Yamaha Pacifica 112 - Can it be great again?
More than two years ago, I compared my Yamaha 112 to a Squier Standard Stratocaster I owned at the time. You can read about it here. While the Yamaha came out on top, I don't think I've played that poor guitar since.
Shortly before making the comparison, I swapped out the EMGs I had sitting in it, an 81 in the bridge and an SA in the neck, for some budget singles and the Blacktop Stratocaster's stock humbucker. It made the comparison between the two guitars more apt.
Fast forward 2+ years and it was another Squier that got me thinking about that old Yamaha sitting in the case. You see, the EMGs taken out of the Yamaha had found themselves in a Tortoise pickguard, intended to go into my Blacktop Stratocaster, but my daughter had decided that, upon see what tortoise looked like, "her" guitar should stay as it was.
Fine.
Having recently acquired the MIK Squier Stratocaster, I decided that it was the next best guitar to put the guard on, if for no other reason than the stock pickups sucked. After removing the strings and taking the pickguard off, I encountered a problem with my plan:
Apparently, late 80's Squier Stratocasters do not have a "swimming pool route" that will accommodate a variety of pickup arrangements, to say nothing of hte fact that this Stratocaster does not accommodate a typical Strat pickguard. I was at once impressed and perturbed.
I resigned myself to doing nothing, and went poking around my parts drawers, only to find a full bridge assembly in one of the drawers, with a full sized block. Sure, probably pot metal, but still full sized. I could put this on the Pacifica, and reunite it with the EMGs.
In short, I would make the Pacifica great again.
I started by taking the strings, pickguard, and jack plate off the guitar. I snapped the above picture to illustrate the swimming pool route, along with the poorly fitted graph tech saddles that had done the job for so many years. You have to admit that the crispness of the finishing, under the pickguard no less, is pretty spectacular.
As you can see from the reverse picture, the tremolo block is almost non-existent. Right off the bat, I know that swapping this out for a chunkier piece of metal is going to make for a huge improvement.
Seriously, check out the difference:
Another interesting discovery was that the outer two holes for the tremolo had plastic washers in them to accommodate larger posts. My theory is that Pacifica bodies are/were machined to cover the entire range, and that only hardware and finish distinguished them. The larger outer holes would seemingly be to accommodate the Wilkinson Tremolo available on higher end models.
My other other hangup was that the mounting screws for the new tremolo didn't fit the holes in the body, so I had to use the older screws, which had accumulated a bit of rust. So much for being completely shiny and new looking.
My final beef came from the EMGs. While the quick connect set is frigging amazing in that no soldering iron is required (seriously, that's just super), you still have to be mindful of grounding issues. You need to pay attention to the orientation of the quick connect connection points, and make sure you're not crossing a ground connection somewhere. The picture below on the left was taken after I needed to walk away from the problem for 20 minutes before I had the patience to figure it out.
The only other observation I'd make is that the saddles are slightly crooked, on account of them being threaded slightly off axis. It isn't enough to make a difference, but there it is.
So how is it? Outstanding. EMGs get a lot of guff from the internet, but they are definitely a quick way to take a mediocre sounding guitar and turn it into something that sounds really great. I really do love the attack and presence of an EMG 81. No, not for clean stuff, but even with just the Fulldrive 2 the sound was way huge.
I would absolutely consider putting together a set of EMG SA with quick connect on a pickguard for my maple Eric Johnson Stratocaster, just to give that guitar a quick change of character.
Hmmm.....
