Yamaha Pacifica Professional P12M

IF THERE’S ONE thing that’s overshadowing the stellar Yamaha Pacifica Professional guitar, it’s the startling price tag. It’s difficult to shake the fact that the Pacifica — which many consider the benchmark in budget electric guitars — now arrives in a Professional version at a cost that might be slightly out of reach for most players. Even so, it would be a shame for that to be the only reason to overlook this thoughtfully designed Su-perstrat that undeniably proves it’s a world-class performance instrument through and through.

The Pacifica model has been around for decades, but if you look back far enough, you’ll find that its evolution was rooted as a pro-level, custom shop guitar that was built-to-order for top Los Angeles session players. So, in essence, Yamaha’s Pacifica Professional is a welcome return to form as a premium instrument. If that sounds dubious, you can rest assured that the Pacifica Professional’s build quality and specialized features are on par with top-notch boutique brands like James Tyler, Knaggs, Suhr and Tom Anderson.

First impressions are everything, and right off the bat, the guitar feels profoundly comfortable in your hands and rings out with a sizable resonance acoustically. A lot of that has to do with its precise Japanese craftsmanship and implementation of Yamaha’s Acoustic Design technology — an advanced form of chambering that Brandon Soriano, marketing manager of the Pacifica line, elaborates on: “If you hear about chambering, you picture someone just taking chunks of wood out. This is different. We had scientists meticulously doing 3D modeling and mapping out how to shape the body and take certain parts out so that the whole thing resonates as freely as possible.” And while this kind of exactness puts the Pacifica a cut above the rest, the perceivable standout comes in the form of the new Reflectone pickups in an HSS configuration (with a push-pull coil split at the tone knob). Yamaha partnered with Rupert Neve Designs, the company renowned for its pro audio recording consoles and preamps, to develop uniquely wound pickups that cover an exceptionally wide tonal response. The result is pickups unlike anything I’ve experienced before. Though it may sound like a fault, the Reflectone pickups lack coloration, but this is exactly what makes them extraordinary. What you get in return is supreme balance and an almost mastered, studio-quality polish between all the pickup positions on the five-way selector — or what Michael-Astley Brown, GW’s online EIC, called a “pre-produced sound,” and I completely agree. It’s the kind of fully realized humbucker and single-coil tones that reveal the true nature of your tube amp or guitar modeler with clarity.