“Scale length” is the sounding length of the string, nut to bridge, and it quietly decides most of what a bass feels like: string tension, fret spacing, the depth of the low notes, and how far your left hand travels in a night. The electric bass standardized at 34 inches — long enough for a clear low E, short enough for fretted-instrument hands — and the rest of the family is best understood as departures from that reference in one direction or the other.
The family at a glance
Every row below is drawn from the same instrument registry that powers this site’s chord and scale pages:
| Instrument | Tuning | Layout |
|---|---|---|
| Bass (4-String) | EADG | 4 strings · fretted |
| Bass (5-String) | BEADG | 5 strings · fretted |
| Bass (6-String) | BEADGC | 6 strings · fretted |
| Bass VI | EADGBE | 6 strings · fretted |
| Double Bass | EADG | 4 strings · fretless, bowed |
Four strings, several lengths
The 34-inch 4-string is the reference instrument: everything on this site defaults to it. Short-scale basses (around 30 inches) trade a little tightness in the low E for friendlier reaches and a rounder, thumpier voice — a real choice for smaller hands, young players, and anyone who fell for that vintage warmth. Between them sit 32-inch “medium scales,” rare but loved by the people who own them. None of these change the tuning or the maps; a short-scale reads the same pages.
Five and six: extension, not upgrade
A 5-string bolts a low B below the E — five whole steps of new floor, priced in neck width and muting workload. It earns its keep in worship, metal, and modern pop, where writers assume that basement exists. The 6-string adds a high C as well, opening chordal and solo registers; it is a specialist’s tool, magnificent and heavy. Both keep EADG in the middle, so nothing you learn on four strings is wasted — which is why the honest advice in the first-bass guide is to start on four and let a genre recruit you upward.
The two cousins
The Bass VI is a 30-inch six-string tuned EADGBE an octave below guitar — guitar geometry at bass depth, beloved for melodic and chordal bass work (and the gentlest landing for guitarists, per the migration guide). The double bass stands at the other extreme: roughly a 41-to-42-inch sounding length, fretless, played standing, bowed or pizzicato. Same EADG letters, entirely different body knowledge — its pages here speak in positions on a fingerboard because that is how the instrument is actually navigated.
Choosing yours
Buy the 34-inch four-string unless you have a concrete reason not to; buy a short-scale if reach is that reason; add the five when the songs you play keep asking for notes below E. And if the double bass calls you, answer it knowingly — it is a lifestyle with a string section attached. Whatever you choose, its chords, scales, and drills are already waiting on this site, mapped for that exact instrument.