New Yamaha Pacifica 612VII Models: High End Beauties On A Budget!

The Yamaha Pacifica is one of the best loved guitars for players on a budget, and beginners everywhere. This year, Yamaha takes the quality and features up a notch with the Yamaha Pacifica 612VII!

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The Yamaha Pacifica 612VII Series: The Past Comes Full Circle…

The Yamaha Pacifica 612VII models come from a long line of electric guitars. The line was originally designed in Yamaha’s California custom-shop by Rich Lasner, working with guitar builder Leo Knapp. Initially intended by Lasner and Knapp as just a test project, Yamaha Japan chose to produce the instruments.

The Yamaha Pacifica has been produced in over 15 different models since the early 90’s. It has earned something of a reputation.

The Yamaha Pacifica is is one of the number one guitars for beginners. The Pacifica is often recommended because it is a very versatile guitar, and has several different price points. If you are an absolute beginner, and only have $200? Yamaha has you covered.

But that’s not to say that Yamaha doesn’t make higher end instruments as well. The Revstar Series saw a huge leap in production quality and features. It is only natural that we see these new Yamaha Pacifica 612MKII models come full circle as to what they used to be…a custom shop creation.

These come in the form of the Yamaha Pacifica 612VIIFMX and the 612VIIX Models. These are expansions on the already popular line of high end Pacifica series instruments. Let’s take a look at what Yamaha has added for 2020.

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The New Yamaha Pacifica 612VII Specs and Features

The new Yamaha Pacifica 612VII models are outfitted with some crazy features for the money. The Pacifica is often looked at as just being another “Strat-style” guitar, and I have always seen that as an unfair comparison.

The Yamaha Pacifica 612VII Series, as well as the many other Pacifica guitars, does look a little like a Stratocaster. But looks is where the comparison ends. These have features you would never find on a Fender.

• Flame Maple Tops
• Seymour Duncan TB-14 Custom 5 and SSL-1 single-coil pickups
• Coil Tap for the bridge humbucker
• Graph Tech TUSQ nut/ String trees
• Wilkinson VS50 bridge
• Grover Locking Tuners
• 13 3/4″ Radius
• Maple Neck/ Rosewood Fretboard
• Alder Body
• 22 Frets

The difference between the 612VIIFMX and The 612VIIX is the finishes. The 612VIIFMX comes in a glossy Fired Red finish. While the 612VIIX models come in a matte finished Blue, Teal Blue, and Yellow Natural.

The Seymour Duncan pickups are the standout feature of the Yamaha Pacifica 612VII series. The TB-14 bridge humbucker can do everything from Metal to Blues, and is the perfect compliment to a guitar that is so versatile. This bridge pickup can be coil tapped to get a single coil sound.

The Single Coil SSL-1 pickups do justice to clean tones, and distorted solos alike. These are medium-hot pickups that work great for Strat tones, but can also be dialed in for a bass-ier sound, and can even sound like a P-90.

The other standout feature is the tremolo system. The Wilkinson bridge works somewhere between a Floyd Rose and a more traditional Fender-style Trem. You have a lot of leeway here, and it can be adjusted to be a fixed bridge, should you want that.

The TUSQ nut and string trees will assure that the Yamaha Pacifica 612VII stays in tune during trem use or big bends. This is a huge upgrade from the usual plastic nuts that come on the Pacifica series.

The Yamaha Pacifica 612VII: Is it Worth it?

The thing about the Yamaha Pacifica series (as well as the newer and totally amazing Yamaha Revstar series), is that it is a great beginner instrument that some people fall in love with. Once they become enamored with the Pacifica, they start doing upgrades to the guitar. This can add up, pretty fast.

So let’s say you have the nicer beginner Pacifica PAC112. You do all of the upgrades that come stock with the Yamaha Pacifica 612VII…

This is going to be a an expensive project. The upgrades are going to be somewhere in the $600 range. But there is one upgrade that you cannot do by yourself, and that is the beautiful Flame Maple top. So is the Yamaha Pacifica 612VII worth $1050.00 MSRP?

Honestly, I think so. Let me tell you why…

The Yamaha Pacifica is a “Swiss Army Guitar” in it’s most basic form. You see these in big studios and home studios alike. They are very versatile guitars that can cover a ton of sonic territory no matter what genre you are going for.

So if that sounds like something that is up your alley, but you want it fully-spec’d out… then this is the guitar for you. This is also a great choice if you have outgrown your original Pacifica. These newer Pacifica models still come under the price of most guitars with comparable features.

I hope that Yamaha continues to expand their “high end” line of guitars based on their classic models. Keep it up, Yamaha!