Electric Guitar
The scale length of an electric guitar affects both its playability and its tone. Regarding playability, a shorter scale length allows more compact fingering and favors shorter fingers and hand-span. A longer scale allows more expanded finger and favors longer fingers and hand-span. With regard to tone, a longer scale (e.g. Fender Telecasters with 25.5 inch (648 mm) scale length) favors "brightness" or cleaner overtones and more separated harmonics versus a shorter scale (e.g. Gibson Les Paul with 24.75 in (629 mm) scale length) which favors "warmth" or more muddy overtones. According to Dave Hunter's "Tone Manual" (2011), each scale length has its characteristic sound and tone, which is individual from other sounds in the tone chain: strings, pickups, pedals, amplifiers, speakers, and cabinets.
Read more about this topic: Scale (string Instruments)
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