Leaderboard

I went into my first guitar store in 18 months yesterday, mainly to check out the store closest to me. For a smallish store, it had a good range of electrics, a reasonable acoustic corner and a paltry handful of basses (most unimpressive). I didn’t look too long at the electrics as I’m not in the market for a new one at all, looking at the basses took no time at all sadly, so I wandered into the acoustic section, as I wouldn’t mind a mahogany bodied, dreadnought. One of the assistants asked if I’d tried a Yamaha Trans Acoustic, which, although having been around a while, I was unaware of. Through some electronic wizardry, you can add reverb and/or chorus to the acoustic sound (there’s an actuator inside the body, connected to the back). Sounded like a huge gimmick to me, but I humoured him and gave it a go. OMG! This tech is just amazing. I was blown away by it and had the parking ticket on the car not been getting close to expiry, I would have been sitting there for hours. I open tuned the guitar to play Zep’s The Rain Song, had the reverb on and it was fantastic, really natural sounding, not faux in any way, shape or form. The guitar, an FG, was up to Yamahas usual build and playability standards (i.e. very high) and I’m seriously considering buying it. The added ambience just makes you want to play it and, for those who write their own songs, seems it would be inspirational. I’ve only ever had the ‘I need this guitar in my life’ reaction once before. I make no apologies for this gushing review and I urge you to try one if you can.