Oh. My. God.

How does one shred on that high action??

I never ever noticed it before, but just look at this video, when he picks up his guitar flat in his palms at 0:54 I just noticed the action on his guitar and WOW!!! How the hell does he do that??

I don't even have words for that... its almost as high as an acoustic guitar...

Someone explain please I really feel like a wimp

Probably all for tone and sustain i guess....the rest is just practice

I think the scalloped neck fools the eye as if its higher than actually is.

Still, its pretty damn high, and as far as I've heard (going off topic here), scalloped necks don't really increase your speed

A scalloped neck will force you to fret lighter or risk sounding out of tune if you fret too hard, fretting lighter is a key ingredient to playing faster. But you are correct, a scalloped neck in itself will not increase your speed, but it will help you develop technique that will increase your speed in my opinion.
Edit: I should probably add the reason a deep scalloped neck like that makes you play lighter. That is because it makes you use only enough force for the string to touch the frets, too much pressure will make the note actually bend to a higher pitch. When Yngwie plays on that neck his fingers will rarely if ever touch the wood on that fretboard. Another advantage to a scalloped neck is less resistance while doing bends and vibrato , again because your fingers never come in contact with the fretboard.
However, some people don't like scalloped necks because it can make playing chords a bit trickier because of the light touch you need to have to keep the chords from sounding sharp or simply out of tune.

This post has been edited by AK Rich: Jun 30 2013, 06:13 AM

What is a scalloped neck?

Still, a combination of low action and scalloped neck makes sense to me, since you already have to pick and fret lighter or you get buzz. Well, I guess it might help, but still, I'd kill to be able to play fast on that high action



its a neck which has wood scooped out from between the frets

This post has been edited by sammetal92: Jun 30 2013, 06:12 AM

Well, super low action is not for everyone. Some shredders like a bit higher action than others would consider optimal and they seem to do just fine. Too low of a string action can make it tough to get a nice legato going. (hammerons and pulloffs) I think Mertay may have been on to something when he said that the scalloped neck may make the action appear higher than it actually is, but it could be higher than many guitarists that play fast might prefer.

Here is a picture mate



I agree with Mertay. I suppose if you prefer your setup like that and you put the practice in it will become second nature to you. Although Ygnwie speed is just out of this world.

Well, all said I have more respect than ever for Yngwie, this gives me a pretty big push

EDIT: Also, don't forget this guy can shred on an acoustic guitar just as well

This post has been edited by sammetal92: Jun 30 2013, 07:17 AM

Nice shot! here is another!

http://www.warmoth.com/Guitar/Necks/Scalloping.aspx

Also some custom scallop jobs may only scallop part of the fretboard,such as below the 12th or 14th fret, or even part of the frets such as only on the treble side. (high strings)
Or even have progressively more of part of the frets scalloped as you get further down the neck.

Oh wow. I've never seen this. Will a neck like this make notes go sharp if you fret to hard? Seems like it would.

Yeah it would mate. A think it would be hard to play at first but with practice am sure most people would be able to adjust to playing it.I heard if you have a bigger gauge strings on the guitar it will be easier to play chords because it will make you press down on the strings lighter.

Yeah, the action could be misleading due to the scalloped neck and jumbo dunlop frets. Though Yngwie does play with a higher than average action... I know he uses light gauge .008 strings live and a heavier pick 1.5mm. In the studio he uses thicker gauge strings for a fuller tone. Yngwie claims that it is harder to play fast on a scalloped fret board.

One of my guitars is the Yngwie Fender model. I love the scalloped fret board on it. It is designed for getting your fingers to grip a bend easier and for ringing out some wide and sustained vibrato.

I play with 9-46 guage strings and I would have squezze down pretty hard to make notes go sharp. I've tried all kinds of different gauge strings on the guitar and find that to be harder to adjust to rather than the scalloped neck itself. I don't think about having a to play with a lighter touch but it could be something that I developed over time and just didn't realize it.

Well, in the video, I think he's using 9-46 gauge strings. I use 9-46 D'addario strings myself. I thought about going to 10s but I didn't. 8s are really thin for me, they'd probably just slip out from under my finger if I did a strong vibrato

I think that the scalloped is making the view confusing and it seems to be higher than it really is. I remember that once Malmsteen came to Argentina an he denied to play an acoustic guitar that someone gave him in a TV show because the strings were too high. However, the answer to your question of how you can do that is "with practice"!

Seems like most of us agree - Visual judgement of the strings action is something that should never happen. Not only mentioning the scalloping but also (as someone said) the fret size. Also strings like 0,08 seems to work more like a iPod touch panel than the guitar string

We usually look at the distance from the fretboard, to the string ...wrong. We should meter the distance from the fret crowns and those can be also shaped differently - some of us like rounded and some pretty flat.

In my case strings action is much higher on the low strings so If You look at my guitar on the picture You might say I have a high action. Wrong - as soon as You'll get it into Your hands You'll see how the action is adjusted according what happens on particular strings - for example - top strings are often bended a lot a a bit harder to play because of more tension. Now low strings can be vene to 2 mm higher that E1 and still feels like it's equal comfort of playing.

So...let's forget about visual acpects

To me, a good way of further judgement of string height is simply bending the string on most of the frets; the radius is actually the main enemy of string height cause although on can get and ESP and Fender the same string height, when bended its possible the string might touch the fret on a Fender easyer which sounds terrible

As for the scalloped neck, if one hasn't yet it really feels different than expected, I play ibanez (uses huge frets so feels close to scalloped) and still a scalloped neck felt wierd at first

When playing, you have the comfort of the finger-tip width when touching strings; if its not super perfect you touch the fretboard genty and the skin adjusts to the string pressure automaticly. This doesn't happen with scalloped necks so the guitar player starts adjusting himself which does effect his techniqe, at least for a while.

Its actually a nice example how the smallest difference of a guitar can effect the players musicality.

This post has been edited by Mertay: Jul 5 2013, 10:01 AM

Makes perfect sense I don't feel very much like a wimp any more