Yamaha Guitar Celebrates 40 Years

Yamaha Guitar Celebrates 40 Years Of Making Music

ANAHEIM, Calif.—For 40 years, Yamaha Guitars has been a driving force in the music industry by pioneering manufacturing techniques and innovating revolutionary designs. Through innovations such as the APX acoustic/electrics, Drop 6 semi-baritone scale, the Silent Guitar, and RGXA2's A.I.R. technology, Yamaha Guitars has been able to sustain 40 years of continuously growing success. From Woodstock to Live 8, Yamaha Guitars have been there to help define generation after generation of music.

“Yamaha Guitars have paralleled music trends since 1966,” says Tom Sumner, vice president and general manager, Yamaha Pro Audio & Combo Division. “Innovations that we created have helped shape the guitar industry as we know it.”

In 1966, Yamaha began producing the first FG series acoustic guitars at Yamaha's custom shop in Hamamatsu, Japan. The legendary FG line has been a staple in the music industry and has provided millions of musicians the inspiration to create music.

The 1970s saw the rise of Yamaha's electric guitars, most notably the SG guitars made famous by artists like Carlos Santana. “Of all the excellent – and generally unheralded – guitars built by Yamaha over the years, none has achieved quite the legendary status as the Yamaha SG-2000,” wrote Vintage Guitar magazine.

Yamaha's prominence in the bass world came in the 1980s with the birth of the celebrated BB Series basses with their stellar endorsers such as Michael Anthony, Nathan East, Billy Sheehan, and Tony Kanal.

Yamaha established an artist/R&D facility in 1990 in the heart of the music industry in Hollywood, California: Yamaha Guitar Development. YGD not only modified and customized artists' guitars, but also created all-new models and prototypes that would later be produced for worldwide distribution. One particular YGD design that proved incredibly successful in the 90s through today is the Pacifica Series. The Pacifica brought to Yamaha artists like Michael Lee Firkins, Mike Stern, and Sheldon Reynolds.

The new millennium has already seen revolutionary technology found in the Silent Guitar and the RGXA2's A.I.R. construction and original designs found in the AES Series.

In 2005, Hal Leonard published a comprehensive book entitled The History of Yamaha Guitars, by Mark Kasulen and Matt Blackett, which chronicles the company's distinguished guitar-making traditions.

“This is definitely a momentous occasion, but it's only the beginning,” said Bryan Savage, Yamaha Guitars marketing manager. “I'm excited to see where the next 40 years will take us.”
For more information, visit www.AndysMusicOnline.com.