YAMAHA 6 String Acoustic-Electric Guitar, Natural Satin (APX600M NS)

 Estaticamente molto bella, bello il colore, buon materiale e ottimo packaging.

OK, well I’m a bass player who wanted a little acoustic guitar to mess around with. It needed to be $300 or less. This one came up with great reviews and so I just bought one sight unseen

It’s really hard to believe that you can get a guitar of this quality and tone for this price. I have to give it 5 stars with an important caveat.

What I like:

Well built and solid. I particularly like the plastic edging around the body this keeps it from getting dents.

Narrow body. I didn’t want some big ole clunker for when I’m plunking around while watching movies.

Really great sound, both as an acoustic and when plugged in. It’s bright and full – very good steel string sound.

The electric features are also very good. There are low, mid, and high tone controls for when plugged in. Also a volume control.

The built in tuner is fabulous. Note that it works on AA batteries that are built into small pop out compartment that’s built into the body. The tuner allows you the center the intonation very closely and easily. It’s easy to always be in perfect tune. i’m not sure if the batteries are required to play amplified e. g. whether its active electric.

The finish is cool – a greenish sort of blue sunburst. I also like the inlay around the sound hole.

Seem like high quality machine heads. We’ll see how they hold – not 100% sure yet, but i’ll assume the best

Problem:

Right out of the box the action was way too high.. To remedy this I changed the strings to a “light” set (.11 high E). This helped but not enough. So, I tried adjusting the truss rod. This also helped but the action was still to high for me. So, I very carefully removed the strings, removed and shaved the plastic bridge piece on the bottom – about 1 sixteenth of an inch. Then I worked to get the truss rod in a good position with the new lower string setting. I was also prepared to shave the nut which is also easily removable. As it turned out didn’t have to take this step. Shaving the bridge and adjusting the truss was enough to bring it into a really really playable level of action – strings over frets. So, that was a lot to do and i had to be very careful doing it, but it’s paid off. It now has really great action like a very good electric guitar that’s been set up right.

If you’r action is too high you might want to consider having an expert do this. if you do it yourself note that you have to be very very careful. Remember that you can always sand off more off the little plastic bridge piece but YOU CAN’T PUT IT BACK ON. So you might have to keep putting the strings back on and then taking them off until you’ve got it right.

At this point i am very happy with this guitar. My only other comment is that, for me anyway, the neck is very narrow. I’m used to bass necks which are much wider or the strings are typically set further apart., I do have to get may fingers bunched up in a pretty tight configuration as for instance when playing a low A major chord. but that’s probably just me. But don’t expect a wide neck as on a typical nylon string classical guitar. This is more like a telecaster neck or maybe even a little more narrow than that.

Again, for the money, its a really great choice and I highly recommend it with the noted caveat.

We don’t often plug it in. I bought it because I wanted something with a shallower depth which would be easier for her to play. She just plays at home and stum chords. Without amplification, sounds great in the living room. Sure it’s not going to sound as good as deep as a dreadnaught but your average listener probably can’t distinguish the difference unless you were to play a dreadnaught and this side by side. She’s not a pro musician so it doesn’t matter. It’s a quality and rich sound. If she wants to play louder, a tiny, lightweight guitar amp would make it plenty loud.

Runs on two AA batteries, which are cheaper and easier to find. What’s really convenient in our situation is the built in tuner which can be turned on without needing to plug in. Press the button and it’ll stay on for a while and definitely long enough for you to tune. If you never use the pickups, it’s certainly not a waste because the electronics make it possible to have a built in tuner.

Even without intending to ever use the pickups, I know it’d be nice to have in there because if we ever change our minds we aren’t stuck trying to trade a guitar, having pickups put in (expensive), or using those terrible soundhole pickups. I’d choose this over the other Yamaha’s that don’t have pickups in this price range.

She likes it a lot. Easy to play. A half turn of the truss rod was all that we needed to adjust it to be closer to ideal. We could have it worked on some more or paid someone to get it from 80% ideal to 100% ideal, but as is. it’s already great.

I had a FG730S before but it was sold when I stopped playing. The FG had a really nice sound but I never felt very comfortable playing it. I recently went looking for another guitar and really wanted an Acoustic-Electric. I was leaning towards the FS800C but soon read about the APX line. The thin body really interested me. The consensus online leaned towards the FG/FS line for the improved sound quality at a similar price. Thinking back to the FG730S, I would be willing to sacrifice some sound if it meant the guitar would be more comfortable to play. I think this was the right trade-off in my case, much more accessible size and shape vs my old FG730S. While the sound might be missing some resonance, it will spend most of its life connected to my Motu M2, where it will be modified anyways. Happy with the purchase.

This guitar is light in weight, easy to hold with a manageable neck. The built in tuner is a real plus. All this and it sounds great. Not a performance guitar, but an excellent instrument to learn with…