Sometimes size DOES matter.

You don’t wear somebody else’s shoes, you’re not forced to drive a ‘72 Buick, and you probably have chairs in your house that comfortably fit your body. That’s why you bought them, and the vehicle that suits your needs, and the shoes that fit YOUR feet.

In the bass guitar world, one size became “The standard” and for a long time anything shorter was seen as a joke or was made cheaply for kids. Partially because they sucked then! We’ll get to that. But really quickly, a quick bit on SCALE.

THE SCALE LENGTH of a stringed instrument is the vibrating length of the string between the nut (where it’s held spaced in string slots) to the bridge (where the string comes up and across string saddles). By default this contributes the size of the instrument.

The industry standard “long scale” regular mostly seen basses are 34” scale.
Medium scale basses are 32-34" scale.
Short scale basses are usually 30-32” scale.

Then we get to pocket basses. I started using the term “Short basses” because you know right away what’s up with them. These were basses made using guitar parts, so they would up somewhere around 25” scale length.

The problem is that when you shorten the scale, you shorten the bass - otherwise why even do it? But when you shorten it all, you lose some tension…


MORE COMING SHORTLY… 5/19/26