All user reviews for the Yamaha ERG121

This was my first guitar and I still love it.
I've been playing off and on (mostly off) for 15 years. I would never sell it. Not only because of nostalgia but because it's basically a great beginner's guitar. There are a lot of dents in the top and the side, and I'm not sure what kind of veneer they use but I've yet to see bare wood (I mean, 1-2mm deep dents).
I bought it from the local music store and they included a hard case.
Still in love with it.
Someone mentioned fret buzz, especially on the E string. Yeah, that's a problem but I think I fixed it by adjusting the neck tension, by letting it off ever so slightly.
A proper set up from your local music store might help.

then the technical details ... I let you watch it below.
microphone MSM very satisfying and versatile (from country to metal)

UTILIZATION

handle very end, HIGHWAY! very pleasant
level ergonomics, it's stuff! but not too heavy, the shape is a simple and classic home that provides good when accessing the treble, even if there are certainly better, but good for an entry-level one does not play THAT solo top.
for her, I am immediately settle in store, the rest is the amp.

SOUNDS

for Blues and rock from the 60's I have found very satisfactory, although I think it sounds much better to Hard style AC / DC ... it is very versatile, beginner or not.
Compared to Sons, they all take very well the road can be more clean.
The microphones handle sound a little too serious for my taste it is more bourins if he adds too much distortion ... the bridge pickup is very slamming, perfect!
bass and treble is good, maybe not as much as a good LesPauls.
I first used a Yamaha GA-15 included in the Pack to change shortly for a Fender mustang 1, and it is a great difference between an amp and a beginner but has almost an amp pro! magic!

OVERALL OPINION

I use it for 1 year soon.
I tried 3 models before cracking for its looks and its price
I love his look, his neck, vintage typing very rock'n'roll, lack of pickguards is visually perfect, but the stripes are more frequent ...
the price / quality ratio is impressive, VERY! I remake that choice without hesitation, I even recommended a friend who started playing the guitar, it is also delighted.

i'd knew this gear for long time but i never thought i would have it as my second electric guitar. i left world of electric for 2 years and played Acoustic for that long.
i know what a good guitar means. and this guitar could be called so so

Well i got this Guitar second hand from a local dealer. no amp or bag included.
but price was freaky good. 120 $
i was short in money and in this price this guitar matched greatly.

well the quality of body is fine. neck and frets look good. its a good guitar for a beginner. worths more than what it seems. specially smoothness of frets which wont make the newbies get tired of this guitar.

sound of this guitar is not what it gotta be.
Fret's steel are too high so you can not low the action too much. this is general problem of all cheap guitars. so you stat between a high action or a noisy sound out of fretboard.
you can modify the guitar frets which makes your guitar your soul bound means you cant sell it after that.

body quality is higher than similar guitars in this class. fretboard is a decent Rosewood. pickups are not good at all.

this is a good guitar for people with no money. but i recommend to buy a standard Fender for 400 $ instead. if you don't have that much. this one is a good one for beginning.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Ive been playing guitar for maybe 4-5 months, but thats on my own time which is basically all the time when im home. When im at school i play the euphonium (you-fone-ee-umm) which is like a small tuba =P. I dont know why i chose it, but i think it has to do with me wanting to sit in the back of the class. Anyways to my guitar. I picked up my erg 121c for 250 bucks canadian(130 pounds,194 euro) at costco. Came with 16 watt amp, strap, picks, extra strings, gig bag... basically all a beginner needs.

I got this guitar for 250 bucks at costco. Came with 16 watt amp,strap, gig bag, picks and everything you need for a beginner guitar.

Basically everything. Rosewood neck,strat-style solid body, 2 humbucker and 1 single coil pickup, 1 tone and 1 volume control, 5 pickup selector switch, stays in tune very nicely, comes with a tremolo/whammy bar, pretty light and its black.

Maybe the only thing i dont like about thus guitar is the paint is maybe 2.5-3mm thick and i chipped it in the first few weeks, but i think that might have been my fault because i dropped it...(Whoops)

i pretty much already described it

I love this guitar mainly because its my first, feels beautiful and overall is a perfect beginner guitar. Any other questions? just ask Phillitalian@hotmail.com

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I bought this guitar as my first ever guitar from Woolworths for only £150 with a GA-10 Practice AMP, Audio Lead and Gig Bag. I think it is an excellent price for a beginner/entry level guitar though I would advise getting it from somewhere else as it took over a month for them to send it.

I like almost everything about this guitar specialy for the price I payed. Its a strat style guitar with a solid maple body. The colour of the body is fully black which in my opinion is a great colour for a guitar. It has 2 humbucker pickups and 1 single coil pickup which in my opinion is excellent as I have used a Fender Squire with 3 single coils and another guitar with 2 humbuckers and to me the pickup setup on this guitar beat both of them easy and made much heavyer sounds than the other two guitars. The guitar is also very easy to tune and stays in tune for quite long which is great.

The Low E string on this guitar does have a bit of fretbuzz which can b anoying but I'm sure I could get it sorted out. One thing that can get anoying with it being totaly black is that it marks very easy and you only have to look at it to get a finger print on it but that doesnt bother me to much. Other than that id say that theres nothing really bad about it.

I have had the guitar for about 8 months now and nothing has broke on it yet. It is very solid and well built as can be expected by a make like Yamaha and is deffinately the best quality you could get for £150.

On the whole this guitar is excellent and you would have a hard time finding a beginner or entry level guitar that is as good quality as this for a price as good as this.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

i bought it online for about 130 euros including cable and picks, and i bought the strap and amp. after that

i like that it sounds great, cool design, and easy to play as it's not heavy, i mean there are much lighter but i think that's the best guitar you can get at such low price, it has everything u need and u dont have to pay a lot

mmm... dunno, maybe .... no i really can't find anything wrong with it, way to go Yamaha :D

ok, it's solid body electric guitar with a rosewood fretboeard with 22 frets, 2 humbuckers and one single coil, 1 volume, 1 tone switch, and a tremolo.

as i said b4, that's the best guitar u can get for this price, ok, buy it first and when u're JOE SATRIANI, start looking for another "pro." guitar

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I bought this guitar in Germany for Eur180.00 in Feb 2005. I chose it because it was a very good price for a Yamaha, which also came with a 10w practice amp so I could just unwrap it, plug it in and play.

Aside of the excellent price, it has all the features you need such as, 22 frets, 2 humbuckers and a single coil in the middle, a 5 way switch, volume knob and 1 tone knob, which works for all pickups. a tremelo arm, black, high quality, finish and a Yamaha 10w practice amp.

the Single coil pickup is bad. It generates a lot of interference and I could not use it for this reason. This limits the amount of sounds you can set up. As a practice guitar, it shouldn't matter too much because those early days should be about technique and not playing about with the tones too much. You can always replace the coil if it matters that much, or just buy a new guitar.

The build quality is extremely good, I was surprised to learn that it was made in Indonesia. The initial setup is also very good, a beginner will not need to worry about setting up the bridge and changing the action until they have learnt how to play.

Once plugged in. The humbuckers allow you to really knock out some fat sounds. The single coil though generates a lot of interference and is the only bad point I have.

This is an excellent guitar for beginners or home practice. Yamaha have set a standard here that other makers should follow, by lowering the price of their much more inferior instruments. The sound is exactly what you want, with the exception of the single coil pickup. I would recommend it to anyone looking to buy a cheap guitar. In fact, I looked around and there is no other guitar on the market that is as high a quality as this one. The Yamaha ERG 121 is the best instrument for your money. If you are reading this because you are shopping around for a budget guitar, buy this one, you cannot get a better deal at this time.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

it was about 250 USD. i got it from a music store in bulgaria.

it's is a superb guitar for the price i got it.

i dont like when the singlecoil pickup goes through some effects, it is too noisy. but the humbs are perfect


it has a solid body but it's not too heavy. the guitar has 2 humbs and a sigle in the middle. 22 frets and it's black covered. also it has a tremolo.

the guitar is perfect for studying and practicing but sound pretty good on concerts. enjoy

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I bought this guitar from a local dealer for €280.This included a 10 watt amp with strap, picks, cable.... the works! I bought this guitar because it was a cheap entry level guitar and I only had a few months experience.

It is a Strat style guitar which is very comfortable to play.I had this guitar for over a year now and i had no trouble with it at all. Great sound with two humbuckers and a single coil pickup. Looks great in black too!

Nothing at all.

Very good weight which I always look for in a guitar. Strong neck and strong body with tough paint work. Stays in tune for a hell of a long time!

Great guitar even it is a cheap entry level guitar.Great playability along with sharp looks. This guitar will be given to someone in my will!

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I bought this guitar for £170 in a starter pack (with a 10 watt amp, gig bag, strap etc.) from Argos because they were kind enough to get it out of the box and let me play it before the purchase. God it sounded good!

Although I love everything about this guitar, my favourite thing would have to be it's versatility. It comes with two open coil humbuckers with a single coil pickup in between. The 5-way selector switch can split the humbuckers, enabling me to change from B.B King to Rolling Stones without grabbing a different guitar. The humbuckers are also punchier than punch and my guitar gives a much more powerful sound than my brother's squier strat in my opinion.

Ummm..... It didn't come with a bigger amp?


I've had this guitar for 2 years and not once have I ever had a problem with it. Admittedley although I've never dropped or knocked it either, it at least proves that nothing has broken on it's own accord. And whilst I am by no means a guitar technician, the fact that it stays in tune for ages, has an ultra-smooth neck and tremolo and feels completley solid must be good things, right?

I could not have possibly asked for a better first guitar. I will surely never sell or trade it even when the time comes for me to buy my next one. Though I think it looks sleek, I can understand remarks that without a sratchplate and being completley black it looks a bit plain. So make sure you get a good look at one before you buy.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

This was my first guitar, I got it at a christmas as part of a starter set which cost £200 (english)

It's simple, one control for the volume, one for the tone. It has a 5 way switch blade for the pickups:

Neck
Neck/Middle
Middle
Bridge/Middle
Bridge

It can produce a nice sound if you learn to work around the bad points of the guitar.

The fret wire is a tad too high up around the higher frets and it makes a bit of a buzzy sound. The bridge tears your hand to pieces when you try and palm mute and because the fret wire is so high up around the higher frets pulling off is a real bitch around there.

It has 22 frets and dot inlays. Chrome hardware. It has two controls, main volume and main tone. Five way pickup selector blade.

Pickup arrangement:

Neck humbucker
Single pickup
Bridge humbucker


It's a good guitar really for anyone learning to play but it's not really a life time thing, you'll outgrow it. But it's not bad to start making your own riffs on and things.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

This is the second guitar that I have owned , the first one that was brought for me was a mis understanding. When said I wanted to learn to play the electric guitar my very good lady brought me an electo-acoustic.
We spotted the Yamaha ERG 121 at a local store for the fantastic price of just £120 sterling and decisded that even if I turned out to be rubbish at learning to play I would still be able to sell the thing on and get most of my money back.

First impressions of the Yahmaha ERG 121 was that it looked just like the fender strat that I'd always wanted as a boy. This one is in jet black and has been an absolute joy to learn to play on.
One set of single pickups and two sets of Humbuckers. A five way switch for selection and seperate volume and tone control nobs.This unit has been my pride and joy now for exactly 12 months and I have had no problems with it at all. It still looks and sounds as good as it did the day I brought it.
I Have recently started to take guitar lessons from a Professional of 30 years standing, he loves my ERG 121 and can not belive that It sounds so good and cost so little.

If anyone wants an electric guitar to start with then this is a very very good starting point.

The only thing that lets this guitar down is my standard of playing. This guitar is as good as the player behind it.

A first glass solid body electric guitar in black with contrasting silver that shines like chrome.
Very smooth neck and after 12 months of usage this still looks like new.

Every day I am amazed at the pleasure I get from the yamaha ERG 121.
It is a budget guitar but I do not think anyone has told it.
I would recommend it to anyone of any standard of playing.
excellent build quality, excellent sound, excellent value for money, go and buy one because your not having mine !!!!

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I got this Yamaha package as my first electric guitar. I had tried other "beginner" guitars in various shops, but the ERG 121 was the one that impressed me most! With a whole lot of accessories (inc. a Yamaha GA-10 amp) that came with the guitar, this was the obvious choice for me to start of my electric guitar playing. The price was also the most reasonable I came across compared to the other packages I saw (AUD$499)

Its a beautifully crafted black stratocaster design. Looks brilliant on the guitar stand and feels great in my hands.

The sound of it is quite decent... And it has a wide variety of sounds with 2 humbucker pickups and a single coild picpup operated via a 5 position switch. Obviously the tone is not to the degree of a classic Fender model, but for its price its great!

The single coil pickup is a bit of a dissapointment. Lots of interference when playing using this pickup position.

Other than that, I have not been dissapointed with this guitar at all!

Well, so far so good (Touch wood)!! The guitar is very well made and the quality is top notch. Made in Indonesia did throw me off a little, but its a durable and reliable guitar and hasn't given me any problems yet.

Well, if youre looking to get started, I dont think there is a better guitar to invest in. Obviously as your playing technique increases, there are heaps of guitars that can offer alot more than the ERG 121. So a guitar for the beginners...

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

A year and a bit ago i decided to learn to play the guitar, so grabbed my Argos (UK) catalogue and flicked through tho the music section. If i knew then what i knew today about guitars i wouldn't have catalogue bought a guitar, but at the time the amp + gig bag extras appealed. I was going to buy probably a Squier strat copy, but then the Yamaha caught my eye (it was a new addition to the catalogue). I decided it was the one for me and paid £169.99 for the guitar and a 10W Yamaha amplifier, plus gig bag and CD/book.

One major plus is the way the guitar looks. The shape is strat-like, it's double cutaway with a relatively flat top (save a sloping diagonal section to the rear), and has a black colour. The colour and shape appealed to me most at time of purchase, as I knew very little about guitars and I'd never even played one properly. So looks was really the only thing i had to go on!

I like the double humbucker design, with an extra single coil between. A 5-way selector switch allows a variety of different pickup combinations, allowing for a range of different sounds.

There are 2 control knobs, plus the selector switch. I like this, my friends guitar has multiple tone/volume knobs which I simply dont need, so the 1 volume, 1 tone setup is perfect for me.

I think this guitar would be an ideal beginners/entry level guitar, as it was for me.




The guitar lead jack, located at the rear of the guitar, is often loose and my cable regularly falls out while playing. The cover plate for the jack also comes loose, which means I have to regularly tighten everything up, which can be annoying. Come to think of it however, other than that, I don't have many gripes construction wise.

My guitar also has a slightly bent neck, which doesn't bother me too much, but may interest some people. It's probably just a one-off though!

I think the main problem I have with the guitar now is that I feel I am a good enough player to branch out and buy a higher quality instrument. I'm sure a more expensive guitar will sound and feel a lot better, and I guess the main dislike I have is that theres always a nagging feeling in the back of my head that says "I've got a budget, beginners guitar".



As stated before, the lead jack is quite poorly constructed but other than that the general construction, finish and feel of the guitar is good. I've really got nothing to compare it too however, as this is my first guitar.


Overall, i think this is an excellent beginners guitar, one of the better budget level guitars certainly. The twin-humbucker and strat styling are great for playing some good rock tunes, and the selector switch to change pickup configuration lets you explore other tones and sounds too.

FOr me however, I feel i've outgrown the guitar now, which I'm sure happens to everyone with a beginner/budget axe.

2 thumbs up!


This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com