Yamaha SLG200 S Natural

I've been playing live regularly for 5 years, doing a solo acoustic performance of cover songs, which is typically around 3-4 hours (with some short breaks). I have a powerful Bose sound system, which in the past, has given me feedback issues with my Taylor guitar (even with a sound suppressor in the sound hole).

I purchased the Yamaha Silent Guitar for several reasons: To eliminate feedback, to lighten my load and to add interest to my presentation (1 guy , playing guitar and singing).

Regarding feedback, there is none, no matter how loud my system is. It's brilliant.

Lightening my load is about me being able to walk to a gig with a small, 2 wheeled trolley, in one trip. The Yamaha Silent guitar partially dismantles and because it doesn't have a body, it is light. Yamaha provide an excellent carry bag, which is reasonably rugged (for a soft case). The guitar in it's bag slings over your back and is very comfortable to walk around with.

Presentation is about adding some interest and variety to my visuals and the Yamaha Silent Guitar has generated a lot of interest from members of the audience.

Ok, so how about the sound? I'm very impressed :-) I was skeptical that a body-less acoustic guitar could sound like a fully bodied acoustic. It sounds great!

Playability? The Yamaha Silent Guitar was well setup, straight out of the box it came in. It has a good action and is in-tune, all the way up the fret board. My biggest complaint is the volume knob. It's very difficult to access, is very small and cannot be seen when you are playing. I adjust my volume constantly while playing, especially when moving from finger picking to strumming. A compressor could take care of that, but I'm not a fan of compression, especially when there is only 1 guitar and 1 singer. The solution to this, unfortunately, is that I will have to buy a volume pedal, which will probably turn out to be a small effect rig with a volume pedal. That's probably a good result, but it will add cables to my completely wireless setup and negate the weight saved in moving to the Yamaha Silent Guitar.

Build Quality? It's not great. The electronics built into the guitar are behind plastic. The knobs, battery housing, inbuilt tuner etc are a little disappointing regarding construction, quality and accessibility. The headphone output doesn't provide enough volume to drive my Bayer headphones at any sort of reasonable volume, but my cheap earbuds are fine. For the most part, I don't practice with the Yamaha Silent Guitar unless it's only guitar practice (without singing)

Would I buy the Yamaha Silent Guitar knowing what I know now? ABSOLUTELY! I love it. Hopefully Yamaha make some improvements around the electronics panel and knobs, but regardless, I would buy the guitar again, without hesitation. It is fantastic for live work.

As I live in an apartment complex and practice at night, this silent guitar is perfect for me. The sound is much dimmer than a full bodied acoustic guitar. When played with headphones or amplifiers, the sound is a great replica of a full body acoustic guitar. One thing to note however, the guitar had very high string action that made it hard to play. I had to have it adjusted but apart from that it's a great guitar.

It has a few design flaws. Firstly, don't freak out when you test the sound by plugging your good headphones into it like I did. You'll be greeted by an awful muddy mess. I almost panicked, but don't fall for it. Yamaha seem to have "tailored" the "Phones" output for the truly nasty plastic headphones they supply, which have no bass and are generally yuk, so when you hear too much bass in decent cans, that's why. Don't be surprised if you have to turn the pickup up/mic balance all the way to mic, drop all the bass and boost all the treble to compensate. Took me a while to work it out. However, the feed to your amp hasn't been fiddled with, and sounds great! The screws that hold the detachable part of the body on also act as your strap holders, which means they unwind themselves all the time - VERY annoying. It's a little uncomfortable because the frame is so thin, so I added a pad to the top. Sound-wise, I just can't fault it - it's excellent. It's not silent, perhaps twice a loud as my un-amplified Strat is, but it's far less noisy than any other acoustic, which really helps to not upset the neighbours. The build quality is superb. The on-delivery set up was equally excellent, no high and dodgy action to fix here, it was spot on right out of the box. One personal hate is the material they've used for the finger rest (pick guard) as it's horrible scratchy plastic, but really these are all minor things. It plays and sounds brilliantly (far better than I know how to play it to be honest.) The on board tuner is accurate, and the effects are entirely useable. It's not like playing an electric, and it's not entirely like paying a full acoustic either, its... well it's just what you'd expect. Unusual, but in no way unpleasant, just different. I'm very pleased overall, just watch out for the headphones thing, it really threw me until I worked out what was going on.

excellent guitar

The tone and how you play it superb!
No words Highly recommended guitar!