Short Love

Yeah, great color :+1:

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So I recently bought a u-bass. And I play a bongo full scale. I just joined a fb u-bass group and there’s a guy on there that makes his own ukele bass’s. And… He made a bongo u-bass!!! And I COMPLETELY lost my fooking mind! And might have pm’d him and begged him to make me one. He didn’t answer, I don’t know why :joy:. (bongo about halfway down on right, in orange :+1:).

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Love the colour and this makes me impatient for mine now lol

Graeme

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I’m on the road for another week but I might get to start on it next weekend. Here’s the body I picked up for it in Huntsville Alabama:


It’s going to have an super hot (18k ohm, 10 henry) quad rail humbucker hidden under the lid (so as not to destroy the gaphics) in the bridge position and I haven’t decided on neck pickup yet but maybe a visible telecaster style chrome single coil. But the way I build, I never know what’s going to happen until it’s finished. :smiley:

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That makes sense for a 5 string @itsratso
Jamie

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Wow, real short

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Whoa. Same size as an Ibanez Mikro.

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I just saw one of those in Ken Stanton Music. Weirdly tiny compared to everything else hanging on the wall. I didn’t have time to try it out.

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Those are cool. Did the guy that makes them ever get back to you?

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Yeah, so it turns out he doesn’t make them himself, they are made by a luthier in California. And he isn’t interested in selling it :slightly_frowning_face::joy:

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And it’s under 200 bux. Dammit and I was convinced I hated p bass. Hmm…

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what does having a short scale bass achieve?

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Mostly it’s just easier to play (for some I should add. Otoh, some people find the fretboard on the cramped side). But there are other differences too. They tend to have a little more bottom end and string tension is different, making it easier to do giant bends and such.

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It’s not that they have more bottom end, it’s that they lose high end harmonics and so sound less bright and thumpier. Counterintuitive because they are smaller.

It’s kind of like rounds vs flats. If you want a bright sound with more mid and high end harmonics, you should definitely avoid flats.

The strings also have less tension but it is not really a problem from what I have seen for EADG. I am betting the short 5’s have a super flubby B string though.

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Yes. I tried to give the elevator pitch version but yours is much better :joy:

Edit: however I should add (imo) that the sound diff is subtle and can be modified with most eq/amps.

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I think they do sound cool for some styles (kind of like flats) but the difference in harmonics is noticeable.

You can hear the kind of flat highs and lack of top end brightness here, especially when he slaps and picks - as that’s when you would expect to really hear the sharp twang:

It kind of sounds pre-compressed a bit, but only on the high end :slight_smile:

(he is running a light compressor too though)

Both of those sound awesome but it’s a pretty good demo of the phenomenon.

Both of those would make fine metal basses, lol :slight_smile:

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My ss stingray and bongo definitely sound different. But I didn’t notice a huge sound difference between my regular scale stingray and the ss one. In all fairness I did sell the full scale to buy the ss so didn’t do a direct a/b comparison. And I don’t find my stingray to be a thumpy bass, quite the opposite, it does have a pretty good dose of stingray zing.

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Yeah, to be clear it’s not a bad sound thing either, just kind of a different tonal “shape”. I think they sound awesome, just a little different. It might not be what you want if you’re a jazz soloist but it’s great for the thumpy and low.

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Yeah and those two definitely sound different. They are both cool though.

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