FEATURES｜SRT, Studio Response Technology - Yamaha Electric Acoustic Guitar

Bringing Back Lost Ambience—Yamaha’s New SRT System

What you hear when listening to an acoustic guitar is the vibrating string exciting and moving the air molecules in and around the guitar – creating the complex sound waves that travel through the air to our ears. An experienced recording engineer can obtain an exceptional acoustic guitar tone when working with optimum conditions, such as in a recording studio with ideal acoustics and using carefully selected microphones. But this focus on getting the absolute best tone has been lost over time due to the convenience that the direct output from an onboard pickup offers both live and in the studio - especially in small recording studios and home recording environments.

Yamaha’s new proprietary Studio Response Technology (SRT) brings back the natural, ambient sound of an acoustic guitar, and it does it with the signal from the output jack. Using a sound modeling technique that utilizes data obtained through extensive analysis of four acoustic elements that are missing from conventional pickup systems— string and body resonance, ambience, vintage microphone characteristics, and professional micing techniques, SRT delivers a natural, studio-quality acoustic guitar tone. The same tone that, until now, was only attainable by professional recording engineers in the world’s finest studios is now easily usable by any player, on-stage or in the studio.Using a sound modeling technique that utilizes data obtained through extensive analysis of four acoustic elements that are missing from conventional pickup systems— string and body resonance, ambience, vintage microphone characteristics, and professional micing techniques, SRT delivers a natural, studio-quality acoustic guitar tone. The same tone that, until now, was only attainable by professional recording engineers in the world’s finest studios is now easily usable by any player, on-stage or in the studio.
A sound that guitarists have long dreamed of is now a reality.

EPISODE

A Quality Guitar Delivers Quality Tone

SRT does not artificially create guitar tone. Rather, it creates a faithful reproduction of the other elements that make a great guitar sound, elements such as room ambience and mic placement. Because SRT uses the guitar’s natural tone as a basis for it’s modeling, it is crucial that the guitar’s tone is nothing short of amazing.
Guitars equipped with the SRT system are crafted by Yamaha’s highly skilled craftsmen from carefully selected, high quality woods - so their quality, playability, and durability are all of Yamaha quality. And their natural tone is the perfect starting point for a great sound.
SRT guitars provide the guitarist with total expressive freedom along with stunning, ambient tone delivered directly from the instrument’s output jack. It is a sound that blends Yamaha’s quality craftsmanship, the guitarist’s skills, and SRT system.

: Eastwest Recording Studio

: Warner/Chappell Recording StudioNashville, TN

: NRG Recording Studios North Hollywood, CA

A Three Year Pursuit for Superior Sound: The development of SRT, from basic research and planning stages until its completion, spanned three years. The most challenging part was gathering the data to build the SRT sound models – essentially getting great recorded acoustic guitar sounds. After many recordings by our development team, it was clear that the absolute best sound could only be achieved using world-class recording facilities and microphones, along with the advanced skills of experienced recording engineers.
In order to obtain truly great acoustic guitar tones, we carried out recording sessions in Tokyo, Los Angeles, and Nashville, using the studios and engineers behind countless hit records – studios like East West and NRG in Los Angeles and Oceanway and Warner Chappell in Nashville. A huge selection vintage microphones were tested and recorded and wide variety of micing positions were used – reflecting the different techniques of the different artisan engineers. Different rooms, different mics, different engineers and different players all added up to give a wide choice of incredible acoustic guitar sounds with which we created the SRT models for each guitar.