Pretty rare for me to do a NGD because I'm supposed to be downsizing. Every now and then a situation presents itself and in my case I've always had a Yamaha RGX-TT on my bucket list and a local guy was selling one at a really decent price and was willing to waive shipping costs if I met him locally. I'm not usually a fan of "signature" guitars but this one checked a bunch of boxes and Tabor (Kings X) is one of my guitar heroes. It's a quirky guitar at best and although I'd never played one I knew what to expect. Made in 1999 (the production run was 2000 to 2003 so it's either an early run or proto).
It has a straight string path. Nuff said. Forgive the dust in the photos, it picked it up way more than it should have, this beast is clean.
It has this weird Firebird meets Ibanez meets Strat thing going on. The core is maple with basswood as the main chunk. It is carved to fall away from the center block. The net effect is that it feels tiny and weighs next to nothing. The pickups are a SD JB on bridge with a coil tap/high cut switch. The single coils are Duncan SVR-1's. Technically they are dual coil/split pole weirdos that are voiced to be vintage strats but are much brighter than even stock strats and still humbucking through some sort of magic.
The output jack is carved into the back pointing up, so as you look at it on the strap it's looking right at you. Far too convenient.
Because it's carved to be thin at the edges and the multiple pole switch is so big they had to put a bubble on the control cavity. The trem is blocked at the factory and I'll get used to the guitar before I remove it. I don't think Tabor unblocked it because he used so much bridge muting. Don't know, don't care. I don't subscribe to leaving the spring cover off because it sounds better. Just needed it off to set this beast up.
The knobs are very weird. The intent was to make the volume knob pinky friendly from playing position and the rubber rings make it easy to grip. Trouble is, that as the body falls away and the knob is so recessed it's less than intuitive. That and the fact that 23 years later the rubber has devolved to dried out gaskets. I love this guitar and will get used to this quirk. Might hit up Yamaha for replacements if they exist. Another strange quirk is that the pots are tiny little 16mm's. Very strange choice for a guitar of this level but it works very well so I'm not about to change them out.
Fretwork with a minimal polishing on a 23 year old guitar. Not too shabby on Yamaha's part. The only inlay on the fretboard is the TT logo. I don't recall seeing this on any of Tabor's other guitars or albums so this was likely a one-off on Yamaha's part. Instead of fingerboard inlays the fret markers are all inlaid on the side of the neck. Again, strange, but easy to get the hang of, especially on a dark stage.
