Yamaha Pacifica 311H (BK)

After many months of research back in November of 2019, I finally pulled the trigger and bought my very first guitar. It was the Yamaha Pacifica 311H BK. To this day, it's probably the best guitar I played. It's perfect in its build quality and its simplicity.

Let's first dissect the name of this guitar.

• 3: The model range (Alder, 2 Piece body, Better Hardware).
• 1: The first number indicates how many humbuckers it has, here one.
• 1: The second number indicates how many single coils it has, here one (and a P90-style).
• H: The H stands for 'Hard Tail' which refers to the bridge being fixed.
• BK: Stands for the color. Here being 'Black King' or 'Black Knight'.

Go here for other naming schemes.

The body is made up from 2 pieces of Alder wood. The neck is Maple with a glued Rosewood fretboard with 22 frets. It's a bolt-in neck which is standard for this 'Stratocaster' type guitar. The neck finish is satin which makes it glide very fast and smooth. It's also a pretty thin neck.

Some people don't like the color scheme, as it's black, with a red 'tortoise shell" pickguard, the silver metallic hardware, a yellow P90-style pickup, dark brown Rosewood and then a Maple headstock. Understandable, but I personally loved it from the first look.

The bridge has nice saddles considering this price category and helps it to resonate quite well. It even comes with Grover Locking Tuners and a Graph Tech nut (TUSQ-XL) and Graph Teck string retainers in the neck which both are very high-end. Unseen in guitars of this price category.

The electronics are not high-end but sound great. I have a high-end Gibson humbucker in my Epiphone Les Paul Custom which does sound a little better but only if listened to back to back.

Finally, it has just 2 knobs, one for tone and one for volume that work on both pickups, and a 3-way selector switch to select either neck only, both at the same time, and the bridge pickup only.

But it has one final trick up its sleeve. You can pull the tone knob out to turn the humbucker into a single coil. Turning it into a bit more or a traditional Stratocaster sound if you select the bridge only.

I paid €309 on the dot for the Yamaha Pacifica 311H back in 2019. Today it's up all the way to €419 just 3 years later. While that price increase is quite daunting, I'd still pay it happily knowing wat I know now. This price increase also shows it might approach the end of its cycle and might be replaced.

One small issue i've had is my output jack came loose (after 4 years) which is a small thing that can happen on any guitar and was a quick fix with a spanner.

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I've put manu hours on this guitar and it's still my go to. I love it to bits and couldn't have thought of a different starter guitar. I guarantee you'll be happy with your purchase.