BASS LAB – Kinal Kompact S

I am fascinated by the resurgence of short-scale basses. I’m not sure what started this trend. Perhaps one of our readers can shed light on that… In any case, this one is as cute as you’d want. It’s a short-scale J-bass, checking in at 30”. It’s strung through-body, so standard length strings are fine, here. That’s not such an issue with roundwounds, but it sure is with flats. I don’t recommend flatwounds on these kinds of through-body structures, though, as the sharp bend entering the body makes a flatwound prone to breaking or separating at the bend point.

Finer lumber is used in this $2,000 instrument. It starts with a very nice roasted maple neck, capped with a pau ferro fingerboard and bolted up to an alder body with a quilted maple cap. There appears to be a thin mahogany stringer in between the top and the body.

The strings are anchored by a Babicz bridge on one end, and Gotoh keys on the other. Six bolts hold the neck to the body. A couple different strap buttons leave room to accommodate individual tastes. There is no slouching in electronics, here. This little guy is loaded with newer, stagger-pole Bartolinis and an 18V NTMB preamp. They sound wonderful. Finish is a high-gloss poly; serviceable and durable. Not as thin as I prefer, but not problematic.

A bass this size and scale length can throw off the traditional 34” player just by being what it is. It is, however, a very comfortable bass to play after accommodating to its shorter scale. The bass hangs well and balances better than I’d expect. It sounds great; it’s punchy, growly, and very mid-forward. It’s way more balanced across the fingerboard than I would expect. Often, short-scale instruments fail the lower part of the E string. This is way more even than I’d predict it would be.

The only complaint I have is a minor one. The (stainless steel) frets are rather rough-looking. Nowadays, some lower-priced instruments have very well-groomed and polished frets, which raises expectations – particularly on higher-priced instruments. This bass has flat fret tops that lack a proper rounding, and there is a good amount of file chatter marks across all the frets. Granted, stainless steel can be harder to work with, but there are tools that are up to the job (with some extra effort).