That’s exactly how Yngwie is compensating. His action is real high. This is because you get the maximum sustain with high action. I’m sure that’s why he does it.
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I’m sure Yngwie playing his Marshall’s boosted by his signature overdrive also help with sustain 
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Turns out 10-46 in D standard and 8-46 YJM Signature set in E standard are very similar in tension, so no wonder. I personally don’t even consider anything thinner than 10-46 in E standard on a 25.5" scale guitar!
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One thing about you guys using 10’s and bigger… I bet your action tolerance is much less than someone on 9s… I notice 10 gauge shredders like Teemu keep the truss rod covers off… That’s because they keep that action as low as it will go. Perfect neck relief adjustment is required when you pancake the action like that.
My point is, everything is a trade-off… Yngwie uses 8’s… But his action is 2 inches off the fingerboard (slight exaggeration)… Why does he want the action that high? Sustain, he doesn’t want to hear any fret buzz/interference at all, It takes less precision to mute perfectly. Trade-offs…
To keep with the TOPIC, I talked to a guy that does a perfect Joe Stump impersonation the other day. Hilarious.
I use 12s on the 22.5" guitars, which Andy Wood played and said it feels more or less like 11s on 25.5". And my action is so high that people on YouTube have been complaining about it in the last couple videos we put up. It’s a weather thing, I haven’t gotten around to setting it up again. But in general, I haven’t really been super sensitive to action. It’s probably just a stylistic thing. If I were doing Derryl Gabel style legato stuff I’m sure I’d care a lot more.
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Another reason any person might choose not to set their action super low is to make it easier to get more “fingertip meat” behind the string when you do bends, probably more for the sake of pushing away the adjacent “unfretted” string in the most comfortable way.
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Just set your guitar up man. All of this new crosspicking stuff you are doing will come right together when you’re not playing a “warped neck acoustic” setup. 
And I’m definitely at a disadvantage, picking wise, on 9-42. I need to bring it up to 10s. My damn 14yo nephew is using 10’s. WTF.
@Frylock gimmie a burger, I’m hungry 
“Don’t throw him away, he’s a living thing!”
And with the title “Skyscraper” on my mind because of all the advertising for the upcoming disaster movie, now I’ve got DLR’s “Hot dog and a shake” from his Skyscraper album stuck in my head.
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Hey you would have a plain 3rd right? like the “not even slinkys”? 12-56?
I don’t know what you mean by “not even slinky” but yes it’s an unwound G. I think they are D’Addario NYXL.
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That’s what Ernie Ball calls their 12s… Not Even Slinky. Super Slinky is their 9s. I know, Har Har.
Why does high action cause maximum sustain? I’m not arguing it doesn’t, I’d just be interested in knowing from a technical standpoint why high action increases sustain.
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Just by looking at this thread I notice I repeat myself a lot. I will say something, then a few days later forget I said it, and say it again… I probably post the same things over and over. lmao. Getting old I guess.
Maybe a better term to say would have been “note clarity”? I notice the more I lower my strings, the note quality diminishes. This is caused by the frets interfering with the vibration field of the strings. This of course turns into fret buzz at a certain point, but I can hear the interference way before it gets to a fret buzz state. It’s most noticeable right after the pick attack.
So less interference to the strings vibration field, the clearer the note, more sustain is a by-product.
OK, that’s interesting. Maybe you can answer one more question I have. If you have seen Yngwie’s live version of Black Star from Japan which is on YouTube, he holds a note in the solo for about a whole minute! As a joke he even pretends to look at his watch who holding that one note. The longer he holds the note, the cooler it is! I love it. My question is: How does he get that note to sustain for that long?
Volume, power amp distortion, natural tube compression, feedback and probably his amp being boosted by his DOD 250 overdrive.
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lol, yeah you just play loud. If you have a amp stage volume, you can walk around and find a spot where the notes will feedback through the amp and keep ringing. Yngwie’s amps are wide open. So it’s pretty easy to start a feedback cycle.
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Energy from the vibrating air (caused by the speaker) is keeping the string vibrating. This is a “good” type of feedback loop (from a guitarists point of view). Not to be confused with microphonic feedback, where it is a mic capsule or the innards of a pickup that is feeding off the speaker’s energy.
For what this kind of resonance can look like on a large scale, see below (though this isn’t a feedback loop, but merely an unfortunate harmonic likeness between the local winds and the bridge):
This type of phenomenon is a major issue in large-scale construction. Buildings beyond a certain height typically have an interior “tuned mass damper” near the top to mitigate the risk from high wind events and earthquakes:
Edit: A longer and nerdier video comparing guitar strings to skyscrapers:
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Great videos Frylock.
Interesting thread, I think most folks don’t even try 8s for some reason. Been practising on my YJM Strat with YJM strings, when I run out of the YJM strings ( not easily available) I end up with 9-46 with a different spread than his.
I’ve found the 8s scream a lot more than 9s, like there’s quite a bit of difference in my setup. I’m also using high action, anywhere form 3 to 4mm between the high E string and the top of the 12th fret. I think this setup is all about the tones, they’re much bigger, clearer and man it just screams, 9’s don’t do that. The 9 top string seems to have a different attack, slower if you will.
Do try the YJM strings at Eflat with high action, the tones are in there.
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I went back to 8s. I have problems with joint pains on my fretting hand and 8s are so much easier to play. I don’t go do a half step though.
Joe and Yngwie must be picking super light to avoid those 8s flopping around.