Who makes k yairi guitars
This in turn ‘energises’ the sound, increasing response and projection.Profile: S. The Direct Coupled Bridge was designed by Kazuo in the 1980s and involves lowering the bridge saddles further than ‘usual’, in order to create greater tension due to a more acute break angle across the bridge. The Direct Coupled Bridge is his design, and it has some real practical benefits to accompany the stylish look. Yes, this is one of Kazuo Yairi’s legacies in direct example. And what benefits! A triple A Sitka Spruce top on a solid East Indian Rosewood body: how is that for a start? It’s a perfect, time-honoured combination, and it is aided and abetted by an Ebony fingerboard, a top of the range LR Baggs VTC Element pickup system and a very cool bridge. The OM shape lends itself to many styles, not just folk, so players of all stripes will be able to enjoy the benefits on display here. Simple, cleanly designed and open to all styles, this folk guitar is a tasteful blend of the traditional and the modern. The Alvarez Yairi FYM70E is such a guitar, and is a fantastic example of the brand’s craft.
The slightly smaller body makes things feel a little more intimate to the player, without the instrument suffering any compromises in feel or sound. There’s something very appealing about a well-made OM folk-bodied guitar. Shall we take a quick look at a few models? Yes, why not. Both steel string and nylon string guitars are offered, and only the best pickup systems from LR Baggs are used. The necks are all hand shaped using a traditional spoke shaver for precision and an unmatched level of smoothness. The bracings are hand-carved, following Yairi’s own designs. Indeed, the Yairi workspace has only 24 top-line luthiers working there, and some of them have had over 55 years’ experience on their own! The skill and attention to detail is world-class, and so Yairi is justly Alvarez’s top-line brand.Īs specified by the late Kazuo himself, all guitar tops are individually tuned for tone. This is in fact where Alvarez Yairi guitars are still made today, with the same ethos, design and quality levels as those that made Kazuo a famed luthier 50 years ago. Kazuo created his instruments in his workshop in Kani, a small town just north of Nagoya in central Japan. This, the two companies, as it were, have pretty much always been linked. Certain models in certain worldwide territories were sold under the name of K.Yairi. The two men went into business, creating a line of quality production line guitars to be sold in the US as Alvarez guitars. Yairi, at that point, was well-known for creating high quality, hand-made classical guitars. Gene Kornblum, who owned the American company St Louis guitars, met Japanese luthier Kazuo Yairi. To answer these questions, we need to go back to the late 1960s. So, just who and what is Yairi, and how did it come to be Alvarez-Yairi? These are both musicians who can play pretty much any guitars they fancy, so it’s worth noting what they choose to use! In his recent interview with us, our friend Steve Hackett spoke highly of his number one classical guitar, a vintage Yairi that he purchased at the height of Genesis’ fame. Radiohead’s frontman has often been seen strumming a Yairi acoustic on many occasions, and used two models (one of which was a 12-string) on the band’s era-defining OK Computer album. Maybe lots of things, but for the purposes of today’s article, we’ll concentrate on one thing in particular: their shared love of Yairi guitars.
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