Custom Heritage

Yamaha’s custom shop is celebrating its 30th anniversary. We catch up with its founding father, Ken Dapron

- Dave Burrluck

Yamaha might be one of the biggest names in the musical instrument world, but it is a company that tends to plough its own path – almost, it seems, avoiding the fickle world of musical fad and fashion by design. As we report, for example, Yamaha’s only current artist signature electric guitar model is the 1611MS Mike Stern, a guitar that was conceived back in the mid-90s and that, aside from a relatively recent refresh, has stayed exactly the same.

It’s not that Yamaha doesn’t do the artist thing. There have been a great many over the years – Ty Tabor, Frank Gambale, Sammy Hagar, Wes Borland and Troy Van Leeuwen to name a few – but as Ken Dapron, the founder of Yamaha’s LA’s custom shop, or Yamaha Guitar Development (YGD) as it was originally known, comments, “A lot of signature models – and this applies to many companies – don’t actually last very long. That might be due to genre changes, but guitar players do seem to shift around more than bass players.”

Unless you’re Mike Stern, of course, a signature guitar player who’s been happy with his Yamaha for over 20 years. Based on the very early Pacifica models (specifically the USA1) that were originally conceived by the small YGD team of Ken, ex-Ibanez designer Rich Lasner and luthier Leo Knapp, the Telecaster-inspired style of Mike’s signature also remains a rarity – it’s the only single-cut Pacifica in the range and has been for a long time.

Famously, the design of the Pacifica was more of an exercise: Yamaha wanted to see what YGD could do, remembers Ken.