I'm crazy about Yamaha electric guitars. But I wasn't always this way. A few years ago I lucked into a trade where I received an RGX820Z (and the rest was history). I was blown away at the playability, specs, and features of the guitar I got for the trade equivalent of $125.

Certainly, a guitar that played and sounded like this would have some kind of cult following online. We're talking about a dual humbucker Super Strat loaded with a Seymour Duncan '59 and JB, a piezo pickup with a blend knob, and a tremolo bridge with a curvature that matched the fretboard radius - creating the perfect action and set-up.

So I tried looking it up online.

I couldn't find almost anything.

Obviously, Yamaha is literally the #1 musical instrument corporation globally, and is first in market share globally for acoustic guitars and pianos. They've got a great reputation and get a lot of respect as a company. But they're not one of the big heavy hitter brands in the electric guitar world.

Still, I expected for there to be so much more information online about my model. But, I couldn't find almost anything.

If you look hard enough, info on Yamaha electric guitars is out there, but it pales in comparison to the well-documented histories and catalogued information for brands like Fender and Gibson. That's to be expected, I guess, for a brand with objectively less players and dedicated fans out there.

But this is a brand that makes great guitars. Guitars that are great enough to be more well-documented than they are. 

"Official" resources are scarce.

With the exception of a few hard-working individuals (see Acknowledgements below) who have published their own great resources, historical info about Yamaha electric guitars is mostly contained in discussions and comments between Yamaha guitar fans on online forums like YamahaMusicians.com, Reddit, and Facebook groups.

Part of what I aim to do with my website is document and organize that collective experience and knowledge about Yamaha guitars into a more permanent source of information. 

I'm a mid-Millennial. My core experiences on the internet while growing up often included reading blogs about my interests and hobbies.

So to some extent it feels natural to document my learnings and findings about Yamaha guitars the "old-fashioned" way, at least in internet terms - with a written blog.

Today's content-world is driven, of course, by video. I hope to make that a part of what I do as well, to supplement my written content.

I also think written content has the advantage of becoming more of a permanent source of reliable info online than video, which can be temperamental and easier to find. 

Since I love researching and finding out more about Yamaha electric guitars, from the vintage to the modern, present-day, I hope this website acts as another great resource. 

I have to give shout-outs to some heavy hitters in the online Yamaha guitar community.

• Bill, whose extensive guitar website is the greatest compilation of info on Yamaha guitars available to the public. more or less the de facto online encyclopedia for Yamaha electric guitars.
  
  

• Rod, who completed incredibly comprehensive research on all the Yamaha electric guitar models from 1965 to 2024 and self-published "An Enthusiast's Catalogue" of all the info he could find. This project is an unbelievable undertaking.
  
  

I don't believe I can match what these two Yamaha Guitar Trailblazers have done. I just hope whatever thoughts and findings I share can be useful to anyone else who wonders about the same things that I do.