It is a 32" scale bass! Miraculously, I don't know why Phil Jones chose that scale (not a scale I really like), but the lower tension somehow enhances the upright bass feel and sound though that doesn't really make sense as an upright has a much longer scale and a higher string tension. I wager to guess that the lower string tension sounds livelier with the almost "breathing" top. Whatever, with this bass everything fits. Maybe, if they had produced it in series, it might have gone somewhere as a specialists' instrument though the neccesary price would have most likely been prohibitive.
It has side dots, yes. In theory I could move the bridge backwards or forward to either increase or diminish scale (and then ignore the side dots and play by ear - it can be done), but in practice there is a thin chord/cable/wire leading from underneath the bridge base to the output jack through a small hole in the top and that is pretty short so the bridge is "kept on a short leash". It is the only instrument I know that has a passive piezo - I didn't even know that worked until I got this bass - and that piezo has none of the unpleasant characteristics we know of active ones. (I wonder whether the choice of medium scale also had something to do with the piezo bridge, less taut = less bony/warmer & fuller sound?)
Thanks for the compliment on the looks, Ilan, if you're ever in Frankfurt you're welcome to try it out. To me the look is very puristic and classic, sort of what you would expect on a still life painting of a bass guitar. It's not exactly a rock 'n' roll axe (and with my penchant for Explorers, Thunderbirds, Flying Vs and Icemans, I admit I have a juvenile love for those), but then that wouldn't fit with the sound it emits.
