Yamaha AES620

Yamaha's all out assault on rock!

"If you rock, your vehical is ready"

Strong words, but does the AES620 live up to them? Well, it's stunning finish does, that's for sure... The Faded Burst, Translucent Dark Red, and Royal Blue are of a quality and brilliance expected of the highest quality and highest priced, guitars on the market.

With it's high output Seymore Duncan bridge pickup, it's obvious which big name model this guitar is going up against. For an LP styled gutiar, the AES series are very thin, similar to gutiars by companies such as Ibanez and because of this, the AES series are a lot less cumbersome than their more expensive counterparts.

Typical of any good LP style guitar the body is a combination of a mahogany back and Maple top. This guitar is relatively light by LP standards something helped by it's light-weight Nato neck. There is also a noticable lack of mass to the instrument compared to the others and because of this, there is a lot less natural resonance. Thus, sustain will have been compromised... Yamaha managed to get round this problem by fitting it with high output pickups. Whilst this slightly exaggerates the treble it certainly helps the sustain when playing on higher gain settings and it must be said that the output level and fullness of the guitar is as impressive as the Epiphone version.

Playing the guitar feels different enough to the Epiphone to warrant our interest in it. If it felt like "just another" Gibson clone we probably wouldn't have been too fussed about it. It has a much "chunkier" feel to the neck, which is odd considering the slinky body and the general design of the rest of the instrument. It almost feels like a pacifica series neck to play which is great news for beginners used to Yamaha's excellent beginners guitar.

We feel that viewed on it's own, the Yamaha AES620 is an extremely good LP-styled guitar. Capable of an impressive array of sounds and tones. When compared to other LP inspired models, most notably the Epiphone it manages to hold it's own. Something of a rarity. We feel that the two models are so good in fact, that it's pretty difficult to say one is better than the other, with each having it's own pros and cons.

Why not come in store today and compare them for yourself or ask for a demo?!