If you know, you know! The red label series guitars are descendants from the legendary Yamaha FG-180, first introduced in 1966. Even though these guitars were 3-layer plywood, they found a way to sing, with a bold bass and sweet treble balance, and these guitars were extremely durable and popular with artists on tour. Decades later (2019, to be exact), Yamaha has reintroduced this Red Label series. Elegantly simple, the FG (dreadnought) and FS (orchestral, or basically the size of a classical body) feature all solid spruce and mahogany construction, with scalloped X-bracing and a satin finish. The tops have been treated with Yamaha’s patented A.R.E system—Acoustic Resonance Enhancement. To quote Yamaha’s site, “the Sitka spruce used for the soundboard is put through an aging process under a particular temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure, which modifies new wood to have the quality of mature wood.”

There are four variants, the larger FG3 and smaller FS3, and then both with added pickups (FGX3 and FSX3). The pickup system actually blends three different types of pickups—a piezo sensor in the bridge to capture low frequencies, a microphone for low and midrange and Yamaha’s proprietary, thin synthetic sheet soundboard transducer for high frequencies. The microphone and piezo can be blended on the left side dial, with a bass EQ shaping the sound on the right side dial, and a master volume just underneath the two.

The FG3 and FS3 are serious guitars and come with well-padded gig bags. Come and hear the red label difference!