Yamaha Pacifca 112V

151
YAMAHA PACIFICA 112V REVIEW
L
ife was so simple before
Yamaha launched the
Pacifica in 1993. If you
bought an electric for
less than £200, you knew it
would be shite. If you saw one
that raised your pulse, it was
beyond your means. In a market
that assumed you were either a
vagrant or a banker, the Pacifica
blurred the lines, offering features
so hot you felt out of your league,
but a price so low it was faintly
patronising. 14 years later, the
new Pacifica 112V maintains that
ludicrous £199 price tag while
upgrading the stuff we already
thought was fantastic. Which is
good, because TG is still skint.
The sizzle: “Guitars aren’t
complicated!” blusters Yamaha,
sounding like your dad before
he buggers the plumbing under
the sink. “We take a solid US
alder body, a maple neck with
rosewood fretboard and team
it with custom pickups, a killer
✮✮✮✮✮
SUMMARY
TG says… It was great before and it’s even better now
For:
Top features, great feel and… can that price be right?
Against: The generic appearance is solid but forgettable
p Body
The design ain’t exactly
visual dynamite, but you
can’t knock the upper fret
access of the cutaways
p Coil tap switches
The 112V includes a coil-tap,
so you can ‘split’ the bridge
humbucker to bring in the
funky quack of a singlecoil
p Pickups
Yamaha have upgraded
the 112V pickups across the
board, meaning that the
bridge humbucker kills
At a glance
Yamaha Pacifica 112V
Yamaha Paci ca 112V
The Paci ca kicked the industry up the arse in ’93. Time to bend over again…
£199
trem and rock-solid chrome
machineheads. Then we put it all
together [to make] the perfect
combination of retro style and
modern performance, designed
to be easy to play and great-
sounding, so that you can get
your ideas from your head to
your amp the way you want to
hear them.”
With one eye on the price, TG
fed all that through our blurb
translator and concluded that
Yamaha has the 112V pegged as
an axe-of-all-trades.
We say: It might not give you
the horn like a ’58 Les Paul, but
the 112V is technically impossible
to dislike. Evoking the classic
designs of the 50s without
landing Yamaha with a cease-
and-desist order, combining
serious fret access with sensible
weight, and stretching your
investment with a responsive
vibrato and better hardware
than the original Pacifica, this
workhorse will sweat blood for
your cause and never ask for
anything back.
As a physical player, it’s as
good as the person holding it,
with the maple neck coaxing
riffs off your fingers and the
smooth run of the rosewood
board reminding TG of Yamaha’s
attention to detail. Of course, it’s
the pickups that really lift the
112V above the pack, from the
fat bark of the bridge humbucker
(it can be ‘split’ via the tone
control) to the Strat-baiting snap
of the singlecoils. Yamaha was
right – guitars don’t need to be
complicated when they’re this
freakin’ good.
Henry Yates
p Neck
Secured to the alder body
with four bolts, the 112V
neck is a slice of maple and
rosewood heaven
BODY: Solid alder
NECK: Maple, bolt-on
FINGERBOARD: Rosewood
SCALE: 25”
PICKUPS: 2x singlecoil, 1x
humbucker
CONTROLS: Volume, tone,
coil tap, 5-way pickup
switch
HARDWARE: Chrome
FINISH: Sonic Blue
[pictured], Natural, Black,
Old Violin Sunburst, Silver,
Raspberry Red
CONTACT: Yamaha
01908 366700
WEB: www.play-harder.
co.uk
It looks so good it’s hard
to believe this guitar
costs less than 200 quid
TGR169.gear_dps Sec1:151 18/10/07 07:37:52