My first and only electric (8 years now) is a yamaha pacific 412 MII. It's an alder body, translucent red ash top and satin maple neck and was from a batch that was manufactured in taiwan. there were pretty decent japan models prior to this but so far i've only managed to try randolf's whammy version and beez's non-whammy version.
I've gotten pretty used to it's neck profile, not as chunky as standard fender strats and not as thin as ibanez's RGs. I've tried many other guitars throughout the years, apart from a couple of suhrs and ibanezs, I haven't come across many that felt better than it. I brought it to malcolm for a setup and it played better than the numerous friends' fenders i've tried. maybe it has something to do with my personal taste. I've had ibanez players saying they can't get used to my pacifica's neck, while i've also had got ibanez, fender and gibson players commenting on the playability and the shiokness of playing it.
That said, I've did major modifications to the guitar. warning: **content might be boring to non-geeks**
1) all electronic components inside were replaced with dimarzios. incl two push pull pots.
2) pickups, HSS : Air Zone, Virtual Vintage 54 Pro, Air Norton S. extremely silent even on high gain. most probably be due to beez's superb worksmanship with soldering and using pup wire rubber for shielding stray cables between pots.
3) volume pp switches Air Norton S to parallel wiring for single coil sound in neck, tone pp turns on bridge pup in all positions
4) changed the bridge unit to a brass block unit from guitar fetish as it was the only mexican spacing trem unit i can find (
http://www.guitarfetish.com/105mm-Chrome-Spaced-Import-Made-in-Mexico-BRASS-BLOCK_p_1158.html)
5) saddles changed to graphtech
6) string trees replaced with two graphtechs
7) replaced stock tuners with locking wilkinsons, which were relatively affordable, from SV guitars.
that's estimated to be $500. not many would spend that kinda money on a $600 guitar, but i'm not having any regrets now cause I'm more than happy with it. I may be biased, but imo, it is out-performing guitars costing more than it. If i had to get another guitar, the main reason would be because I want a 7-string or a whammy. I'm saving up for more gear now, but i'm rather content with my pacifica. focusing on getting an axe fx II or some uniaxial stage monitors instead of a $3k to $5k suhr.
as for
"It's almost as if playing a Yamaha pulls my guitar rep points down as it were." well, doesn't bother me because I know that the real reason people want me off the stage is most probably due to my playing standards not meeting their expectations. I don't think walking on stage with a yamaha will make people go,
"go home la, yamaha player". so i'm cool with it
