22.5" scale necks

dren68 · Post by **dren68** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 2:09 pm

Has anyone ever played a 22.5" scale Mustang/Duo/MM? Just wondering if there are any noticeable differences are from the 24" scale necks (besides the 1.5" obviously). Is there less sustain or does it feel TOO short?

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 2:28 pm

It was too short for me and made the guitar feel like a toy. I ended up slapping another neck on mine.

robroe · Post by **robroe** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 2:37 pm

i loved mine.

i had to tune it up to E# (F) to get it to stay in tune though. if you don't use .13's you should be fine though

dren68 · Post by **dren68** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 5:19 pm

Cool. Thanks for the replies. I've seen a couple of those necks on ebay, so I just wanted to ask about them. I'm not sure if it's worth buying one just to try it out, though. Are they interchangeable with 24" scale necks? It doesn't seem like that would work since you can't put a 25.5 scale neck on a shortscale guitar or vice versa. How does that work exactly?

cur · Post by **cur** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 5:32 pm

There are a bunch of them for cheep on the GFS clearance page right now $25 for new unfinished. Neck pocket is 57mm so you would have to see if it would fit your application.

link

taylornutt · Post by **taylornutt** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 5:49 pm

I played one in a store and it was okay. The guy who owned swore it was 24" scale, but he obviously didn't know what scale length meant.

dren68 · Post by **dren68** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 6:03 pm

cur wrote:There are a bunch of them for cheep on the GFS clearance page right now $25 for new unfinished. Neck pocket is 57mm so you would have to see if it would fit your application.

link

Oh cool. I keep forgetting to check that page. Thanks!

taylornutt wrote:I played one in a store and it was okay. The guy who owned swore it was 24" scale, but he obviously didn't know what scale length meant.

Yeah, I don't think some of the sellers on ebay know that they're selling the 22.5" scale version either. A couple of the listings don't even mention the scale, but I saw the 9 on the heel.

rps-10 · Post by **rps-10** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 6:18 pm

The 22.5 Duos you can pop a 25.5" scale neck on those with very little trouble if you find you donâ€™t get on with 22.5"

22.5 is ok to a point, but not really any use if you are mostly chord based player, once you get higher up the neck it gets cramped.
Good for 5 mins of fun though. Could never use one seriously though, not unless I had a case of teH BattenEZ and was tapping all the time

Noirie. · Post by **Noirie.** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 6:58 pm

robroe wrote:i loved mine.

i had to tune it up to E# (F) to get it to stay in tune though. if you don't use .13's you should be fine though

I had that one at some point. It was kinda cool but I bought it with the intention of sticking a Jagmaster conversion neck on it. Never got round to it and sold it on last summer.

Leisureclub · Post by **Leisureclub** » Sun Aug 26, 2012 4:48 am

They're all I play. I'm not really going to be able to go about with the pros and cons vs 24" though bc I'm limited physically to that scale. I don't think that the sound is really all that different though. A tiny bit less sustain, a tiny bit brighter.

dren68 · Post by **dren68** » Sun Aug 26, 2012 3:04 pm

cur wrote:There are a bunch of them for cheep on the GFS clearance page right now $25 for new unfinished. Neck pocket is 57mm so you would have to see if it would fit your application.

link

Oh, I guess I should have mentioned this would be for a Mustang/Duo/MM body, so I don't think those necks will work. I suppose I could buy one and a cheap body just to try out the 22.5 neck, but I'd probably rather just buy a vintage 22.5 neck and sell it if it didn't work out.

spellcaster · Post by **spellcaster** » Sun Aug 26, 2012 9:20 pm

I have a CV Duosonic that came with the 24" scale maple neck. I changed it to a 65 MusicmasterII 22.5" scale neck with rosewood board and felt that it was a better playing and sounding guitar afterward. Since then, I needed that 22.5" scale neck for my Cabronita Thinline, so the Duosonic's now got a 71 Musicmaster 24" scale neck on it. It sounds much the same, but it was more fun to play with the 22.5 neck on it. The Thinline that's wearing the 22.5 neck on it now is a blast to play, sounds great, and makes my 25.5" scale Esquire feel like a bulldozer by comparison. I also have a 22.7" scale 97 Squier Duosonic. Having tried it, I can tell you that there's no interchangability between the 22.5 and 22.7" scale necks, and the CV Duosonic body required a different bridge, moved forward toward the neck, in order to use the 22.5" neck. The CV 24" neck is rumoured to be a conversion neck that'll interchange on a 25.5" scale body, but having tried to mount the original 24" CV neck onto a Strat body, I can tell you that doesn't work either.

dren68 · Post by **dren68** » Mon Aug 27, 2012 1:43 am

Thanks for all the input everyone. I'm still kind of undecided, but it seems like it might be fun to play an even shorter neck than a 24". If I see a decent deal on one, I may just get it to try it out. That's probably the only way I'll really know if I like it or not.

Ankhanu · Post by **Ankhanu** » Mon Aug 27, 2012 2:30 am

dren68 wrote:Thanks for all the input everyone. I'm still kind of undecided, but it seems like it might be fun to play an even shorter neck than a 24". If I see a decent deal on one, I may just get it to try it out. That's probably the only way I'll really know if I like it or not.

Grab a Squier Mini; $100 and gives you a solid idea of the 22.5" scale.

dren68 · Post by **dren68** » Mon Aug 27, 2012 3:09 am

Ankhanu wrote:
dren68 wrote:Thanks for all the input everyone. I'm still kind of undecided, but it seems like it might be fun to play an even shorter neck than a 24". If I see a decent deal on one, I may just get it to try it out. That's probably the only way I'll really know if I like it or not.
Grab a Squier Mini; $100 and gives you a solid idea of the 22.5" scale.

Oh yeah? I didn't realize that. I have a friend that bought one of those for his daughter a couple years ago. Maybe I'll ask him if I can play it for a little while. Aren't they tuned up to A, though?

spellcaster · Post by **spellcaster** » Mon Aug 27, 2012 3:15 am

As far as I know, the Squier mini uses conventional E - E tuning. I've never played one first-hand but my interest in them has cooled after reading some complaints in forums about intonation issues that are difficult to resolve and tuning instability. The mini might tell you if you can live with the scale length but I'm not convinced that they're comparable to other short scales.

dren68 · Post by **dren68** » Mon Aug 27, 2012 3:23 am

spellcaster wrote:As far as I know, the Squier mini uses conventional E - E tuning. I've never played one first-hand but my interest in them has cooled after reading some complaints in forums about intonation issues that are difficult to resolve and tuning instability. The mini might tell you if you can live with the scale length but I'm not convinced that they're comparable to other short scales.

Yeah, I'd just like to play some chords on it, just so I see how my hands fit on the shorter scale neck, and what it feels like to play it, so that should work. I'm pretty sure that's what it is, but I'll have to ask him again to make sure. For some reason, I thought it was tuned up to A, but maybe I'm mistaken. Thanks for the tip.

Sparky · Post by **Sparky** » Mon Aug 27, 2012 3:38 am

Not that it's a Fender or a 22.5" scale geet, but my 23" Little Martin neck doesn't feel too tiny in my hands. It's comfortable and comprable to my Jagmaster neck. I have it strung up with 13s and in D major without any flabbies.

Phil O'Keefe · Post by **Phil O'Keefe** » Mon Aug 27, 2012 7:57 am

I'm not wild about the 22.5" Fender necks. They feel too small to me, and intonation / tuning can definitely be difficult. OTOH, I love Taylor's GS Mini, and it has a 23.5" scale neck.

The vintage 24" and 22.5" necks are interchangeable on the Mustangs, Duo Sonics and Musicmasters made from late 1964 until they were discontinued in '69 (Duo Sonic II), and the early 80s (Music Master / Mustang). A 22.5" neck should (in theory) work on the reissue Mustangs too. Those short necks were made up until about 1969 or so - many are dated 1966, even on guitars that were assembled and finished much later, but they still work with later model Mustangs since nothing's really fundamentally changed on them since then.

The reissue Duo Sonics have been different - both the early 90s Fender Duo Sonic (which came with a similar, although not identical 22.7" scale length) and the recently discontinued Squier Classic Vibe Duo Sonic (24" scale conversion neck - can be swapped with a 25.5" neck) are based more on the original 50s - early 60s era (1956-mid 1964) Duo Sonics in terms of their bodies, and the necks of both models are pretty proprietary - they are not interchangeable with the vintage late 64 - 69 - early 80s 22.5" and 24" scale necks.

Ankhanu · Post by **Ankhanu** » Mon Aug 27, 2012 3:44 pm

I misspoke, the Squier Mini is 22.75".
Definitely try to borrow your friends' daughter's Mini, seems like the easiest way to test the size.

I ordered one for my daughter a week ago, still waiting for it to arrive. I'll be giving it a once over, and likely increase the string gauge, as it felt a little bandy playing the one that was in the store (mind you, playing the guitars set up with 9s in the store, even full scale, feel bandy now that I've switched to 11s on everything). I'll let you know if I have intonation/tuning issues (keeping in mind that these are Affinity quality tuners

)