Today we’re comparing the 2024 Yamaha Pacifica Standard Plus against the two standard Fender Stratocaster variants: the SS and HSS pickup models!

Get the Yamaha Pacifica at Thomann: https://thmn.to/thoprod/584320?offid=...
At Sweetwater: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/JznE9N

The new Yamaha Pacifica is a great guitar, but the natural question many players will be asking is: for this price why wouldn’t I just buy a Fender Strat instead?

And I think that’s a great question! The new Pacifica is not cheap, at $1,349/€1,250, and at that price range there’s so many different Fender – or even Squier – Strats you could consider instead (and this is without even considering the myriad other brands who also build this kind of guitar!).

So, in this video we do just that. I don’t own a newer Fender Strat like a Player Plus, but what I do have is two great – and radically different – Strats to showcase. First up is my 1993 Lake Placid Blue Fender Japan Strat. This is a very traditional Strat – three vintage-voiced single coil pickups (they’re actually Fender Custom Shop Texas Specials in this one!), and a rosewood board with 21 medium frets on a 7.25” radius.

By contrast, my 2011 Fender Modern Player HSS Strat – in stunning Silverburst – is a much more contemporary affair. It features an HSS set of Fender Modern Player pickups (with a coil split on the bridge humbucker) and has 22 jumbo frets on a 9.5” radius rosewood board.

This makes the Modern Player a closer affair to the Pacifica Standard Plus, which leans slightly into Superstrat territory. The Pacifica has a slim, satin maple neck and a rosewood board with 22 medium stainless steel frets and a 13.75” radius. It also features Gotoh locking tuners and a Gotoh trem/vibrato bridge, and it comes with an HSS set of Rupert Neve-designed Reflectone pickups (with a coil split for the humbucker too).

My goal with this video is to play the three guitars in as many musical styles as possible for you (from country, folk and indie, to pop, rock, punk, metal, and more), so you can really hear how the Pacifica compares against a more vintage sounding SSS Strat, and a hotter, more modern sounding HSS Strat. Let me know which one you think is best in the comments!

Here are some links to the various playing samples and info bits:

00:00 Hello!
00:20 Intro and what we’re doing today
02:02 Yamaha Pacifica specs and info
04:04 Fender Modern Player HSS Stratocaster specs and info
06:05 Fender Japan SSS Stratocaster specs and info
08:40 Today’s rig and plan

Clean Sounds
09:25 Clean tone reference chords on all pickup settings
10:44 Strummed country chords
11:02 Surf pop riff
11:33 Ringing open indie pop chords
12:12 Blues riff
12:45 Funky rhythms
13:09 Ascending droning indie chords

Light & Medium Overdrive Sounds
13:35 Indie rock rhythm chords
14:04 Indie octave chords
14:30 Upbeat indie barre chords
14:53 Choppy barre chords
15:11 Garage rock riff
15:27 AC/DC inspired riff
15:42 Classic rock riff
15:56 Quacky rock riff
16:12 Groovy classic rock riff
16:39 Hendrix inspired riff

Heavy Overdrive Sounds
16:56 80s rock riff
17:15 Melodic hard rock single note riff
17:46 Classic hard rock riff
18:03 Glam rock riff
18:24 Alternative rock riff
18:47 Pop punk riff
19:19 Punk rock power chords
19:32 Modern rock palm-muted chords (Drop D tuning)

Heavy Distortion Sounds (all in Drop D)
19:56 Metal chugging riff
20:29 Heavy metal lead sound
20:44 Mastodon inspired metal riff with country twang
21:06 Rammstein inspired industrial metal riff

21:20 My thoughts
22:01 First impressions and looks
23:16 Price
24:30 Build quality and hardware
26:43 Playability and necks
28:02 Weight
29:24 Sounds and pickups discussion
32:27 Which one should you buy? Which would I buy?

My setup was as follows: I ran the three guitars into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head, also using my Greer Lightspeed and my Revv G3 pedals for overdrive and heavy distortion sounds. The amp went from the Red Box DI straight into my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, which went into Logic Pro X. That's it. No post-processing on the sounds was done.

Get all this gear at Thomann: https://thmn.to/thocf/jkhog8l06m
Get all this gear at Sweetwater: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/LXqdE0

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Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe.

#YamahaGuitar #Fender #FenderStratocaster #FenderStrat #YamahaPacifica #YamahaGuitars

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