6 Best Short Scale Electric Guitars – Perfect for Small Hands!

The Rhoads V shape (more V-style guitars reviewed by us) will be familiar to many guitar players, particularly fans of the legendary Ozzy axeman who gave it its name. Randy Rhoads himself was a diminutive 5 feet and five inches tall, and I always thought he looked a little silly in photos playing a full-scale Flying V. 

Regardless, Rhoads’ technical prowess demanded no concessions to his physical stature. However, if you’re an individual struggling to reach the stretchy bit in the “Crazy Train” solo, this guitar may well be for you.

The satin finish feels good under your arm, although it tends to get sticky after an hour or so of playing.

The 1-piece maple neck and jumbo frets are a shredder’s dream. Rapidfire licks and searing solos feel much easier than they should on this short-scale guitar. Upon plugging in, I fired up some classic Ozzy riffs, like “Suicide Solution” and the widdly bit from “Mr Crowley” and all felt very natural.

Jackson’s stock pickups do leave a little to be desired. They just don’t have the articulation and white-hot power of more upmarket humbuckers. I’d swap these out for Seymour Duncans or Bareknuckles. Really, anything with the firepower to suit this guitar’s killer looks.

The guitar managed to stay in tune fairly well, but I’d be wary of the stock tuners wearing out in the long term. They didn’t feel as robust as other upmarket tuners.

The standout feature of this guitar is its weight, or lack thereof. It’s a very lightweight poplar body. You can’t comfortably play a V guitar sitting down, but I experienced absolutely no fatigue playing this featherweight guitar for hours on end.

I personally prefer my guitars a little heavier. There’s something reassuring about a weighty instrument. However, for those who find heavy instruments tiring or, worse, pain-inducing, after long periods of playing time, a lighter instrument is a great option.

I can see kids and guitar players even smaller than Randy himself finding plenty to love about this ultra-comfortable shred machine.

Ibanez hasn’t skipped out on quality, even on such an affordable guitar. Of course, it doesn’t compare to an Ibanez Prestige, but it certainly feels better than most beginner guitars. I’d recommend the miKro over, say, a Squier Sonic Strat (our review).

Upon playing the guitar I was impressed with its low action straight out of the box. This classic Ibanez body shape feels built to shred, and classic shred licks come pretty easy on this gorgeous instrument.

I started by playing typical Van Halen-style ascending triplets, which felt great on this guitar, as you’d expect for a guitar this firmly in the Superstrat genre.

The GRGM21 is a very well-built guitar. I didn’t notice any issues with how the guitar was put together. I didn’t see any defects in the hardware or finish.

It sounds like an Ibanez as much as it feels like one. The stock pickups are better than you’d expect for an entry-level model, but nothing particularly special. I’d recommend swapping these out for better pickups if you fall in love with the miKro, but a new set of pickups would cost as much as the guitar itself!

As you’d expect, the guitar responds best to distortion. A switch to my Hughes and Kettner’s Lead channel brought this diminutive Ibanez to life. It really begs for white-hot high-speed guitar licks.

The tone is thick, crunchy, and loud. It distorts quite nicely and doesn’t break a sweat, even at high levels of gain.

The clean tone isn’t entirely bad either. But it certainly doesn’t sound as nice as even other guitars in the same price range. The clean sound lacks much depth of character, sounding simply like the guitar’s unplugged tone. I was able to rescue the clean sound somewhat with the addition of an EQ pedal and some compression, but I strongly prefer the dirty tone of this guitar.

I would say the clean tone is a bit too flat for my liking. I would pretty much only ever play this guitar with at least a bit of gain on it. It’s good enough to practice with, but I wouldn’t play it at a gig that required a lot of clean playing.

As for playability, the guitar is incredibly great. While it isn’t the lightest guitar around, it is still more than light enough for a very comfortable playing experience.

It has a 3/4 scale length neck, so it is prefect for younger players. The medium jumbo frets make it great for both small and larger hands.

Ibanez has packed 24 frets onto this fretboard. For someone like me with larger hands, that does make playing the 23rd and 24th frets a bit difficult. But for smaller hands this is perfect.

The supermodel-slim neck profile is clearly designed for those about to rock. High-speed riffs and licks simply pour out of your fingers and onto the fretboard.

I was raised on heftier necks, and I’ve never found these ultra-slim neck profiles particularly appealing, but for budding shredders, it’s a great place to start.

This might be one of the best guitars for beginner players on a mission to shred. I know that Polyphia’s Tim Henson (another Ibanez player) is freshly inspiring an entire generation of budding shredders, and this guitar offers an excellent pathway for those coming up in his wake.

You’ll need to play with your amp settings and signal chain to get close to Henson’s clean, crisp Ibanez tone, but it’s a worthwhile endeavor when a guitar is this playable.

But what are the downsides? Surely you can’t scale down a Strat and still get the same quality?

That was my initial thought as well. Surely this can’t be at the same standard as even a full-sized Squier. But to my surprise, it feels, plays, and sounds pretty much the same.

Tone wise, it sounds like a Squier Strat. There is enough of that Strat twang, but with a bit more emphasis on the mids.

The guitar doesn’t sound quite as vibrant as a full-sized Strat, but there is enough liveliness so that it doesn’t sound bland. The extra mids also give it a bit of a smoother and punchier sound.

The Mini Strat really lacks the distinctive “quack” of a true Stratocaster. The stock Squier pickups, too, are muddier and less defined than Fender’s USA-made fare.

Regardless, the neck pickup offers the most joy of the three. It’s a warm enough tone to play John Frusciante’s clean, compressed Red Hot Chili Peppers licks. In particular, the riff from “Snow” sounds good on this guitar, if a little flatter than it would on a full-scale Strat.

Switching over to distortion, the Mini Strat still manages to have quite a bit of crunch and attitude. It isn’t as thick as its big brother, understandably. I did notice that the sound becomes a bit fuzzy when you turn the gain up really high. Stratocasters aren’t exactly built for high-gain tones anyway.

I actually don’t see this as too much of an issue. If you are going for that dirty The White Stripes sound, this is actually a bonus.

For other tones, it’s usable, but not awe-inspiring. I couldn’t nail down a convincing edge-of-breakup Stevie Ray-style sound, for example. The addition of fuzz did offer a passable Hendrix sound.

As for playability, the Mini Strat also performs really well. The neck is smooth and fast, and the scale length is perfect for beginners. While it’s not as comfortable as, say, Fender’s upmarket C-profile necks, it’s playable enough not to induce fatigue in small hands. There’s no stretching required to play chords here.

I did find some joy dialing in country tones on this guitar. Selecting the bridge pickup, running the amp clean with a little bit of delay and plenty of compression, and playing close to the bridge delivered some serious country twang. I had a lot of fun playing around with the licks from the new Zach Top album as well as trying to channel some Ennio Morricone-style Western playing.

I did feel that the guitar’s string tension was a little high for my liking. I might have to use lighter strings, but I’d be worried about beginners not developing strong enough callouses in that case.

This guitar lacks the glassy clarity I usually associate with Fender’s single-coil pickups. It’s a concession that’s easy to make at this price point, and may not bother the beginner players this instrument is aimed at. Experienced guitar players who know how a Strat should sound, however, would likely notice it.

My other gripe is this guitar’s fretboard: it feels dry, and it only has 20 frets! I appreciate that concessions have to be made to accommodate this guitar’s shorter stature, but that’s not enough for my liking. However, it’s plenty for anyone starting out. Enough to learn some fancier solos without becoming overwhelming. How often do you play the 22nd fret, really?

For me, it’s a worthy little brother to the full-size Stratocaster, particularly for young players who love the sound of a real Strat but haven’t worked up to a full-sized (or full-priced) guitar.

Playing this guitar, it’s hard to resist the temptation to strum a few Nirvana riffs. The neck profile is nice and comfortable, and although the frets aren’t exactly shred-ready jumbos, the vintage-tall fret profile is easy enough to play.

The frets are comfortable under my fingers, with bends, vibrato, and slides alike flowing off the fretboard.

Plugged in, the Mustang’s tone feels about halfway between a Stratocaster and a Jazzmaster. It’s not quite as throaty as the Jazzmaster, and not quite as quacky as the Strat.

I don’t love the pickup switching. Instead of a conventional three- or five-way switch, the Mustang has twin on-off switches, one for each pickup. In practice, this makes on-the-fly switching from one pickup to the other harder. I strongly prefer the usual Strat or Gibson-style pickup selector method.

For many Mustang enthusiasts, however, that’s part of this guitar’s charm. It’s not for me, but it’s a part of the package.

The other Mustang feature that I could take or leave is its distinctive tremolo system. To my knowledge, it’s the only Fender guitar to come with a floating tremolo with a single string slot. It’s cool, and allows for some interesting effects, but it feels more like a relic of early tremolo system testing than a finished product. I’d rather have a modern Fender or Gotoh tremolo if I’m going to use one at all.

Regardless, the rosewood fingerboard feels great beneath my fingers, the vintage-voiced Mustang pickups offer plenty of tonal goodness, and the short scale will be comfortable for younger players and small-framed individuals alike. A welcome return for a Fender icon.

For more on the Mustang, and how we think it's Fender's 'best kept secret' guitar, you might want to read this in-depth editorial piece on our blog.

Unusually for a Fender guitar, this one comes with humbuckers. This is almost a prerequisite for Cobain’s howling, heavily saturated guitar tone, unless you like the sound of a wasp in a jar.

The twin DiMarzio humbuckers, one PAF and one snarling Super Distortion, are perfect for the crushing distorted tone of classic Nirvana. I couldn’t resist playing some “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and this guitar captures the transition from muted clean tone to roaring distortion as featured in that iconic intro perfectly.

Likewise, with the addition of my MXR analog chorus, I was able to nail the “Come As You Are” warbling chorus tone fairly easily.

Surprisingly, I also found this guitar fairly well suited to more virtuosic playing, with it sounding particularly good for legato Iron Maiden-style leads. It checks out: the maple neck and twin humbuckers are the basic formula for late-70s and early-'80s metal guitars.

The binding on the rosewood fretboard is a nice touch, too. No sharp edges or uncomfortable fretting here.

I know that some players balk at the thought of playing a signature model. However, for beginner and intermediate guitarists, signature models can be a great source of inspiration. It’s a quick way to sound more like your heroes, and inspire you to learn from their playing and tones.

I was a huge Nirvana fan as a teenager, and would have snapped this guitar up in a heartbeat!

Besides which, short scale instruments are primarily aimed at learner guitar players. A short-scale signature model built to play “Smells Like Teen Spirit” seems like a great idea for any young Nirvana fan to me.

As with Fender’s other offset models, I am not a huge fan of the pickup switching here. A three-way pickup switch is a great inclusion. I don’t see the point of the volume/tone thumbwheels or the lead/rhythm switch. I’m used to the Gibson-style four-knob layout, so the thumbwheels and additional switches feel like overkill to me.

With more time to get to know the guitar and its particular sounds, I might come to appreciate this. They might be key to some Holy Grail of grunge tones. I’m sure that if I had more time to play with this guitar, I’d come around on its unique control layout. For now, it’s not my preference.

Regardless, this guitar sounds incredible. It’s almost, but not quite, Superstrat like. All apologies to grunge fans, but the playability of this guitar and its capacity for huge, distorted sounds does feel reminiscent of '80s shred guitars.

It felt almost sacrilegious unleashing sweeping and tapping licks on this guitar, but it handled all my stock high-speed licks with the greatest of ease.

Regardless, where the Cobain Jaguar stands out is its capacity for extremely pleasant clean sounds, particularly on the neck pickup. It offers plenty of jangle and warmth. While you can play the twangy “About A Girl”, this guitar also offers similar throaty warmth to the guitar line from “Tennessee Whiskey.” Likewise, the upbeat, arpeggiated intro riff from “There She Goes” sounded terrific with the right amount of technique and tone adjustment.

Upon kicking on a distortion pedal, it begs for crushing power-chord riffage, which this guitar can handle all day and all night.

Overall, an excellent instrument, although at its price point, guitar players and Nirvana fans in their first year may want to look elsewhere.

But just like the Strat Mini, Epiphone hasn’t skipped out on quality. This guitar plays and sounds just as great as a full stack Epiphone Les Paul.

But this isn’t a straight scaled down Les Paul. Epiphone has made some slight changes to the traditional Les Paul design.

The biggest change comes in the form of the bolt on neck in place of a set neck. I know that this is a cost-cutting measure to ensure that this guitar is available to entry-level players. Regardless, for me, a Les Paul should have a set neck. It’s a minor concession, and certainly not enough to turn me away from this guitar. Just a matter of personal preference.

The second change, also on the neck, is that it has a Slim Taper D shape. It also features a sculpted heel. Unlike the bolt on neck, this isn’t a feature I can’t see many having a problem with this.

Both make for a very comfortable and smooth playing experience. It actually makes getting to the dusty end of the fretboard for some above-twelfth-fret acrobatics much more comfortable compared to my full-size Les Paul Standard.

I know Ace Frehley of KISS often shaved down the neck joint of his Les Pauls for this exact reason, and it’s nice to see it here, albeit in a less dramatic fashion. It’s a nice concession to playability for those who struggle with reaching the upper frets on a typical Les Paul.

Combined with the 3/4 scale neck, this guitar is also perfectly suited for small hands.

The rest of the guitar is what you would expect from a Les Paul. It has that iconic body shape. And it is not just the body shape that Epiphone has kept intact, it is also the sound.

But I was very surprised when I plugged in the Power Player for the first time.

The clean sound is, if a little less round and articulate than on a Gibson, very nice. It’s warm and welcoming. It sounds particularly good on the thicker strings for expressive melodic lines. I actually had a lot of fun messing around with a clean tone reminiscent of Chris Stapleton’s “You Should Probably Leave,” and was thrilled with the well-rounded character of this guitar’s clean sound.

The cleans don’t sound quite as nice as you get further up the neck: there’s not enough jangle and spank in this guitar’s tone for the E and B strings to ring out the way I like. That said, it’s a perfectly respectable tone at this price point.

Likewise, upon adding some grit to the sound, this miniature Les Paul comes to life. It lacks the full-chested roar of its elder brothers in the Gibson and Epiphone lineup, but it’s convincing enough.

Lower-gain crunch sounds are particularly welcoming. For the beginner player who’s wrapping their fingers around Malcolm Young’s AC/DC riffs, it’s hard to think of a better short-scale instrument.

At higher gain levels, you lose some articulation and twang. The sound gets a little muddier, which no amount of EQ-ing could fully alleviate. However, it’s still a usable dirty sound.

As with the clean tone, as I ascended the neck, its upper frets simply lack the definition and sweetness of my Gibson Les Paul. It’s no big deal, especially for a guitar at this price point. There’s just not quite enough dynamic control in the note attack and decay for me beyond the tenth fret on the high strings.

Another major benefit of this guitar is its weight, or lack thereof. Les Pauls are notoriously heavy, sometimes up to fifteen pounds. This can be intimidating for younger players or those of smaller stature.

I’m over six feet tall, so it’s never bothered me, but I know many guitar players who simply find full-sized Les Pauls uncomfortable.

Fortunately, the shorter scale and thinner body mean less wood, and a lighter weight of the guitar. It’s not as feather-light as, say, an Ibanez miKro, but it’s certainly no sledgehammer.

I’d highly recommend this guitar to beginner players who love the looks and tone of a classic Les Paul, but have yet to be comfortable playing a full-size (and full-weight) guitar.