Postby JimPage » Sat Aug 28, 2010 3:04 pm
Hey--
I like any scale bass, but I have to confess that I have been trying for a while-- to no avail-- to get Bob Shade of Hallmark Guitars to make a solid-body Mosrite-styled bass with a longer neck; 32 inches if not 34.
There are a ton of various bass scales. I'll try to list a few here, and apologize if I get them wrong!!!
I have an Ashbory bass, which is a fretless 17" scale with thick silicon strings; sounds a lot like a full-sized acoustic bass. I also still have a Hofner 500 Beatle bass, which is 30-1/4" scale, I think. I learned to play on an Epiphone Rivoli, which also had a 30-1/2" scale, same as the single pickup Mosrite solidbody I had back in the mid-1970s. And I played a Rickenbacker for years, which had a 33-1/4" scale, and a Fender Mustang, which had a 30" scale. I also played a doghouse bass in a couple of rockabilly and country bands back in the late 1970s, and those have a 42-1/3" fretless scale, I believe.
Other weird basses I've had, like the purple Ampeg and Danelectros, had different scales, too.
Fender Precisions, and the custom basses I now also play, have 34" scales.
So bass scales are all over the place. Where it seems to make a difference is in how the scale length affects how tight the low strings are.
So that is why I recommended-- to absolutely no effect-- to Bob to make a longer scale bass.
--Jim

• '99 Martin D-41
• '67 Mosrite Celebrity II
• '72 Mosrite Celebrity III
• '83 Tokai TST56
• '10 Hallmark Barris Krest
• '10 Hallmark 60 Custom
• '10 Hallmark Stradette
• '50s Tele Clone
• Basses: Ashbory, Hofner, 51RI Precision, 5-string, fretless