Tonefiend Forum

While I'm sure that my harem of instruments pales in comparison to many of yours, I've got most of the bases covered for what I need. I've got a couple girthy nylons, 'fender' and 'gibby' scaled electrics, a couple oddball baseball bat pawn shop beaters, acoustics set for strumming and others for picking. I'm a tall guy with big hands and fully capable of manhandling the biggest and most uncomfortable of these. But dangit if I don't love my Baby Taylor. I originally bought it to more easily facilitate my traveling lifestyle, but I fell in love with it. It has a great voice (almost resonator-like) and I absolutely love the 3/4 scale. I can dig in with my finger style and pull off massive chord stretches. It's my go-to for gypsy jazz and acoustic blues. Though its mildly blasphemous, I even use it when I'm feeling in a Brazilian mood. It's probably cheating, but it just makes those styles easier for me. I really want to build a 3/4 scale electric now. I know that there are some on the market, but none of them seem particularly well set up for the scale so it would probably be better to just do it myself.

Anyone else here have a shorter scale axe that they particularly love?

I have always loved short scale guitars. I have a number of "travel" or youth sized guitars including a recent ESP LTD mini Les Paul with an 18" scale. As a slide player I love changing scale lengths as the shorter ones make the slide sound very different. I am planning a double neck lap steel with a short scale (18" or so) and a long scale (27" or more) to be made out of 30 year aged walnut stock. I've been playing Fender Jaguars for 35 years and they are 24" scale which I really like.

I've never seen a Fernandes Sustainer on a steel but I don't see why it wouldn't work. My lap steels all have tremendous sustain since they are one piece axes so they don't need much help to sustain, an Ebow need only be close to work. The only other thing is that most steels usually have a single pickup next to the bridge to give maximum sliding area but I've seen a couple of steels with neck pickups in the past and the Sustainer pickup needs to be in the neck position. I sometimes put one of those "make any surface a speaker" devices on my lap steel's top surface it creates a sort of dreamy sounding feedback at low volumes.
If you really want lap steel sustain tho' try one of the Rickenbacker bakelite lap steels they sing for days. I've never seen one for sale that I could afford. There is something about the bakelite that makes it just sing for lap steel work.

I have a Squier Mini Strat that I picked up as a travel guitar, but I can't say I'm that fond of it - it's pretty cramped to play on, and I'm fairly diminutive myself. My Thinline Jaguar, on the other hand, is lovely. 24" is a fantastic scale length for me and my short fingers without getting too cramped up high. I'd like to pick up a red Squier Vintage Modified Mustang to have another short-scale around. I've seen a few pictures of old 3/4 scale Les Paul Juniors, and I'd love to play one. Here's a neat video about a 1960 specimen, although it grinds my gears that we don't actually get to hear it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hSZd5f-9vY I've always loved red doublecut Juniors, but the odd proportions of this one with the extended scratchplate and shifted-back bridge and pickup fascinate me. It's - dare I say it - cute.