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Yamaha is a very large company that started its activities in the repair of keyboards (pianos, organs). Today, Yamaha has many subsidiaries and markets motorcycles, engines, musical instruments and other products. If you want more information on Yamaha’s various fields of activity, you can easily find information on the Internet. Here we will talk about the guitars produced by the Japanese brand.
In this article, we focus on the electric guitars manufactured by Yamaha between 1972 and 1983.
1972 is an important year in the history of the Japanese guitar industry. Indeed, this is the period when the first copies of Fender and Gibson appeared on the market. Yamaha started making electric guitars in 1966 with the S-201 and S-302 series. A Japanese actor of the time, Yuzo Kayama, used several Yamaha guitars in his films and he became a famous singer in Japan. Through his films, he has encouraged young people to play the guitar. We can say that the great era of Japanese guitars began at that time.
In 1967, Yamaha changed its S series to SG series, and this marked the beginning of the brand’s SG guitars history. These SGs are now collectible instruments that are sold at high prices. This series is composed of original guitars created by Yamaha and remote Gibson and Fender formats. Yamaha has continued to develop original instruments well after. However, sales of electric guitars fell between 1968 and 1971.
From 1972, the Made in Japan guitar industry began a new era (for more information, check out the history of the Greco brand). In 1972, Yamaha developed a new series of solid body guitars and they used the same production code despite the fact that the format of the guitars was totally different from the earlier SG series. In the first place, Yamaha has designed guitars in a format close to the Les Paul with quite suave lines. These models were equipped with bolt on necks.
Since the sales were not very good, Yamaha launched a new SG series in December of that year with a format closer to Gibson. The pickups were humbucker type magnets Alnico. The high-end model, the SG-85, had a mahogany body from Honduras, ebony fretboard and set neck. It is also, in theory, the first Yamaha model with a set neck. However, this time again, sales have not taken off. Yamaha then added an adjustable neck mechanism and changed the SG format to a double cutway in November 1973.
In November 1974, Yamaha announced the new SG / SX series. The design of the SG was already well known and, we must admit, very beautiful.
Then Yamaha wanted to endorse Carlos Santana with the SG-175. Santana then received the SG-175, and he asked for some improvements.
- Weight: It was too light and he wanted it to be heavier to get better sustain.
- Frets: He wanted a neck with 24 frets.
- Buddha inlays.
Yamaha has therefore modified the guitar according to Santana’s desires: body thickness, back contour, Tune-O-Matic bridge, Switchcraft selector and Buddha inlays. Santana was not satisfied yet, he still wanted more sustain.
Yamaha made other changes for Carlos Santana:
- 1-piece neck (T-Cross).
- Top 2 pieces in teakwood
- Sustain plate under the bridge
- Wide-Travel bridge
- New OPG-I pickups
Santana then started playing on this guitar in concert.
Yamaha has finally managed to sell a lot of SG-175. Indeed, people thought that Santana was playing on a factory SG-175. However, SG-175 and SG Buddha were very different.
Then Yamaha launched the SG-2000 model. SG-2000 is almost identical to Santana Buddha SG. The differences are at the level of pickups (Santana had installed Gibson PAF), the number of pieces of wood for the body (3 pieces of maple) and the number of frets (22F). The neck (mahogany + maple) is a through neck (T-Cross).
Yamaha started exporting the new SG-2000 series with the name SBG for the international market. The SG prefix was not used because of the Gibson SG. Yamaha just wanted to protect itself from a possible trial of the American brand. The difference between the SG and SGB models lies in the tone knob since the SG-2000 was not equipped with the Push / Push coil Tap switch.
