Yamaha has debuted a new line of guitars, called the SLG200 Silent Guitar line, and is now shipping them to customers in the U.S.

The interesting thing about these guitars is that they're designed to be silent, featuring a open design with integrated technology that offers a sound similar to "a full bodied acoustic guitar."

"The Yamaha SLG is the perfect instrument for practice, travel or stage use — any time an acoustic guitar just won't do," says Yamaha on its website. "Near-silent performance makes discreet practice simple, Yamaha's exclusive SRT-Powered pickup system gives incredibly natural acoustic tone through headphones or line-out, studio-quality on-board effects enhance your playing to perfection and line-in functionality makes jamming easy."

Yamaha is offering two versions of the guitar, one with nylon strings and the other with steel strings, offering two different flavors of acoustic guitar. The guitar can be connected to an amplifier in the case of playing live or jamming with other musicians.

Of course, many musicians will be skeptical of the faux-acoustic guitar, with a number of acoustic guitar emulation pedals being available on the market, most of which simply sound fake. Recording engineers among us will even testify to the fact that an acoustic-electric guitar rarely has a pickup that offers a natural sound, and in the studio, it's more common to record using microphones rather than plugging the guitar in via its pickup.

Despite this, judging by the samples on the company's website, Yamaha has done a good job at faithfully recreating the acoustic guitar sound. The fact that it uses actual steel or nylon strings should help with the feel of the guitar.

The instrument also incorporates other technology to help the user, such as the ability to plug in a smartphone to play music to jam along to. It also has an onboard tuner that is powered by two AA batteries, Studio Response Technology pickups and a sleek design. The guitar costs $1,015.

Via: SlashGear