Q for MM: ideal specs

[kimstevens]

Michael,

I know that you have been involved with the design of some very interesting and wonderful basses, and I understand that these instrumentshave either 34" or 33 1/2" scale and with what appears to be pretty normal string spacing. My question: did you (and Joe Zon) decide to keep the specs close to standard long-scale bass guitar design because you had already developed your technique with that type of instrument? I have heard you play live, and at one of your seminars you described your preference for low string tension. If you were starting again from scratch to learn the bass, would you pick the standard 34" scale, or perhaps a shorter length in order to have both lower tension and smaller stretches?

Thanks

Kim

[Michael Manring]

Interesting question, Kim! I've always gone with standard scale length just to make things simpler and as you mentioned, because it's what I'm used to. In a perfect world I think it would be fun to experiment with designing instruments with different scale lengths to see what happens. I've played several, and owned a few instruments with longer or shorter than standard necks, but not enough to get a real sense of how the scale length affects the total performance of an instrument and what would work best for me. If I ever have the resources it would be a fun project.