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hi. i'm getting ready to order a fingerboard from stew for my first acoustic and keep going back and forth on which scale to go for. i have an old gibson sg which i absolutely love and a fender acoustic. both different lengths. i imagine that scale length can have an effect on tone and playability though not sure how much that will matter for my first.

anyway what do you all use and why?

thanks

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String tension, fret spacing, bridge location, tonal balance, are the factors influencing this decision. Here is a guide on string tension:
http://www.tothestage.com/upload/StringTension_1949.pdf
From that guide:
Scale length, or the distance between the nut and the saddle. The longer the scale, the
higher the tension is for the same string tuned to the same pitch – for example, a standard
Fender™ guitar at 25½” scale has more string tension and will feel stiffer than a standard
Gibson™ 24¾” scale guitar, even if both are tuned to the same standard pitch.
Some players adjust for this by using slightly heavier gauges on shorter scale guitar than on
longer scale guitars.

Shorter= closer frets, easier in open position, favors treble tones
Longer= favors bass
Bridge location, this is where voicing voo doo starts to come in, common thinking is that a bridge centered in the lower bout has more room to move the top, Hence smaller body guitars 12 frets to the body gets the bridge in this location which can be tonally pleasing.

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I'd like to add this thought to Robert's post: Most any scale length can sound great if the entire instrument is designed as a whole. I think you should decide which of the guitars that you have played seemed the most comfortable to you. We all have different hand sizes and so forth. I have guitars in longer and shorter scale lengths and personally find the shorter scales somewhat more comfortable for the chords I play all over the neck. My fingers are not exceptionally long and I'm not getting any younger, so my hands are more relaxed when they're not stretching so far. A modest increase in scale length can have a profound effect on playing comfort due to the fret spacing--especially down near the nut end of the fingerboard. If you're building for yourself, build the scale length that you prefer, and be confident that you can make a very nice instrument in that scale length. You really can't go wrong.

Best luck to you,
Patrick

I don't gig so I'll never need to be able to kill a banjo, so comfort is more important to me that volume. The 000 I'm building for myself right now will have a 24.562" scale length. But that's just me.

Regarding the tone differences of longer and shorter scales--pretty much everyone hears a difference, but how this difference is described is pretty variable. Many people prefer one scale over another because of its characteristic tone.

In steel string acoustics, longer scales generally produce a sound that's a little louder and brighter. I personally do not hear the shorter scale favoring the treble. The bass of a long scale is a little clearer; the low bass of a short scale can sound a little "tubby" on the lowest notes. The higher harmonics of any string are a little out of tune with the fundamental note, and the thicker the string and the shorter the scale, the more this affects the tone. For an extreme example, compare the tone of a concert grant piano's low notes to the same notes on a spinet (short scale) piano.

The tonal advantages of a short scale guitar come from the character of the sound. To me, it sounds warmer and more personal. There's a difference in the "texture" of the sound that's hard to describe. Dan Erlewine once wrote that strings played together on a long-scale sound like professional singers, blending seamlessly, while on a short scale they sound more like less-trained singers, with the individual voices contrasting a little more.

If you play similar guitars with different scale lengths and listen for the tonal differences, this could help you decide what scale you want to use.

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thanks all!
some very good info to ponder...

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I've always thought of long scale lengths favoring the fundamental tone over the harmonics. The stiffer, higher tension, string of a long scale length tends to get a more powerful piano-like tone (favoring the fundamental). I believe this is due to the stiffer string being less pliable and less favorable to the weaker higher frequency harmonics, but That's from the perspective of an armchair physicist... Shorter scale length instruments sound more harpsichord-like to me. Less emphasis on the fundamental, but a higher percentage of overtones in the over all mix. Not as powerful but maybe richer sounding.

I've always liked the more delicate tone of shorter scale lengths, but when a more strident sound is called for, longer scale lengths are in order.

Dave

Interesting subject. I'd like to hear more on this.
I used to play regular guitar,
mostly electric,
and have fairly large skinny hands.
I never noticed any difference with playability from different scale lengths.
I played Strats, Pauls, and had an ES 125, (3/4 scale length ?).
Even less with tone.
Now I play lap steel only,
and with the electrics I notice no difference in tone or playability.
Maybe someday I'll try a shorter scale acoustic lap steel,
after I get all my other crazy ideas done!

Long scale is allegedly better for open tunings when strings are predominately tuned down in pitch

John