Yet another opportunity to ressurect another g.com pic of old.

Enjoy!

a friend of mine allowed me to use his scalloped fretboard warmoth for a week or so, and after that week i realized that it would have been a good idea perhaps to get one when i first started playing guitar, simply because you are forced to use proper techniqe and finger pressure to play it or it sounds all messed up, which, in turn, can make you a better player on all guitars in my opinion, because i think all of us have been guilty of abusing the strings with too much pressure at one point or another. at the same time though, for certain music styles i wouldnt recomend it at all. like blues, where digging into the string and really working the heck out of bending the notes it common practice, scalloping can mess with this pretty bad. actually, if you think about it, yengwie malmsteen uses a scalloped neck and you see what he plays.. not to much bending, just blazing speed. this is what it can be good for. but beware, they ARE harder to play on. i believe the guitar.com member named "zombre" has a malmsteen strat... you may want to mail him and ask his opinion, he is an excellent player and he would probably be more than happy to help you! good luck with your choice!

From what I've heard Yngwie uses a lot of bends in his songs...but that's just me. hehe...

Don't like them. never did. never will.

I think that scalloped frets are much better when doing legato playing. I played a Abel Axe guitar with 13-24 frets scalloped and i thought it was a great ballance the guitar belonged to a good friend of mine terence hansen. The scalloped frets are neccesary for him because he uses only his right hand to play the guitar that has them and his other hand on a different guitar he says it gives him a lot more control when he is using just one hand... search for him on myspace for pics of his axes

Also wanted to say that noone answered one of the first questions... does a scalloped fretbored affect tone???

"does any one here use a guitar with a scalloped fretboard?
i saw one for the 1st time tonight. they seem like they are a good idea, but long term it might bug the hell out of me.
does scalloping the fret board change the tone or just how you play?
tell me what you think of them"


Yep, I use one. It's one of my favorite guitars, actually.
It changes how you play, because your fingers don't touch 'wood'. If they do, you're pressing waaay too hard (And you'll be sharp...). Does it affect your tone? Well not really, other than it DOES affect how you play. Can you play faster on one?Nope. Slower actually. It's absolutely FANTASTIC for vibrato and bending. Chordal stuff you have to adjust how you play so you don't press too hard and sound out of tune.

I will say that the pickups on a YJM strat are EXTREMELY low output, and it's not a real 'gain' kind of sound you get. The tone IS nice, though and I use this guitar to practice on...

Hope that helps? Just my opinions...

i have one. i bought this shitty old mexican strat from pawnshop about 3 years ago. and i scalloped it by myself with good ol sandpaper and few tools....took me forever, but it was all worth it. i scalloped it TOO deep. way deeper than yjm strats.

the main idea is that you get more control/grip on fretboard so it's easier for you to bend/vibrato strings easier. you can actually bend with your pinky pretty easy...which i found is a cool thing.

scalloping fretboard has nothing to do with playing "faster" as zombre mentioned. it actually might slow you down.

one thing though, is that you gotta know how much pressure you put on your fingers especially when you play open chords or else it's gonna go out of tune. which you'll have to get used it.

i actually have yjm pick ups on my scalloped strat (yjm strat replica.....ha) they have nice tones - i wish they had more outputs though. it's not hot enough...