Acoustic bass defretting - ill formed idea?

[edpal]

I have a couple of spare basses - one is a Carvin acoustic bass that plays nice, but the acoustic sound is not very distinct. The other is a Washburn Taurus, neck-thru, that I have put all new hardware on. But I don't play either and got miserable offers on ebay. I would prefer to defret the Carvin, since the body is so light - but I worry about finger noise being more intense due to the piezo pickup. The Washburn is so solid, I worry the fretless whine will be anti-climatic. Any thoughts appreciated, especially from someone who defretted an acoustic bass. Love to hear how that all worked out.

Thanks in advance - HAppy New Years.
Ed

[96tbird]

If you do de-fret, use tapewounds they are as loud as bronze on my acoustic and no zing noise. Whether or not the idea is ill formed is your call; you own them, we don't.

Acoustic bases are generally disappointing volume wise when unplugged. Many have had better results with regular electric nickel strings for volume.

[lowendfriend]

Go with flats...I use webstrings Detroit steel flats on my acoustic fretless Dean. They are the smoothest strings I've ever used....well, rotosound 77's are pretty smooth too but too high a tension for the acoustic. I am strung BEAD btw.

[96tbird]

Compared to bronze, what's the unplugged vol like with flats? I have often wondered. But acoustics are generally unusable unplugged except for a campfire jam or practice. Just curious.

[edpal]

Bronzes are much louder, imo, than any kind of flats, when unplugged. I think that is why they makes bells out of brass or bronze.

[MattS]

posted this in a thread a while ago, thought it'd be of interest here

Originally Posted by MattS

I'll share with you a few tips on how I did my fretless conversion on my acoustic bass. It came out awesome, it was alot of work.
Tools/supplies:
- soldering iron to heat up the frets for removal (cheap $5-$10 from radioshack)
- some sort of veneer, use Sauers veneer you can get it from Woodworking Plans & Tools | Fine Woodworking Project & Supplies at Woodcraft it's the perfect thickness for filling the fret gaps. I bought a pack for about $16 and it's plenty
- masking tape
- super glue or
- wood glue
- sandpaper (150, 220, 400, 600, 1000 grits)
- a japanese saw - you can get this at woodcraft.com about $30, flexible blade for cutting the extra veneer after it's glued in, you might be able to find a similar saw at home depot, but the saw I got at woodcraft is just awesome and worked very nicely.
- radius block *very important* first ya gotta find out the radius on the neck of your bass, you can look that up online most likely or find the measuring tools and can order the right block from ebay or stewmac.com, will cost about $10.

other tools/supplies that are helpful but may not be required
- fret slotting saw with depth stop ($30 from stewmac) for clearing the fret slots.
- fret pliers, you can probably use a screwdriver and some other type pliers to pull the frets out, BUT that could easily get sloppy. I think stewmac's tools are a bit overpriced, I got decent pair on ebay for $15.
- if you're using roundwound strings I highly recommend putting epoxy on the neck; marine grade epoxy, system 3 epoxy, super glue, oil based varathane, oil-based polyurthane, etc...
if you're gonna use flatwounds then coating the neck is not necessary.

Check ebay for tools.

Keep in mind to release most/all the tension of the neck before ya get to work, and that you will have to lower the action quite a bit which means re-filing the nut; I did this by putting a piece of sandpaper on the neck after smoothed and sanding the bottom of the nut on that to maintain the radius curve rather than filing away at the top and string slots which is a bit trickier.

Here are some pictures of my process. I coated the neck with oilbased polyurethane which was difficult but i'm happy with the results.
















I ended up swapping out the phosphor bronze strings and putting on flatwounds just to further protect the fretless board cuz I spent so much time on it. I wish they made flatwound phosphor bronze strings. Sounds awesome, plays awesome.
Neck is coated with polyurethane, which is quite difficult to do, but I am very happy with the results.
I plan on converting an electric to fretless in the near future, which would be much easier since I can remove the neck, but tis the slow season at my job so I'm trying not to spend money for the time being.

Here's a video of my solo project so you can hear how it sounds.
theForestRoom - YouTube

- Matt

I might try nylon tapewounds later on. Sounds great, but I might get one of those O-port things to put in it, to help with the volume. I'm in the process of modding a squier p bass and converting it to fretless. should be cool. let me know if you have any questions.