High standards have always been at the heart of the Yamaha brand who began manufacturing guitars in the 1940’s, initially building classical/Spanish style acoustics in Hamamatsu Japan, they moved into electric guitar production in 1966, and have been consistent in creating many unique guitar models such as SG-2, SG-3, SA-15 semi acoustic and the famed SG-2C.
Through the years Yamaha has created many new ranges of electric guitars, and continued to pioneer new ideas while still remaining true to the ideals of quality and consistency which had been firmly established with the SG and SA ranges, in 1990 Yamaha launched what undoubtably has become their biggest selling range of electric guitars under the Pacifica brand name, and in 1996 would become the first range of guitars to feature Wilkinson’s VS100 unit as standard on a selection of models.
Pacifica models originally ran from mid price to custom level instruments constructed in Japan, this was expanded to a USA constructed range of high level boutique style Pacifica models called the USA-1 and USA-2, these models featured the VS100 and also the VSVG vibrato on the USA-1 model, other models of Pacifica to feature VS100 were the 604W and 821W models, and while not Pacifica models, the VS100 was also utilised on both a two Ty Tabor signature models and a Frank Gambale signature model.
Around 2011 Yamaha launched new variants of the Pacifica range and began using their own exclusive model of Wilkinson vibrato called the VS50-6, this unit features the 5 + 1 knife edge for advanced tuning stability, and original Wilkinson style saddles, combining both modern and vintage vibes.
The VS50-6 features on instruments from the award winning Pacifica 600 range.
Wilkinson is proud to have been a partner with Yamaha instruments for over 25 years and looks forward to future developments with this iconic brand.
