I recently bought a Yamaha NCX1200R, which Gabriela plays (Rodrigo plays the NTX variant).

The Yamaha NCX features a classical style with standard depth and fretboard width. The Yahama NTX is similar in design but with a narrower fretboard. Their sound is ideal for classical, flamenco or, in my case, an occaisional Willie Nelson wannabe.

The NX line has a pickup/preamp system that Yamaha calls “A.R.T.” (Acoustic Resonance Transducer). This pickup system reportedly is tweaked to capture both the tone and dynamics of nylon strings and the natural body sound (from finger style to pick to percussive flamenco). To reduce feedback, it also includes a multilayered damper. You can mix the output of the high and low pickups and also equalize the tone from the guitar.

The guitar construction is impressive. Yamaha leverages a bracing design based on their top-of-the-line, handcrafted GC Series classical guitars. The neck is made from African mahogany; the back and sides are rosewood. The top is solid Sitka spruce.

In a February 2015 article in ToneDeaf, Rodrigo explains some of the differences between their custom guitars and the stock Yamaha NX lines:

“So it’s a normal pickup and seven piezos, but there’s a little computer inside the guitar that mixes all of the piezos in and separates them in groups of two and three, so our sound engineer is able to do that as well, to give different levels to each part of the guitar when needed and separate the wood from the strings. The strings are taken from the normal pickup, which is also customised.”1

Rodrigo also explained how, in 2013, they combined a Digitech processor (for distortion) with three big Marshall stacks. Since then, they have gone back to a more acoustic sound, which is amplified when they tour due to the size of the concert halls.

Updated on December 2nd, 2023