NEW!! Squier VM Tele Bass Special

[Pilgrim]

My dad used to tell a corny joke about Chief Running Water and his three sons, Hot, Cold and Luke ("him not so hot"). IMHO medium scale is like Luke - not so hot. Worst of both worlds. Lacks the short scale richness and ease of playing, lacks the long scale cut, boom and punch. Bleah.

An exception to that rule: Gretsch 5123, proudly 32" scale....

[ack1961]

An exception to that rule: Gretsch 5123, proudly 32" scale....

I finally got to play one at my local GC last week.
They're gorgeous.

[gearHed289]

That's because it's a standard sized neck with a deeper body joint to make it short scale.

 

[uwe]

Medium scale is indeed limp, neither here nor there. Like Dave says, the E already sucketh the big one, but the D and G do not yet make up for it.

But that aside, I like the Tele guitar shape - no doubt genetically stamped by Status Quo - and always thought the Tele Bass shape dilutive.

[Highlander]

I prefer the Tele bass head to the present "standard" format on the P or J...

[Dave W]

An exception to that rule: Gretsch 5123, proudly 32" scale....

It's beautiful, all right. It's still medium scale though. Some basses of a certain scale will always sound better than others, and yours might be the best medium scale money can buy, but you can't escape the physics of scale length.

[Droombolus]

and always thought the Tele Bass shape dilutive.

There's an exception to that rule ....... [Maxwell Smart modus] would you believe it's from dzjermanie [/Maxwell Smart modus] ...... 

[Pilgrim]

It's beautiful, all right. It's still medium scale though. Some basses of a certain scale will always sound better than others, and yours might be the best medium scale money can buy, but you can't escape the physics of scale length.

Fair enough. Personally, I don't hear anything lacking in the sound generated by the scale lengths of any of the 30, 32 or 34" basses I have.  I just consider any differences in sound to be part of the character of that instrument.  But to me it's the difference between chocolate and caramel - both are great, just different.

[drbassman]

My 32" Gretsch 5123 sounds great and has plenty of low end.  I'm really happy with it.

[Dave W]

It's not about lack of low end, and I don't think Uwe meant that either when he said the E sucks. For lack of a better word, it's about the presence.

[Pilgrim]

Presence? I accept all presents with open arms; sometimes they're firearms.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Rather than make a different neck for the shorter-scale bass that would have proper upper fret access. Fender used the same neck and body as its standard 34" Squiers and simply joined the neck deeper into the body to facilitate intonation. I have a "second" Mexi-Fender Precision that is a 35" scale because the neck joint was cut 1" too shallow at the factory. In the case of these basses, the body cutaway is 2" deeper than normal.

[Pilgrim]

Rather than make a different neck for the shorter-scale bass that would have proper upper fret access. Fender used the same neck and body as its standard 34" Squiers and simply joined the neck deeper into the body to facilitate intonation. I have a "second" Mexi-Fender Precision that is a 35" scale because the neck joint was cut 1" too shallow at the factory. In the case of these basses, the body cutaway is 2" deeper than normal.

If they use the same length neck, they'd have to fret it at different places to accommodate the different scale - right?

[ilan]

^ Of course. But still the 32" Tele neck has the same number of frets as a standard 34" scale P neck. If it were a standard long scale neck there would have been 2-3 more frets there.

Plus, you can't use a long-scale neck and simply sink it 2" deeper into the body: you would have to shape the back of the neck so that the heel starts before it joins the pocket.

[Dave W]

It's certainly possible to use the same size neck blank for different scale lengths, but as Ilan says, they would have different numbers of frets. On a 34" scale 20 fret neck, it's 23.291" from the nut to the 20th fret. On a 32" scale neck, it's 23.020" from the nut to the 22nd fret. This new bass only has a 20 fret neck, so in this case it can't be the same size neck blank as 34" scale neck.

For any given scale length, anytime the neck is sunk further into the body (to improve balance or for style or any other reason) either the bridge has to be moved back or the neck has to be longer and have more frets. For example, a 32" scale 20-fret neck is 21.921" from nut to the last fret. That means there has to be 10.079" between the last fret and the bridge. You move that neck pocket deeper into the body, you have to move the bridge toward the butt end of the bass by the same amount because you have to maintain that 10.079" difference. But if you used a 32" scale neck with 22 or 24 frets, the distance you need between the last fret and the bridge will be shorter, so you wouldn't have to relocate the bridge as much or maybe not at all.

Hope that makes sense. The caffeine hasn't completely kicked in yet.