Yamaha RGX112

I was training on a classical for four or five months, and I wanted to get more into rock, so my parents bought me this guitar for Christmas, along with an amp. I think it was $120 used. They threw in a wicked sixty dollar gig bag too, really nice bag.

I love this guitar. The action is so low and perfect, the strings have a nice, worked in feel that I haven't found anywhere else. The body deserves special mention. The hard edges and smooth, subtle curves get lots of compliments. People are always like, "Man, your guitar is so sexy.". I have a white one, so the black fretboard, pickups and volume and tone controls make a really nice contrast. It's just beautiful.

I had some problems with the tuners, I had to stick toothpicks in the screw holes so they wouldn't fall out. The stock pickups aren't so great, but they still sound good. The whammy bar broke off in my bridge and I had to get it professionally removed, so the whammy bar was a little cheap.

This guitar holds up really well, keeps a tune, no problems with the nut or bridge, low action, great quality guitar.

This is an excellent beginners guitar. I never sold it and never will. With a pickup upgrade it was the best guitar I saw for awhile, I performed with it, still do sometimes. It's good for blues and rock. I'd say it's the best beginner guitar you can buy. Same price as a Squier, but at least ten times the guitar, if you can find it. I love this guitar.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

The Yamaha RGX 112 is one of the lower level superstrats in the RGX line of guitars. Its features are pretty basic to keep the costs down but overall it still feels like a quality instrument. It features a sculpted agathis body, maple neck with rosewood fretboard and 24 frets, medium frets, standard sealed tuners and a 6 screw fulcrum point tremolo. The electronics are pretty standard for the guitar type. It's got an H-S-S pickup setup and is wired to a volume, tone, and 5 way selector switch. Pretty simple, yet it works very well and feels/sounds great.

UTILIZATION

The design of this guitar is pretty ergonomic. It falls under that Ibanez vein, and is more or less the typical design for a 24 fretter superstrat. The body is nicely contoured and is of a medium weight (thought not as light as some other guitars from Ibanez or Jackson that I've tried). The neck is quite thin, similar to a Wizard or something to me. That being said it's still quite comfortable to me, and I'm not a big fan of thinner necks personally. The upper fret access is actually quite nice because of the all access neck heel (similar to Ibanez) that is really conducive to getting right up to the top of the fretboard. Getting a nice tone out of the guitar is pretty easy. The stock pickups are actually decent, compared to some from Squier or Ibanez that are awful at this $200- price.

SOUNDS

The tones out of this guitar are pretty good and I dig 'em for what they are. The single coils are pretty mild sounding, with a nice glassy top end, especially in the split positions on the selector switch. They're not really very hot pickups so that makes them more ideal for clean tones. Switching over to the humbucker kicks the sound up a few notches and gives a really cool tone that's great for rock and blues. Using this guitar for overdrive is where it shines. My personal example sounded fantastic for eighties metal and shred stuff even with the stock pickups. I later retrofitted it with a Duncan Full Shred to get more output for modern tones which worked very well too. Either way, whether you're staying stock or modding this one, you've got a decent platform for tone here.

OVERALL OPINION

All in all I think Yamaha RGX 112 is a guitar that is a great example of a superstrat at a good price. They can be had for about $200 or less used which is a great deal. Yamaha is historically known for quality in their instruments and this one blows away many of the cheaper Ibanez or Squier guitars I've tried that were a similar design. The stock parts are not bad either which is nice, though I later gutted mine and made it into a hot rod rock machine, and hey, that works too. This guitar is just there, ready to rock.