Have you tried a Scalloped Fretboard before? 🟢My Website: www.troglysguitarshow.com 🔴Reverb: tidd.ly/4aFiyhC ❓Private Help Sessions: troglysguitarshow.com/help-appraisals/
Yes. My '71 Les Paul Standard had a scalloped fretboard when I bought it in the late 90's. Unfortunately, it was an amateur job and I had the fretboard replaced by a luthier a few years ago. As it wasn't very well done, I never really got used to the scallops. I have be considering a YJM Strat, although I may go with a Warmoth version. Likewise, I would be more likely to build a Warmoth version of one of these than to pony up the asking prices originals are selling for.
Thanks Trogly for reminding us of the greatness of Mr. Ben Woods. I'm a huge fan of his work. I was thoroughly shocked when I heard of his passing. R.I.P. Ben
No way. What a way to learn that an old guitar teacher of mine passed away. I clicked on this video because I thought this guitar looked like the one he made. 😢 Flametal is forever one of my favorite bands. Ben Woods ROCKS!
Love the Gerudo theme, you're playing has really improved over the past few months and it's inspiring me to get out of a rut and start practicing more!
i actually love the way that thing sounds with overdrive, normally piezo pickups sound waaay too buzzy and sneezy with how much treble they have (and i personally really like high treble tones), but that guitar is actually great sounding
Thanks for sharing Ben Woods with us. I paused and went and checked him out before watching the rest of the vid. He was incredibly talented, I'm not sure how he flew under my radar for this long! Very sad to hear that he's no longer with us. Anyway, thanks again.
I love that not only did they route it for pickups that aren't being installed, they painted the routes with shielding paint to shield the non-existent electronics!
@@karaokeitaliano Yeah, obviously they are using generic bodies, not ones intended for this model. I'm just surprised that they didn't bother to tell the production line "you can go ahead and set aside 50 strat bodies (or however many they were making) without bothering to route them." I mean, yeah the guitars are made in "factories," but it's not like the Ford factory where big chunks of things are assembled by robots. There is a lot of human intervention in a guitar factory, so if the bodies were shaped, then routed, it wouldn't be hard to send 50 bodies straight to finishing or whatever. They must start by routing for the pickups, then they paint with shielding paint, then the bodies go for further sanding/shaping. I was really commenting by implication how revealing it is that the bodies are routed and shielded. Says a lot about how Fender orders things.
@@trippgoldsberry2694 Putting non-standard bodies aside might be more work than routing and painting them. Why do you think matching headstocks on Strats are so rare? It's not because painting them is so much more expensive. It's because of the logistics involved. Even black headstocks (which look great with black pickguards and/or sunburst paintjobs) are only issued on big enough limited editions.
This and the Ibanez SC500N were part of a crazy late 90s fascination with neoclassical. I love the idea of a solidbody nylon string guitar. I want one so much.
Looper makes things better! This STCL-YM is both the strangest Strat and the strangest application of a piezo system I've seen yet, but for sure very cool. Still trying to keep an open mind over scalloping the fretboard.
I routed a piezo saddle pup under the bridge of my steel string tele and it sounds.....just like an magnetic pickup. If i plug into a ukulele then it sounds like this. You need to loose vibrations for that 'acoustic sound', hence why solid bodies are just mode for just the right amount of feedback.
I could never play scalloped fretboards..always too heavy handed.. I tried a few of them. That's a really awesome guitar though..great find...never even knew it existed. 👍
Wow what a great find. One of John Petrucci's signature guitars has a piezo built in that he uses with regular steel strings and it sounds amazing. It's called the JP6
Actually every Earnie Ball Music Man JP Guitar has a piezo in it except for the new 8 string, the JP16 and really old models. Also PRS has got some guitars with piezo pickups. It's a really unique and wonderful sound you can get with these. But the price is quite high unfortunately. But it's definitely worth it.
Check out Ben Woods nylon strat. Unfortunately he passed away late last year. He had a really good thing going with similar guitars. And he was an amazing player.
Interesting, I never knew such a guitar existed! My first Fender Japanese Stratocaster is similar in many ways but at same time is also very different. Mine is a black basswood 2010 J-Craft Standard Stratocaster 1H with a single Japanese Dragster WW humbucker in double cream mounted in the bridge position of the white-black-white pickguard and a white volume knob that's in the Delonge position (moved a bit further to the right towards the nonexistent switch). The neck is a maple fretboard on maple neck with the CBS style headstock. This guitar's fit and finish is amazing and among the best I have in my herd of guitars. This guitar was initially sold in Japan and came to me with a receipt trail that led from Japan to Hawaii. AFAIK, I'm the third owner, not including the Hawaii shop that sold the guitar to the previous owner who apparently bought it to flip it to me. The Hawaii shop receipt date was mere days before I bought it. My plans is to pull the entire loaded pickguard and store it. In it's place will be another loaded black-red-black pickguard that will steal a page out of Avril Lavigne's book with a humbucker that is coil-splitted via a 3-way switch and has both a master volume and master tone. The Blackened Black Winter bridge trembucker will be mounted with red knobs and red switch tip. The original trem bar will be stored and be replaced with another that has a red tip. Later on, I'll swap the tuners for locking version and the bridge saddles and bridge block for stainless versions. Oh, and I've already swapped in a set of nickel Straplocks. PS: My guitar is slightly heavier at 6.57 pounds, most likely due to the humbucker and unscalloped fretboard.
@6:15 one trick that helps with this for scalloped fretboards - tune to the fretted notes using the amount of pressure you naturally play with. Sounds weird but it works. You may end up with your open strings being slightly flat but... The whole point of scalloped frets is to enable easier natural vibrato because it gives that addition axis for bending so how much time will you really spend on open notes? The occasional ballad maybe? And just retune for those if you have to. I have this franken-ibanez that I built that has a very deep scallop. It's very hard to play unless you're soloing. I put in overwound humbuckers and I did a hydro dip paint job. I also switched to a two knob setup because my biggest pet peeve is having that volume knob so close to the strings because it gets in my way. 😂 I know yngwie uses it for volume swells but I prefer to control volume with my picking dynamics and the occasional knob twist so I don't really need it right there for swells. Thanks for sharing this awesome weird vintage thing. Surprising how loud it is unplugged.
What a wonderful, rare find! Some people say the shallow scallops taste better than the deep ones, but I think there's more difference in flavor between the fried ones and the broiled ones.
My first real guitar was a Japanese built Squire. This was 1984 I believe. From what I was told (perhaps you can clarify) was Fender basically shipped Fender USA parts from California to Japan to be assembled. So you're getting a high end for a lot less. I of course knew none of that when I was 15 and traded it away. I would love to have that one back.
This. This is what I have been dreaming about ever since I was a kid strumming around on my dad’s classical guitar. I love nylon strings and even love tying them, but I’ll be fine with ball end ones.
Man I missed this video when it came out. I made one from a Squire while I was laid off during Covid. It was therapeutic, I gave it to my dad. Sad to hear about Ben Wood.
For the sake of my bank account, i've never looked at more unique guitars, but I would simply adore a guitar like this! Thank you for making this video, and thank The Algorithm for bringing it to me lol I can't help but wonder what Brandon Acker would be able to do with a guitar like this!
The only way I can play an acoustic or classical when recording is with a mic set up. All piezo pickups have that quacky sizzle that I can't stand. Mike Dawes and a few others make them work but with other pickups and elaborate systems. Don't know how many times I wanted the simplicity of plugging in with a piezo just to hear that sizzle and give up. Interesting fretboard.
Dude, I started this one confident that I could watch without wanting to buy anything. But then you put drive on that thing and I was ready to change my mind.
Love that you played Gerudo Valley I wasn’t sure if I was hearing it right at first and then the percussion portion popped in my head and I was like “ayeee I see what you did there”
Hearing about Bens passing really made me sad. Been a fan of him for many years & he was one of the greatest flamenco players I ever seen. Rest in peace Ben. You were a master! 😢
@@cataclysmicconverter Maybe because, since we're already talking about major modifications, someone could...oh I don't know...switch to metal strings too? Do try to keep up son
Never played a scalloped board, it sounds pretty damn good. Like a electric classical guitar with a little gain. If you have to many guitars this is your next one. Fender Japan has a great imagination and we know about there quality. I love the thinking out of the box, but definitely one tone control would be the cherry on top.
Definitely one of the coolest looking and sounding Stratocasters that I have ever seen. I'd really love to try a scalloped fretboard someday. Hey Austin, how about tearing apart a Ritchie Blackmore Strat for us sometime!
Ritchie Blackmore sanded his Strat neck to scallop it in this way - he has an anecdote about how a luthier he took the axe to for some repair very kindly planed the neck straight again
I scalloped the whole fretboard on my agile 7 string, plays like a dream, no fret markers, and scallops are shallow enough not to affect the side dots.
When I was 15 I used an 8 ohm speaker as a pickup for my classical guitar - then I made distortion from transistors out of old an AM pocket radio. I was pretty rough with that guitar. You can still see the marks where I had the speaker taped to the body of the guitar. I'd post a RU-vid link showing my Classical guitar - but, I think that might prevent my post from posting. Just search for the video RU-vid titled, "Autumn Suite i ii iii (practice)"
mr Ben Woods past away? :O when? Rest in peace mr Woods. Your flametal renditions were awesome.. Now, in honoring your legacy, I will play your arrangments.
Yngwie has always designed his gear around his hero, Ritchie Blackmore. Blackmore is famous for playing Strats with a scalloped fretboard, and Yngwie is too. I don't think that Yngwie ever had Blackmore's feel tho
I seem to recall YJM saying that the scalloped frets do not let you play faster and if anything they actually can make you play slower. I don't remember why he said he liked them though. Maybe it was for better control. This was something I remember him saying in a video that was playing at a guitar store I worked at over 20 years ago, so, take that for what it's worth.
