Originally Posted by: hunter1801Would you say you have to be more of an advanced player to begin using them properly?[/quote]
In my opinion, yes.

I would never, never, never recommend to a beginner, or anyone for that matter, to scallop a guitar if it was their only guitar. And especially if they only had the means to own only one guitar.

I've also been asked, "Would it improve a beginners playing long term to have a guitar with a scalloped neck?"

My reply is that I can't say definitively that is true. If I had to guess one way or the other, I would lean toward, "No, it would not help." The reason is that it is very helpful to have the wood of the fretboard there to help guide your clumsy fingers as a beginner. And the vast majority of music & guitars one will play & encounter has no use for a scalloped instrument.

Further, it is just as possible to develop proper technique & a light touch without a scalloped neck. It was not my intended goal to achieve a lighter touch. It was a happy accident! It was my hope that it would improve my speed & accuracy. But I had little evidence beyond I had read that Malmsteen & Blackmore used it.
[QUOTE=hunter1801]
Also, since you use scalloped frets like you mentioned, do you find that you prefer them over normal, or the other way around? Or does it just depend on what you are playing?

It depends. On classical or jazz things I prefer a normal fretboard. But, I do like jumbo or bigger than average frets. I can't stand those microfret things or a neck that has very low frets.

For rock & blues I can use either, but the faster I need to go, the more I like scalloped. But, I had very specific goals & purposes years ago at widely different gigs. Playing shred for 4 hours at a rock gig is much different than playing chord charts in a big band for 4 hours. On many gigs, I took two strats, my main red strat with jumbo frets & one backup with a scalloped neck.

Having said that, all my strats have jumbo frets. So, it doesn't make much difference either way to me these days. I know playing a scalloped neck for years is one thing that helped me a lot, however.