Anyone have one? Anyone have opinions on them? Are they very different to play or are their just some subtle differences. Most importantly how expensive are they?
Have you ever seen one? I've not seen one up close but believe the fretboard is way more recessed from the frets than normal guitars. Not sure of the benefits but perhaps makes it easier to hit the right part of the string and fret and not using the fretboard to fret the strings.
Here's a link to one. Not sure how it compares to a Fender Stat Deluxe but it's only a few hundred more than that.
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Fender-Yngwie-Malmsteen-Stratocaster?sku=511849
If you buy one, we need performance reports and sound clips.
No pressure. :wink: :D
Bish
"I play live as playing dead is harder than it sounds!"
Sorry, I don't have one....
As far as I know, Ritchie Blackmore used them to get finger vibrato techniques and unusual 'bends'.
Malmsteen got one because Blackmore was a huge influence on him.
They take a certain degree of finesse to play as you do not touch the fretboard and so need a delicate touch to keep from
pushing the string too far, and thus out of tune.
Ken
"The man who has begun to live more seriously within
begins to live more simply without"
-Ernest Hemingway
"A genuine individual is an outright nuisance in a factory"
-Orson Welles
They take a certain degree of finesse to play as you do not touch the fretboard and so need a delicate touch to keep from pushing the string too far, and thus out of tune. Ken
My guitar teacher has one on his Strat. Very different look, and you're righ Ken. He said that it defintely takes a lighter touch.
Jim-Bone
Yeah see I was interested in a scalloped neck because it gives you the potential to play faster but I would imagine the feel of it and I just think it would take alot of getting used to. And I already have a guitar who's fretboard I would like scalloped, however now I'm not sure if you could just take a guitar in and get it scalloped. Plus it would probably be expensive as crap..... if you guys want sound clips )not of me but the guitars are scalloped, none the less, go to youtube and search up "scalloped fretboard". There's some pretty good stuff on there.
I've heard that scalloping a board does not allow you to play any faster.
That that is a common misconception.
It's used mostly for vibrato/bending.
Although I couldn't say for sure - I play slow no matter what :P
As for what is entailed in scalloping a neck....
http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/scal1.htm
Ken
"The man who has begun to live more seriously within
begins to live more simply without"
-Ernest Hemingway
"A genuine individual is an outright nuisance in a factory"
-Orson Welles
+1 on not faster.
makes tapping easier
on some guitars, only the highest frets are scalloped
-=tension & release=-
Another +1 on probably not being faster.
If you get some reasonable light on the neck and look flat across the fretboard as you play you can see that the strings mostly don't go all the way down to the wood anyway. At least they don't when I play. The fingers might touch the wood but the strings rarely do. It seems only necessary to apply enough pressure to make good contact at the fretwire and effectively shorten the string length. You don't have to grind the string into the wood. In fact on the thicker strings it take a fair effort to do it, and you can hear the pitch change, in an unwanted way, if you do.
I've never tried one, and know nothing about them (not that lack of knowledge has ever stopped me from passing an opinion!! :P ) but, as Ken said, I'd guess that it would be mostly handy for vibrato as you could minimise or avoid the 'drag' factor of your fingertip across the wood with a shaped fretboard. It could also be useful because you could get a bigger pitch change just by pressing down and not need quite so much sideways movement for the same amount of 'bend'. Maybe people feel there's a possible slight speed advantage there, but I'd guess 'different' rather than 'faster'. Sounds like it would mostly be useful on the thinner strings up at the 'screaming rock solo' end of the neck anyway. 8)
Cheers,
Chris
+1 on not faster.
makes tapping easier
on some guitars, only the highest frets are scalloped yeah before I even finished reading that whole article on a do it yourself I figured i'll just do higher frets for freakin sweet bends. Also I have a little fretbuzz which the scalloping should clear right up. 8) And to that guy that posted that link, thank you so much!
+1 on not faster.
makes tapping easier
on some guitars, only the highest frets are scalloped yeah before I even finished reading that whole article on a do it yourself I figured i'll just do higher frets for freakin sweet bends. Also I have a little fretbuzz which the scalloping should clear right up. 8) And to that guy that posted that link, thank you so much!
Why would scalloping clear up fret buzz? Fret buzz happens when the string is striking undesired frets during vibration -- scalloping shouldn't change the frets. If this buzz is only on the highest frets, fixing that would correctly be done by set-up, which may include fret leveling/recrowning and/or adjusting the neck angle by shimming.
-=tension & release=-
That's true. I guess I was just thinking of scalloping it low enough so it wouldn't touch that fret. With a little more thought I think I would have realized that... I think I'm goingn to buy an Ibanez Xyphos and scallop the upper frets on that. First I'm going to get some practice on my Les Paul that I haven't played in 3 or 4 years. :shock:
i scalloped one of my necks. it doesn't help you play faster and it requires you to relax your hand more since pressing down to hard will cause the notes to go out of tune. the biggest advantage in my opinion is that i find i have more control over the string for bending and vibrato since the string only touches the fret and not the fingerboard.
And so you scalloped that yourself? Scale of 1-10, how difficult?
I say it makes you play faster, since it requires a lighter touch. I don't like what it does to the tone though, and I generally don't get the point.
Yeah see I could care less about the speed, I just want to be able to do a bend that's more than 1 semitone or 2. That's another thing I'm worried about is the tone. Does it mess with the tone?
