Shaping Sound
Few guitar companies have the kind of technology Yamaha boasts at their disposal when it comes to the acoustic. The redesigned NX series illustrates some complex electronics under the hood of these new nylon-strings
While the great luthiers behind the classical guitar – the boutique builders of their day – had limited access to woods and made their instruments in small workshops completely by hand, today’s classical and nylon-string guitars are a lot more likely to be made in very large factories in Asia, at least the ones we can afford. The new NX series, for example, is made at Yamaha’s own factory in Hangzhou, China, which was established back in 2003. By 2009, when the wraps were taken off the original NX series, it was producing around 500,000 instruments a year. Clearly, what has been a good selling range for Yamaha – available all across the world – is not going to be changed in a heartbeat. But this is Yamaha and it’s a company that rarely does things by half… or in a hurry.
According to Yamaha designer Yoshihiko ‘Yoshi’ Tambara, the first area to receive attention were the guitars’ tops, specifically “to redesign the top fan-bracing using the Yamaha Acoustic Simulation technology”, he told us at the launch of the new NX range back at the NAMM 2020 show, pre-pandemic. “The main aim was that we wanted to increase the acoustic volume with a warmer sound but also to keep the long-term stability of the guitar so the top won’t move over the years.”
“The obvious thing to get more volume is to simply brace more lightly,” added Yamaha’s Julian Ward during the same interview, “but we have a thing about the integrity and stability of an instrument over a long period of time.”
Put another way, you won’t see the undulating, deformed tops that you might on a more Spanish-style nylon-string here. But back to the technology at play: “Yamaha has developed proprietary simulation techniques for use in designing guitars that allow us to use a computer to control and design the sound of a guitar, virtually, before the first chisel touches any wood,” we’re told.
Transducer Tech
Another area that Yamaha has invested a serious amount of resource in is its proprietary pickup systems and preamps. Yoshi explained: “[In 2019], we launched the FG Red Label with the new Atmosfeel system, and this year we have modified it for the nylon-string sound. We developed a new pickup system. It has three elements. There’s an under-saddle piezo, and a newly developed contact sensor [that sits under the top just behind the bass-side of the bridge], which we call a C-Sensor – it’s very thin and lightweight and it captures the sensitivity and high-frequency range. Thirdly, there’s a tiny microphone on the preamp PCB itself inside the guitar. Each model has individual voicing. We have a different EQ voicing design for each model, even the NCX3 with its cedar top – they are all different sounds.
“The piezo and contact sensor are pre-mixed and the user can then add the microphone sound to that,” continued Yoshi of the simple three-control user interface, made up of Master Volume, Mic Blend and Treble. “The piezo pickup captures the lower frequency portion of the sound, the C-Sensor the higher frequency, more percussive sound, and the mic contributes a more airy sound of the body. Our goal is to reproduce a very natural acoustic sound.”
So, along with the Master Volume and Mic Blend (which goes from bypassed to almost 50/50 per cent mic and pre-mixed piezo/ C-sensor), the third control is the Treble EQ.
“The preamp is actually digital here,” Julian told us, “which is why we can voice it to the specific model. And that treble EQ, for example, isn’t just a filter, it’s morphing… We call it ‘Treble EQ’ because the way it sounds to your ear is that you’re making it brighter, or not, but what is actually going on in there is a morphing multi-band EQ that affects the whole balance of all the frequencies. Basically, it’s a very similar feel to the Atmosfeel system on the Red Label FG – which we actually labelled ‘Bass EQ’ because it basically trims or enhances the warmth, the lower end, which is what most people want from a steel-string. But here
“We have a different EQ voicing design for each model, even the cedar-top NCX3 they are all different sounds” Yoshihiko Tambara
we affect very different frequency bands. The nylon player might want to affect the brightness, or snap, more than the low-end.
“Think of the preamp as a mini-mixer,” continued Julian, “and each input from the three sources has its own EQ – a sort of ‘corrective’ EQ – and then you have the creative output EQ on the knob and that’s the stuff that we’re talking about as being different on each model: the pickups are the same, but the response is different because the actual guitars are different. We also believe this system provides better feedback rejection.”
Overall, there are fewer bells and whistles and Yoshi simply states “in talking to many professional players, they just want a great sound from the start – quickly and immediately – on stage. They don’t want to have to fiddle with a three-band EQ and they either use a clip-on or stompbox tuner, so having one on the guitar is unnecessary. So, yes, we decided to keep things very simple.”
That said, the original NX pickup/ preamp system was pretty unique a decade ago, but, technology-wise, this new Atmosfeel system seems like a quantum leap forward.
“Yes, this has been a long time in development,” Julian confirmed, “not least [that] the sheet sensor pickup is completely new proprietary technology that we’ve developed over five or six years. I believe I’m right to say that originally the sheet material was used in seismic sensors to detect earthquakes, so it’s a hugely sensitive thin material. We tried it in lots of applications because we thought it would be useful as a pickup, but we weren’t entirely sure how.
“After an awful lot of R&D and testing we found the best way to use it is to capture the high-end in conjunction with a piezo to capture the low- and midrange,” Julian explained. “You get that combination of the directness and the snap of the piezo but without that horrible piezo top-end. So, yes, it’s a big shift forwards.
“The simplified control system – there’s no panel, just the three low-profile rotary controls – is good for the guitar as well: just three holes in the side. Plus this new preamp is very light compared with what we used on the previous NXes. There’s a new battery box, too, by the base endpin jack, which uses just two AAs and provides 20 hours of continuous use.”
Wood Moves
Another big change is the back and sides wood used on the 5- and 3-level NX models. “We don’t have rosewood back and sides, we have walnut,” said Julian. “It was an environmental decision, of course, influenced by the CITES restrictions on rosewood when the guitars were in development. So we chose walnut, which is more sustainable. It’s a little more focusedsounding compared with rosewood, a little less low frequency. It’s a little lighter in weight, which is good for the nylon-string. The strings, of course, have a lower tension than steel-strings, but the wood still needs to vibrate. China purchases the walnut from Africa and America, I believe.”
And what about the Rodrigo y Gabriela connection? These aren’t signature guitars, but the duo have had considerable input into these new guitars, building from the input they had in the original designs.
“Yes, the 5 series models were actually co-developed with Rodrigo y Gabriela,” Julian continued. “As you rightly say, they are not signature models as such, but they do have their signatures inside. They are really close to their guitars – although the guitars they use are really specific and super high-end. Rodrigo’s guitar is based on the NTX, Gabriela’s on the NCX. So this new NCX5 has a few of her personal touches, like the binding under the forearm is slightly rounded. And on the NTX the
fingerboard extends two more frets than the 3 or 1. We wanted to capture as closely as we could their guitars – which actually have multiple outputs and for most people would be unusable or at least overkill – but we, and they, wanted to capture as much of their instruments but in a production guitar. So they are still using their highly customised models, but rather than doing signature models of those that aren’t really connected to the rest of the line, for example, let’s just make the 5 basically their model with some of their features on it.
“We actually felt that working with them as co-designers, rather than signature artists, was actually more meaningful. They’re not just putting their name on something, they have actually worked with us on the NX – and, in fact, through the whole life of the line. And they certainly did a lot of work on these new models. A signature model can be a little tricky sometimes – it might be a great guitar, but the end-user might not enjoy the actual artist. We feel the guitar works for any musician, not just those that want to play like Rodrigo y Gabriela.”
Modern Making
To conclude, the new range doesn’t have some of the high-end features (or prices) of the original range. There’s no Japanese hand-crafted model such as the NCX2000R and NCX2000FM with their
ARE [Acoustic Resonance Enhancement]treated Japanese Hokkaido spruce tops.
“Correct, there’s no ARE treatment on any of the new models, and the NX5 pair have a European spruce top – the 3 and 1 use Sitka spruce,” said Julian. “ARE doesn’t seem to do a lot for that – it actually works better, we’ve found, on Sitka.
“The NTX and NCX5es are also a combination of manufacturing,” he continued. “The woodworking is done in China, but the assembly and setup is done in Japan. It’s become one of the things we’re looking at more and more: can we do some of the more fundamental work, say in China, and then ship those to Japan for final assembly or finishing? We’ve actually done it for quite a long time – the bridges, for example, on our high-end Japanese acoustic guitars are made in China. There is a discernible difference in guitars that are finished like this in Japan, even though parts of the woodwork are done in China.
“So, to be specific, what happens in Japan is the bridge attachment, the neck profile is checked, the nut and saddle are fitted – which are bone on the NX5es only – and the tuning pegs are attached. The actual finishing is done in China, but the top-coat buffing is done in Japan.
“A lot of the techniques and jigs we use have been developed by our luthiers in Japan, so although the instrument might be made in China they remain very consistent: it’s not like we’ve got a flagship factory in Japan then China is a very different thing. It’s a really consistent approach to manufacturing across all our guitars, all informed by the craft and development in Japan.
“It’s something we’ve genuinely worked towards: to remove the country of origin. We just want to make stable, good-quality and consistent guitars – and we don’t really care where they come from. But, of course, we’re in an industry in which country of origin really matters to many people. It’s a double-edged sword. I think it’s really good that it’s difficult to tell the higher-end Chinese guitars from those made in Japan; we’re very proud of that. But it has some challenges in the marketplace where some people want to say, ‘Oh, I only play the USA-made guitars or the Japanese ones.’ The funny thing is, we really don’t want that to matter, but we’re aware there are elements of [country of origin] that do matter to the consumer.”
“[The manufacturing process] across all of our guitars [is] informed by the craft and development in Japan” Julian Ward