New guy of the Long Scale persuasion

[Telenator]

Hi, I'm a fellow guitar nut with a decent collection of quality gear and a penchant for building handmade custom guitars, partsocasters and any other related projects that strike my fancy.

I found this forum and stopped by to ask a couple questions.

I have always preferred a longer scale on my guitars because I have big hands and like the way .009 - .042 strings feel on a 25 1/2" scale. But every so often, I play a short scale guitar that blows my mind with the way it plays and sounds. The problem I always encounter though, is that I seem to have difficulty getting a short scale guitar to tune properly and then having it stay in tune for any length of time.

How do you guys get these things to tune up and stay in tune?

I know it's possible because I hear the recordings!


Here's a few photos of my some of my projects. I've been building since 1982.

[Reece]

crikey 9-42 is proper thin. were you using those on shortscales? i'd advise at least stepping those up to 10-48 or something. i personally use 12s and never have any tuning problems on me jaguar or mustang.

what specific shortscales are we talking about?

anyway, i love that second rick-style guitar, very nice work.

[benecol]

It warms the cockles of my stony old heart that you've made this thread. Hello there. I too have comedy big hands, but found the neck of my old Jaguar really comfy and spacious feeling. I also really like the look of your Gibson-y looking (L6? I get my Gibsons muddled...) project.

[Telenator]

Well, I tend to use .009 - .042 on my 25 1/2" scales and .010 - .046 on my 14 3/4" scale guitars. I gig 3 to 4 nights a month and play a lot and as I'm getting older and a bit arthritic, I need the lighter strings.

I feel in love with a couple of Musicmasters were they? Short scale? Single coil pickups with black covers? They played terrific and sounded great but I just couldn't get them to stay in tune. They felt like they may have had .011's on them as the action was taut but not terribly stiff.

I would love to own one of these if I could get one to stay in tune. Even the vintage ones are still relatively inexpensive.

(thanks for the comments on my guitars)

[Telenator]

It warms the cockles of my stony old heart that you've made this thread. Hello there. I too have comedy big hands, but found the neck of my old Jaguar really comfy and spacious feeling. I also really like the look of your Gibson-y looking (L6? I get my Gibsons muddled...) project.

Thanks man. I built that Gibson style L6-S just a couple months ago. It took 5 months to build. The inspiration behind it was, I wanted a guitar that sounded like a Gibson SG, but I don't like the wat SG's tend to be "neck heavy." The L6-S was originally made of maple and that wasn't going to do for an SG sound so, I made a thin body, mahogany L6-S and changed the scale to 25 1/2" for my preference and did the finish like an SG. I also move the bridge pickup 1/4" further away from the bridge to get a throatier sound.

I call it my Robsin L6-SG. It balances perfectly on a strap!

[stewart]

i use 11-48s on pretty much all my guitars, long or short scale, and they all seem to hold their tuning and intonate well. old musicmaster saddles can be a bit troublesome for intonation, but that can be sorted out with compensated ones.

i suppose it depends on playing style as much as anything, my hands are pretty small but i've never had trouble with 25.5 scales. although, i did play a late 60s gibson birdland recently and the frets were TINY, which i really liked. so i do prefer shorter scales...

anyway, welcome.

[benecol]

I too have comedy big hands

my hands are pretty small

Myself and Stewart out for a walk;

[stewart]

ah, i remember buying you that hat... makes you look rather swish if i do say so.

[Telenator]

I have the buzz fieten nut on some of my guitars that were troublesome and it worked wonders. The only draw back is, now I have two tuners in my effects pedal board. One is a the Korg tuner with the offsets for Buzz Fieten built in, and the other is a Boss TU-2 so I can tune silently with either tuner at a gig.

Has anyone tried a Buzz Fieten or Earvana nut on a shortscale?

[endsjustifymeans]

Stuart run bartertown!

[Will]

Most of the problems I've run into on short scales are intonation-based. It seems like you need more compensation at the bridge as scale length decreases, though that is just an impression.

My '67 Duo-Sonic had that problem. If I tuned the open strings, everything sounded off because the intonation was bad. If I relative tuned, everything was further off. It seemed like the guitar was going out of tune because it would sound good in some positions and terrible in others, but really it was just the intonation.

Another problem is that short scales as "student guitars" usually haven't been well maintained through the years. The finish may be shiny, but they have plenty of lurking issues. I run into this problem with vintage Danos - the neck will be straight and the frets perfect, but the guitar is unplayable do to little or no adjustments in 50+ years. With a few hours of work, they go right back to playing perfectly.

There's nothing innate about SSs that makes them go out of tune, like any old guitar they just need TLC. My Silvertone 1448 is a 23.5" scale with wood bridge and cheap tuners, and even with 11s in Eb it holds tune for DAYS and intonates perfectly.

[Telenator]

I wonder if temperature plays a role in tuning. I have a short scale acoustic guitar that goes out of tune so frequently, it's just crazy while my full scale Guild seldom ever oscillates. I think the shorter string length and smaller, more increments require more precise tuning and set-up.

One of the cool things I've noticed about short scales is the way they tend to sound fatter from the reduced string tension and heavier guage strings. You wouldn't think a smaller guitar would sound bigger, but some of the ones I've played do.

Much the same, even though the P90 pickup was born on a 24 3/4" scale, I much prefer the sound of them on a longer 25 1/2" scale. The longer string and higher tension have a cool effect on the midrange heavy sound of a P90 and really makes them rude!

[Mages]

I actually prefer to down-tune my strat just for the lower tension.

[william]

I actually prefer to down-tune my strat just for the lower tension.

my silvertone sounds amazing downtuned and then capoed up to pitch. the combination low action and low tension changes the sound immensely, and the lower i tune/farther up the capo the more severe the effect. essentially i guess im just changing the scale, now that i think about it. but the low action of the capoed strings makes a difference too.

[Fran]

I down tune a whole step (D standard) with 10's, never had any problem with tuning on any short scales, except if i set a Mustang trem in a floating position... but thats another story.
You have obviously been playing a long time, pre-1982 i guess? So you may have conditioned your ear to standard scale guitars. This may sound ridiculous but its quite possible for the minor differences somewhere along the line to offend your ear, whether the guitar is in standard pitch or whatever.
The reason i think this exists, and not only with short scales but any guitar is some guitars compliment others. I dont mean sonically as in pickups, amp and construction but musically. I have taken the odd guitar to rehearsal and it has clashed with the Bass players 'Jazz Bass', despite both of us using the same tuner and the intonation being correct. Clearly there is some minor deviation in the tuning although technically there does not seem to be.

*Edit* Oh, welcome btw and them Ric projects look awesome.

[Telenator]

I hear you on the compatability issue. The keyboard player in my band just bought a new MIM Fat Strat and my Suhr Pro Series 3 does not jive with that Strat at all! When I know he's going to be playing guitar on a particular tune, I'll switch guitars so I'm not clashing with him.

Here's my classic rock band www.therockaholics.com

There are some clips on the site using guitars that I've built by hand through my covetted Rivera Chubster 40. What a great amp!