34 vrs 35 " scale

I used to have a Lakland 55-94 (35" scale) that had a fantastic B. However, my new G&L L1005 (34") has the most thunderous, yet focused B I have ever played. The B on my 34" Yamaha BB basses is also amazing. +1 to all the comments above about build over scale length.

 

No real advantage to a 35" scale. 34" has worked fine for decades.

 

And 42" has worked just fine for centuries.

 

I found that I had little or no issue playing the longer scale, it DID throw off my 34" bass playing - and I'm not giving up my 4 strings AND I play a fair amount of fretless.... Good luck finding a 35" 4 string (yes, yes - I know there are a few - but very few)

 

The whole guitar industry is based around gimmicks to convince the buying public to believe that if your bass doesn't have this gimmick too then it's not going to be right or work as well. Fan frets, 35" scale...Silver Solder FX pedals...yep I've seen it all.
If you find that you have big hands and the 35" scale works for you...then go for it. Meanwhile, back in the general ward of the insane asylum....34" scales have been working fine for 3/4/5/6/7 string basses for a while. I don't know why Leo chose 34" scale but as a general rule...Leo knows best!

 

The thing is the difference between 34 vs 35 is subtle but exists. It is felt by the player rather than heard.

I've friend who had a Dingwall Combustion, as well as I owned one. We worked at the same music store, and decided to do an empirical test of the same gauge of string strung to different scales. Said and done, we did manufacture a entirely new nut for the Dingwall, made for taking JUST 5 G-strings at .045 gauge, and strung and tuned them up on ONE bass. In case you don't know, these bassses goes from 34" to 37".

The other, we did the same, created, filed and slotted a new nut, and replaced it on the other Dingwall, for taking JUST a .130 Low b-string. Actually the bridge accomodated for this since all strings were tapered.

Now, what happened was that we broke 2-3 g-strings while tuning up to pitch on a 37 scale end. We were careful, and finally we found out how to wind it up carefully without it breaking.

Then we played and felt and heard every G-string on it's individual scale. Needless to say, on 37" scale the g-string started to sound way thin, and when leaning in and slapping it, it just broke. It snapped. Needless to say, the G-string were too highly strung and pitched for that 37" scale. Going "down" across the fretboard (not along) towards 34" made the g-string tighter and snappier sounding, and actually had longer sustain believe it or not. The output became stronger too, in spite of pickups set up properly and even across all strings.

- - - - - - Now for the B-string - - - - - -

Needles to say, the low B-string didn't break at any place, but the 34" sounded flubby, and had shorter decay and no or little "core" or fundamental. The main difference was heard when playing the low B string fretting up the neck, above 12th fret. on 34" it sounded too bad, and one could barely intonate with your fingers, you had to play vibrato style all of the time. It oscillated too much so a severe fretbuzz was heard in spite having the same action height as the 37" scale b-string. Now as we went "up" across the fretboard towards the 37" it started to sound better and better, tighter and snappier and low and behold, longer decay and sustain, and you could play up the neck on the low b-string. No fret buzz at all, and sustain for ages.

The thing was - to our surprise, or shock - that the best output from the pickups where at between the 3rd-4th string "slots" or scales, at 36.25 inch, and shorter at 35.5 . At 37" the actual timbre and tone was the best but the output a lot weaker, definitely felt and heard.

Also, but to its advantage, at 37" when leaning in and picking heavily or slapping or thumbing it didn't go initially up in pitch as it do on - ALL - 34" low b-strings. Regardless of design material, wood, or how meticulosly built the basses are. You just have to "baby" the low b-strings on a 34" 5 string.

We put the regular nuts back and restrung them back to regular strings. Worked a charm. Took a while though. Now I know that the Combustion is not the best 5 string around, but a good and equal test when comparing the different scales on one instrument, when everything else is equal. Yes, you guessed right, the strings spacing with the just b-strings where almost impossible to play something real decent on, but way up the neck it went well. Since this wasn't a playability test we mostly played open strings and just the frets along each string. No need for positions or cross playing at all since all notest where the same...

 

For me, 34" scale for 4 string electric basses and 35" scale for 5 string electric basses with low B strings.

I have bought several 34" scale 5 string basses and am always disappointed in the B string tension and tone compared to the other 4 strings on the bass. In my case I buy a 5 string for using a low B, the bass is useless to me if I don't like the way the B string feels and sounds. The extra 1" scale length changes the sound and feel of the G, D, A and E string but if I need a killer sounding B string I live with it.....Happily with Lakland and Roscoe basses!

 

Apologies if somebody already said this.

The difference between 34" and 35" scale is that the reach from fret 1 to fret 4 is 4mm longer.

That's it.

If you play 3-finger style (a la upright bass), it's probably not going to matter to you.

I play 4-finger style for some things. I am 6' 1" and wear size L or XL gloves, depending on the glove. In other words, my hands are decent sized. I could not hack 35" scale. I've had several. I could play them 3-finger style, no problem. When I needed to span frets 1 to 4, being any little bit off meant playing a clanker sometimes. Being the same amount off on a 34" scale means still being 4mm closer to fret 4, which, for me, was often enough the difference between a clanker and a clean-sounding note.

All the rest, about B strings and string tension is just fluff.

You can have a great B string on 34" scale.

And you can have any string tension you want on either scale.

Go to Kalium Strings' website and use their string tension chart to pick what gauges you want, based on what string tension you want, and then order them. I have worked my way up to playing a 34" scale 6-string and using strings that give 46# of tension (which is definitely high - and I like it). I think my low B is a .142 or a .150. I can't remember off the top of my head. My low B sounds great.

The only difference is the longer reach between the frets.

 

I have a few 35" scale basses and I consider myself very lucky. I kind of dig the extra depth if I tune to dropped D as well as the ability to have extra tension that allows me to set the action a tad lower while being buzz free.

 

Yeah, and he came up with the 5 string low b didn't he?

What about the 5th string being the gimmick? Why not?

 

I have absolutely no preference, I liked my Warwick SSI (34") and of course love my Spectors (35")..I am indifferent

 

There is sometimes no fix for a bad b. I have one bass that'll sound right for 1 gig then the b becomes super boomy and never matches the tone of the rest of the strings quite right, I have another that sounds nice and tight and dead even with the rest of the strings pretty much no matter what. Both 34 scale, and there is no way to eq or compress out the difference. The one with the bad b has been through a ton of diff string combos and set ups, the one with the good b has been through 2 set ups. They both share the same string brand and gauge now. I have had other 34's where the b is dead in tone but just about every 35" scale I've played or owned has had much more even tone across the strings.
You can typically hear and feel the difference before you plug in. Now I can spend a bunch of time eq-ing in and out frequencies but after the 5th feet on the b you are getting into the frequencies on other strings, and compression to the degree that's needed makes everything sound bad. I would rather plug in and play at the end of the day anyway.
Hopefully that better explains my experience.

 

Well...the 5 string bass has it's history in classical music, Respighi wrote low B / 5 string notes for the double bass in 1924, so that predates even the electric bass.

 

Well, speaking of low B-strings on electric basses, Jimmy Johnson and Alembic were the first to implement it around 1976. Jimmy got the idea from growing up around 5-string double basses as his dad was the principle bassist in the symphony in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Jimmy won't take credit for "inventing" it, but he got the inspiration from traditional 5-string upright basses. He found that Alembic was the only manufacturer willing to work with him, and GHS had to develop the B-string for him. He's been using 5-string Boomers on his 34" Alembics for nearly 40 years now.

If you've ever heard Jimmy Johnson play bass, you'll know that the B-string wasn't implemented as some sort of "gimmick".

 

Thus, not Leo Fender in any way.

No, but it wasn't me who said it was a gimmick. Someone said all this mumbo jumbo about fan frets, multiscales and whatnot was gimmicks. Why not 5/6/7 strings then?

I for one, LOVES B-string and heard the first Jimmy Johnson record with record company DMP who made audiphile vinyl records when it came out. The band was called Flim & the BB's I think. Not sure though. I never ever said it was a gimmick... I didn't even aimed it at you.

 

Sorry, I didn't mean to aim anything at you personally. I just used "you" in the collective sense.

Flim and the BB's was originally put together to demonstrate the new digital recording technology and CD's. DMP was "Digital Music Products", and Tricycle was among the first non-classical recordings put out on CD. Their music is incredibly dynamic to show off just how good the dynamic range of CDs could be over vinyl and other recorded music media. I think their albums are still some of the best recorded albums I've listened to. They may sound a bit dated now, but they were as modern as modern could get in 1983. And Jimmy's basses are still some of the best sounding basses I've heard in recorded music. They have the kind of clarity and depth that I want every bass I play to have.

 

35" to me feels much more natural. I Didn't know my joe osborne was longer when i got it and it didn't really register - i just knew the B string and neck felt great.

 

My 5-string handmade bass with Ibanez neck (the frets were at 34'', then removed, new frets setted up to a longer scale, and then the fingerboard was scalloped between the frets), „Musicman" pickup and a bubinga body. The scale is 35.75''. The B string sounds way better then a 34'' 5-string Musicman Stingray! Quality of the instrument counts, but nobody can persuade me that the scale matters less! 1.75'' matters a lot.

 

You almost won't notice going from 34" to 35". The distance to the first fret increases with only 0.06" or 1.5 mm.