Yamaha Acoustics

IT WAS
a year of sex, drugs
and musical revolution
– oh, and England won the World Cup, of
course – so on reflection it’s perhaps not
surprising that the 1966 arrival of Yamaha’s
first steel-string guitars, the FG180 and
FG150, didn’t cause that much of a stir. Fast
forward a few years though and it was a
different story. The FG seemed the essential
must-have for any wannabe troubadour:
even guitar hero John Martyn played one!
During the ensuing years the FG range has
become one of the biggest selling guitar
series’ on the planet and has gone through
numerous makeovers; the last 700 one
however, was over a decade ago, by which
time the avalanche of affordable steel-
strings from China was already underway.
For 2016, then, Yamaha needed
something a little special and that’s exactly
what the new 800 series range (which
completely replaces the previous 700s) is.
It centres on just two body shapes: the
original FG ‘Western’ dreadnought and the
smaller ‘folk’ or concert-size FS.
The guitars are all made in Yamaha’s own
mega-factory in China and feature solid
wood tops – spruce on the 800 to 840
models, mahogany on the 850s – with
laminated back and sides: the start up 800
level uses what Yamaha state as ‘nato/
okume’, the 820s are mahogany, the 830s
are rosewood, the 840s are maple and the
850s are again mahogany but with that solid
mahogany top.
YAMAHA F SERIES
ROUND-UP
80 october 2016
AS
it’s been well over a decade
since these guitars got a
refresh, Yamaha is going all out with
these 2016 upgrades, and according
to Yamaha, the aim is to create guitars
that are tonally enhanced. On the one
hand that means a return to the original
FG180, but with the addition of “a
little more volume, a little more bass, a
little more oomph”. Now, us reviewers
will always take such claims with a
pinch of salt but a quick strum on this
all-matt-finished guitar – the start of the
new range priced just below the gloss-
finished FG/FS800 (both £268) – has us
double-checking our price list. But we’ve
got ahead of ourselves…
The FG800M is a typically classy,
clean build and those of us who like
our guitars to look a little less posh will
find a friend here: the matt finish gives
a lived-in working guitar appearance.
There’s little ornamentation, the
fingerboard dots are small and lack
contrast but the white side dots are clear
and bright. The brand logo and fleur
motif are simply silk-screened but it’s
the three-piece neck, with a roomy full
C profile, that immediately engages.
Tuners are quite generic but more than
up to the job while the synthetic ‘urea’
nut and compensated saddle are well
cut with a sensible, get-on-with-the-job
action. The fretting is also extremely
tidy, while the fingerboard edges are
actually bound creating, in typical
Chinese-style, a very tidy job.
Dreadnoughts, of course, come in
many different tonal shades but we
should expect plenty of roomy lows,
a strong thump in the lower mids, crisp
highs: a big projecting sound. Well, the
FG800M ticks those boxes and some
and sounds dangerously close – albeit
thinner, crisper and ‘newer’ – to our
reference and well-used 16-Series
Martin dread’ that costs an awful lot
more. Game on…
YAMAHA FG800M
£213
Matt’s the way we like it…
The FG was the
must-have for any
wannabe troubadour
wannabe troubadour
TGR285.gear_round.indd 80 07/09/2016 16:35