Yamaha AES1500

Similar guitar to everyone else's, albeit it was acquired used from a guy who obviously played it around town a lot. (lots of scratches).

For a semi-hollow, the features are pretty good. I would have liked some really high end ebony on the fretboard, but oh well. The pickup system is pretty versatile. (more below)

Here's the rub. The standard dimarzio pickups are absolutely dreadful for jazz. I don't know what the people below are smoking, but you cannot get a warm jazz sound out of those pickups. Put on some flatwounds and put the guitar through an acoustic image head, and you'll have a tinny sounding guitar. Those Q100 pickups are hot pickups. They have more output than standard P90s, at the cost of tone. That seems to be a common thing with DiMarzio. (Don't get me wrong, I like some of their products, but they generally don't sound very warm compared to Duncans, for instance).

I eventually sold the guitar to a friend.

Being a bit more adventurous than I, he put a pair of lindy fralin pickups into it.

The fralins are ASTOUNDING in that guitar. They make it sound like a proper jazz box. I simply can't get a bad sound out of it now. Admittedly, you lose all the fancy splitting. But at the benefit of obtaining a great tone.

I'm actually thinking of picking another one up, and performing the same mod.

5 for stock sounds, as a jazz guitar.
7 for stock sounds, as a rockabilly instrument.
5 for stock sounds, as a blues guitar.
10 for the sounds with upgraded pickups.

With respect to feedback resistance, top notch. I have used this in a small jam space with bass, drums and another guitar. Standing close to a mesa tremoverb, it didn't even flinch. Try that on an archtop.

This is a solid instrument. It is well made, and almost indestructible. It makes my hofner verythin look like a paper mache guitar. This is a true professional's instrument.

Hugely durable. The crap that this has been through is evidence of that.

No clue.

Many years as a jazz guitar player. My main instruments are USA jacksons, a rainsong, a carrillo classical. I also have a couple of USA peaveys, a godin LGX, a hofner verythin JS, and very high end amplification gear. (CAE, VHT). I'm a discriminating player with respect to gear. And this guitar is rock solid in that respect, once you get rid of those horrible, tinny dimarzio pickups.

I would have no hesitation on relying on this thing without a backup.

Do you think it's any different than theses other guy's guitars?

It really does work for every genre of music. It has a great crunch, punch, eat-you-for-lunch rock sound from the bridge pick-up. Smmoooth, resonant tone from the bridge pick-up. You can easily tweak the sound with the push-pull tone knobs. Dreams can come true.

Nice. Plays like an expensive guitar should.

Pete Townsend would make mincemeat of it. I really like it so I'll take care of it. This is the one I've asked the wife to bury me with.

No experience with Yamaha's customer service.

Of course I love this guitar, and IMHO I could sell every other guitar I own (Stratocaster, Firebird, and Yamaha SG1000)and be a happy guitarist. It is has me playing neck pick-up clean straight into my Pro-Junior (no reverb), adding echo for rockobilly, or putting it to the bridge pickup and rawkin' straight into the Marshall. If you haven't guessed yet, I couldn't ask any more from a guitar. If you have ever considered a hollow body guitar, dollar for dollar, you have to try this guitar before you buy anything else

The guitar was made in Japan in 1992, it has an arched top, I read in the brochure that it was solid, but arched sycamore.
The Pickups are DiMarzio. Tune o-matic bridge, good solid carrying case.
Body is very stylish 17" (bigger than the gretsch 6120 it was at first trying to emulate) and has a nice rounded cutaway. Beautiful orange color.

I play jazz almost exclusively, mostly standards stuff. The guitar is fairly versatile, you can easily get a nice electric sound (chorus and distortion work ok).
I had the neck pickup replaced with a Bartolini. Though this is a great pickup, the sound is NOT better than with the original DiMarzio's, so I put these back on the guitar.
Playing with a pianist (or a second guitarist) the guitar sounds very jazzy though somewhat thin. It has ample dynamics and great sustain, but you need to down the treble and up the bass a little to get a warmer sound.
Not as warm as -for instance- my carved top Heritage Eagle, but then again, how could it be.
A great guitar for gigging.

Great looker, binding is beautiful, even the fretboard is bound!
The action of this guitar is what sets it apart from almost every other mid-priced archtop: it is amazing. Your fingers seem to flow over the fretboard.
Let me put it this way: if I have to play short gigs I take any guitar with me (Heritage Eagle, Gretsch 6118 or Godin Jazz), but for long gigs (more than three hours) I ALWAYS carry my AES-1500. It's so light to play and even if the sound is not as warm as some other guitars, I love playing it.

I've had the guitar for over ten years now: frets still ok, neck as tight as ever, no wear and tear even after a load of gigs. It's built for durability, that's for sure.

The thing about Yamaha is, they don't seem to believe in manuals. They don't give a lot of information, you don't get any feedback, you can't even register your instrument.
Thing is, even in these messageboards, there seems to be a lot of confusion on the construction of the guitar (laminated, arched, carved top???). Yamaha should give more info via their website. Same goes for my AE-1200, a wonderful guitar also, but I don't even get to know if it's a solid top, what the pickups are and so on.

In comparison to my Heritage Eagle (twice as expensive as the Yamaha) the sound is less warm. But... the dynamics are there.
The playability of this guitar is great. It plays like a dream and... yes, better, much better playability than the Heritage Eagle or the Gretsch 6118 I own.
As far as I'm concerned it's a lot of guitar for a relatively small price. I've enjoyed playing it so much and will enjoy playing it for a long time coming.

This guitar is basically a development of the ES335/Gretch designs. Mine has a flamed sycamore top that is bright orange. It looks really classy and seems very well made

I play jazz, blues and some classic rock. Mainly I play funky instrumental jazz these days. I use varying degrees of distortionand quite a few effects.
This guitar has so many sounds and variations. Pulling back on the volume cleans the sound up nicely if you use an overdriven amp. The tone knobs are actually usefull as well! Best of all is that the tone pots are push-pull for coil splitting.
This gives an incredible amount of tonal variation in the "middle" position; using both pick ups.
To sum up: In my opinion this guitar is extremely versetile but does not have a characteristic sound. A Jack of all trades....

Wonderful, very nice workmanship. I bought the guitar secondhand so I don't know about the factory set up. However, mine was set up with very low action. This made the sound slightly compressed and one-dimentional. I raised the action a bit and the guitar came to life.

This thing is built to last. Quality workmanship.

No Idea.

I have been playing for 17 years. If it was stolen I would try to find another. I buy everything second hand but if I was to buy one new I would probably get one with a bigsby.

I bought this guitar new. It is made in Japan. The top is maple the sides and back are sycamore. It is a semi hollowbody guitar. It has splitable Dimarzio pickups. It is about a 2" thick body, 17"s wide. came with a case.

This guitar is fantastic. I have a samick HJ650 because I wanted a taste of a bigger jazz box but the yamaha's sound is much woodier and warmer. I run it through a Yamaha TC100 tube amp made by soldano. It is very rich sounding. The guitar is capable of many different sounds.

There is one little dot or what appears to be a finish flaw in the paint by a volume knob. Other than that the guitar is perfect. The action was set up to be excellent. It is my favorite guitar. The guitar has a off white paint job so there isn't any wood grain showing.

I don't play live as I am still learning. This is a professional guitar is isn't junk and it doesn't pretend to be something it isn't. It is well made and solid.

I tried to contact yamaha about my CN-525E guitar but can't seem to find an email address. This is the area where the company seems weak.

I have sereral guitars. This is my favorite. The sound attaches itself to your soul. The action is sooo smooth and the feel of the neck is comfortable.It is the first guitar I reach for and sit with for hours. I have never had a guitar this nice.

made in japan
archtop guitar with one cutaway
2 volumes, 2 tones and coil spliting
2 dimarzio pickups Q-100
made of maple with a rosewood fretboard
the body look pretty cool ,a bit like a gretsch, maybe 2 1/2 inch
it had a tuneomatic style brige
japan tuners ,they are smooth and stay in tune

a give a 9 on 10 because you can choose the humbucker or single coil mode pickups,it can produce 8 differentes tone with using the pickups swith and the hum/single pickups mode

i play rocknroll music an this guitar is perfect for that
i put overdrive and it feedback just a bit at high volume it amazing
i try a lot of archtop and majority feedback at low volume
i use a fender deville 410 with a danelectro daddy-o pedal and when the knobs are ajusted it give a amazing sound, a awesome rocknroll vintage sound.
i use the single coil pickups mode went i play on the clean channel and it made a very smooth sound ,perfect

finish is perfect
nothing to say they did a very good job

i tried to be the more objectif, i thing that no guitar can be perfect and for that reason i give a 9,
a play since 96 and i own enough good stuff to say that is a great guitar that can be compare to es175, guild stuff,.........
that is a very versatile guitar and it have it own sound ,
thats all

1998 model. Japanese manufacture. Laminated sycamore top. The set-neck is nicely rounded, very gibson like. frets are medium sized. Comes with splittable Dimarzio P-100 style humbuckers(passive). Two volumes, tones and has push pull for splitting coils. This one is pearl white, gorgeous gloss finish. Gretch like body, single cutaway, body approximately 1 3/4 - 2 inches deep. Tuners are grover in style and have a very smooth low ratio turn for some real precise tuning. Uses tun-o-matic style bridge, rosewood fretboard with dot inlays. The only reason the guitar doesn't get a 10 from the factory is because the Dimarzios are blah and once I replaced them with filtertrons the guitar became a 10.

I like AC/DC rock and rockabilly/blues styles that are edgy with some raunchy guitar tones. I use a Bogner ecstacy 101B head with boss FX pedals. The guitar is no noisier than any other I've owned even on high gain settings. The sound (with the filtertrons) is very fat and from heavy rhythms to bluesy neck position riffing this beauty does it all. I've never owned a hollowbody guitar before being a Les paul, SG freak but this Yamaha has become my most favorite guitar that I've ever owned. The neck position is great for strumming and with overdrive it's like a very meaty strat that can be thick enough for Santana type leads. This is the best guitar I've has for high gain playing where you want clarity but thickness. It can handle down pick muting ala Social Distortion/Electric era Cult and rockabilly twang and bite. This is a great cross over guitar from Fender to Marshall amps and vice versa.

This guitar was immaculate from the factory. All I did was put on the guage of string I use, adjust the truss rod to compensate for the new string tension and away I went. I haven't had the nut cut or any adjustments made. I did buy the guitar knowing I was going to put in Filtertron pickups. I was very fortunate to have heard a guitar with the same pickup change and after playing it through a Marshall all my Malcom Young fantasies came to life. Everything about the guitar was flawless. I've had no issues with uneven frets. The paint job is incredible. It's very rock solid.

I've bumped the guitar quite a lot and haven't even put a mark on it. Obviously a hollowbody guitar needs to be treated gently but so far it's handled itself well in contact sports. The hardware is gold and so far no signs of wear or tarnishing. Everything about this guitar is solid. I got a sympathetic rattle with my A string and after freaking thinking I had loose bracing a guy at Yamaha told me to check the screw that holds the pickguard in place and sure enough it was a little loose. A little tighten and the problem hasn't returned. I would definitely use this guitar without a backup. I play aggressively and don't break strings.

As above my only contact with Yamaha was in regards to a loose pick guard screw letting the pickguard vibrate in sympathy with my open A. They were very courteous and gave me a couple of minor options to check out to find the source of the vibration (please not the bracing). They showed concern and wanted me to contact them when I found out what it was. It was very important to them that this guitar peformed and I could tell that they're very proud of this model. Well they should be.

I've been playing for 15 years. A guitar that initially just amazed me visually from a photo ended up being the best guitar I've ever had. I'll be getting an SG soon and it will be awesome to mix the two guitars together in recordings. I would definitely replace this guitar if lost or stolen. Anybody out there considering getting a Gretch has to try one of these first. It's a lot less money even after putting in Filtertrons ($200 for a pair including installation). The playability of the Yamaha destroys a Gretch and the microscopic fretwire they use. I would much rather have this guitar than a Gibson ES135 (which is still nice but gibson's quality control is too eratic to find one that holds up to it's ticket price).

this is an update from last years submission on this guitar

I have a boomerang and every guitarist should have one who wants to be a total guitarist. it is a phrase sampler that can record up to 4min of what ever. I use it often w/ the aes1500 and a tele a line 6 amp and a fender solid state. I set and play a lot of rhythms and put the leads to them. I do two or three different everyday of the dif types of music except really hard rock or metal. what I am getting to is that the aes1500 can be a one shot deal if you want it to be. I am always amazed at all the sounds it can make. today I was doing my back pages by dylan and the thing just sounded sooooo sweet it brought tears to my eyes. it has the splitting coils so it is able to go single coil as well as full humbuckers. I am in the process of looking for a new guitar to fill in gaps between my customized nashville tele and the aes. but these two cover soooo much ground thAT i am finding it hard to justifie a new one at all. if I get another one it will be for wanting and not needing as these two do it all at least for me.

the aes 1500 is so nice to look at as it is flamed to death its orange and looks like a flamed to death gretsch. I can't find anything to complain about w/ this guitar except the tuners. it goes out when it sets for awhile{temp extremes?} but doesn't seem to go out when playing. I may put new tuners on it someday but I am afraid to mess w/ a good thing.

this guitar is built to take it but its still a hollowbody its not a tele. but it breaths when you play it and you can hear it very airy.

you can find these on the guitar mall.com for about 1000 bucks in mint condition. they come in orange or white w/out a bigby or orange or black w/ a bigby. they are called the aes1500b. musicians friend also sells these now and the aes1500 new will go for about 1299.00 while the bigsby equipped one goes for 1549.00. Get one while you still can.

Get one for country get one for Jazz get one for the blues get one for whatever you play this G-TAR can do it all

Get one its great I want one w/ Bigsby also

the best, Get one if you can find one ///muscians friend sell's them 1349.00 and w/bigsby1500.00+
they are hard to find used took me three days of internet hopping to locate this one.

youre not going to find one better for the price Get a flextone to go with it, they are just great this from a tube repairman

mine is used, made in 94 and still perfect dont need no stinking support!!! get one!

20 years tons of amps amps and guitars and was never satisfied w/ any until this one and the flextone amp came along.
get one

Made in Japan..22 frets..Laminated archtop..2 volumes and 2 tones that push/push to split the humbuckers..3 way toggle switch.. two passive custom Dimarzio Humbucker soapbar style pick-ups with adjustable pole pieces..neck is maple and mahogany and the body is archtoped with sycamore and maple..the finish is in a Gretch style orange and is HIGHLY flamed..an updated tune-o-matic bridge with Japanese made tuners that are very smooth and precise with no slack problems..scale lenght is 25.1/2 at the high E and 25.3/4 at the low E..cases was extra at around $200 Canadian taxes included.

I played a bluzy mixture of jazz and latin with a need to rock and roll a bit. I play through a Studio 3watt Bluesmaker Designed and built by John McIntyre. It's an all tube class A tone dripping intrument. The amp is capable of glassy clean to liquid lead and a virtually invisible threshold where purring overdrive exists. The amp is very rich in harmonic complexity and leans toward the bright side. With the AES1500 I am able to utilize all the flavours from every turn of the amp tone control without a bad sound to be heard. The guitars humbuckers are bright and very defined and stringy sounding.There is a huge difference in dark verses bright between the neck and the bridge pickup without loosing the initial sound dialed in. The humbuckers are fat but not as fat a say a Gibson "57. In single coil mode it can produce a very airy jangly sound that prints to tape wonderfully. It can produce sounds similar to the neck position on a strat which is nice, and get a good country bite for chicken picken. I find some of the great rhythm sounds come from using the front humbucker in conjunction with the single coil in the bridge. This guitar doesn't really sound like any trademark guitar which I find to be an asset. It's tones are quality and will cover all basis without being pigeon-holed. The work Yamaha did in controlling feedback is exceptional. No squealing from the pickups and the musical feedback appears at reasonable volumes but is never out of control. I have not encounter a 100 watt Marshall at full tilt with this guitar but am not interested either. At regular stage volume the AES1500 is a live instrument that react with enthusium. I have no dislikes, that is the reason I bought it. I have owned at least 50 guitars from all body styles and this one embraces the best of the bunch and rolled it into one ax.

The guitar was set-up beautifully with 9's. I am a constant tinkerer and I found nothing to adjust on this one. The pick-ups split to the inside coils and I am curious as to how they would sound splitting to the outside. The workmanship is practically flawless. The nut... the finish...the fretwork.. and the binding is all first class. One niggle. I would of liked to see the frets polished. Hardly worth mentioning but I had to find something. This guitar is lighter than all my other archtops which are light in the first place. I believe this to be one of the factors contributing to the liveliness of the instrument.

With the first rate craftmanship and my experience with other Yamaha high end intruments I feel confident that I will have this for years of trouble free playing. I would use this one gigs without backup eccept for cruise ship gigs. I can't always avoid an over zealous fan falling on me and breaking the headstock off. As far as the instrument goes...it's solid. Weight does not translate into durability.

I have never had to deal with customer support for any Yamaha stuff. I have owned many motorcycles, electronics and guitars without problems so far. One year warranty on the guitar.

I have been playing for 18 years and on the road for half that as a singles act. I research my gear extensively before I buy, the only question I had to ask was how to pay for it. OH...and does it come with a case ( which it didn't). I would buy it again. Love....liveliness/tonal colors/light weight/real quality craftmanship Hate....should come with a case,the idea that this beautiful instrument was shipped in a cardboard box really bites. favorite feature....versitility It was compared to ES335..175....L5....Guild Manhattens...STarfires....Ibanez's...Parkers ..Brian Moore....and just about any guitar I could get my hands on. There are alot of lovely guitars out there but this one felt good sitting or standing and didn't sound cliche. I am trying to be objective about this as I don't like reading overblown hype about anything. This guitar has been in the hands of many friends who play a miriad of differnt styles and all came away with that kind of smile you get when you have been touched in a pleasing way. I have not had much experience with Dimarzio pickups before so this is kind of a acid test. So far so good. Very dynamic and musical. Yamaha I feel is a misunderstood company as far as the musical intrument end of it is concerned. They have some entry level stuff that most people base their opinions on but their high end stuff is smokin'. Sure they copy other popular formats of building but everyone know that Fender doesn't make the best Strats or Teles. Too many player buy with their eyes and not their ears and too many are caught up in the hero worship thing and don't use common sense when buying quality instruments. Sales people in general are of little help so LISTEN TO THE MUSIC. I will add one more thing. If you are tired of being assualted with volume when trying to get a great sound out of your amp....check out the John McIntyre Bluesmaker II Stereo 3 watt. John has also hooked up with Lexicon to create a studio version that is voiced a little different to work with the Lexicon multi effects that are built in. Tube technology with its foot deeply rooted in the past with a sense of the future. Thanks John and thanks to Yamaha.