Yamaha AES-FG Frank Gambale Signature Guitar

i'm about three weeks into the ownership of this brand new '04 model gambale, so i'm still very much in the honeymoon period here, so after this first comment, i'm going to try and be as objective as i possibly can: i'm a professional guitarist/college jazz guitar professor. i have over ten high quality instruments - some provided by the record company, some by my own collecting before the carreer started. some of the names in my collection are American Custom Shop Fender Strat, PRS McCarty, Ibanez (Japan-made) George Benson singature, Gibson ES-335 (1999 reissue), and a few other less-notables that i was planning on keeping around until i got this yamaha. okay...here's the comment: the Yamaha, bar-none, gets the best tone and best feel out of all of these guitars. (yes, it even kicks the PRS's you-know-what) it is by far the most precision instrument i have ever played. i have already planned to sell off the majority of my collection and keep the Gambale. it's even to the point where when i'm not playing it, i truly realize it through a limitation of another guitar. let's get a little technical here, though: the Gambale starts with a 25.5 scale, so it's very comfortable for me, having some pretty big hands and feeling cramped on my ES-335. the ebony (i believe) fretboard is at a high radius, so the action will honestly be as low as you could desire. i'm one of those players who likes a higher action, so i keep it a little bit up, but it came almost slammed down on the neck....without a buzz. i have always hated tremolos and on every strat i own i bought the extra springs to disable it, but the wilkinson is a far superior tremolo system and the fact that the springs are connected directly into the five-piece neck give the guitar unbelievable sustain. (better than my strat, 335, and the Benson...as good as the PRS) the sperzel locking tuners are the best....i have them on a few instruments, and the seven way pickup selection is great. the pickups sound excellent - especially with the overall "ring" of the guitar. don't think that you could just buy the pickups and throw them into any "Fat style" pickup guitar and have this tone...not gonna happen. the body style is very comfortable and the finish is a simple, understated white. the neck is relatively thin, so it's super accessible and the higher frets sound great on this guitar, so you don't have to think about avoiding them like you do on another instrument. the whole thing is very well crafted and i am truly impressed. (little interesting sidenote...i didn't like Yamahas before this...i just bought it off of eBay at a low price planning to sell it off!) i think that's enough....they have that fretwave thing (i checked it with a tuner and they were FLAT! it's a little gimmicky, if you ask me, but i didn't get the manual with the guitar, so maybe there's an element to the tuning that i'm missing. another one of the reviewers comments on the manual saying something, so i don't know...take someone else's word!) let's move on.....

okay...i also double on bass...i own an ernie ball musicman stingray 5-string and a Modulus 5-string. i mention this to make a point: have you ever played a very-high quality precision bass without amplification and felt the instrument resonating in your hand? it's a great feeling. it's almost as if the instrument feels connected to you. that's the way the Gambale feels in your hands. it has a phenomenal "ring" as the jazz guys say. the guitar resonates clearly and evenly - high notes and low. that's a sign of craftmanship...you can change any pickup you want, but if you don't have a good "ring", the guitar's only as good as the pickup you put in it. this guitar is these phenomenal pickups PLUS an incredibly resonant body. (by the way, i'm not using super-heavy strings here...only ernie ball power slinky 11's like on every other guitar (besides the jazzbox) i own. they have a heavier high guage on the E,B, and G strings with a lighter top guage on the top three strings; there's not a whole lot of tension.)
on top of the body's resonation, the intonation is excellent and the pickups with the seven-way selection give you more than enough room to move around tones. i get great jazz sounds as well as rock and even hard-rock (JB-pickup, ya know?) for my studio sessions. basically put, i'm very happy keeping all the other guitars home on my sessions - and apparently, so are the producers and engineers i've worked with in the past three weeks!

i almost exclusively use two amps: a mesa-boogie 112 studio calibre with a good crunchy clean tone and an Acoustic Image Clarus 1 through an EarCandyCabs 112. both these amps love the Gambale. it's awesome.

everything is very nicely done. it's as well-crafted as my McCarty. of course, the wood is hidden by the white paint job, whereas the PRS is a curly top transparent, so you can't see what's evenly matched halves or not, but for what they did, it is gorgeous in it's under-statedness. (remember, i'm still in the honeymoon period here...i promise to update this review if my opinion at all changes in the future...i'm just having a hard time forseeing a change of opinion ever at this point) the inlay work is really nice on the dark ebony fretboard. there is just a very precision-made amount of abalone or mother-of-pearl inside each inlay that sets off the contrast beautifully.

the guitar seems as solid as any of the others; and all the others are tried-and-true performers, so i have no reason to believe that this will crumble on me in a year or two. also, i'm down in Puerto Rico (the rock gig is latin rock! lol) and the guitar seems to adjust to the heavy climate very well. no complaints yet. just so you know, the strat, GB, and the PRS all had a hard time the minute i brought them down

dunno.

i've been playing seriously and studying jazz for twelve years with some of the biggest names in the New York area. i've been pro for four years now. i'm part of a big network of players that bounces it's ideas from one to another....most of my friends played this guitar....two of them already ordered their own (rich punks!!) if you don't trust me, these guys know what they're doing and no one (even the most ardent of tremolo-haters) can say anything bad about this piece. i'm lovin' it...period. i'm playing it on all my sessions unless they ask for a single-coil bluesy sound (which is ridiculous because having a session producer who actually can distinguish one pickup sound from another is almost as rare as an indigo baby!).

value-wise, i would say the guitar is worth the retail. i would definitely buy it again if it got lost. i know i got a good price, but i would pay full price without any regret.....(come to think of it, i'm kinda regretting the 3500 spent on the PRS!!!)

Nice features with 3 Seymour Duncan humbuckers: 2 Hot Rails and the JB Humbucker, Willkinson vibrato, Sperzel locking tuners, 5-way switch, volume and tone control with push-push selector for 2 additional pickup combinations and the fret wave tuning system (2 waved frets).The neck is quite a bit wider than the Ibanez JS-100 I own, but it plays very smooth and goes all the way back into the body without any obstacles at the end. That makes the higher frets very easy accessible.
It ships in a nice luxurious brown guitar case. I wish it had a piezo, then I it would be perfect.

I play rock, metal, blues, fusion and jazz mainly and the guitar fits perfectly for that. The 7 tonal variations and usage of the volume and tone control gives you an enormous amount of sounds. When compared to my JS-100, the Seymour Duncan pickups are far superior, they sound very defined and crisp clear. The guitar sounds very good on my Engl amplifier. The tone control is very usable. Both tone and volume controls fully open results in a high output, especially with the JB humbucker. Turn the volume a bit down to get a softer bright sound that sounds quit acoustic to me. With this guitar it is possible to go from clean sound to an overdriven sound without changing anything on the amplifier or effect pedals. Could not do that with the JS-100. I still like the JS-100 sound though, it has something special that I cannot create with this guitar, so I still use that guitar sometimes.
The best thing of this guitar for me is that it stays in tune when I use the vibrato. When abused heavily, it might detune a bit, but only slightly and hardly noticeable. The JS-100 is really terrible on this part. Also, the fret wave system makes the guitar more generally in tune. I don't really understand why it works though, I think the instructions from the manual about how to tune the guitar with fret wave make no sense. Why tune using the open 4th string and the 3th string on the 2nd fret when the 'wave' on the 3th string is on the 1st fret. It should be tuned on the 1st fret, so that the wave can affect the pitch. But I might miss something here, maybe I read the instruction upside down or something, if anyone wants to explain ?

For me the guitar was set up very well by default and I think the construction is superb. This guitar was hanging behind lock and key in the guitar store, it was hardly played on, not that abused as a lot of the other guitars in the shop. I'd tried several other guitars, lots of Ibanez's , but none of them were really what I was looking for. But the AES-FG was perfect the moment I played it, love at first sight ? or touch.. The design is a work of art with everything in line and on the right place, its black paint everywhere (even on the neck) and nice inlays with a hardly noticeable Frank Gambale inlay on the 12th fret, you have to know that is says FG. It looks a bit like a "gothic" guitar.
Also, the neck construction that goes deep into the body is superb (it seems to be quite a design revolution). Because of the neck going into the body, the vibrato springs were shortened and screwed right into the neck. This construction seems to be good for the sustain, and I think it actually does sustain very well. The vibrato system does have a construction flaw to my opinion though. I am very happy with it because it stays very well in tune, but when pushing the bridge all down, the springs scratch the backplate which results in a squeaking sound and it also hits the wood somewhere. Luckily, I could partly fix this myself: The backplate still had some plastic foil on the outside, so I flipped the backplate so that the foil was on the inside (this prevents the squeaking sound) and the 2 backplate screws on the bridge position are not fully tightened so that the back plate can move a bit. I haven?t solved the 'bang on the wood' problem , I would have expected something soft there to prevent that. I read something in reviews about a cracking noise in the neck when using the vibrato. Its true, but I had it only in the first week. The neck stays silent now, it has accepted its player :-)

I have the guitar for a few months now. I don't play gigs or anything, but I think it will last long. It feels strong and solid. I do hope the frets don't wear off that fast as those of my JS-100. Time will tell.

Don't know. Never dealt with them. The website is quite OK.

I've been playing electric guitar for 5 years now. I would buy it again if stolen. The construction is sooo much better that my JS-100. I've had some luck with the price, for 1500 EURO it was the best guitar in the shop. Normally it is priced above 2000 EURO. I did try a PRS that was more than twice as expensive, but I didn't think it was better.

Although, the rating's system only goes to 10, I have to give this guitar an infinity. This is by far the best sounding, most dynamic, and most expressive guitar I have ever played.

Body - Sculpted Double Cutaway Design (lightweight Mahogany)

Neck - Maple - 25.5" - Rear Mountable Neck Joint (total access to upper frets)

Fingerboard - Ebony

Frets - 22 with Fretwave Tempered System (unless you have some unique new bizarre tuning system this guitar is way more in tune and stays in tune longer than any other guitar I have played...in case you didn't know (or notice), guitars are out of tune in certain places (harmonies) due to the usual tuning system used on guitars) You don't even feel the bent frets when bending strings or just playing...but you definitely hear the difference!

Pickups - Seymour Duncan - REAR MOUNTED SSH (2 Hot Rails, JB)
7 very usable tonal combinations just using the 5 way switch and push-push pot on the tone knob (this adds the neck pickup to the 4th and 5th positions)

Tuners - Sperzel Locking (custom built and designed symmetrical tuners)

Bridge - Wilkenson VS100 Floating Tremolo w/Spring Claw mounted into the butt end of the neck (incredible sustain)

Finish - Black

Warranty Limited Lifetime

Highest quality hard case included

Inlays - beautiful and unique (not some cheap plastic crap)

You have to play this and really check it out to really appreciate the guitar and its unique features...it will totally blow you away! I own several other quality guitars (which I won't name out of respect) but honestly speaking, this blows them all away.

It sounds phenomenal with or without effects! This guitar is unbelieveably lively sounding. The sustain is incredible (especially for any guitar using a floating tremolo system). I play metal, jazz, blues, rock, etc. (anything and everything). The guitar is extremely versatile! I'd post some clips...but really you should go check out the master, Frank Gambale's tones. One of the most amazing and innovative guitarists the world has ever heard, plays this exact same electric guitar. Need I say more?

This guitar is absolutely perfect and one of the most beautiful sounding and looking instruments...I did have an issue with the tremolo system but Yamaha totally took care of everything. It turns out the very first few new AES-FG guitars that shipped out had a problem with the tremolo cavity. The tremolo started sticking on the paint. Yamaha corrected this issue shortly after they started making them and any newer ones which shipped out were perfect. This actually turned out to be an awesome thing because this is the 9th AES-FG ever made (and Frank Gambale surely owns a few of those lower serial number guitars). :o) My guitar also has a slightly narrower neck width than newer AES-FG guitars because it was one of the first ones made. This information came directly from Frank G.

100% reliable and dependable

(see above) Yamaha totally took care of me and they went over the entire guitar (did a full setup, fret level, dress, everything...even though they didn't have to because I sent it to get the tremolo/paint rubbing issue resolved)...all free of charge including the overnight shipping.

I would change absolutely nothing about this guitar. This is everything a great guitar SHOULD BE and more. You have to play this guitar to actually experience how awesome it is incorporating these new innovations you don't find on guitars. You can read about it but that doesn't tell you much. The guitar isn't cheap but you get what you pay for and this guitar is worth every penny (and way more). I am going to buy another one when I can afford it. Play one and you will hear for yourself!