Yamaha TAG3 C Acoustic Guitar Review: Old Looks, New Tricks

Parker HallGearFeb 1, 2025 10:32 AM

Review: Yamaha TAG3 C Acoustic Guitar

This normal-looking acoustic guitar has Bluetooth and an innovative looping function that lets you jam to your own tune.Photograph: Parker Hall; Getty ImagesSave this storySaveSave this storySaveTriangleUpBuy NowMultiple Buying Options Available$1,700 at Sweetwater$1,700 at Guitar Center

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Rating:

8/10

Open rating explainerInformationWIREDSimple and easy to use. Looks and plays like a solid mid-tier acoustic guitar. Innovative looping function using spot on top of the body. Nice built-in effects and tuner. Good Bluetooth functionality with adjustable volume for looping and playing over tracks. Comfortable cutaway shape.TIREDProprietary charging cable. Only 5.5-hour battery life. Somewhat expensive.

For all the fancy electric guitars and amps and the wide array of pedals I own and get to test, I spend the vast majority of my playing time with an old Guild acoustic on my couch. I find it easier to plunk through new songs in the living room, and the quick grab-and-go versatility of an acoustic guitar is impossible to beat.

How do you make something that is so utilitarian and easy even better? If you’re Yamaha with its new TAG3 C, you add audio actuators, a built-in looper, Bluetooth, and effects like delay and reverb, and you toss in a charging cable. In doing so, Yamaha created an astonishing piece of musical technology that fits in with everything I like about my usual acoustic guitar experience but makes me sound even better with less effort. It even has a great built-in tuner.

The looper, reverb, and delay effects allow you to practice difficult passages over yourself, work on solos over chord changes, and mess around with different styles and ideas. If you’re more of a pro than I am, you can use the Bluetooth functionality to make this the perfect guitar for ampless street performances or extended practices with backing tracks, just as long as your voice doesn’t need similar invisible help.

Photograph: Parker Hall

Guitar of the Gods

Guitar brands have been grasping at new technological straws with somewhat limited results for decades. Modern material science, 3D printing, and milling technologies have brought us new and exciting shapes, and there are more fantastic low-noise pickup options than ever before, but by and large very little that makes a guitar great to play has changed in a long while.

Lucky for players, Yamaha’s engineers have had a firm grasp on what makes a good acoustic guitar for all of that time. The TAG3 C looks to the untrained eye like a very nice acoustic guitar in a slightly smaller dreadnought cutaway shape. A solid Sitka spruce top, solid mahogany back and sides, and slippery ebony fingerboard are all hallmarks of a well-made acoustic from any era. The neck is slim and modern and playable, and it has a bright and clear tone despite a good amount of weight inside.

Photograph: Parker Hall

Yamaha TAG3 C

Rating: 8/10

$1,700 at Sweetwater$1,700 at Guitar Center

If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED

One tell that it has all the electronics—apart from the heavier-than-usual internals, charger input, and four-knob controls on the top of the guitar facing the player—is a dot right near the cutaway on the lower bout of the guitar. This is used to control starting and stopping the looper, which saves an impossible arm movement back to the control knobs when you’re in the middle of trying to play.

The other effects and tuner are engaged via the pushable plastic knobs on the guitar and are relatively easy to get the hang of thanks to removable clear labeling on the inside of the black plastic. The charger is some proprietary USB cable with a clicky attachment point that allows you to play while you charge (you get 5.5 hours of medium-volume playtime), but I wish the thing just had USB-C.

Photograph: Parker Hall

A Busker’s Dream

Sound-wise it’s immediately apparent that this is more than just a techno-gimmick. The ability to add convincingly authentic reverb and delay and adjust the mix volume of the effects makes for a very fun and inviting playing and listening experience.

It made even boring demos into something more musical. I’ve been working on getting out of standard blues solo positions. Being able to loop some chord changes and jam over them on an otherwise “acoustic” instrument was helpful and easy, a feat that usually requires that I grab a loop pedal or audio interface and things like patch and power cables. With the TAG3 C I just grabbed the guitar, sat on the couch, and practiced.

The fact that the sound is made by transducers that mostly use the guitar’s body as their speaker cabinet really plays to the instrument’s advantage in terms of sound. Even when playing back around loop, it sounds like the acoustic guitar’s soundboard is playing a key part in the tone. It’s much more than just a guitar with a mic and a Bluetooth speaker inside. You can plug the guitar into a standard amp, should you need more oomph.

Yamaha TAG3 C

Rating: 8/10

$1,700 at Sweetwater$1,700 at Guitar Center

If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED

Photograph: Parker Hall

Pairing your phone via Bluetooth is quick and easy, though playing through a guitar and not a speaker does limit the ultra-low and high frequencies in ways that anyone who plays an acoustic guitar can understand. You won’t get a full “playing with a band” experience that you can get from a PA or large amplifier, but you totally get enough full-frequency sound to pair with the guitar and your voice.

The price is high, and I understand the need for an acoustic guitar that does all these things might seem niche, but for folks who find themselves reaching for an acoustic guitar far more often than an electric guitar and pedals, this is a compelling option with very usable technology inside.

There are only a few downsides, like that it has a proprietary charging cable and that you get only about a week’s worth of regular play time (5.5 hours) between trips to the wall wart. I really enjoy the sound, and the added functionality made me play even more than usual. If I were in the market for another couch guitar, and my wife wouldn’t kill me, I might try to buy my own. For now, it’s back to the old Guild with a headstock tuner. My ears sure will miss Yamaha’s help.

Yamaha TAG3 C

Rating: 8/10

$1,700 at Sweetwater$1,700 at Guitar Center

If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED

$1,700 at Sweetwater$1,700 at Guitar Center

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