Yeah I know it seemed rediculous to me too. I'm glad the general community here is different than the people I know. Maybe they think that because they were originally made for beginners and guitarists converting over?
who knows.
Another question. For those of you who have alot of experience with shirt scales, does playing on a short scale for a long time mess up your muscle memory on long scale basses?
Well, it as totally natural that the instrument you use most time playing will become the one you feel most comfortable and at home with
But if you are familiar with both playing short 30" scale basses and regular 34" scale basses you should be able to easily adapt back and forth.
Of course if you for an extended period of time have only played short scale basses it might take a little while for you to get back on the horse playing a regular scale bass again, but it's not like your ability to play a 34" scale bass is lost forever just because you exclusively have been playing short scales for a while.
I personally both play bass and guitar and while it did take me a week or so to get fairly comfortable with the feel of my guitar after a period of a couple of years where I almost exclusively had played bass, and maybe about a month or so for me to be back in full form on the guitar again, if you play both on a regular basis you will be able to shift back and forth effortlessly, without even thinking about it.
By the way, personally I started out playing guitar, took up bass after a couple of years, which then slowly took over as my main instrument of choice, though while keeping playing guitar on the side line, played a regular 34" scale for about 11 years, then got a 30" short scale bass which was my main bass for about 6 years, eventually then bought an Ibanez Mikro bass, which is a 28,6" scale bass, upgraded it some, and have been my main bass for about 8 years now.
So I have gradually been going smaller and smaller, well apart from when I swapped from mainly playing a 24,75" scale guitar to a 34" bass, without encountering any issues whenever I sometimes swap instrument, unless it has been a really long while since the last time I had it in my hands, in which case it will take some time to get used to again.
Point being however, if you once have been familiar with an instrument of a certain scale length you will never truly forget how to navigate on it.
Exactly as with riding a bike, as the expression go, you might wobble a little to begin with but you'll relatively quickly regain your old skill level.
