YAMAHA REVSTAR

YAMAHA REVSTAR
86
GUITARIST JUNE 2022
Les Paul Classic reference. Moving to the
neck unit, there’s an impression of thickness
– soupy and vocal, PAF-y but again a little
rounded in the highs. The mix is bouncy,
just as you’d expect, and in position 2 there’s
a very similar high-end response but a
slightly out-of-phase honky flavour in the
lower positions. Position 4 has the same
character, just a little thicker and (with both
pickups selected) very similar to slightly
rolling off just the neck pickup volume on
our Les Paul Classic. All the guitars feature
an effective treble bleed circuit, and pulling
back the volume does have the effect of
restoring a little clarity.
Moving to the Standard soapbar and we
have a pretty similar power to our RSS20,
albeit crossed with a single coil, giving
slightly less thickness but plenty of bite.
Pulling back the volume produces more
‘single coil’ and is certainly the place to
find some jangle. The Professional version
obviously isn’t a million miles away, but
it does sound noticeably clearer, which is
simply down to the guitar’s construction if
the pickups are actually the same, as is the
circuit. Slammed through a low-output
gainy amp, you might hear less difference,
but it’s there. While that custom tailpiece
looks like it should make some difference,
in our experimenting here, and with the
original RS502T, it depends on how you
adjust it. As shipped, the four bolts are
screwed right down and that produces less
effect to our ears. Remove the two bolts
closest to the bridge and it definitely sounds
a little looser, more like a trapeze. A subtle
effect that you can set how you like.
Introducing the Focus Switch on the
RSS20, then, things get fatter and less
distinct in the highs. Yamaha’s claim that it’s
a passive boost is certainly what you hear,
and it slightly lifts everything but the treble:
think rolled-off tone control with a slight
level boost kicked-in, or even a backed-off
wah. It’s not bad at getting close to those
fat Santana sounds, either. Good for jazz,
too? Well, on clean tones, yes, although
that lack of clarity won’t be for everyone.
There is something of a 15kohm hot ’bucker
to the sound, but even a DiMarzio Super
Distortion has more clarity than this. Where
it does score is with a fizzy edged high-gain
7
Introducing the
new Focus Switch
passive boost, things
get fatter and less
distinct in the highs
8. Like the originals, all
the guitars have a nicely
shaped neck heel. The
full width of the necks
slot into the body and
continue under the
neck pickup
9. The new Standard and
Professional models
introduce the Focus
Switch by pulling up the
master tone control. It’s
a passive boost achieved
with a small transformer
in the control cavity
7. These rather elegant
non-locking tuners,
shown here on the
RSS20, are used across
the range. Note the
Hanko stamp motif from
the original Revstars. On
the Indonesian models,
it means ‘Revstar’; on
the Japanese-made Pro
model, the decal means
‘Made in Japan’
8
VIDEO DEMO http://bit.ly/guitaristextra
GIT485.rev_yamaha.indd 86GIT485.rev_yamaha.indd 86 12/04/2022 15:4412/04/2022 15:44