Saturday, June 27, 2015 -- Today I got the new strings on the PBass clone, and got them on and was trying to tune up when I remembered I had loosened the neck screws to get the pickguard free when I took it off the first time. I loosened the strings and then tightened the neck, THEN went back to tuning.
My nearly 30-year-old memories of playing bass guitar are pretty hazy, and when I plugged in the bass into my amp, I felt a little like a pig on ice -- it was like completely unfamiliar territory. Then I realized why -- the scale. My Musicmaster was a 3/4 scale, while this PBass clone is full-size. Now I see why my buying that 3/4 scale nearly 40 years ago was a lucky accident.
My hands don't feel big enough for the PBass -- well, they might be big enough, but I'm not used to running my hands all over the neck. Even running a boogie bass line had my fingers searching for the right fret. I think what it amounts to is 25 years of guitar playing without the chance to play bass -- short scale or otherwise.
I'm considering just putting the bass back on eBay and using the proceeds to buy a 3/4 scale bass. This one has a new Fender bridge and all new pickups and electronics. It sounds good ... the only thing I might want to do is lower the bottom pickup, the top two strings seem louder than the top two.
In the meantime, I probably need to break out my spectrum strat body and start the refinishing project. I might even go buy a new strat pickguard and electronics, just to simplify things.
Rock on!
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