This is the other guitar I scalloped myself – an electric Ibanez . NOTE – This was not intended to be tasteful blues solo , its a demo video , so the idea was to cram alot of things in for purpose of showing what its like to play this sort of gtr. THE HISTORY. One of earliest players players to scallop guitar was Ritchie Blackmore who in the early to mid 70s had a lightly scalloped Strat . About that time American inventor Allen Gittler produced the Gittler guitar , a metal skeleton of a guitar with just a rod with attached frets and no fretboard. ( for more info – www.GittlerInstruments.com ) Also in mid 1970s John McLaughin played a Abraham Wechter drone string acoustic with deep scallops . Late he played a scalloped Gibson ES 345 electric guitar iin the One Truth Band . In the 1980s Ygnwie Malmsteen played a Strat he scalloped himself. Some posters have pointed out however that Vietnamese guitarists have been doing this a long time. REASONS FOR SCALLOPING. There are 2 reasons why some players like scalloped boards . Some like the feel of not having any friction with a fretboard , they dont play or sound any different , they just like for want of a better word the slinky way it feels without fretboard. Other players prefer it because it allows them to play deeper more micro tonal bends than would be possible with conventional guitar. Also some players feel they get a bigger and wider vibrato with scalloped board. SHALLOW OR DEEP SCALLOPS. Players who just like the <b>…<b>
Scalloped Fretboard for electric blues guitar. Part 1.
25 thoughts on “Scalloped Fretboard for electric blues guitar. Part 1.”
Posted On in Blues Guitar with 25 Comments.
The two of you sound pathetic. You should remove your comments because this exchange is humiliating.
hes just bending the notes extremely out of tune
See the video explanation .
Does it feels really different than normal fingerboard ?? whats the pro’s n cons if u cant write please
Thats right , but some might like the feel of scalloped fretboard . And for Indian style bending it enables bigger bends than is possible with regular fretboard.
a good guitar player doesnt have to have a scalloped fretboard to do good bends or play smooth
I have a strat with small frets on it, which makes bending a lot harder (more effort required and higher chance of fingers slipping). Having a scalloped board would make this less of a problem as your finger can get underneath the string more and grip into it.
I was just ordinary wood stain from a hardware store.
See also new video – "Playing At The Sunday Jam -Pt 6" , this guitar is used in the 2nd half of that video.
It varies from player player , some feel it makes bending easier , others can’t get used to not having a fingerboard . With the scalloped board you have to be careful about the pressure you apply.
Is it harder playing lead on a scalloped neck ? like what are the pros and cons ?
sounds yucky.
No, im pretty sure his playing is out of tune too…
Learn to play on scallop frets because you are pressing down on them to hard making the notes out of tune
I know what its like when you want to get er done. I once bandsawed a Randy Rhoads V from of a wooden door I found in an alley near my high school. Me and 2 other guys got 3 bodies out of that door.
.I wanted a set neck so I took a random guitar neck routed the body, used wood screws and countersunk it below the back then filled it with wood filler.
I installed the bridge to where I thought it looked cool but it didn’t sound cool cause I didn’t do the intonation math lol. Got er done though!
you should only improvise if you stay within the scales it sounds better
blah, bends are not that accured, which might sound like that guitar is not on tune. (and yep I noticed description that this is just test video, not suppose to be even accured :P) Listen those scales section and you notice that it is pretty much in tune.
But again I can’t notice any loss of sustain on this guitar , perhaps a gtr with very thin neck might be affected , but I really think its the neck itself and the truss rod that provides the strength not so much the fretboard.
well just as a rule of thumb, a regular electric guitar w/ rosewood board has a board thickness of 4-5 mm and you should take off less than half of that to be safe, and even then you might lose a tiny bit of sustain and youll probably also mow down some of the side markers 😀
I can’t speak for all guitars , but on this gtr and the acoustic one I scalloped some years I can’t see its had any effect on the properties of the neck . The necks on both guitars have stayed straight , never needed adjustment . As far as I can hear its has had no effect on the guitars tone.
its a matter of mechanical properties of the guitar neck
There is no rule about how deep scallops should be . Its a matter of taste and playing style how deep you scallop.
way too deep scalloping. you should only take away 1.5-2.5 mm maximum 3mm at the 21 and higher fret
awesome work man!! congratulations!!
awesome work man!! congratulations!!