP COIL TAP ,SPERZELS.FABULOUS FLOATING TREM.BUILD QUALITY SUPER

AH! THE SOUND,IME AFRAID IT JUST AINT ME. MUCH TOO BRIGHT AND NEW GUITAR SOUNDING FOR MY OLD EARS .THE MASTER TONE IS A MISTAKE AS THE BRIDGE HUMER REALY NEEDS ITS OWN TONE CONTROLL TO TAKE THE SHARP EDGE OFF,I THINK A A NECK HUMBUCKER WITH COIL-TAP WOULD BE A BETTER MATCH THAN THE RATHER WEAK VINTAGE SINGLES FITTED.

THE SET-UP,BUILD QUALITY LOOKS ETC. ARE SUPERB,QUALITY OF PARTS LIKE-WISE ,JUST DONT LIKE THE SOUND.

WON'T HAVE IT LONG ENOUGH TO FIND OUT AS PUT UP FOR SALE UNGIGGED

40YEARS,LOVE THE LOOK AND BUILD , HATE THE SOUND(SORRY YAMAHA) ALSO LOVE THE TREM.

I am saving up for either this or the AES1500b

Just wanted to comment on "NO ROCK STARS PLAY THIS".

The 812W is played by Randy Bachman. And many other guitarists play Yamaha's.

Steve Mazur - Our Lady Peace
Sammy Hagar - Sammy Hagar & Van Halen
Sheldon Reynolds - Earth Wind and Fire
Rafael Moreira - Pink
Billy Sheehan - Mr. Big
Phillip Bynoe - Steve Vai Band
Rik Emmet - Triumph
Isaiah Taylor - Baha Men
Michael Nord - Roxette
Michael Herring - Christina Aguilera
Ty Tabor - Kings X
Michael Anthony - Van Halen

So,this is the yamaha answer to the BIG American comp.
Srat model with 2 S.D. vintage single coils and S.D.59 bucker.Mine came in beautiful see-thru blue.It has very good Sperzel locking tuners and a vs 100 Wilkinson trem(works fantastic).6 in line tuners and so on.

I try to play jazzy-blues(ROBBEN FORD,CARLTON),and for this the guitar fits well.The neck p.u.goes from funky-glassy to dirty Vaugn territory when overdriven,very nice!The in between and the middle positions suit good rhytm playing.Now,the bridge bucker;fair enough for medium gain solo s,but it fails in the heavier work.I tried out some p.u.configurations and ended with a Dimarzio Tone-Zone.Wooaaaww.This p.u.just waits to be overdiven.Pumpin the mids on your amp with medium gain nails Robbens "Talk to your daughter" solo.
With high gain(i play trough a H&K tri-amp),you can easily get a sort of Gary Moore-Dream Theater sound.So,after bridge p.u. change,a very,very good guitar!

Everything was great from factory!(an example for u.s. guitarbuilders)

I care for my stuff,so this would last for long.My back-up guitar is a Lespaul standard with Rio-Grande p.u.(the best in the world)

Forget about customer support when your not a fancy BIG star

Well,u.s. friends,it is time for the TWO BIG compagnies to wake up.
My paul is from the days,when gibson stood for quality.The new ones
ah ah ah ah ah!! This yamaha is a real steal.

The guitar was built in Taiwan, 1999. 22 fret neck. One volume and one tone control, with a five-way pickup selector. Pickups consist of two Seymour Duncan vintage single coils in the neck and middle positions, and a Seymour Duncan 59 humbucker in the bridge. All elecrtonics are passsive. Superstrat style alder body with a flame maple laminate (at a guess, around 3 to 4mm thick)finished in violin tobacco sunburst. The bridge is a Wilkinson trem,non-locking, with a drop-in arm. Tuners are locking Sperzels. The bolt-on neck is maple with a rosewood fretboard, fretwire is medium gauge. No accessories from Yamaha except the trem arm and standard toolkit, but the dealer threw in a good quality gigbag, strap and several sets of strings.

The guitar is incredibly versatile, and is happy in pretty much any musical style. This is proved(to me anyway) by the fact that i use it to play everything from BB King style blues, FM rock (Matchbox 20, Vertical Horizon)and grungey stuff(Pearl Jam, Nickelback) through to heavier stuff such as Metallica, Pantera and In Flames. I play through a Laney Tube Fusion 120 watt combo and a Zoom 2100 multi-FX unit. The guitar will provide a wide range of sounds, with the neck coil being particularly good for blues soloing and clean rhythmn work, while the humbucker with go form a decent Les Paul impression to full on metal screaming. The one gripe i do have is the lack of a coil tap on the humbucker, but this is a very small point, and unless you desperatly need a bridge single-coil sound is not much of an issue.

Considering the fact that it had been shipped all the way to the UK, the setup on the guitar was very impressive, with the intonation being perfect, and the action quite low(although not low enough for me, but thats just a personal thing). The pickups were very well adjusted, so well in fact that i've not felt the need to adjust them myself in the two and a half years i've had the guitar. The guitar was flawlessly constructed, with no defects of any kind.

The guitar will withstand live playing well, as it stays in tune very well, unless you try Vai-esque antics with the trem. The finish is top quality, and hasnt worn in the time i've had the guitar, and i have played it every day. The standard strap buttons are solid enough, but i replaced them with Schallers for a little extra security, as previous guitars have slipped off straps. I would say the guitar is very dependable, and although i dont gig with it five nights a week, i have found it to be reliable. I have gigged it without a backup, but that was out of necessity, not choice, as i had no backup at the time. It didnt let me down, but i'd be lying if i said i was'nt slightly nervous about it.

I havent had to deal with the company at all with this guitar, but when the screw thread on my old(ex-demo) 112 trem arm stripped, Yamaha Uk couldnt have been more helpful. The warranty with the guitar was one year.

I've been playing just under eight years, and this is my second Yamaha electric. Before i bought it i compared it to other guitars in the price range, namely Fender Strats and Jacksons, but this offered the best value for money. I also knew what it would feel like to play, and was therefore able to buy mail-order to get a good deal. I also own a Yamaha APX4A SPL electro-acoustic, and an Epiphone Les Paul Standard, but the Pacifica is my main guitar. If it were lost or stolen i would definatly replace it with exactly the same model, right down to the colour. Recently i've found myself wishing i had a Floyd Rose, but i wont be fitting one to this, i think i'll hunt for a cheap second-hand Ibanez instead. I have never once regretted buying this guitar in two and a half years, and i think thats a pretty high accolade for any instrument.

Yamaha's take on the super strat. Made in Taiwan, with real Duncan pickups, S/S/H. Flamed maple veneer on top of light alder body. One volume, one tone, 5 way selector switch. Sperzel locking tuners and wilkinson designed trem. Rosewood board on maple neck, 25 1/2" scale.

Sounds like you would expect, good single coil tones, good humbucker tones. Crank up the amp and you can get SRV with neck selected, or Rev. Billie Gibbons with the bridge pu. Going straight into my Boogie Nomad 55. Great sounding gigging guitar for rock, blues, classic rock.
One place my band played I was stuck near a bunch or neon lights. So noisy that I couldn't use the single coil settings. I had to use the two notch settings or the humbucker. I made it through the night, however.

Bought it used, so I set it up. Problem is with neck. Kind of thin for my tastes, and I got buzzing. I have adjusted the trussrod till it is loose and vibrates! Still got string buzzing. I have decided to replace the neck with something a bit fatter, like an American Std Strat neck.

Guitar is finished beautifully, looks killer, strap buttons fine, good quality through out. Once I replace the neck, the sounds and lightness on the shoulder could make it a favorite. Word to the wise: always bring a backup. One time, (1 time !) I did a set without a backup. Hey it way only a set, right? wrong. I broke a string on my big solo and the band had to take a ten minute break while I had to replace the string. (It wasn't the Yamaha, that might have been 5 minutes.)
Never again!

Haven't dealt with Yamaha, I bought it used.

Been playing since before electricity. Have Ernie Ball Axis Sport, (My #1) a G&L S-500, great guitar, and Epiphone LP Jr., very cool for slide, the Mesa Boogie Nomad 55 combo, backup amp Peavey Supreme head, which sounds unbelievably good through my Marshall Silver Anniversary 2 x 12 cabinet. Favorite features about the Yamaha are its flexibility of sound, good sounding pickups, trem, locking tuners and light weight. It also looks great with flame maple, amber-tinted top, oh, and white pearl pickguard. A lot to like. The neck must go.

I've made a few friends among the sales folks at my local Guitar Center, and one guy I respect told me that his favorite strat-type guitar was the Yamaha 812W. He had owned his for about two years, and I'd been keeping my eyes open for a good deal. Well... the one "good" thing about Guitar Center is they have about 3 or 4 blowout sales per year and if you get lucky, you can find some great deals.

Last year I bought a Larrivee L-09 for $599, (a steal on an awesome guitar), and this year it was my new Yamaha 812W for $419.

So what do you get for 4 bills...

Strat-style solid Alder body with Maple veneer... nice Violin Sunburst finish showing a bit of flame. Nice birdseye maple neck with a rosewood fretboard. 22 medium frets, Sperzel locking tuners, Wilkinson VS100 "Floating Style" bridge, Seymour Duncan 2 single coil; 1 humbucker, (a JB?) pickups.

Great "super-strat" setup with all "Pro" parts.

Isn't sound the only "real" reason to buy a guitar? I was looking for nice strat for those times where I didn't want to bring my American Deluxe Fat Strat, and I wanted a strat that had a little more vintage single coil neck and "in-between" sound. The Duncan pups deliver...

They sound just like you want a strat to sound, and although they're not totally silent like the "noiseless" Fender pickups, they are relatively quiet.

I'm mainly a blues / jazz / rock player and this guitar can handle all these very well. Great neck single coil sound both clean and overdriven, and the humbucker is nice as well. It's a little "brighter" than my American Deluxe Fender, but it can really cut through with the volume control at 10.

I find the volume control to have a little more "effect" than the classic Fender control.

This guitar sat at Guitar Center for some time... Thus the blow-out status. I'm not sure about the original setup, but as soon as I got it home I put 10's on it, (it came with 9's), adjusted the sping tension a bit, and away I went.

Easy to play, low action, smooth neck feel... it's all good.

Fine balance between pickups, (when you select the "in-between" with the middle and bridge pickup, it must make the bridge single coil because you get a nice twangy, out of phase sound).

Everything was tight, and other than a couple of minor pick scrapes, there was no problem with the guitar.

The only gripe so far is that the holes on the back of the cover for the springs don't line up that well with the actual openings under the bridge. This meant I either had to "fish around" when changing strings, or remove the cover. Not a real problem, just an annoyance.

There's no reason to think there would be any problem with this guitar live. I will add straplocks... That's all.

Never gig without a backup.

Yamaha? I can only guess.

I've been playing for over 20 years, and have purchased and played a number of great guitars.

My current guitars include a PRS McCarty and Standard 24, a nice Les Paul Standard, the previously mentioned strat, a heavily modified Lone Star strat made into an American Deluxe Fat strat, a couple of nice Carvins, and various other guitars.

I view a guitar with these pro parts at this price as an awesome value. If you start adding up the cost of the Duncan pickups, the Sperzels, and the Wilkinson bridge, you're almost to the total cost of the guitar.

Add to this the solid alder body, cool paint job and maple veneer, (ok veneer isn't always cool), and the sound and playability of a great strat. It makes you wonder why more people don't play this guitar. However NO ROCK STARS PLAY THIS... Is that a bad thing?

There is no other guitar I have seen that offers all this for $419.

If you see one... try it... buy it.