Shred guitar specs?

[KiD CuDi]

I wanna know what makes a guitar all around the easiest for shredding/soloing(bends, vibrato, legato, speed and sweep picking). For example I'm pretty sure that big frets make vibrato feel good but I'm not sure if it hinders or makes legato easier. I also would like to know what scale length is best for speed picking.


Thanks in advance

 

[Bones]

Re: Shred guitar specs?

I don't think anyone is going to be able to answer that for you. That's is something you will need to figure out for yourself.

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Shred guitar specs?

Big frets make it easier to do tapping and to play with a lighter touch. (If you're trying to do some two handed tapping on very small frets you have to be incredibly accurate or it will buzz a lot). Legato seems to be a bit easier as well. With huge frets you just have to keep in mind though that if you crush down hard on chords you will push them a little out of tune as you're playing.

I find that I can play about as fast with either scale length, but on short scale guitars it feels very cramped up around the 20 - 22nd fret (my fingers are just too fat) which can slow you down a bit. Scale length doesn't make any difference at all to me for picking.

Bending seems to be more based on the fretboard radius than the frets themselves . . . a very flat radius makes bending easier, and a very curved one tends to make me fret out.

A thin neck doesn't make the guitar easier to play faster . . . at least for me, I can't play most Ibanez necks for more than a half hour without my hands cramping up.

Just my 2 cents. . .

 

[Empty Pockets]

Re: Shred guitar specs?

it's not the arrow.

it's the indian.

 

[sosomething]

Re: Shred guitar specs?

it's not the arrow.

it's the indian.

q f t

 

[ImmortalSix]

Re: Shred guitar specs?

I wanna know what makes a guitar all around the easiest for shredding/soloing(bends, vibrato, legato, speed and sweep picking). For example I'm pretty sure that big frets make vibrato feel good but I'm not sure if it hinders or makes legato easier. I also would like to know what scale length is best for speed picking.


Thanks in advance

Big Frets

Low Action

Large Fretboard Radius

The scale length thing is debatable, but most shred-style guitars go with the 25.5" scale. That always seemed counter-intuitive to me; seems like a 24.75" scale would be easier to shred on, but hey, maybe shredders need the extra room.

 

[sosomething]

Re: Shred guitar specs?

Big Frets

Low Action

Large Fretboard Radius

The scale length thing is debatable, but most shred-style guitars go with the 25.5" scale. That always seemed counter-intuitive to me; seems like a 24.75" scale would be easier to shred on, but hey, maybe shredders need the extra room.

That little bit of extra tension from the longer scale makes the strings flop around a little less with fast picking.

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Shred guitar specs?

That little bit of extra tension from the longer scale makes the strings flop around a little less with fast picking.

I use .11s on Gibson scale and .10s on Fender scale instruments . . . feels pretty much the same for picking.

 

[sosomething]

Re: Shred guitar specs?

I use .11s on Gibson scale and .10s on Fender scale instruments . . . feels pretty much the same for picking.

I think so too.

 

[Jessie's ghost]

Re: Shred guitar specs?

+1 on the low action. For playing fast, it helps if there's minimal lag time for your finger to pin a string down to a fret, and for it to rise again when you let off.

High-end Ibanez guitars like Jems are (used to be?) leveled so that the upper-most frets would fall away from the strings slightly so you could get frets 12 - 19 or thereabouts really close to the strings without having buzz further up.

So I would add clear, buzz-free low action as a spec* you should look for. One thing that helps with this, I think, is a nicely rounded fret top. A wide, flat fret with a flatted top won't intonate precisely, and it won't sound as good. That's why a lot of players like Vai and Satriani use narrow frets instead of the super-wide jumbo ones.

*Maybe not a spec so much as a qualitative characteristic. You might have to get a guitar in your hands and/or to a good tech to see if it passes this test. Often you won't know if you can adjust a guitar a certain way until you try it.

 

[KiD CuDi]

Re: Shred guitar specs?

I use .11s on Gibson scale and .10s on Fender scale instruments . . . feels pretty much the same for picking.

I play an LTD EC-1000 (24 3/4 inch scale) with 10-52 strings in standard and it's absolutely effortless for speed and sweep picking, but my schecter hellraiser(25.5 inch scale) i have 10s on but tune down a half step to compensate for bending tension, but its noticabley more difficult to do speed picking, same with my 25.5 scale guitar with a floyd tuned to drop C with 10-52s why might this be?

 

[Metalblaze]

Re: Shred guitar specs?

For extremely low action you need the neck to be as stable as possible as the slightest bend/warp makes a difference. Maybe a 5pc one would help to that. Just a thought.

 

[Hellion]

Re: Shred guitar specs?

There are no "shred guitar" specs. It's all about what works for you, and what works for you may not be what works for someone else. But I agree with a lot of what's been said so far. Large frets will facilitate a lighter touch, at the same time, some guitarists like smaller frets for their intonation characteristics (Randy Rhoads comes to mind, Guitar Player posthumous interview, 1982). A low action is advantageous, because your fingers don't have quite so far to travel, but there are "shredding" guitar players out there that like a higher action. Fretboard radius does come into play, but I'm thinking that it's not THAT important. Most of the players that I know of that can burn up a fretboard aren't playing a Gretsch, which has the flattest and widest board I've ever worked on. I think the key is finding a guitar that you can play day & night with which you can become familiar, so the fingering patterns are second nature.

 

[xntrick]

Re: Shred guitar specs?

i find that a neck with a compound radius makes for some nice action as you play higher and a thin profile is the way to go...ymmv

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Shred guitar specs?

While a Gretsch might have the flattest board, the upper fret access appears to be horrible (at least from a shredding perspective), thus you can't get the meedly-meedly up high as easily as with a JEM or Soloist.

A rounder-radiused board like a Tele or Strat would work fine, so long as the frets themselves were radiused flat, and the saddles were set to match the frets. However, this would leave pretty much a board full of speedbumps on the outer strings, so sliding could result in a sudden amputation.

If you want to see what makes a shred guitar a "shred guitar", compare the known shred guitars to the "standards" i.e. Strat/Tele/LP: flatter board radius, 25.5" scale, Floyd/Fender string spacing, etc.


Then go back and dig up some Gary Moore and John Sykes, and watch them shred on a fretless wonder LPC.

 

[Jessie's ghost]

Re: Shred guitar specs?

Then go back and dig up some Gary Moore and John Sykes, and watch them shred on a fretless wonder LPC.

Yep. For every player who shreds on a "shredder" guitar, you'll find somebody who does it on something that runs counter to the concept. Thing is, once you develop real speed and consistency, it won't matter that much what you're playing on.

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Shred guitar specs?

I play an LTD EC-1000 (24 3/4 inch scale) with 10-52 strings in standard and it's absolutely effortless for speed and sweep picking, but my schecter hellraiser(25.5 inch scale) i have 10s on but tune down a half step to compensate for bending tension, but its noticabley more difficult to do speed picking, same with my 25.5 scale guitar with a floyd tuned to drop C with 10-52s why might this be?

When you tune down you change the string tension . . . which changes the floppiness of the strings. When I tune down I'll usually put on heavier strings to try and keep a similar feel on the guitar.

 

[Stef]

Re: Shred guitar specs?

perhaps a cbs strat:eyecrazy:

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Shred guitar specs?

Yes, but Malmsteen also uses a scalloped board, which means the radius is determined by the frets and saddles, and thus the board's 9" radius has no bearing on it.

 

[Binnerscot]

Re: Shred guitar specs?

That always seemed counter-intuitive to me; seems like a 24.75" scale would be easier to shred on, but hey, maybe shredders need the extra room.

The higher tension of the longer scale brings out a slightly more precise pick attack, the 24.75" seems to sound a little more fluid when playing legatto.

:scratchch