Rodrigo y Gabriela

Originally from Mexico City, the acoustic guitar duo by Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero met as teenagers while playing in a thrash metal band called Tierra Acida. They formed Rodrigo y Gabriela in 2000 and moved to Dublin, Ireland. With the support of musician Damian Rice, the talented pair participated in the renowned Oxegen music festival in Ireland, where they attracted significant attention. Their first album Foc was released in 2001, followed by Re-Foc in 2003, which received gold certification. In 2004, they released Live in Manchester and Dublin and received platinum certification. Their next release, Rodrigo y Gabriela, was launched in 2006 and reached number one in the Irish music charts.

Yamaha started its relationship with Rodrigo y Gabriela from the summer of 2007 at live concerts held in Europe and the United States. and has since been producing guitar prototypes for the duo. As they started to play in major outdoor concert events, they found their distinctive playing techniques, which involve creating intricate melodies and light rhythm cutting as well as using the guitar body as a percussion element, were not fully captured by professional audio (PA) systems. Yamaha's musical instrument manufacturing and technology capabilities proved to be a perfect match for their unique needs. As a result of the enthusiastic support of Yamaha's development team and repeated field tests conducted in Japan as well as the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Canada and Mexico City, the custom guitars were used for the first time in concerts in Osaka and Tokyo in November 2008. These instruments were introduced to the audience during the concert and subsequently became the duo's favorite guitars. In addition to gaining the artists' trust, Yamaha was highly praised by sound engineers who were able to overcome problems with reverberation, as well as the concert staff who successfully brought out the high quality sound of the guitars. The Electric Nylon Strings NX Series was also exhibited for display at the Winter NAMM in January 2009 and presented at the Frankfurt Musikmesse exhibition held in April 2009.