View other reviews for this product:
King Loudness « Unleash the Fury »
Published on 08/11/11 at 23:05The Fender Yngwie J. Malmsteen Signature Stratocaster was designed for the legendary shred maestro, who was long been known for his penchant for cream coloured CBS era Stratocasters featuring a scalloped fretboard and hot rodded pickups. It was built in Corona California USA in the famed Fender plant alongside many other signature model guitars. It features an alder body, a maple neck with scalloped fretboard and 21 jumbo frets, vintage style Fender tuners and vibrato bridge, 3 stacked humbucker DiMarzios (two YJMs in the neck and middle and an HS-3 at the bridge). Since 2010 they have instead between equipped with the new Seymour Duncan YJM Fury pickup set, though I have not tried one of them to compare to the DiMarzio loaded model. Here's the full set of specs:
Alder body
Maple neck (updated in 2008 with bigger, deeper scallops)
Scalloped fretboard
Brass nut
2 DiMarzio YJM pickups
DiMarzio HS-3
Malmsteen-specified neck shape
Late '60s large headstock
Mint-green pickguard
Schaller vintage F machine heads
Medium-jumbo frets
Synchronized tremolo
Aged plastic parts
UTILIZATION
The design of the YJM Strat is fairly ergonomic compared to a normal Strat... I could imagine the maestro requested a light guitar as he throws his around quite a bit! It's not quite as contoured as some other Strats, but that's probably due in part to the fact that CBS Fenders (which this guitar was modeled after) weren't nearly as contoured as their pre-CBS brethren. The upper fret access is good, though getting the hang of the scalloped fretboard takes time, so you are slowed down until you get the hang of playing on it... it requires a much lighter touch than normal.
Getting a good tone out of the guitar really isn't difficult as it was basically designed for one setting... neoclassical shred mode! It's not a versatile guitar to my ears and pretty much every time I play one of these, I pick it up and play Yngwie licks n' tricks. I can imagine most other players/owners of this guitar do the same so I guess.
SOUNDS
In the spirit of Yngwie, I tended to plug this guitar into higher octane British voiced amps such as Marshalls and Mesa Boogies. As stated prior, it's not a guitar I would deem versatile. The clean tones are decent, but lack a lot of that clear Strat bell like tone that I'm such a fan of. It really only works for an eighties sort of processed clean tone with lots of effects such as chorus and delay aiding to the sound.
However, the drive tones are another story. It has that classic YJM tone in spades. All the early songs sound great on this guitar, and the DiMarzio pickups retain their clarity and thickness even at higher volume and gain levels. It is a bit more difficult to play lead lines on this ax, but once I adjusted, I was set to travel to Black Star, which is Far Beyond the Sun! Oh yeah! It doesn't really do much else of note, but for any Yngwie fan... they know how good his early tone is, and yes this guitar will achieve it through the right amp.
OVERALL OPINION
All in all I think the Yngwie Strat is a great guitar for someone who is looking for something on which to claim the throne to the neoclassical kingdom. If you're looking for a deeply scalloped fretboard guitar, this is one of your only options. At about $1,800 new it isn't a cheap guitar and the general lack of versatility might be a turn off to many folks, but it's definitely worth it if you want to join the maestro on his quest to Unleash the Fury!
Alder body
Maple neck (updated in 2008 with bigger, deeper scallops)
Scalloped fretboard
Brass nut
2 DiMarzio YJM pickups
DiMarzio HS-3
Malmsteen-specified neck shape
Late '60s large headstock
Mint-green pickguard
Schaller vintage F machine heads
Medium-jumbo frets
Synchronized tremolo
Aged plastic parts
UTILIZATION
The design of the YJM Strat is fairly ergonomic compared to a normal Strat... I could imagine the maestro requested a light guitar as he throws his around quite a bit! It's not quite as contoured as some other Strats, but that's probably due in part to the fact that CBS Fenders (which this guitar was modeled after) weren't nearly as contoured as their pre-CBS brethren. The upper fret access is good, though getting the hang of the scalloped fretboard takes time, so you are slowed down until you get the hang of playing on it... it requires a much lighter touch than normal.
Getting a good tone out of the guitar really isn't difficult as it was basically designed for one setting... neoclassical shred mode! It's not a versatile guitar to my ears and pretty much every time I play one of these, I pick it up and play Yngwie licks n' tricks. I can imagine most other players/owners of this guitar do the same so I guess.
SOUNDS
In the spirit of Yngwie, I tended to plug this guitar into higher octane British voiced amps such as Marshalls and Mesa Boogies. As stated prior, it's not a guitar I would deem versatile. The clean tones are decent, but lack a lot of that clear Strat bell like tone that I'm such a fan of. It really only works for an eighties sort of processed clean tone with lots of effects such as chorus and delay aiding to the sound.
However, the drive tones are another story. It has that classic YJM tone in spades. All the early songs sound great on this guitar, and the DiMarzio pickups retain their clarity and thickness even at higher volume and gain levels. It is a bit more difficult to play lead lines on this ax, but once I adjusted, I was set to travel to Black Star, which is Far Beyond the Sun! Oh yeah! It doesn't really do much else of note, but for any Yngwie fan... they know how good his early tone is, and yes this guitar will achieve it through the right amp.
OVERALL OPINION
All in all I think the Yngwie Strat is a great guitar for someone who is looking for something on which to claim the throne to the neoclassical kingdom. If you're looking for a deeply scalloped fretboard guitar, this is one of your only options. At about $1,800 new it isn't a cheap guitar and the general lack of versatility might be a turn off to many folks, but it's definitely worth it if you want to join the maestro on his quest to Unleash the Fury!