Scale length short scales

[A9X]

Hi everyone,

About a decade ago I was a member here (forgotten username) and have owned 5 Alembic basses; a Distillate, a Series 2, 2 Series 1 and a Clarke Signature. I sold the last 2 to pay for a deposit on my current apartment, regretfully.

Except the Distillate all were 30.75" scale and I'm wondering how that length was come by, and if there were any particular reasons why?. I know Fender used a geometric progression to derive many of the scale lengths he used, presumably to save costs in tooling.

I hope to get another Alembic bass one day.

Cheers.

[edwardofhuncote]

Welcome back to the Club. 


I don't know if this is exactly why, but I always assumed the Alembic short-scale was descended from the modified Guild Starfire basses of Phil Lesh and Jack Casady. Starfires, afaik, are still 30-3/4".


The interesting part is how they 'stretched' the necks to allow for two octaves and located the Series pickups at optimum intervals. The polepieces of the neck pickup on my '67 Starfire II are directly where the 24th fret would be.

[JimmyJ]

Welcome back.  Nice list of basses you've had there and we hope you can find yourself another someday.

Here's what I think about scale length... and I could easily be wrong.  34" was what Leo Fender chose for his P-bass back in the day.  I don't know if he picked that number randomly or had some specific reason but that became the standard "long scale" string length, including for Alembic.  Meanwhile, Gibson (and Hofner and others) went with about a 30" scale which we came to know as "short scale".  Maybe they were approaching it more from a guitar perspective and Leo was thinking tiny upright? 

It turns out, if you take a 34" scale fretboard and cut off the last two frets from the bottom, you've got about a 30.5" fretboard.  If you cut off only the lowest fret, the string length is closer to 32" or "medium scale". 

So my theory (a-hem, which is mine) is that the same fingerboards can used for any of the 3 standard string lengths, just by deleting a fret or two from the lower end and adding a fret or two at the higher end. 

Now Mica can tell us if there's any truth to that. 

Jimmy J

[A9X]

Welcome back to the Club.

Thanks.

I don't know if this is exactly why, but I always assumed the Alembic short-scale was descended from the modified Guild Starfire basses of Phil Lesh and Jack Casady. Starfires, afaik, are still 30-3/4".

This seems correct thanks. After posting I did some searching on Phil's basses and when I saw his axe in the Alembic transition was a Starfire and it's scale was 30.75" I thought that was a link. Shortly thereafter, the thread on Talkbass where this came up came up with the same answer.

30.75" is 2 frets missing from 34.5" scale which some older Gibson basses, Grabber and Ripper which. Connection? I dunno.

The interesting part is how they 'stretched' the necks to allow for two octaves and located the Series pickups at optimum intervals. The polepieces of the neck pickup on my '67 Starfire II are directly where the 24th fret would be.

The Alnico 2 pieces I assume, not the screws?
I've done a lot of researching on pickup positioning and will add that snippet to my database.

[A9X]

Welcome back.  Nice list of basses you've had there and we hope you can find yourself another someday.

Thanks, so do I. I wish I had the "ugly" 80 S1 as that was my fave (very plain looking and had a badly crazed finish).
I may post in the Dreaming forum over the next few days what I'd like if ever I could afford one new; all mine were S/H except the Distillate. It would be very plain compared to many of the featured customs I see built.

Here's what I think about scale length... and I could easily be wrong.

That looks right as I can see it. 1 fret off 34" is 32.1 and 2 off is 30.3", 3 off is 28.6" which is a baritone length and 5 off is 25.5", ye olde Fender Strat scale. It was the 30.3" one which threw me with regard to the Alembic 30.75" as it was too far off to be a rounding error and I thought there must be a reason, not just some randomness. Keeping it the same as Phil's Guild makes perfect sense to me.

The Fender thing was pointed out to me on TB my 'micguy' and when I checked a fretboard calculator he was spot on and I had a big Homer moment.

[goran]

Welcome back.  Nice list of basses you've had there and we hope you can find yourself another someday.

Here's what I think about scale length... and I could easily be wrong.  34" was what Leo Fender chose for his P-bass back in the day.  I don't know if he picked that number randomly or had some specific reason but that became the standard "long scale" string length, including for Alembic.  Meanwhile, Gibson (and Hofner and others) went with about a 30" scale which we came to know as "short scale".  Maybe they were approaching it more from a guitar perspective and Leo was thinking tiny upright? 

It turns out, if you take a 34" scale fretboard and cut off the last two frets from the bottom, you've got about a 30.5" fretboard.  If you cut off only the lowest fret, the string length is closer to 32" or "medium scale". 

So my theory (a-hem, which is mine) is that the same fingerboards can used for any of the 3 standard string lengths, just by deleting a fret or two from the lower end and adding a fret or two at the higher end. 

Now Mica can tell us if there's any truth to that. 

Jimmy J

wow that's a quite a theory here, never thought of that... needed to read you post few time to understand it. Hope Mica can chip in...

[JimmyJ]

Well, like I said, I could easily be wrong.  Perhaps for Fender it was as simple as - that was how they set up their initial fret cutting machine so they used variations on 34" for everything.  And maybe 30.75" was just a Guild thing? 

Anyway, my idea is also handy way to think about how different short and medium string lengths would feel.  If you could put a capo at the first or second fret of a long scale bass and then tune the bass down a 1/2 or whole step - you'd experience the string tension and feel of a medium or short scale.  At least for those string gauges. 

Jimmy J

[edwardofhuncote]

I'm curious too. And I bet some of the answer is both history and some is logistic at once. I gotta' get back to work on that time machine.


Putting on my shadetree loothier hat... totally a guess based on the knowledge that not very many makers were offering a two-octave neck, I bet Alembic was slotting their own fingerboards, and eventually had to make some kind of jig for each of the three available scales. That technology is a lot easier to come by today than it was in '72 what with being all digital, but these folks were building space-age guitars anyway. Coming up with a fingerboard jig wouldn't have been any kind of trouble. It would tie my brain in a square knot, because I would make it harder than it ought to be. I'll stick to upright basses with no frets.


I always think of Stanley Clarke as the Alembic short-scale poster-dude, and I wonder what degree of input he had in that. Or was it; Wow, this 30-3/4 scale bass with a broomhandle neck really works for me! Seriously, I think they had the best test-pilots in the world giving them feedback on what worked or didn't. It was a recipe that just worked. Case in point; right here on this thread is the guy who said- hey, can you get me another string on one of those Series basses, and long-scale? Yep. The rest is history.

[gtrguy]

I love short scale alembics. However, some of those little bodies had long necks on them, back in the day, which I think Mica has said that they won't do anymore.

[A9X]

Welcome back.  Nice list of basses you've had there and we hope you can find yourself another someday.

Here's what I think about scale length... and I could easily be wrong.  34" was what Leo Fender chose for his P-bass back in the day.  I don't know if he picked that number randomly or had some specific reason but that became the standard "long scale" string length, including for Alembic.  Meanwhile, Gibson (and Hofner and others) went with about a 30" scale which we came to know as "short scale".  Maybe they were approaching it more from a guitar perspective and Leo was thinking tiny upright? 

It turns out, if you take a 34" scale fretboard and cut off the last two frets from the bottom, you've got about a 30.5" fretboard.  If you cut off only the lowest fret, the string length is closer to 32" or "medium scale". 

So my theory (a-hem, which is mine) is that the same fingerboards can used for any of the 3 standard string lengths, just by deleting a fret or two from the lower end and adding a fret or two at the higher end. 

Now Mica can tell us if there's any truth to that. 

Jimmy J

wow that's a quite a theory here, never thought of that... needed to read you post few time to understand it. Hope Mica can chip in...

Whether Leo did this or not (can't ask him) if you go to a fret calculator, all the numbers match.
http://www.tundraman.com/Guitars/FretCalc/index.php

[A9X]

Putting on my shadetree loothier hat... totally a guess based on the knowledge that not very many makers were offering a two-octave neck, I bet Alembic was slotting their own fingerboards, and eventually had to make some kind of jig for each of the three available scales.

I was told by a luthier on TB that they actually used a jig with a blade for each fret and cut them all at once. Makes sense to my engineering mind, especially if you could use the same jig to cut multiple different scale length fretboards just by positioning them in the jig differently.

[hieronymous]

I always think of Stanley Clarke as the Alembic short-scale poster-dude, and I wonder what degree of input he had in that. Or was it; Wow, this 30-3/4 scale bass with a broomhandle neck really works for me! Seriously, I think they had the best test-pilots in the world giving them feedback on what worked or didn't. It was a recipe that just worked. Case in point; right here on this thread is the guy who said- hey, can you get me another string on one of those Series basses, and long-scale? Yep. The rest is history.

Stanley Clarke was playing a Gibson when Rick Turner brought him an Alembic to play - there's a picture of SC playing an EB-2 in the studio, though in a Vintage Guitar magazine interview SC says it was an EB-0...

[BeenDown139]

I love short scale alembics. However, some of those little bodies had long necks on them, back in the day, which I think Mica has said that they won't do anymore.

i once owned a mid 70's small body long neck fretless series I.  probably the most comfortable bass i ever played standing up or sitting down.  strung it up with thomastic light gauge flatwounds.  unbelievable sound.  never noticed the neck dive.  lost it in a divorce.  c'est la vie.  :-(

[pauldo]

The Vintage Guitar interview with Stan was cool. 
I agree with his sentiment that ‘with an Alembic you can truly express yourself through the instrument’.

Curious as to why the “Black Beauty” picture only has the A string on it...