Does Scale Length Affect Electric Guitar Tone? A/B Test.
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
- The Scale Length A/B Test requires you to listen to the audio samples and leave your results and thoughts in the comments section.
The results and answers video is now up.
• Electric Guitar Scale ...
When you do the "capo +1 fret, tune down 1 semitone" method you get a shorter scale length, true. BUT the pickup is proportionally closer to the nut than it was - distance from the bridge stay the same, distance to the nut (capo'ed fret) is smaller. Ie. if you're tuned to E and your neck pickup is typically directly under the 2 octave harmonic, when you're tuned down to Eb and capo on the 1st fret, the same pickup is not under the 2 octave harmonic anymore. How much I don't know, but his directly adds some bias to the "shorter scale is warmer, longer scale is brighter" result impression.
Thanks for posting the video, Paul!
First, my results.
1) Clean tone, strumming
I can definitely hear a difference. A is probably the longer scale.
2) Distorted tone, strumming
I can hear no appreciable difference.
3) Distorted tone, soloing
I can hear a difference. A is probably the longer scale.
This is after a single pass listening.
With that out of the way, I’m going to say that my personal experience in different scale lengths-even though I was a guitar player for most of my life-now lies predominantly in playing bass guitars. While the direct affect on the tonal differences might be subject to debate, the physical aspect is beyond dispute. Long scale basses (I play 35 in basses exclusively) feel very different from their shorter-scale counterparts. They can be set up for lower action (hence my preference toward them), the strings feel much more stiff (they are physically more taut), and whole-tone bends (sometimes even semitone bends) are out of the question, at least on the string gauges I use.
All of the above inevitably affect your technique, which contributes to the tone. It takes me a while to adjust to the slack/floppy feeling of a shorter scale bass: I have to pluck and fret softer, albeit the latter is dependent on how the instrument is set up (the action is usually higher than on longer-scale basses).
Aside from several acoustics, my experience with short-scale guitars is quite limited. All my electric guitars have always been the standard 25.5 in scale.
Apart from the difference in EQ and note envelope, which I think is enough. You can tell that B is the capo, because of the increased fret noise, which can be a side effect of capoing some guitars.
+arifreeman The capo was used in both examples as I explained in the video.
It was used on different frets.
I saw the tone wood vids and have just discovered your channel, digging it! I thought I'd actually participate in this A/B test so you've got some data but to be honest, I don't know if I can tell much of a difference.
I thought I could originally when I listened to it all straight through. Not with the DS-1 on so much but the clean version. I thought the A sounded "brighter" and maybe a bit "hollower" and the B sounded "darker" or "muffled". But after flicking back and fourth, while they might sound slightly different, I don't think one is particularly better than the other. Which wasn't the point of the test I know, but for me that was the question behind the question.
I'm going to have a bit of a guess and say that A is the longer scale, only because it sounds closer to my memory of a clean guitar sound. I've been playing more bass lately and am looking at multi scales, which is why I'm wondering if a short scale vs a long scale really makes that much difference an electric instrument ran through pedals.
I can't remember if you've posted a follow up clip, I'll have to check your channel to see how I went. Thanks for putting the time and effort into making all these videos.
+fuzzy19 Thankyou for participating. I don't have the results video up yet.
I am still waiting for more participants to leave their results.
I think B is the shorter scale length
first sample. B is short scale, second sample A is short scale, third sample A is short scale.
I'm gonna say A was the longer scale. Shorter scales seem to sound slightly more trebly to me.
Watching but not at the samples yet, my view already from experience is tone is effected not always in a bad way, lets get the test, definitely! Not always good! LOL
I will add the tone overall could be improved by some iron on the input. namely a nice preamp to smooth out. Hard to tell but on the clean the first was shorter, I lost interest a bit due to the quality of he preamps and wanting to write my opinion. Cheers
Not going to venture actual fret #, but I'm very certain that A is longer scale and B is shorter.
There's certainly a difference, I dunno which I prefer. I dunno which is which length.
Also I thought by the title it was going to be 24fret compared to a 22fret. But still interesting
+Bart Nettle Scale length and number of frets are two completely different things.
no argument here over string lengths.
A- shorter scale on clean.
Nope. I hear differences, but not enough to tell which is shorter or longer.