[mathminnick31]

The Yamaha FGX730SC acoustic/electric cutaway dread retails for $500. Its solid sitka spruce top has a cream colored binding that wraps around the beautiful laminate rosewood back and sides. Abalony sounhole inlays are matched on the headstock and add a touch of class to this instrument. The glossy neck is made of mahogany with rosewood fretboard and bridge. I purchased this guitar as my first "good" guitar after playing for 5 months.

I am a worship leader at my church and needed something with good electronics to plug directly into the house pa. Yamaha's system 57 pickup system is great with its 3-band eq (hi-mid-lo) and sweepable midrange. The onboard tuner is an added bonus. The die cast tuners hold tune well and the truss rod is in the soundhole and fairly accessible. I added a strap button on the base of the neck.

After seeking out the best sounding A/E cutaway dread in this price range, this was the winner. The Seagull (not sure which model) sounded as good but the shape of the neck and frets on the base side lead me to push the low E string right off the fret. Anyway, the sound this Yamaha produces is incredible. For the price, you will be hard pressed to find many cutaways that hold a candle to it. The bass is there-not too boomy and the highs are great. For heavy strumming, this guitar works amazingly well.

Plugged in is where fingerstyle really shines on this guitar, but strumming is great unplugged and plugged in. The action was pretty good out of the box on the first through 12th frets. As a newer player, I seldom play beyond the 5th fret anyway. I recently did a 3-point setup (truss rod, saddle height, nut slot depth) on it and WOW. The playability is butter. With Dunlop phosphor bronze 12-54 strings barre chords are a walk in the park. After about 250 hrs of play time, the sound has really opened up and with the upgrade to rosewood bridgepins, this guitar sounds GREAT-almost as good as my full body Yamaha LLX6A.

It has gotten wet, hot (in the sun for a 4 hour gig), cold, and humid- Ohio summer-the neck is straight as ever and the guitar holds tune well. No let downs ever with the electrics. I have plugged in direct to house pa at church, a soundtech powered mixer, my current system-a Behringer 8 channel mixer though a powered cab, and several amps with and without a compression and chorus pedals. The electronics still work great.

Overall, I could not be happier with this guitar. Unless it is stolen, I will play it forever. It is my go to stage guitar and I play it more than my LLX6A or the silent guitar. At $500 a great buy.