Talk:Scale (string instruments)

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This article (stub at the time of writing) came out of the splitting of Fender Bass VI to create Fender Baritone Custom. I play one of the latter, but was unaware that the scale length of the original Bass VI was different, despite having done what I thought was thorough research before buying the Bari (with which I am delighted, just BTW).

There's not a lot on scale lengths on the web, Wikipedia included, and what there is reveals that I'm not the only one making bad guesses.

For example, those who rave about the short scale length of the Fender Mustang and Jagstang seem largely unaware that the 24" scale length is identical to that of the Fender Jaguar, with the exception of the first few Mustangs which were seriously short at 22.5".

And I'm still trying to sort out the scale lengths of bowed strings. I think what I have there is accurate, but there are lots of puzzling comments elsewhere on the web about changes to violin neck lengths since Stradivarius. I suspect that at least some of the writers who talk about these are confusing the changes in pitch which certainly have occurred since the strads were built with changes in scale length. That is, I'm guessing that just the sound posts and bass bars of the strads have been replaced rather than their necks too, and that any necks that have been replaced have been replaced with ones of the same length as the originals. But it's still a guess at this stage. Any help appreciated!

Lots still to do! Andrewa 01:44, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Some expansion, and some corrections. Interesting stuff about the viola!

Some obvious outstanding questions:

  • What is the Stradivarius scale length for the cello? Several websites refer to it saying such-and-such an instrument has this scale length, but none of them say what it is!
  • At what time(s) did the conventional student scale names such as 3/4 come into use for violin, cello and bass?
  • How standard are they? At what time(s) were they standardised?

Add that information, and we'll start to have a good article. It's already a substantial contribution to the WWW coverage of the topic, IMO. Andrewa 23:53, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

From http://www.lemur-music.com/aspbass/bass_nsd.asp describing a 5 string electric cello:
The scale length is standard at 695 mm.
From elsewhere it appears that their 4 and 5 string instruments have the same scale length. I'd still like some more confirmation, but I think it's enough to go on for now. Everyone just seems to assume that it's a well-known figure. Andrewa 17:29, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
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