Putting fretlines on a Fretless with none? HELP

[gold_member_321]

Im looking at a Brice HXB-406 Fretless, on rondomusic, and since im only starting with a fretless I would prefer fretlines until my muscle memory gets a little better, but this has none.

So what I was wondering is how should I go about lining it? Should I take it to someone? ( which probably wouldnt be too easy considering I live in the middle of nowhere) or is there a do-it-yourself way that I could do without ruining the fretboard.

Any help and suggestions are greatly appreciated.


-Gary

[Jamiebass]

Don't try to do it you're self. The fret lines have to be precise. Not to mention, you don't want to mess it up.

My advice, find a local (or closest) luthier and send it out to them via UPS or whatever. The shipping won't cost too much.

Also, you do have a few options on what you want to use for lines. Alembic uses dark wood veneeres as fret lines, some people use plastic, some use brass.

What kind of wood is you're fretboard?

[gold_member_321]

Originally Posted by Jamiebass

Don't try to do it you're self. The fret lines have to be precise. Not to mention, you don't want to mess it up.

My advice, find a local (or closest) luthier and send it out to them via UPS or whatever. The shipping won't cost too much.

Also, you do have a few options on what you want to use for lines. Alembic uses dark wood veneeres as fret lines, some people use plastic, some use brass.

What kind of wood is you're fretboard?

Rosewood

[Jamiebass]

You're best bet IMHO is to go with a maple veneere, as the brass is much harder than the rosewood. I have an old Yamaha with rosewood and brass. The rosewood is verrys soft and will wear out eventualy from roundwound strings, if you use them. The wear will show itself as a slight groove around the brass that is relatively undamaged, and it'll buzz. With maple it'll wear a little more evenly.
I would also recomend sealing it in epoxy, it's supposed to be easy, there is a thread somewhear on here with pics.

[doctorjazz]

As a thought, you can find the point of intonation yourself (use a tuner) and apply a little hash mark yourself with something that can be removed later. Playing fretless is more about muscle memory and - most importantly - using your ears. Use the hashes as a training tool, then get rid of them. Roughly the same effect, but lots cheaper and not permanent.

[Baleen]

On an old bass, I put a thin strip of masking tape over the binding on the top side of the neck. I was actually using it to cover an increasingly greater number of dots to get myself away from using them, but to mark the ones I wanted, I used a magic marker. Easy for you to see, and not permanent. And best of all it won't ruin the beauty of an unlined fingerboard.

If you don't have any dot markers or another bass that's the same scale to use as a reference, I'm sure you could go to a store and make a template for the fret positions.

Due to sight line angles markers can be deceiving anyway, so if you get the dots close (maybe get a professional to intonate the bass first - important to have this at least correct) then you can learn with practice to get the notes right.

Practice with a tuner to be sure you're accurate. The muscle memory will come.

Best of luck.

[Jamiebass]

Convert your bass to short scale



There are measurements for 34" and 35" scales.