[Bass of the Week] Stagg/Arnott StratBass

The selected bass this week features a short scale design with a great story. Jake writes:

This bass was the result of lying in bed wondering about what was possible. “Why are bass necks so long? Was it just because Leo Fender thought that was how they should be?” I’ve had a couple of short-scale basses, but what about a REALLY short scale?

When I discovered that the scale length of a guitar is almost exactly the length of a bass up to the fifth fret, the idea of a guitar-length bass, using the bottom four strings of a 5-string set, made a lot of sense. It would have to be headless (to get rid of the extra length of string), but I’m used to that.

I searched eBay for a suitable victim, but then found a brand-new (though strangely ‘distressed’) Stagg Strat copy in a local shop for a very reasonable price. It was missing a few bits, and has odd tyre-tracks up the back, but was perfect for my project.

There are lots of cheap sets of headless tuners and string clamps on eBay, but NO left-handed ones. Hipshot make a lovely L-H headless head, but that was about twice the total budget, so maybe next time. Modifying a R-H head looked to be too much work for an unsatisfactory outcome, so I bought an earthing block that looks suitably brutal, and works  very well.

This is very much an experimental project, and absolutely NOT a showcase for my woodworking skills (or passion for beautiful detailing), but it has scratched an itch, and produced an interesting, very playable instrument, that nearly answers my initial question. All the components were chosen on price – next time I’ll come to BestBassGear and get some quality bits, and take a lot more care with the construction!

I first tried it with a soapbar pickup, but that was a big disappointment; not sure if it was a duff pickup, or some other problem, so I went for a Wilkinson P-bass pickup, in a Vintage Cream blank scratchplate. I don’t like controls on a bass – just getting as much tone out of the instrument, and doing all the EQ on the amp works for me. Unfortunately the routing for the soapbar is just visible beyond the scratchplate, but again – that’s for next time.

Strat pickups are suspended from the scratchplate, but P-bass pups are mounted into the body – as too much of the body had been routed away, I had to add a block of plywood to take the mounting screws. The Strat bridge also passes through the body – at exactly the place where the new bridge mounting screws should be! A block of oak glued in here solved that problem, though I was rather nervous about it when I had to rout down to to get the bridge at the right level. I also needed to rout out an ‘ashtray’ to give access to the tuning pegs. So far it stays in tune very well.

What does it sound like? It sounds pretty ‘light’ – but so did my other short-scale basses. It has an alder body, which probably doesn’t help. Perhaps Leo got it right, but I’ve got other basses that have a warm, deep sound, so it’s a fun addition.

Well done!

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