Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Do you think that it is possible to make short scale 325 bass? That would be awesome to see this!

I would think the 325's scale might be too short.

The body would look tiny.

Anyone have a picture of the Howie Epstein bass?

Give me sometime, and I'll have a pic of it within the hour!

EDIT: Can't find my DVD with the video...so instead, how about the video itself:


Walls, From "She's the One Soundtrack", 1996

Watch out for Howie's weird bass, too..which I think is probably Mike's 350 MC, which Howie playing basslines on it

I think the 325 is perfectly porportioned and the 350 - a 325 body with full-scale neck - looks a little off. (Doesn't stop me from wanting one, though...) Adding five inches to a 350 neck to make it a bass would, to me, look pretty strange. However if the body size was enlarged to retain the overall silhouette of the 325, I could go for that. It would probably look a bit like a 330 bass.

I agree with Ethan's assessment.

The body of the 325 is perfectly scaled to the short neck. Even lengthening the scale to "normal" length gives an ungainly quality to the instrument. Put even a 30" (short-short) scale on that body and it's going to look like a stork with strings. (Don't paint it white!!!)

Scaling up the body is one way to try to get it back into proportion, but again, in this case, the body would look awfully large; sewer cover sized, in fact. It's not a shape that lends itself to bass sizes very well. Perhaps this is part of the reason for the classic 4000/1/3 body's shape.

Todd Bradshaw of this forum has a 325-shaped bass, looks pretty cool. Maybe he'll chime in here with some pictures.

Hey!!! You're putting down my beloved 350v63s here!!

ozover50 wrote:Hey!!! You're putting down my beloved 350v63s here!!

They're not putting it down, they are figuring out how to improve it!

dpowell wrote:Todd Bradshaw of this forum has a 325-shaped bass, looks pretty cool. Maybe he'll chime in here with some pictures.

Corious how does it look like

Is Todd Bradshaw around here?

Todd's been heard from recently; he just released a couple of records. and was telling us.

jingle_jangle wrote: The body of the 325 is perfectly scaled to the short neck. Even lengthening the scale to "normal" length gives an ungainly quality to the instrument.

Heh heh, I wasn't going to be the first to say that around here, but that's my feeling, too. Sorry, nothing wrong with the 350, but the 325 is one of the few perfect guitar designs in my opinion. Any modifications are bound to be less so, if only slightly. The 325, the combos, tulips, etc, and the 450/12 (full scale of course) are the other perfect guitar designs from Rickenbacker, in my book. All the others are not far behind.

Here are pics of Howie’s bass.

http://www.topshelfguitarshop.com/Epste ... cBass.html

It’s not a Rickenbacker. I know the builder, but don’t know that he wants that info made public.

Must have missed this thread back in the day. I don't have problems with the proportions, but like any artistic effort, everybody has their own ideas about what's right or wrong. The important thing is that it sits well, hangs well on a strap, plays nicely and sounds great. It also fits in the original 2030 case, which was a limiting factor in planning the conversion because I didn't want to have to buy a new case for an experiment. I wish I had a photo of my original Frankenbacker from back in 1974. It was a short-scale fretless neck on a Mapleglow Capri body and very nice to look at without having that rather over-inflated look that the 4005 has.

For this one though, compared to other basses, I don't find the shape to be all that strange.