www.shortscale.org

astro · . Joined: 14 Jan 2008 Posts: 1716 Location: Montreal

Do they make 30" scale 5 string basses with a low B? I'm curious to know if a low B string would work on a shortscale bass. Anybody ever tried? Is the scale length too short to have enough tension to tune it that low?
I'm thinking of getting a Squier Bronco bass to tune BEAD but if someone"s already tried and realized that it didn't work I won't bother!

Dillon · . Joined: 20 Apr 2006 Posts: 1352 Location: Colorado

I've never tried, but I would think that the bigger problem would be the nut not being cut for strings that fat, as well as the relatively narrow neck width.

paul_ · . Joined: 27 Jul 2006 Posts: 9228

Something lower-risk like the Bronco bass would be good to try it with mainly because, as Dillon pointed out, you might need a replacement nut to use it in it's intended fashion again.

It's probably nothing for you to worry about but I had issues using a .052 low E on MIM F-tuners (Classic '70s Strat neck), the split post wasn't wide enough for me to feed them down the hole. I sort of botched it a couple times like you see noobs doing with Kluson-style posts before working it into submission a bit with a Dremel and pliers. I don't know if the Bronco bass would have undersized tuner issues like that but they are pretty lightweight/small import tuners.
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