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Boutique Short Scale Options?

JMoto

JMoto

Aug 25, 2017
36
20
San Francisco
#1
Alright, so I love my Hofner Club and my Guild Starfire but I've fallen out of love with my Lakland solid body. I desire a short scale solid body. But the majority are crazy or strat shaped it seems. Turn me on to some double cut or singlecut options I might not have seen! So far my first choice is to order a Serek Midwestern build! Let me know if you think anything else is worth a look ~3k or less. Used is fine.
 
#2
JMoto said:
Alright, so I love my Hofner Club and my Guild Starfire but I've fallen out of love with my Lakland solid body. I desire a short scale solid body. But the majority are crazy or strat shaped it seems. Turn me on to some double cut or singlecut options I might not have seen! So far my first choice is to order a Serek Midwestern build! Let me know if you think anything else is worth a look ~3k or less. Used is fine.
Click to expand...
Millimetric is building some 30" scale goodness these days.. similar to Serek but more "modern" I guess. I love their stuff!
 
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#3
I have a plan(or perhaps wish) to get a short scale fretless 5 or 6 from Mensinger, I want it to be semi hollow though they do solid of course, too. With the woods and electronics I want it'll be in the $2500-2800 range. They have a fun and dangerous configurator on their Public Peace site
 
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#6
They are very rare, but if alembics are your bag, they made (very) few short scale distillates (one of their more "affordable" models), which, if you're (very) lucky might be retrievable used right around your $3000 mark. I also took a birdsong for a spin once and thought it was super cool. Rickenbacker model 3000 basses are also very killer if you can find one. Those are three right off the top of my head, but i might be back with more.

edit:
One more i just thought of was the old gibson les paul recording bass which is super cool, though i'm sure youve seen one of those before
 
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#11
Birdsong cBass. 31" scale, 7 lbs., does a very good impression of a Precision.
birdsong.jpg
 
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#12
A couple of years ago I was thinking of having a local luthier build me a shortscale but after a discussion with him I decided to stay with my heavily modified Squier Bronco instead. The modded Bronco already incorporates the custom features I want...it's just not pretty.
 
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#16
If you are of DIY inclination, Warmoth offers Fender-y short scale options in 30" & 32" as well as their own modern styled bodies / necks. The nice part about the Fender-y designs are that they use standard off-the-shelf hardware, pickups, etc so you can really design a great bass at reasonable cost. Quality is top shelf and the limits are set only by your imagination and budget. I own one and am in process of a 2nd.
 
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#19
Disclosure: the company I work for designed it, and I'm trying to respect any commercial selling rules here by not posting links.

I have a new short scale bass model called the Slugger bass that's more in the boutique category, it's sort of a combo of two really familiar basses. It's got two humbuckers. One made locally by a pickup maker, possibly both made locally in the final model. Full nitro finish so it will relic correctly, lots of vintage goodness. I love it and can send a link to some demo videos if interested.
 
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