Want a 24” scale bass

[Cajun337]

Please provide names of available sources. I’ve considered converting a 6-string guitar but prefer to purchase an axe ready to play. TIA for any help.

 

[J Posega]

There's not that many 24" scale basses out there.

Blackstar Carry-on bass is the only one off the top of my head. There's a few 23" scale ukulele basses out there. They also tend to jump from 23" to 25.5".

Glarry GW101 is 25.5" scale. Lots of similar sized basses.

What's the reason for 24" scale specifically? They're hard to find right-sized strings for, but great for small players, travel instruments, or just something different. Tiny basses are lots of fun.

 

[GrayGoesBlack]

I use an Eastwood Warren Ellis tenor as a really short scale bass, with some flatwounds. I believe it’s 23”, but might be worth a look.

 

[B-Mac]

Please provide names of available sources. I’ve considered converting a 6-string guitar but prefer to purchase an axe ready to play. TIA for any help.

Guild Jumbo Junior Fishman preamp 23.75"

 

[B-Mac]

Please provide names of available sources. I’ve considered converting a 6-string guitar but prefer to purchase an axe ready to play. TIA for any help.

• The Official Short Scale Bass Club -- Part 4

• The Official Medium Scale Bass Club

• "Official" Mikro Bass Club Part 3

• The Short-Scale Six-String Club Part 4 - for the original six-string basses!

• Show Your 5 String Short Scale Bass!

• Hollow body short scale bass?

• Sub-Short Scale Talk

• Guitar Scale Acoustic Basses

• Guitar Scale Electric Basses

 

[monsterthompson]

https://www.mauriziouberbasses.com/x3m

The X3M is a bass like you've never seen before: a huge tonal palette in a 6lbs design that fits inside its hand-carry gig bag. It can be ordered with as many as five different fretted and fretless necks: 30", 27", 25.5", 22.75" and 18", each with its own ideal tuning and unique voice. Low-end growl and bark, melodic soloing, crystal clear arpeggio and chords - the X3M has it all.

 

[mcgreivey]

I use an Eastwood Warren Ellis tenor as a really short scale bass, with some flatwounds. I believe it’s 23”, but might be worth a look.

What strings do you use? What tuning?

(I actually have a Warren Ellis tenor.)

 

[HaphAsSard]

What strings do you use? What tuning?

(I actually have a Warren Ellis tenor.)

A 40-55-70-95 set will have about the same tensions as the original strings. It will feel way looser than standard-scale bass, of course, and may be not to your liking. Then again, it might: a subsection of the guitar-scale acoustic bass offerings come/came with steel-core strings (Michael Kelly Sojourn; Orangewood Oliver Jr.; BeaverCreek Bass Travel Size) of similar gauges.

It does have a truss rod, so I guess you could venture a notch or two heavier.

Either way, you need to either shorten regular strings, at either end, using one of a number of proven techniques:
https://www.talkbass.com/posts/26112730/
or have either Newtone Strings out of the UK or Pyramid Strings in Germany make you custom-length strings, so as they taper ahead of the guitar-style tuning posts.
[Well, that, or you replace the tuners with bass-guitar ones. You'd still run the risk of breaking the low E due to the sharp angle not playing well with stiff, thick strings.]

In order to avoid the string-shortening hassle, or the custom-order one, you could also have someone make you a short trapeze tailpiece to be anchored at the read strap button, which would allow you to use regular (ca32" - long, from ball to taper) bass-guitar short-scale strings: having moved the ball-end anchoring point, they would taper before the E-string tuning post (the latter might need a minor drilling of the hole to accommodate the tapered, but possibly still overly thick section of the string; oh, and the holes at the back of the bridge would also need to be drilled wider; also, you may need to lose the springs, so as to allow the saddles to go further back, for correct intonation of stiffer strings).

Tuning it piccolo, of course, would be easier. pick the lowest four from any electric-guitar set, if you want guitar tensions; or the lowest four from a heavy baritone-guitar set if you want them closer to bass tension.