Uli Jon Roth – Under a Dark Sky
The music gear and equipment used by the artists, producers, engineers, and more involved in the making of the 2008 album Under a Dark Sky.
Music from Under a Dark Sky
Artists on Under a Dark Sky
Gear Used On Under a Dark Sky
Explore the instruments, equipment, software, and production tools used in the making of Uli Jon Roth – Under a Dark Sky (2008). Click more on each item to see exactly how it was used.
Uli Jon Roth
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Other Gear used by Uli Jon Roth on Under a Dark Sky
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In this photo, Roth can be seen playing his signature Sky Guitar, complete with a 30+ fret scalloped fretboard, this guitar appears to be scalloped from the 6th fret onward, with the first five frets appearing to be unscalloped for heavier chording & riffing.
Wikipedia also notes Roth's use of scalloped necks in his signature model guitars:
"Sky guitars" "Roth commissioned construction of custom guitars with additional frets from luthier Andreas Demetriou In the 1980s. Roth has had five of these "Sky" guitars made. To be able to emulate the high notes of a violin, all of the Sky Guitars have more frets than a typical electric guitar. The first Sky Guitar (used on the album Beyond the Astral Skies) had 30 frets. Later versions of the Sky Guitar overcame the problem of the higher register frets becoming too narrow by widening the frets by whole steps for the highest notes. In an April 2001 Guitar Player magazine interview Roth reported that the guitars are either fretless above the 30th fret, or have whole step fret spacing above the 27th fret, with 35 effective (half step) frets. All of the Sky Guitars with frets have scalloped fretboards. The Sky Guitar's pickups are custom 4-coil humbuckers, made by John Oram, with one guitar having an Oram pickup hidden under the 24th fret. For a time, Roth used a Framus Dragon amplifier, although currently he promotes Blackstar Artisan 100 & Series One 200 Watt heads. He has also used a stalk mounted Vibesware guitar resonator (sustainer) to introduce infinite sustain as on the instrumental Benediction on his Under A Dark Sky album. Dean Guitars produced 25 Custom Sky Guitars based on Roth's custom models with six and seven strings in 2011."
Roth has been playing scalloped fretboards since is days in Scorpions as stated in this segment from an April 2001 Guitar Player Magazine interview:
"There are five Sky guitars in existence, — three 6-strings and two 7-strings," Uli Jon Roth says. "The 7-strings have a low B and a range of over five-and-a-half octaves. When you have more than 30 frets, it gets very awkward to play in the upper register because the frets are so close together. So one of my guitars is actually fretless at the top. On another, I space the frets out in whole-tone increments. I can still get the half-steps, but I have to jump over to another string to get them. The fretboards are scalloped — which is something I never did to my Strats back in the Scorpions. It's still a hindrance for playing rhythm, but I definitely prefer a scalloped neck for single-note work — it gives me much more control over the notes."
