www.shortscale.org

[Concretebadger]

I guess I'm back in the shortscale club now.

I wanted a "second" guitar, preferably a hardtail with double coils, that's affordable enough to stop me being scared of taking it out of the house, and something that's generally just fun to play. First impressions:

-Holy shit, this thing weighs next to nothing. It's got the 1969-era body contours so there's no issue of sore arms or achey shoulders. So smol, so light. I forgot how comfy mustangs are.
-The double coil pups were the first thing I expected to mod, but they sound fine for the time being - decent output, and no squeal or excess noise, even with gain. I'd probably upgrade to units with chrome covers or something.
-The 12" fretboard radius feels really flat but the neck profile is comfortable enough. The maple feels like almost bare wood, so it's nice and smooth without thick layers of goopy varnish.
-I even like the colour! The imperial blue finish has sparkles in it. Very cool.
-It's stupidly cheap (£114 on the high street). I own reverb pedals that cost more than that.

The negatives are pretty minor, and can almost certainly be put right with a setup come restringing time. The action's a little high, the strings feel like cheese wire (which may or may not because I've grown unused to the 24" scale) and the truss rod may need adjusting. As one or two others mentioned in earlier threads, the fretboard could do with some lemon oil because it's a little dry, which is particularly noticeable when playing bends. The pickguard and control plate don't *exactly* line up, but there's no massive gap between them and that sort of thing is pretty much expected at this price point.

I'll hold off on pics for now, because the stuff that's of most interest is probably the size and shape of the body routs, which will dictate what modding you can or can't do. At some point I'll probably swap the pups out and possibly do a coil split on the neck position to bring back some of the Fender jangle, but to be honest there's not a great deal I'd change. It's just really fun to play around with, and the hardtail bridge (held down with five screws, so feels nice and solid) makes it a rare example of a Fender offset that's got good sustain.

Where the hell was this when I was sixteen?

[robroe]

[Concretebadger]

I know right? These things are pretty great for kids who are just starting out. The price is ridiculous for a brand new guitar. Made in Indonesia btw, so not even China can knock em together for as little as this.

Now for some pics...


A better view of the sparkly blue:


As promised: GUT SHOTS


Unsurprisingly it's a swimming pool rout that's just long and wide enough to accomodate the pickups. There's nowhere for the traditional Mustang three-way slider switches, but there's not much room for a mini toggle either, should you want to do a coil split. Drilling near the corner nearest to where it meets the control plate is probably the best place; anywhere else and it would get in the way of my strumming hand. I *could* squeeze one between the volume and tone pots, but it's a tight fit and I'd have to drill into metal.


The wiring's pretty neat and tidy. The ground wire presumably goes to the bridge plate. There are Alpha pots, which are stamped "250," which explains why it sounds a little dark. I'm not sure whether to swap them out, because soldering pots is possibly my least favourite guitar repair job.


Close-up of the pickups. They look like generic no-name hambakers to me. I'll try googling what's on the labels just for curiosity's sake.

[Cymbaline]

I cant believe how well this guitar stays in tune.
It might be the best value guitar of all time.

[NickS]

Like write-up and pics. I'll be interested to hear how the pot swap affects the HB tones.

[Concretebadger]

Quick update now the 500k pots are in: there's definitely an improvement with the treble. It sounds closer to how I'd imagine a two-humbucker guitar is supposed to sound. I fitted a 0.033 orange drop cap while I was in there.

So yeah. Insert flowery terminology for "it sounds brighter and noticeably better." here.

I'm still not sure what to do about the pickups...if I go for Duncans, a 59/Custom Hybrid in the bridge position and either a Jazz or 59 in the neck could work. I haven't decided yet. I'd rather go for regular old PAF spec, but I understand that hotter pickups sound better when split while "vintage" pups are a bit weak. It's gonna be a compromise, but hopefully versatile and fun.

[Doug]

[robroe]

it will be when im fucking done with it
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