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Why would anyone play a bass longer than 30" scale?

To my ears short scale basses sound deeper up and down the neck and long scale basses bring out more mids up and down the neck.

I'm starting to believe this as well now that I'm on my 2nd short scale. With my current one I have to seriously cut the lows otherwise it's too much. With the last one I thought it was a fluke, but now I'm a believer
 
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Just in case :)
upload_2018-11-30_14-48-45.png
 
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View attachment 3231848 View attachment 3231849 View attachment 3231850 It's very simple. They don't make these in 30' scale. And, being a lefty, when I was in a band, whacking somebody in the head was never a problem, either...:cool:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that in the 60's Tbird basses were in fact 30" like the EBO basses, and the Ricks are medium scale. Either way, I love your collection there :) Ive been eyeballing a few Kramer's like that at the sunset GC(they have 4 of them, a few are amazing)
 
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The first bass I bought was a 30" scale, because of the basses I tried at that time, it felt right to me. That bass just turned 40 years old and I still play it.

I also play a 20.375" scale (U-Bass) and a 35" scale (5-string), and they all feel right to me, just different than each other, and I like the sound of each.

I've never even owned a 34" bass.

So my question would be: Why would I limit myself to just one length?
 
In the case of a 5-string... I'll give you that :)
I play 32, 32.5, 34, 35, 41.5 and 42 inch scale basses. The last two are double basses, aka uprights.
IMHO, the sound a bass stringed instrument is very much affected by the interaction of the string length, string tension, string mass, and maximum string displacement (amplitude), especially when a magnetic pickup is involved.

I find E strings on my under 34" basses to feel quite floppy, and the 35" B strings really do feel and sound better to me than 34" B's.
Finally, I must admit I find your assertion that shorter scale is "easier," to be just an opinion. I don't find that to be true at all.

However, if you are happy with your instrument, I am glad.
 
My 35 in Q5 main player has smoother action than any other bass I've ever played, despite the scale. Anytime I cheat on it, I'm just not as comfortable. Of course, I'm biased to what I like, so that may influence my perception.
 
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Sadly, one factor is that it's what a lot of people have muscle memory for. Another thing is that you don't always want to use higher tension strings of a certain size just to get decent tension and tone. I'm sure many strides have been made, but I'd need to go try out some more shorties to see if any blow my hair back. Anything smaller than the Ibanez SR necks starts getting too cramped for me.
 
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