I'm sure Alembic can build the most stunning and balanced short scale in the world. But they can't change the fact that a wire with a shorter length and less tension has different qualities in movement than one with more length and more tension. Try a 35" or 36" open E and you'll never hear your 34" open E the same way again. An Alembic short scale is still a bass with a shorter E string and one under less tension. Building it from green cryptonite won't change that.
You can enhance tension by using heavy gauge strings - like Rob does with his manly 110s -, but even there the laws of physics apply: Once you move in 115 or 120 territory, tension might approximate a long scale (you might possibly even need 125 or 130 to do that), but the ensuing stiffness of the part of the string directly before the bridge will create weird harmonics and intonation on a short scale as then a greater part of the whole string will be stiffened.
At the end of the day a short scale E is always at least a handful of kilos less tense than a long scale one and lacks the "rebound" a long scale string has when played in open mode. To me, that takes the kick out of it which is why I hardly play empty Es on my short scales, much less in a throbbing eights fashion. That is long scale territory.
But what the short scale taketh from the E, it giveth to the D and G. There is no free lunch.
Uwe
