Came across the article below on Ultimate Guitar, about Yngwie Malmsteen and why he doesn’t like using humbuckers on his Fender Stratocaster.

He prefers the single coil, augmenting sound via his amps.

I personally use Humbuckers and prefer that deeper tone, especially for playing blues. Even though he is an amazing guitarist, he sounds to classical for me, as in like a violin player.

But no doubting he’s a maestro.

“Single-coils give your hands much more of a factor in the sound.”

Yngwie Malmsteen discussed his guitar pickup preference with Amit Sharma, saying:

“Single-coils have this magnetic window that’s more direct and precise.

“It reminds me of a Paganini/Vivaldi violin sort of sound – it starts pure and ends pure.

“If you suck, you’re gonna suck real bad and if you play well, it’s going to sound really good.

“Using double-coil pickups kills a lot of the guitar tone – you lose the acoustic mechanics. With my single-coils driven through the Marshalls and overdrive, it sounds massive.”

Focusing on gear in general, Yngwie noted:

“I’ve used Fender Strats with Marshalls since forever. [Laughs] Though since I last played London, I’ve switched to my YJM Seymour Duncan pickups and I also have a Fender YJM overdrive pedal, which is fairly new.

“It’s all based on what I’ve loved before, nothing is new new. When it comes to guitar gear, I’m pretty set in my ways…

“I’ve been playing for eons now, but way, way back I remember Eddie Van Halen came out and I loved his playing, he was amazing. But then everyone started copying his guitars with Floyds, and I didn’t.”

Via ultimate-guitar.com

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