Silly question about converting a guitar into a bass ??????

[bazza99]

Guys, forgive what might turn out to be a stupid enquiry but bear with me......

I have seen a couple of guitars which look stunning with Spalted Maple tops. Trouble is that they are guitars, not basses. One is a Tele shape, other is Strat lookalike.

My question is: would I be able to convert a six string electric into a playable bass. Obviously there are short scale basses out there so that takes care of the neck situation, no?? Would it be feasible to replace bridge and p/ups and get something of a bass sound out of it. I'm no great bassist BTW.

Any advice greatly appreciated

[waleross]

Take a look at the Fender VI which came out in
the early 1960's, it is a guitar tuned 1 octive lower. It sounds cool and was used in a lot of surfer music. Here is a link :
http://theband.hiof.no/articles/fender_bass_vi.html
Makes great reading.....

[kcwm]

There was a thread I posted a link to another forum where a guy converted a tele body into a short scale bass. His was a blank body, so it was probably a bit easier. I think it's still under my findable posts around here.

[spade2you]

The amount of effort and $ to convert one would probably just be easier to get a beginner bass.

[Mark Latimour]

Originally Posted by bazza99

Guys, forgive what might turn out to be a stupid enquiry but bear with me......

I have seen a couple of guitars which look stunning with Spalted Maple tops. Trouble is that they are guitars, not basses. One is a Tele shape, other is Strat lookalike.

My question is: would I be able to convert a six string electric into a playable bass. Obviously there are short scale basses out there so that takes care of the neck situation, no?? Would it be feasible to replace bridge and p/ups and get something of a bass sound out of it. I'm no great bassist BTW.

Any advice greatly appreciated

Guitars are like 22" scale, that is a lot shorter than a short scale bass is. I think you would be better off buying a beginner bass. It will cost you a lot less.

[FunkMetalBass]

Fender Guitars have about the same neck width as the 4-string jazz bass at the nut. If you get a 4-string bridge and tuners, you could pull it off. As said before, though, the scale will be EXTREMELY short, and if you want new pickups, you're going to spend too much.

[Darkstrike]

Done it using stock pickups, on a cheap strat, and it worked fine.