What is it? We can clearly remember the first time we encountered Yamaha’s TransAcoustic technology. It was a bit of a culture shock, hearing reverb and chorus coming from an acoustic guitar ’s soundhole, as if by magic. At the time, we wondered if this was too gadgety for the unplugged fraternity and would hence be viewed as a mere novelty that would soon fizzle itself out.
But we were all wrong. Not only did players take to the TransAcoustic, Yamaha spread it across selected guitars from its acoustic range, even reaching the notoriously more conservative classical players when it landed in the nylon-string CG-TA. Back then – approximately eight years ago – the TransAcoustic tech that was launched in the LL-TA comprised reverb and chorus.
But now it has evolved to include delay and a looper , plus a built-in guitar tuner and Bluetooth connectivity that links to a dedicated app and allows the player to fine-tune the settings. Not only that, you can use it to channel backing tracks to play along to, or use it as a Bluetooth speaker and just play your favorite music via your guitar’s soundhole. This might sound like an awful lot to take in, and we must admit that initially we were a little concerned that perhaps Yamaha had taken its concept a little further than the acoustic playing gentlefolk would be willing to venture.
However, once you spend time exploring the potential of this next generation of TransAcoustic goodies, you might just have to rethink things. For st.