How Does Your Guitar ’ s Scale Length Affect Your Playing ?
With the rise of multi scale guitars , this question is on every guitarist ’ s lips . But first , we have to understand what the scale of a guitar is . It is basically the distance between the bridge and the nut .
We could then talk about classic models . A Fender Stratocaster guitar has a scale of 25.5 inches . Another classic that we can talk about is a Gibson Les Paul that has a 24.75 inches scale . The larger the scale , the more solid the sounds will be and the better definition
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34 highonscore . com they will have , on the other hand , if the scale is smaller , techniques such as Bendings and Vibratos will be much simpler to execute . That is the big difference between a Fender Stratocaster Vs a Gibson Les Paul guitar .
Obviously , the guitar market is not limited to the two guitars we discussed above . A PRS Custom 24 has a 25 inches scale , a combination between a Stratocaster and a Gibson Les Paul . For Standard Tuning ( EADGBE ), these guitars work very well but if you want to tune the guitar a little lower a little bit lower such as tunings in C / B / A . The problem is going to be that the scale is not going to respond in the best way .
The answer to this within the market is a baritone guitar or a guitar that has a scale larger than 25.5 inches . A good example is the Ibanez Iron Label RGIB6 28 ” ( inches ) guitar .
The only problem with having a guitar with such a large scale is that it will feel very hard to the touch just because the scale is very long . Bendings , vibratos , and any type of technique that requires moving a string from its axis . become much more difficult to execute .
But let ’ s go to a concrete example , imagine that you have a Gibson Les Paul guitar with a scale length of 24.75 inches and a string gauge of . 009 - . 042 . What you are going to want to do at some point is tune your guitar to lower tunings such as D or C , the difficulty that we are going to find here is that the strings are going to feel extremely soft since the gauge and scale of the guitar do not accompany this type of tuning , the answer It would then be to raise the gauge of the strings to . 010 or . 011 . The only difficulty is that perhaps it will not have the definition that we want in these low tunings because the scale cannot be changed .
The solution for this dilemma of tuning versus tension is the Multiscale Guitar since these have progressive scales per string . A Strandberg Boden 6 brand guitar has a 25 inch scale on its 1st string and a 25.5 inch scale on its 6th string .
That ’ s right , it is the progressive combination between the 1st string of a PRS guitar and the 6th string of a Fender Stratocaster , that is , on the 6th string you have all the solidity and tension of a Fender guitar but at the same time you have all the ease and comfort in the 1st string 2nd and 3rd like on a PRS guitar .
Up to this point , some may have thought that this type of guitar is very difficult to play , that it would be a bit dizzying to play with the design of the frets that seem to be out of square , but the truth is that this is not the case because the structure of the frets generates a sensation that is much more ergonomic for the hand . Try it out , you won ’ t be disappointed .