De-Fretting Sterling Sub Ray4
 

Has anyone done this? Encountered any specific problems?

I've been going crazy recently over the fretless musicman sound, but I'm on a bit of a budget. There's absolutely no way I can afford a fretless stingray any time in the foreseeable future, and the only way I can get this is either to change the neck on a Sub to a fretless neck, or to defret. I'm confident enough about defretting a bass to give it a go, and if I mess it up, then I can get a fretless neck.

So, has anyone tried this? Has anyone even put a fretless neck on a Sub? How does it sound? Does it have 'that' sound? I'm thinking earlyish Pino Palladino here by the way.

I think the conventional wisdom is to buy the fretless neck so if it doesn't work out you can just sell the fretless neck and go back to fretted.

Ripping your frets out kind of limits your final options.

^^^

I did it to my old Ibanez ATK (late 90 without any serial number that I've being trying to figure out where it came from from ages but that's for another thread) when I got my SR Musicman and only because I couldn't find a fretless neck for it.

I sent it to my favorite luthier here and he took the frets off and filled the space whith a white cellulose based material (the neck is made of a really dark rosewood).
The way he did it is completely reversible and it sounds amazing.

It's very Palladino for a ATK (this crazy model came with a SD basslines pickup and pre)

But if you can find a fretless neck that would fit right in go with it. It's probably cheaper and easier if you change your mind.

P.S: English is not my main language. Hope I made myself clear.

^This.