Yamaha Revstar 502T
Writing about a pair of soapbarloaded electrics from Eastman and Ruokangas in issue 442 did nothing to quench my desire for a decent electric with a pair of P-90s. While those two beauties would set me back rather more than I have to spend, this relative lowly, and affordable, Revstar 520T is firmly in the frame.
Okay, as described in the first instalment of this piece, we didn’t get off to the best of starts with the need to sort out the nut (to solve some fundamental intonation issues) and to fettle those fret ends. To be honest, neither is an unusual fix on a guitar like this: you get what you pay for, but in typical Yamaha style what you get often seems to be more than what you pay.
Along with the soapbars, for example, our 502T is the only one with this unique cast aluminium tailpiece. What you notice immediately is a quite loud, vibrant ring to the unplugged sound: noticeably wider and a little louder than our ’57 Les Paul Jr reference and it seems to add a flavour of a semi-solid. The tailpiece is also slightly adjustable (with a 3mm Allen key), a little like a Les Paul’s stud tailpiece. As Kiyoshi ‘Jackie’ Minakuchi, Yamaha’s engineering manager, told us, “Four bolts hold it in place and the top two are sprung so you can actually use it as a [pitch rising] vibrato and you have a choice of setup.” Lowering the tailpiece behind the bridge increases the back angle and Jackie believes that it “creates a slightly tighter bass response. Raising the tailpiece – reducing the back angle – creates more of a ‘trapeze’-like sound: brighter and ringing,” he said.
The only downside to that concept is that the ball ends of the strings need to be slipped into slots under the leading edge: if you screw it hard down to the body, you won’t be able to change strings without raising it again.
The third element, the Dry Switch, designed by Yamaha engineer Hirotaka Niiro, isn’t unique to the 502T and is used on all the Revstar models with the exception of the start-up 320. Why it’s called a Dry Switch is anyone’s guess – a too literal Japaneseto-English translation perhaps? – but it is a neat low-cut (high-pass filter) that is inserted between the three-way lever switch and the volume control. It uses a 0.0033 microfarad capacitor and a 330 kohm resistor, in parallel, and is actually a variation of the Jaguar’s ‘strangle switch’, which uses essentially the same capacitor but without the resistor (which, if my basic electronics knowledge is correct, effectively lessens the effect of the capacitor on its own).
It was originally designed to work with a humbucker and offer a more single-coil-like voice; it doesn’t split coils or anything, so both modes are hum-cancelling. Here, with the soapbar single coils, it rather effectively cleans up the low-end, especially on the neck pickup. Alternatively, it can be seen as a second voice, a lighter, thinner P-90 if you like.
Then we have the Yamaha-designed soapbars (made by G&B) that use Alnico 5 magnets. Jackie admitted that he originally “wasn’t a big fan. But we found a good recipe from our prototypes. Now it’s my favourite! We use heavy Formvar-coated wire on the Revstar humbuckers for a slightly brighter ‘open’ tone, but on the P-90s we’re using plain enamel-coated wire for more of a solid, cut-through sound.”
Considerable thought has gone into this guitar and working on a couple of covers sets the combination of the Dry Switch and very nicely tapered volume and tones, not to mention that semi-solid-like resonance – it covers a lot of ground. With volume and tone reduction, there’s some excellent jazzier Kenny Burrell-type voices that I’m sure weren’t part of the design plan. In the pickup mix, these control combinations reap excellent reward for pseudo Gretsch and rounder-nosed Rickenbacker, which suit the more Americana-like set perfectly. And when that set edges into rockier territory, which needs a splash of The Who and some Tom Petty, the bridge goes from a real gutsy power to a surprising twangy bite with the Dry Switch engaged that you’d swear was coming from a Fender.
As ever, getting the pickup heights and polepieces to your liking takes a little time: the high E on the neck pickup sounds a little soft and its polepiece just rotates rather than going up or down. Pulling the pickup out and applying a little pressure to the base of the screw while turning it sorts the problem, though it’s not that clear why it happened. Still, it’s an easy fix and finally I’m happy with the balance.
Songs refreshed; guitar sorted. Let’s see how it works on a gig… three years after the last time I took one out. Reviewed 402 Price £648 (inc gigbag) On Test Since October 2015 Studio Sessions No Gigged Yes, three years ago! Mods No uk.yamaha.com