Yamaha’s RGX A2 has caused a bit of a stir within the industry with a new design concept that allows the combination of light wood and hard wood when manufacturing the guitar body.
The new concept uses the idea of sandwiching two outer pieces of traditional hardwood (Mahogany or Maple) with an inner piece of lightwood (Falacata wood). The centre of the body has small tubes set within the wood known as “sound tubes” which pass the guitar’s natural resonance from the front surface to the rear so that the whole instrument resonates when played.
So, in short this increases and enhances the resonance of the guitar whilst making the actual weight of the instrument incredibly light. Yamaha have also come up with a new take on the bridge with newly designed bridge saddles and have done likewise with the machine heads, which use grooved cylindrical barrels instead of the traditional kidney shaped keys to alter the tuning and pitch of the strings.
A slightly gimmicky feature is the LED lights that surround the volume and pick-up selector rotary knobs, once a jack is inserted into the guitar, small LED lights give a green and blue circular glow to the volume knob and rotary pick up selector switch.
The pick–ups themselves are Yamaha Alnico hum-buckers, with one at the neck and one at the bridge position. Presumably the LED’s are for orientation on a dark stage as different pick-up selection of the neck (green) and bridge (blue) positions produces blue or green coloured lights around the selector control, and I have to admit that it does look quite attractive on a white guitar. The thing that is missing – quite unusually in my opinion – is a tone control, and I can imagine that some guitarists would have liked the inclusion of this facility.