Regarding the reach of the 1st fret when playing a bass while standing with the strap on, it's the top strap pin position which would determine the reach (besides the scale length, obviously). The lower strap pin position is more to determine the center balance of the bass while wearing the bass with a strap on in regards to the top strap pin position.
This clearly correlated with the feeling of longer reach of the 1st fret on the SRSC805, as you said the top strap pin at 13.5th fret which means there are 13.5 frets located to the left of your shoulder, whilst on other (regular) SR series with the same scale length, there are only 12 frets.
On the EHBs, the top strap is parallel to the 12th fret for the non multi-scale models and the scale length is also 34" as most SR series. This means that the non-MS EHBs have relatively the same reach to the 1st fret as regular SRs.
As for the multi-scale models, the top strap pin is also parallel to the 12th fret. Although, since the frets are fanned, it is parallel only to the low-B's 12th fret, while the rests are further to the left. But, since the rests are shorter in scale length, their 1st frets are somewhat shorter to reach. Still, when compared to most (non MS) SR series, there are scale lengths differences which will make the reach to the 1st fret also feels different. The EHB MS low-B scale length is 35" thus the reach to its 1st fret is obviously further away to the left shoulder (about half an inch). But, this translate to relatively the same reach as most (35" scale length) BTBs.
Regarding the lower strap pin on the EHBs which is located slightly to the left/upper part of the lower bout of the bass, it actually compensates the lightweight chambered body. Thus the center balance isn't gravitated more to the neck, but still within the body itself.
Last edited:
