Question. I got my Charvel SoCal today and it’s the first 21 frett guitar I’ve owned in a while…
I have 10s on my other 24 fret guitars, but I swear the 10g on this 21 fret feel easier to bend on? It’s the shorter scale length I suppose.
Once I get the guitar set up for e flat I’m sure it’ll be even lighter
I don’t understand why there would be a relationship between the number of frets and string tension. Scale length? Definitely.
Ok, I guess it’s the scale length then… lol
The Charvel socal scale length is the typical 25.5’’ (long) fender scale length…so that’s not it. (And indeed it’s not the number of frets either). There are other subtleties at play when it comes to ease of bending too, sometimes called “compliance”. Like saddle height and neck angle and…who knows basically. Basically, you got lucky!
Do you have a trem where before you didn’t, or vice versa? Or are the number of springs in the trem different than they were before? Those are the things that make a noticeable difference to me – you have to bend “farther” to get the same pitch with a trem, but it feels much looser as a result.
Yeah, if your other guitars are 25.5" then scale isn’t the factor.
The SoCal has a Floyd Rose - do the others have floating bridges? If not, that’s likely a factor, that a floating bridge feels easier to bend on than a fixed or dive-only bridge with the trem screws tight enough to hold the bridge flat while bending.
Trem springs can have a factor too - if the SoCal has two or three springs while your other floating bridge guitars have four or five, that could make them feel a bit stiffer as well. Likewise, three paralell springs (III) is supposed to feel stiffer than three springs in an arrow (/I) though I haven’t experimented extensively here. Also, some springs just feel stiffer than other for no clear reason, and some guitars feel stiffer for no clear reason. I’d bet bridge/spring configuration, though.
It is easy to bend with jumbo frets because of reduced wood/finger pressure, might that be a factor?