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The Burns Split Sound 6 Bass certainly gave the Dave Clark Fives early
thumpers " That Thuddy Sound"!!!!
A fine example is the bass line on Come Home.
John Paul Jones is pictured in a Burns Book with one during his session days,
also of course a Bass V1 he had too.
Essential tools for the well dressed session man about town in the 60s!!!!

Mike

I think a suitable way to the name these guitars would be:

24" - 26" Standard
27" - 29" Baritone
30" - 32" Short Scale Bass
33" - 35" Bass

DaveC

The difference between normal, baritone and bass guitars has more to do with tuning than scale length. To elaborate further, here are extracts from a feature on the subject that appeared some years ago.

The dictionary defines 'baritone' as being a male voice between bass and tenor. Substitute standard six-string for the latter title and the phrase then becomes an equally accurate definition of the actual instrument. Simply put, a baritone six-string usually sits about halfway between a bass and a guitar, at least in terms of tuning and practical playability. The former aspect is commonly A (a 5th) or B (a 4th) under concert pitch, while scale length is usually extended sufficiently to better cope with the slacker string tension that results from tuning down such distances.

However the situation isn’t quite as simple as it may seem, because the term baritone has also been (and still is) applied to instruments that are tuned a full octave below; what were originally known as six-string basses in fact. Of course, from the beginning, these could have been employed even more effectively as proper baritones, a change easily achieved by fitting appropriate strings and tuning accordingly. But it seems most manufacturers instead opted to offer their all-new creations simply as bass guitars with the bonus of two extra strings up top. Be aware that this old-style approach bears no resemblance to the modern interpretation of a six-string bass, which is a very different animal indeed, especially in terms of tuning and construction.

The fact that the original six-string basses can be strung and tuned as fully fledged baritones means they do play a major part in the history of this particular breed. Makers and musicians alike initially ignored or missed out on the opportunities offered by such simple mods, but most of these oldies actually perform far better in their revised role. Who knows, had the early examples been used in this alternative way, the baritone guitar might now enjoy much more than niche market popularity.

The first production electric six-string bass debuted in 1957, courtesy of Danelectro, an American company strong on combining originality and affordability. This newcomer soon found favour among studio musicians and achieved greater fame in the hands of Duane Eddy, who employed it on some of his hits. Fender and Gibson followed suit during the next decade, as did many other makers around the world. Home-grown contemporary competition came from Vox, via the super-rare Cougar solid, as well as the UK’s prime exponent of individuality, Jim Burns. After a short-lived false start in 1962 with an all-new design, he instead opted to convert his Split Sonic six-string to the Split Sound bass, simply by switching the bridge and the badge! This model’s 24.75” scale length meant easy playability, but specially-made strings were required to best suit the octave-under tuning and ensure acceptable intonation.

Actual baritone guitars didn't appear officially until the 1970s and the choice has grown with every subsequent decade, with over 200 mass-manufacture models being introduced since the start of the new millennium, not to mention numerous custom-built one-offs.

Hands up all those guitarists years ago, who were surplus players in their groups, and got lumbered with playing bass...and couldn't afford a bass as well as a guitar, so they converted their guitars by tuning down and /or mucking up their guitars and using bass strings?!!!

John,
I'll put my hand up to butchering a weird Polish guitar called a Fola 2 to make it into a bass.
Note their use of sliders for tone and volume controls.

As it was a six-string guitar, it became a six-string bass.
The picture shows it after I converted it back to standard guitar stringing before selling it to a Honda motorcycle dealer in the wilds of Oxfordshire who has the most amazing collection of weird and obscure guitars.
Ray