We recently caught up with the legendary shredder, Yngwie J. Malmsteen on his 2011 Relentless tour. Watch Yngwie walk us through his rig in our Rig Rundown:
Guitars
Ygnwie uses his Yngwie Malmsteen Signature Strats with a large headstock, Seymour Duncan YJM Fury pickups, scalloped fretboard with Dunlop frets, brass nut, standard tremolo, and 250K YJM pots, as well as one more important detail: "You have to have the Ferrari sticker on the back, otherwise it won't work." He tunes one Strat down, and uses a red version for the song, "Red Devil." The guitars are strung with Fender .008 - .048 strings.
For acoustic songs, Malmsteen uses his well-worn nylon-string Ovation Viper customized with different soundholes and large frets.
Amps
Yngwie's legendary wall of Marshalls features 36 heads and 22 cabinets. The wall is composed of vintage Marshall heads and cabinets, but his live amps and cabs are from his new Marshall YJM series. The YJM100 cabinets are loaded with Celestion 75-watt speakers. He runs one of his YJM heads at 50 watts and one at 100 watts. Though the amp has attenuation, noise gate, overdrive, and digital reverb, Malmsteen says he doesn't use those features live.
Effects
For pedals, Malmsteen uses a Boss NS-2 Noise Supressor and a Boss CE-5 Chorus Ensemble for clean sounds.
He also uses a vintage Roland Analog Echo, "to make noise," a Cry Baby wah, Taurus bass pedals (not pictured), and a DOD Yngwie Malmsteen YJM308 Preamp Overdrive.
He uses an RJM Mastermind MIDI Foot Controller to split the signal for stereo sound and to control the effects. The Fuzz Face to the left of the controller is not in use, he says, he just likes the way it looks ("like a landmine.") His picks are 1.5mm Dunlop.
