I've been looking at adding a solid body hum-bucking guitar to my list for some time and when Yamaha released their new Revstar range of guitars last year I immediately liked the look of it. It's not often that a new shape of guitar comes along and offers something original and yet has lasting appeal, which I believe this does. I've never been a fan of the Les Paul and other similar setups though I have considered a PRS many times but never took it any further.
I demoed an RS620 in my local store a few months ago and I was suitably impressed with it both from a visual perspective and for its playability. Though I didn't do anything at the time I knew this was an ideal choice it was just a matter of when. Anyway, during the recent Black Friday deals I spotted a deal on the bottom of the range RS320 online and decided to take the plunge. For me this offered the best value for money and having heard decent reports about these low spec guitars I could forgo the bling and the fancy finishes of the higher range versions. All I needed was a guitar that played and sounded good.
The guitar arrived the following day and upon opening the box I was suitably impressed with the look and finish. I then spent a bit of time playing it acoustically and on the whole it was great to play. However, there was an issue with buzz around the 10/11 frets. I raised the bridge a little bit which alleviated this slightly though it was still an issue and I like a low action anyway. Over the next couple of days I spent some time with it playing it through my UAD guitar plugs in the studio and loved the sound. I left it a couple of days and then set about checking for any fret issues around the area of the offending frets and indeed the 11th fret was slightly proud of the 10th/12th. I went to the workshop and selected a couple of small files, some glass paper and masking tape. I masked either side of the 11th fret and carefully filed it down until level with the frets either side. I re-tuned it and checked out the action - much better actually but still a clear buzz mainly on the D string. Upon further inspection I found a raised area on the 10th fret only around the A D string position. I repeated the filing around the offending area and re-tuned again. Bingo! There's still a very tiny amount of buzz but I'll sort this another time.
Now the action is pretty much sorted I spent more time with the guitar amped up and I have to say I'm very impressed with the thing. I was even able to take the action down close to my preferred height with little or no affect on the buzz issue. I'm looking forward to tracking with my new toy in the weeks ahead!