Scale and neck joint

Our order forms for Feral and Custom Shop are organized in blocks representing different aspects of Your guitar.

Most of basics like Number of strings and Lefty are pretty much self explanatory and at this point I assume you know what you want. It’s worth mentioning that there is no up-charge for left handed versions and we do our best to offer most of options that are possible on right handed instruments.

First important choice that you have to make about your guitar is scale length. We offer three regular scales and fanned fret Multiscale option. Scale length affects tuning stability and tension of strings. While longer scale improves performance of lower notes, it also takes “warmth” away from higher pitches on plain strings, especially with clean tones. Multiscale is a solution to this problem – it goes from 27″ on low string to 25.5″ on high E allowing tight low tones and warm high tones. We use 8th fret as perpendicular so neither 1st or 24th fret is extremely slanted. In my experience there is no learning curve, switching to Multiscale feels immediately familiar and is barely noticeable.

Downside of Multiscale is that list of available hardware and pickups is shorter compared to regular scale. For example you can’t get floating bridges like Schaller Lockmeister or Evertune. We use 10 degree slanted open coil pickups from Bare Knuckle and Lundgren or soapbar pickups from Fishman, so list of possible replacements in future is also limited to pickups that would fit routed cavities.

In my personal opinion straight 25.5″ scale works best for notes up to low B, 26.25″ to low G# and you should consider 27″ for anything lower than that. Multiscale shines with 8 string guitars where it provides required tension to low F# while maintaining pleasant tone of 25.5″ scale on high E. In the end it all boils down to personal preference. 

From the beginning Blackat Guitars were Bolt-on. In 2022 we have also introduced Set In neck joint option for Custom Shop builds. Set In provides smaller and smoother neck heel. Because of construction specifics neck pickup is necessary on Set In builds as it covers longer neck tenon so No Neck Pickup option is not available. In general bolt-on guitars are snappier and tighter while Set-Ins are warmer and fuller sounding. Both constructions provide plenty of sustain.