Dec 03 - Greg Howard (VA), to StickWire:
To begin with, I love having the extra low fret. At first I thought it would
take me a while to acclimate myself to it, but I quickly found myself loving
that low C and low G on the second bass string. Having an octave D shape at
the low frets is also really nice. The important thing for me was to raise the
instrument up so that I had the same relative position of the frets to my
body (reaching up a little higher for the extra fret). Emmett told me he does
just the opposite, shifting the notes lower on his body, and transposing
things down, often two frets, not just one.
2 May 03 - Greg Howard (VA), to Stickwire:
There is a very slightly slinkier feel to the strings at any given gauge because of the longer scale length, which makes heavy gauge feel just a bit more "medium" than heavy-gauge on a 34" scale instrument, to my fingers, anyway.
Building a longer-scale instrument that behaves well in setup is not easy. Congrats to Emmett for overcoming the inherent difficulties in building a longer scale instrument with the extra-low clearance his method demands. His constant interest in expanding the possibilities for the player is a boon for all of us (that sound you're hearing is the envelope getting pushed a little further once again...).
17 December 02 - Andy Long (UK), to Stickwire:
The 36" scale on the Graphite is actually an extra fret, i.e. all strings are tuned a semitone lower than their wooden chums. The relative scale length is actually exactly the same, it just means that you are able to tap what would otherwise be the open string.