short scale guitars...

JackBootedThug

JackBootedThug

MURDERATOR
Interested in the sterling cutlass or maybe an ibanez mikro. always been a 24.75" guy and the only guitar I have right now is 25.5", and I'm struggling with it some. Anybody own or play around with any of them before? Thanks!
 
My buddies son has a short scale Jackson JS Dinky, it's actually a pretty awesome little guitar to mess around with. I have huge hands, so it's a little hard to navigate the upper register with accuracy if you are soloing since the frets feel so close together, but it's a neat guitar.
 
Some years ago I bought a micro guitar for my son. He never really played it so it sat around for years. I used to love noodling on it, it was really fun to play. It was cheap as shit, couldn’t stay in tune, cheap parts, etc…but fun. I ended up giving it to my other sons girlfriend because she wanted to learn.
 
I haven't played the Ibanez Mikro guitars yet but the Mikro basses are fucking phenomenal; played one in a shop years ago and loved it, and then my buddy recently bought one and I jammed on his. I really wanna get one for myself

So easy and fun to play and they sound awesome too
 
I'm looking at these because I've got m.s. and I'm numb on the right side....basically lost a lot of use of my right hand. plus I have something going on with my left hand now....thinking carpal tunnel. anyway-it's a pain playing that charvel....
 
You'll probably need thicker strings to compensate for a shorter scale if you want to keep the same string tensions. Other than that there's nothing inherently wrong with short scale guitars. But like any guitar you want to get something with decent quality if you want the best experience.

The downside on them is they're generally (and unfairly) thought of as toys or cheap kids guitars so you don't see many outside the custom market that are high quality. What I've seen on the Ibanez Mikro is build quality is usually pretty decent, but hardware is in dire need of an upgrade.
 
MadAsAHatter said:
You'll probably need thicker strings to compensate for a shorter scale if you want to keep the same string tensions. Other than that there's nothing inherently wrong with short scale guitars. But like any guitar you want to get something with decent quality if you want the best experience.

The downside on them is they're generally (and unfairly) thought of as toys or cheap kids guitars so you don't see many outside the custom market that are high quality. What I've seen on the Ibanez Mikro is build quality is usually pretty decent, but hardware is in dire need of an upgrade.
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The cutlass has a 24" scale...how much of a difference would 3/4" make? the mikro's are like 22" scale lengths I believe...
 
My kid (9) has a Mikro, WILL NOT STAY IN TUNE PERIOD, but it’s getting him through his first year of lessons. Decent playing and sounding guitar but it really needs new tuners.
 
JackBootedThug said:
The cutlass has a 24" scale...how much of a difference would 3/4" make? the mikro's are like 22" scale lengths I believe...
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3/4" difference won't be so different to make your strings floppy, but you'll feel the difference doing bends. Going from 24.75 to 24 would feel similar to going from 25.5 to 24.75 with the same gauges. In this case you'd probably be fine sticking to the same gauge set and keep a similar feel.

Almost a 3" difference in scale and it might get a little too floppy. It'd feel a bit similar to going from E standard tuning to full drop D or C# tuning using the same gauge. Here you'd probably want to go one gauge heavier, maybe two more than normal to keep the same feel your used to.

Don't get too caught up in this, but stringjoy has a tension calculator if you want to see how tensions can change with different gauges and scale lengths.
 
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