Yamaha Pacifica 312

This is the newer model 312, so it's basically a 112 shape made of better wood, with a laminated maple top (and translucent finish so you can see it, of course) and in this case, maple fretboard (so it's actually a 312-M). Mine is the translucent dark green finish, and looks much better than the finish on the old models that changed colour as you got round the back - this is a uniform finish all way round.

The pickups are S/S/H configuration, and are stock yamaha, but they're the supposedly better alnico types. They sound fairly pleasant, but far too melow for a rock guitar... -1 point.

Bridge and tuners are stock yamaha pac112 types, but work perfectly well. Having said that, I never use the trem arm, so tuning stability may not be as great as I make it out to be!

Controls are simple - 1 volume, 1 tone, 5 way selector. The controls themselves are cheap black plastic... -1 point

Out of the box, this guitar sounded fine, but nothing special. It's naturally quite a bright instrument, and had great potential, but the bridge pickup really let it down; putting an alnico humbucker in the bridge of a blatant rock guitar seems to be something of an oversight...

I remedied it with the help of an EMG-HZ H4. Active pickups would have meant carving a battery compartment and ditching the really nice alnico single-coils, so an 81 was out of the question, but the H4 allows me to keep the singles and stay passive. The guitar sounded ok before, but sounds great now!

I've used this guitar with my old Peavey Bandit 112, my current Marshall DSL-401 and Mesa Rectoverb 112 (single rectifier combo), and the various Line6 Spiders, Marshall AVTs and Fender whatevers at our practise rooms. It sounds consistently good, and has a great contrast between the raw tone of the H4, and the smooth alnico singles. Yamaha should really have installed a much hotter humbucker in the first place...

To sum up, the guitar itself sounds great for my AOR exploits (Tyketto, Talisman, Journey, Hardline, Jeff Scott Soto etc.), but only with a better pickup in the bridge.

One warning though... if you want to install an EMG like I did, be prepared to re-wire the entire guitar too, because the yamaha wiring is just plain odd!

The finish was perfect and the wood was well matched and selected.

The hardware is fairly cheap, but has lasted a couple of years with no major issues.

Action and intonation were near-perfect and the frets are level and flush.

The pickups were well adjusted, but badly selected.

The volume pot was a bit scratchy, and the pot covers were crappy black plastic with white numbers, so when I re-wired the whole guitar, I put new pots in and got a pair of chromed knobs to finish the look against the black/white/black laminated scratch-plate. The whole thing looks much better now.

It's a well constructed instrument, but some parts are the cheap, functional type.

With the few adjustments I've made, I feel I can really depend on this guitar. It's proven itself to be solid, well constructed, simple, and sounds great now!

I never gig without at least 2 guitars in standard, one in D and maybe a 7 string for luck, but this one generally does practises, and gets invited along to gigs as a reliable spare.

Never had any dealings with Yamaha.
Never needed any, which can't be a bad thing!

I've been playing about 8 years, and have owned a fair amount of gear. I've always found Yamahas to be really solid guitars and basses, and thought they can be a little generic, there's also very little to go wrong with them!

If this were lost / stolen / broken, I'd probably get something similar to replace it, because sometimes you don't want to cart a really expensive guitar on your back in the pissing rain, but also don't want to play a heap of shit when you get to the practise rooms! This guitar fills the gap really nicely.

The only bad things about the 312 are the pots and wiring, and the bad choice of humbucker. Sort those out like I did, and it's great!

Same as a regular Pacifica, except for the gold hardware, pearloid scratchplate and transparent finish. I tried it side by side with a regular Pacifica and couldn't notice any difference in sound - both instruments were set up prefectly, but this is normal in Japan!

I bought this guitar as something to play on while I'm away from home. My regular guitar is a Burns Marquee special that cost about the same price, but actually wasn't set up as well. I was going to buy a Yammy SGV ("the flying samurai", or sometimes "that weird banana-looking thing"), but in the end I decided on something reliable and a little smaller!

I'm used to the very jazzy Burns which is my main guitar, so the humbucker on the 312 came as a pleasant surprise. It seems to be modelled on the super-distortion type, and really gives my the kind of sound I've been looking for. The other pickups are fine, though I think their subtleties are lost on my minscule amp. I just stick with the bridge!

Action was superb - obviously it could always be a bit lower, but then this guitar would be useless for slide (actually the action is already so low I have to take extra care with my playing). Finish is gorgeous - speaking as someone who hates solid finishes, my transparent red is perfect. The colour changes with light from blood to amber.

The only problem I have with this guitar is that the nut, to me, seems very loose. I'm used to a deeper, vintage-type slot. I can see why Yamaha have chosen a shallower groove for the nut (less buzzing), but it does mean the low E can sometimes slip off when you're tuned low (C, for example). If you don't tune beyond Db, however, this is not an issue.

I'm also a bit fan of useless knobs, so I wouldn't have minded a second tone control - but for simplicity, you can't beat it. And it's also worth mentioning the pickup selector isn't right in the way of your strumming hand like some so-called classic guitars (strat, les paul!).

I've only had it for 5 months, but my impression is that it would last, given the fact that it's sustained virtually not dinks or scratches. I would certainly gig with this as my main guitar, though as I use alternate tunings I'm never without at least two backups!

There's an actual Yamaha shop 15 minutes from where I live, so I know where to go in the unlikely event I ever have a problem!

Give me this guitar over any stratocaster any day! Simplicity is what the Pacificas are all about - this particular model has that, plus a better look and a decent finish. I doubt you can find a better guitar for this price - certainly not anything produced by Fender's wage slaves.

Hecha en Taiwan,cuerpo de madera de aliso de tres piezas,dos pastillas de bobinado simple y una humbucker,todas ellas de alnico.
El cuerpo esta inspirado en la famosa stratocaster, la mia en particular pintada con rojo translucido y golpeador negro.

El sonido para una guitarra de este precio no esta nada mal,quizas demasiado brillante,demasiado twang...pero bueno en general para amantes del blues,telecasters y un poco de sonido vintage esta bastante bien si recordamos el precio de la guitarra,en este rango de precio no hay muchas cosas parecidas,suelen ser de calidad dudosa.
Una cosa muy importante para principiantes:no se acopla,adios al feedback.

La guitarra biene perfectamente ajustada,no tienes nada mas que afinarla,enchufarte,y tocar.
Tiene una accion muy buena un mastil comodo y unos trastes perfectamente asentados,para mi lo mejor de la guitarra es el trabajo de trasteado.
No me gusta la altura de las pastillas,quizas demasiado pegadas a las cuerdas,pero bueno yo suelo tocar con los dedos,no creo que moleste a todo el mundo,se puede arreglar bajandolas un poco,pero perdemos mucho volumen y tenemos que subir bastante el amplificador.

Ya tuve anteriormente otras guitarras Yamaha y por lo general son duraderas

Estamos hablando de una guitarra barata para principiantes,pero podemos decir que es una candidata seria para gente que no es principiante pero que no puede gastar demasiado en una guitarra,otras marcas no dan la calidad y fiabilidad como Yamaha por debajo de 500 dolares,no creo que se hagan muchas cosas mejor,por lo menos a nivel de construccion

Made in Japam, 22 fret,h/s/s config, vintage tremolo bridge.

This was my first guitar... and im very happy with it. Feels like a strat except its not fender..lol... great tonal range due to the pickup config. Use it for lead playing with boss xt-2 xtortion and a vox wah pedal... sounds great.

Action was low, which i lied, didnt have to change it. Everything was so to speak, perfect.

Never tried playing live before, hardware lasted me for 2 years, perfect so far. Finish is good, no blemishes.
Its pretty reliable, i might do a small gig with it.

Enqiuired on the type of pickups and all they told me was it carried alnico5 magnets.. not very helpful

mi PAC312MII fue comprada en Venezuela en Octubre de 2001, es hecha en China, tiene 22 trastes, es de cuerpo solido (de tres piezas encoladas), control de volumen y toto selector de cinco posiciones S/S/H, realmente no se de que fabricante son los microfonos, es de circuiteria pasiva, el acabado es translucido de color rojo como base, de cuerpo estilo strat, con puente vintage, las clavijas son muy parecidas a unas grover sin serlo, escala 25 1/2", sin accesorios.

estoy empleando un Peavy Studio Pro 112 junto a un viejo Roland atransistores de 100W con un Cry Baby Jim Dumlop y una AX-300, he modificado la ecualizacion de distintas maneras pero no puedo eliminar la cantidad de agudos que sale de los captadores del mastil y el medio y ni hablar del captador del puente, al bajar el nivel del control de tono a un 60% se puede lograr un sonido mas calido, me parece que con unas cuerdas de buen calibre 0.010 y una cambio de pastillas seria muy buena, tal como biene de fabrica tiene un campo de aplicacion a mi parecer muy limitado a sonodos brillantes y es bastante ruidosa con distorsiones de alta ganancia, en contraparte su definicion y claridad en la independencia de las cuerdas es impresionante en una guitarra de relativamente bajo precio.

realmente me parece impresionante llegar a mi casa con esta guitarra y no tener que ajustar nada, todo estaba correctamente ajustado, la entonacion, la accion de las cuerdas, el arco del mastil, en realidad todo, no encontre ningun detalle en el acabado, trastes bien asentados y pulidos, constructivamente no hay dudas de que se las trae, el unico detalle, bueno realmente detallaso es que para la disposicion de los captadores se removio gran cantidad de material de la parte frontal del cuerpo, se trata de un hueco rectangular cubierto con la chapa donde se fijan los captadores, con un poco mas de trabajo en este aspecto seria una guitarra exelentemente construida aunque quizas un poco mas cara.

tengo muy poco tiempo con esta guitarra y no me aventuro a opinar en este aspecto, aunque me parece que por lo bien construida que esta no se deberia esperar alguna sorpresa desagradable.

no he tenido la necesidad (afortunadamente) de requerir soporte del fabricante.

es muy comoda de tocar, se puede mejorar muy facilmente al instalarle nuevos captadores y cambiando la circuiteria, y considerando el precio se puede tener una muy buena guitarra de la que no nos podriamos quejar

My yamaha (312)is made in Japan, and has 22 frets. It is a great guitar that gives you lots of different sounds and it is very cheep
500 DM. Humbuker is great strong and gives you all the power you need. Tuners are OK but the neck is great.

I play Hard Core sound, but i also like playing Jazz. Pa 312 is great for hard playing because of the humbuker but it in not so great for playing jazz.
It has full sound with distortion, and with clean it is OK.
Variety is great from blues to heavy

Well my guitar was not well set-up by the factory, but thats all.

Yes i think this is a guitar that can stand wild playing. I don't think my tuners will last more than 3 years. The strap buttons are great, but the finish is not weel enough.

I did not had any contacts with the company, it's new guitar and i don't have warranty.

I play guitar for 5 years.I also have Leedstar II. I would buy it always. I love the shape, the color, but i hate because it doesn't have signatures on pickups. It is good just as Ibanez RG series.

Made in Japan, 22 frets, 1 volume, 1 tone, 5-way selector, S/S/H, passive electronics, Alder body, rosewood fretboard. Translucent blue finish, strat-based style. Vintage tremolo, gold plated machinery. Pearl pickguard.

This is a very versatile guitar. With the single coils in the middle and the bridge you may obtain pretty good tones (no "twang" although) for clean sounds, and the humbucker in the bridge has a remarkably higher output, ideal for power chords and hot soloing. The tone knob allow you to have a wide range of tones, from Jazz to Blues, to hard rock.
I'm using a Passport 150 PA, and for pre-amp I'm using a Digitech RP-14D and/or a POD 2.0
As with any single coil, there is some hum. The sound is bright, not quite rich or full but very decent.
Actually you can obtain a lot of tones from the guitar, but you may not excpect exceptional quality sound. This is a somewhat cheap guitar, so you can't expect a superb tone, but you won't be disappointed with the sound.
I really liked the output of the humbucker.

The guitar was perfect from factory. Everything was right: action, intonation, pickups distance. Very surprising from a middle-low priced guitar, but not quite surprising from Yamaha. I had a Pac 120SD and it was the same.

I think this guitar really will withstand lot of practicing time and will do a good job while live playing.
Actually I don't think that the gold-plated tunes pegs and bridge will last for too long. The strap buttons are standard, not very solid. I think you may depend on it, but having a backup for a gig would be a good idea because of the vintage tremolo (if you break a string you'll be in trouble).

I wrote to Yamaha to find a middle-low priced guitar, strat styled, versatile and with good quality. They responded my e-mail immediately suggesting a good range of guitars. Really good from them.

I've being playing for almost 14 years. I have a Fender Stevie Ray Vaughan Signature Stratocaste, an Ibanez JS1000 Joe Satriani model and a Gibson Les Paul custom. I bought the guitar because I needed an axe for practice and using any of my other guitars didn't seem to be a good idea. I wanted a some-what cheap instrument, but very playable, with a good sound and with a good bang-for-the-buck ratio.

The guitar looks cool, sounds good and is perfect for what I was looking for.

I dislike that it may have a better tone. The combination of woods and pickups seems to be a little weak, but obviously I want to play this guitar to practice while watching TV, not for recording or for touring, so you may survive with this.

I'd like to share something with you: I really think that Yamaha is doing a great job. I have now an Ibanez Joe Satriani (I've already said that), and it is an exceptional instrument (I obviously expected this from a $1,000+ instrument), but I have had other cheaper Ibanez guitars and they are really disappointing. You pay $450 to $600 bucks and you do not get the quality you are paying for. With Yamaha you really have a lot from your money. Yamaha guitars has great (and I mean really GREAT) finishes, quality hardware and solid woods in a tight budget. Although I brought this guitar brand new, I think Yamaha is now selling the 312 II, so very probably you won't find a brand new 312 available at any store, but if you are looking for a good instrument at a reasonable price, I think that any current Yamaha model will fit your needs in the middle and middle-low price range. Obviously if you want to spend more than a thousand bucks, then you must bet for a Fender, Gibson or something like that, but if you are looking for a good guitar for under $500, you have a lot of choices with Yamaha. I really was upset when I found that my Ibanez RG470 was pure garbage, so I think that if you want realy value from your money, you must take a look at Yamaha guitars.

Beautiful see-through black finish with gold hardware. 2 single coil pickups and a humbucker. Pearl pickguard and pret dots. Very beautiful. For this price range it has alot of features. Humbucker!

it has a very mellow sound to it that I really like. It is good for solos and for an overall good guitar. Without distortion it sounds very clean. The humbucker gives it a sort of twang too. As stated before, it does tend to make alot of noise when playing with distortion. The other strings and pickups alike will start to hum and ring. This is not aguitar for real heavy metal, even though I have cranked out some powerful stuff on it. Mellow, that is how many of my friends have describe it as being. Everyone that has played it has loved the sound. With the humbucker, it gives the player many sound options.

It has very good action. This is another feature that people that have played it have commented on. I just recently replaced the factory strings (it's been 4yrs now) with Ernie Ball skinny top, heavy bottoms. I had to raise and tighten the bridge to accomodate the thicker strings.I will probably put super thins back on though. I was experimenting with bass sounds. The gold hardware does seem to have oxidized or something, but it wipes of with a little rubbing and it looks as good as new. The finish is beautiful. It is see-through black. I like how you can see the wood grain. The pearl pickguard and fret inlays are also a good addition.

Two of my friends have actually asked to borrow this to play at some small gigs. It has more than withstood normal use. I bought a new guitar strap and it wasn't broken it or something and the guitar fell of and hit the ground resulting in a chunk of the finish cracking off. So I guess the strap buttons could be bigger. I play withthe whammy bar all the time and I haven't had too much trouble keeping it in tune.

I go to the local guitar dealer if I have a question about anything.

I bought this guitar when I first started playing 4 yrs ago. It was quite a deal. I am hoping to bye a jumbo accoustic/electric cutaway. This guitar is jsut the sound I wanted from an electric-mellow. It is very versital with the humbucker. I too would consider replacing the pickups and puting on alocking mechanism. It is more than enough for a beginner and intermediate player. You can't beat the price either. If I had it to do over again I would get teh same guitar. I wanted to start out with a strat style. This had some features (humbucker) that others in its catagory didn't have. Price! Mellow! Beautiful! Humbucker!

Made in Japan.22frets. Solid top 1 vol and 1 tone. 5pos selector 2sing coils, 1 humbucker stock Yamahas.passiveAlder body, Maple neck. transparent finish. strat body. Vintage something bridge.takes trem rod.Sperzel tuners.Normal fret size on a rosewood fingerboard w/pearl inlays no accesories.

I get kind of a Nirvana sound from the humbucker, not the greatest for heavy metal. But I'm just using a 5-inch Squire Sidekick. Not much noise at all. More of a Bright sound. A little too vintage.

It was very well set up and the pickups were fine. 1 or 2 of the tuners were a little loose. Nothing that couldn't be fixed in 10 seconds, though.

Unforunatly I haven't played live yet but i'm getting there. I've seen no flaws in the whole guitar.Strap buttons could be somewhat bigger.

I've had no reason to contact Yamaha. 1yr warranty only.

I have been playing for about 1 year. I own a Squier Sidekick Amp (Hey, it was all I could afford for $400 total). If stolen I would get an ESP LTDm-100 good metal guitar for about $50 more. I love the playability I rarely need to do much warm up to get my hand used to it. Very comfortable. I compared it to an Ibanez Rx. The yamaha had much better tuners. I wish it had active EMG 81's and a better bridge. I also wish I had a bigger amp, even a low end Marshall Valvestate. It is my first guitar and was a wonderful one to learn on. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to experiment with different styles of music.

This is your basic super-strat setup: strat-style body (more or less), H/S/S pickup configuration (passive), five way pickup selector, 22 fret maple neck with rosewood fingerboard, solid alder body, one volume and one master tone control, "pearloid" pickguard, "vintage" trem (i.e., non-floating), non-locking tuners, gold hardware.

This guitar has a fairly nice sound to it. It is bright and clear -- very strat like. I have been able to get good semi-jazz, blues, and rock tones out of it. All pickups seem to be of a relatively low output, including the bridge humbucker, and thus this guitar would not necessarily be suited for hard rock/metal playing; at least not without a pickup change. By compariosn, my mid 80's Kramer with Seymour Duncans has a much harsher tone -- better for metal, not as good for mellow stuff. The single coils seem to be relatively quiet.

Thoug I'm not really a stickler for this kind of thing, the finish seems good realtive to the price of the guitar. The gold hardware does seem to tarnish fairly quickly, and in fact I wouldn't have chosen to have it except that this was the only guitar of this type left in the store. The setup and action are excellent. This guitar's playability is its main selling point. The neck is wide and relatively flat, and all the top frets are easily accessed. The action is low and overall it is a very playable guitar. In addition, it is fairly light, a feature my back appreciates.

Overall, reliability seems good, although I haven't really thrashed it at this point. One of my main complaints with this guitar is the tuners. They are non-locking, and some serious string wrangling seems to send the guitar out of tune fairly quickly. I am going to install locking tuners on it, and I would encourage anyone considering purchasing this guitar to factor in this expense. I have "blocked" the trem (i.e., put a wooden block inside the trem unit so that it doesn't function), so I can't comment on its worthiness. Otherwise, the guitar seems solidly constructed.

I have not dealt with Yamaha. The manual that came with the guitar is decent.

I have been playing guitar for about ten years. I was looking for a guitar that could offer a fairly wide variety of tones, had good playability, and was cheap. This one does that. Even with the additional expense of adding locking tuners and to replacing the bridge humbucker with something more powerful, this guitar still clocks in at under $500.00. While it certainly won't appeal to purists or collectors, I would recommend it to anyone seeking the above features. Strict metalheads, however, would be advised to look elsewhere.

Made in Taiwan 1995,22 frets,1Volume and tone control.5 way pickup selector(H/S/S)stock Yamaha pickups. Alder strat style body. String thru body bridge. Non locking stock tuners.

The guitar makes lots of noise at high gain settings, particularly the humbucker. I use it with a peavy Bandit. It has a nice bright sound. It is not great for metal,

The set up was good as far as I can remember. The finish is a nice translucent black, and the wood used seems high quality. However the volume,tone and pickup selector make a lot of noise. The gold hardware seems to oxidize or something over time.

The guitar seems dependable.

I played guitar for 5 years,I would recommend the cheaper pacifica 112, after a few months the classy gold hardware seems to loose its appeal, its not worth the extra $120.