So I recently found a video of this “Sanshin” that sounded like a Hosozao Shamisen and then I found out it’s an Amami Shamisen. I’m interested in it now because it sounds just like a Nagauta Shamisen and may be a cheaper alternative. The problem is that I cannot find any Amami Shamisen online. Does anyone know a site where I can get an Amami Shamisen or can I just buy some Nagauta strings and put them on a regular Sanshin?
I think it’s a sanshin, but played with a kind of plectrum. I may be wrong but I think Amami is the kind of music played and not really a different instrument. Here’s a case for Gerry or other sensei there at Bachido, isn’t it ?
The Amami Shamisen is technically a Sanshin, but it’s sound is that of the Nagauta Shamisen. It has yellow, higher pitched strings. Originally I wanted a Nagauta Shamisen, but I need something cheap ad small.
Patrick is right: it’s the same instrument, broadly speaking, but played with different playing techniques and a different plectrum (it resembles the sort used for the Persian Oud). Of course, there are special specific Amami sanshin, just like there are several types of Okinawan sanshin, if you want to start splitting hairs, but you can easily play Amami pieces on a standard Okinawan sanshin, provided you get the plectrum. And, as David said, they use yellow strings, but I think that the only difference between them and sanshin strings is the colour.
Here’s an earlier post about Amami that might be useful:
As I’ve said before, kankara sanshin, or gotan, or even sanshin are a cheap place to start to play shamisen, and are a lot of fun to play in their own right, but each instrument has its limitations, and is suited to a particular type of music. If you want to play nagauta music, eventually you will want a nagauta shamisen.
Actually there is a difference between the sound. An Amami Shamisen sounds more like a Nagauta while the Okinawan Sanshin sounds close to a Jiuta. Here are some videos for comparison.
Amami Shamisen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIBmWf9Paas
Nagauta Shamisen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhyl6_9uVVo
Regular Sanshin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnRrghXJrG8
Jiuta Shamisen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ4dW__y4yQ
If you notice, the Amami Shamisen and the Nagauta sound pretty similar, if not the same, but neither sound like a regular Sanshin. A regular Sanshin is closer to to a Jiuta. Just because the Amami Shamisen and the Sanshin look the same, doesn’t mean they sound the same
sounds interesting but I’ll keep my sights on a ko shamisen … 
A Koshamisen would be great to graduate to after mastering an Amami Shamisen. But if you want the Nagauta sound, you might have to reskin the Koshamisen
David, I don’t hear the similarities in the videos. I’m not sure what you mean when you say that Amami and Nagauta shamisens sound the same, but I suspect you are thinking about the scales being played in those two examples rather than the timbre, which is the main consideration when we are talking about the physical instrument rather than the style of music someone plays on it.
Timbre is what people are referring to when, for example, they talk about the ‘tone’ of a guitar being fuzzy, or clean etc. With the shamisen, or sanshin, the big factors that effect timber are the thickness and tightness of the skin, the type of koma used, the type of strings used, and the sort of attack used (this involves the type of bachi you are using, as well as how hard you are hitting the string, where you hit the string, etc).
The Amami shamisen’s plectrum will affect the timbre of the instrument, and I agree, it seems to have more in common with shamisen bachi than it does with sanshin bachi. But that is pretty much where the similarities stop. The various types of Okinawan and Amami shamisens all have small bodies, short necks, and are covered in snakeskin. This is going to make them sound very different than the various shamisen types in ‘mainland Japan’ which all have bigger bodies, longer necks, and are skinned with dog, cat, or synthetics.
Another problem with talking about the timbre of instruments on youtube videos is that we are hearing the sound through several layers of filters. The timbre is affected by recording (what kind of mics are they using, where are they placed, etc.), equalizing (increasing or decreasing the low, middle, or high frequencies), and compression (reducing the file size of the audio for youtube by cutting out all kinds of very important harmonics). All of that makes it very difficult to compare the ‘actual’ sounds of those instruments in the live, unamplified settings that they were originally built for.