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Hello sexxy fellows, I've been AWOL lately (mostly cracking down on studying the guitar and reading Game of thrones ) but I am alive and kicking - hope you all are doing the same. So what do guys prefer a nice short scale guitar or a standard scale? 24"? 24.75"? 25.5"? Tonal differences? Does the regular sound bolder, more aggressive to your ears?

I've been strictly playing my mustang and starting to finally adventure on the higher strings past the 12th fret. I'm finding it a bit cramped up there. It's harder for me to hit the note accurately without getting thwarted by the fret. I started playing bass and love the space you have to roam and that is surely affecting my ability from flying around the notes on the short scale. I picked up my buddies strat and was having a much easier time zipping through scales. Does anyone have this problem on short scales? Any tips on becoming more nimble and accurate higher up on the neck?

I've been slowing down the tempo, concentrating on really being accurate and precise. I have 10's on my stang now but am about to try out some 11's to see if it helps me.

For rhythm playing, my stang kills it. The chords sound so rich and pleasant to my ears (more full? possibly...) compared to a regular scale. What do you guys prefer when your chunking away at some rhythm chords?

I've almost exclusively played a jag (24"), aside from the odd jam on a friend's acoustic and playing bass, for about 4 years now so anything else feels weird! Any smaller necks I've played my hands feel too cramped up high, anything bigger, it isn't that it's really harder to play, just... different.

Past the 12th fret it does get pretty fiddly but I love the sound and in a way the challenge; I like to have to fight an instrument a bit, and the frets being pretty small gives me that feeling. I dunno about tips other than practice and getting used to it. It definitely gets easier as you acclimatise yourself, you stop having to think "so if I want to put this finger there I'm going to have to move that one back or there'll be no room"and get into simply playing. Also learn to love the silly reach you have and weird stuff you can play as a result!

The jag kills it for rhythm imo, partly the neck/frets and partly the bitey aggressive sound.

monkeydancer wrote:Also learn to love the silly reach you have and weird stuff you can play as a result!

Trve trve trve. As I acclimate myself more and more, I realize that doing crazy pull offs and hammers is super easy because I can start on the 19th fret and hammer off at the 12th. I've also been doing cool little triplet legatos from the 19th fret to the 15th to the 12th. Getting weird up there.

I have a new EGC Chessie that's 25.1", perfect IMO! The rest of my guitars are 24.75" and 25.5" affairs and that EGC splits the difference perfectly. Oh, I have a 30" Bass VI that feels pretty great as well.

I don't like short scales much now days, cramped is my chief complaint as well.

I don't like the 24,75 scale much because the strings are too floppy for my tastes (a 11 - 52 set is the bare minimum I like to put on there) and my fingers are too cramped in the higher register of the fretboard, especially with those big and square Gibson frets, on the other hand I love the Duo Sonic but I don't have one so I can't tell really.

My favorite guitar is the Buckethead Les Paul. It has a 27" scale and oversized body. It is the first guitar that has ever fit me.

that being said, I do lots of writing on the Martin Backpacker. It lets me put my fingers in places easier while figuring out how things should go. I've always thought it'd be fun to get an ibanez mikro or any such short scale to be able to pull off otherwise impossible legato lines. Then I realize that it'd just be wankery.

Aside from things like keeping low-tuned instrument strings from flopping Idon't really concern myself with scale length on my non-bucket LP. I appreciate the differences between my instruments but am not pro enough to minmax their strengths. That can be read that I attribute the pickups and picks and strings I use to make more of a difference to me than scale length.

I've been playing 24" scale length guitars basically since I started playing (first decent guitar I had was a jagmaster, then I got the jaguar that I use as my main guitar), so those are it for me. 25.5" scale length feels weird to me, and I've never had a chance to play anything with baritone or longer scale lengths.

My hands are pretty big tho, so the upper frets are definitely a tight fit for me. Doesn't matter too much tho cus I've never really been good at doing proper leads anyway.

My first two guitars were 25.5 scale... Always found them a bit too tight... But i hated playing anything less than 10s...

My V is perfect, 11s or 12s, and feels great all the time.
Im totally convinced that my Epi Junior has a fractionally shorter scale length >.> It just seems so much floppier with identical strings... I dunno, might just be my head. Or we can go for the Convoluted theory that the guitar is slightly smaller than when it was made (in japan) cause of climates and shit.

I honestly didn't even know the scale length of my guitars until this thread made me curious.
Gretsch G5129 is 24.5" and Blacktop Jazzmaster is 25.5".
The Gretsch is tight in the upper frets but that's mostly because its a Gretsch and there isn't that much access anyways
The Jazzy I just got and am absolutely loving. Seems to fit me perfect.
I had a 1960s Harmony Bobkat (24" scale according to Google) for awhile and I absolutely hated the way it felt.

Also this:

Swordfishtrombone wrote:My hands are pretty big tho, so the upper frets are definitely a tight fit for me. Doesn't matter too much tho cus I've never really been good at doing proper leads anyway.

I've played gibson scale most of my life so I was comfy with that forever. Anything shorter felt quite odd, and anything longer was also a bit weird, but for the last 3-4 years I've found myself leaning towards fender scale(25.5") and just being far more comfortable with that than anything. Don't see it changing any time soon, either.

I'm just trying to get more comfortable up and acclimated to the smaller frets. I do feel most comfortable on a 25.5". Do you guys note any differences in sound between the shorter and regular scale neck?

van_muddlestein wrote:I've played gibson scale most of my life so I was comfy with that forever. Anything shorter felt quite odd, and anything longer was also a bit weird, but for the last 3-4 years I've found myself leaning towards fender scale(25.5") and just being far more comfortable with that than anything. Don't see it changing any time soon, either.

This is pretty much exactly my experience, too. Love the longer scale these days and anything shorter can feel kinda cramped. I also prefer a rounder (7.5") radius. That said, it can also depend on the guitar. My Firebird, for example, is the standard Gibson scale, but the neck somehow feels longer than it is. Maybe it's the headstock design or the bridge placement, but I can move between that and a Jazzmaster or Strat without feeling much of a difference. Can't do it on my SG though, even though the scale is the same as the Firebird.

HorseyBoy wrote:

van_muddlestein wrote:I've played gibson scale most of my life so I was comfy with that forever. Anything shorter felt quite odd, and anything longer was also a bit weird, but for the last 3-4 years I've found myself leaning towards fender scale(25.5") and just being far more comfortable with that than anything. Don't see it changing any time soon, either.

This is pretty much exactly my experience, too. Love the longer scale these days and anything shorter can feel kinda cramped. I also prefer a rounder (7.5") radius. That said, it can also depend on the guitar. My Firebird, for example, is the standard Gibson scale, but the neck somehow feels longer than it is. Maybe it's the headstock design or the bridge placement, but I can move between that and a Jazzmaster or Strat without feeling much of a difference. Can't do it on my SG though, even though the scale is the same as the Firebird.

I felt very similar with my Epiphone Thunderbird.
I traded it for a Warwick Rockbass Corvette because I didn't like the way it felt.
Both have 34" scale length but the Thunderbird felt WAY longer to the point of being uncomfortable and the Corvette felt perfect

I go back and forth between Jags and Jazzmasters. The difference is there, and the upper frets are definitely a bit more cramped on the Jags. That being said, I adjust pretty quickly - though I've been playing a Jag for something like seven years now, and 25.5" for even longer than that.

I think with time you really get comfortable on both - especially when you're playing both on a daily basis.

my birdsong bass is a 31" and I love it dearly