Advice on strings for fretless

[davidjbass]

Hi to all I am looking for some advice on what kind of strings I can use on my new fretless 5 string that will give me the growl I love from round wounds but won't chew my ebony fingerboard up. I am a huge Pino Paladino and Mark Egan sound fan. And I know Pino used Roto's. But I know Roto's love to eat fretboards. I want to try to use strings that will make my fretboard last a long time. I plan on playing this new bass a lot. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

D

 

[G. SMITH]

I have a Stingray 5 Fretless and have been using Thomastik Jazz Flats on it for ten years. If I set the action real low, it snarls a bit with the midrange boosted on the bass. Love the sound and feel. Not too much growl, but the sound is great and the fingerboard is in fantastic shape. I have recently switched to fender flats then ernie ball flats due to tuning stability while touring. It sounds great with a high C and strung up with a low B instead. Enjoy your new bass!

Beautiful headstock btw!

 

[bholder]

If you want roundwound sound without fingerboard wear, check out ground wound and pressure wound strings.

 

[theduke1]

I use LaBella Black Nylon tapes only on my fretless

 

[Mushroo]

Use the strings that give you the sound you like. A tech can fix your fretboard if it gets too worn (which will take years, not weeks). I can't imagine not using rounds on fretless; it is such an iconic sound!

 

[Bob_Ross]

If you want roundwound sound without fingerboard wear, check out ground wound and pressure wound strings.

That's the general party-line, and for some folks it works out well...but fwiw, I've tried a number of brands of ground wound, pressure wound, half-round, compressor wound, etc. strings on several different fretless basses, and *none* of them came close enough to giving me the sound of roundwounds to be worth the modest savings on fingerboard wear.

And perhaps more importantly, they all still contributed some fingerboard wear, such that the solution I eventually settled on was simply: Buy the strings that provide the sound you want, and get the fingerboard professionally dressed periodically as part of my routine maintenance.

You wanna know how often I've had to have my ebony fingerboards professionally dressed in the past ~20 years?

Never

Now, admittedly I don't play my fretless basses every single day, so YMMV. But at the rate they're wearing, I'd say I can probably get another ~5 years before I have to have one of these fingerboards resurfaced. And if I can get another 20-25 years -- or, hell, even just another 10 years -- out of that job, well, I feel like it's money well spent, and well worth the pleasure of using the strings that feel & sound best on those basses.

Cliff Notes: Don't compromise sound just 'cuz yer worried about fingerboard wear; it's just not that bad. Even Rotosounds.


edit: What Mushroo said, above.

 

[kesslari]

I love Pressurewounds, and use them on my Zon. I prefer the sound to straight rounds.
With that said - nickel wound rounds won't damage your fingerboard enough to really care about, unless you play really hard with really poor technique...
Ebony is a hard wood. If you play it a LOT, you may need to have the board dressed every 5 years - $100 or so (about the price of a set of TI flats...) <edit - per the post above, probably a lot less often than that...>
I think of it like tires on a car. I like cars that perform, I live in the mountains, and I enjoy driving kinda hard on mountain roads.
I could put the "highest tread life" tires possible on my car, and I'd change tires less often, but I'd have to drive differently than I enjoy.
So I put high performance tires on, accept that they have shorter tread life and I'll have to do some maintenance, and drive the way I enjoy.

Put on strings for the sound you want.
PS - that is a GORGEOUS instrument. Enjoy.

 

[TMARK]

DR Sunbeams give you the round wound sound but are not as abusive of a fingerboard as say Rotos or other steel strings. A nice light gauge has always worked for me.

 

[NG51]

I bounce between TI Flats and Jazz rounds on my fretless- as stated above, don't worry too much about board wear, just find the sound you like. I tried nylon tapes and pressurewounds, too- my decision to go with the TIs was partly the sound, and partly the 'feel' of the strings.
BTW, that's a pretty bass you have there!

 

[bholder]

I can't decide what kinds of strings I like most on fretless, so I solved that by having multiple fretless basses.

 

[Zebra]

I'm an Elixir convert. They last longer PLUS the coating makes them a bit softer on the board, and they sound like rounds should.

 

[Jim Carr]

I've used TI Jazz flats (like them and have used them on a fretless P), and tried some of those pressure wounds (which I hated). I really love the Ken Smith Slickrounds on this five string fretless. Growl and mwah.

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[bholder]

I've used TI Jazz flats (like them and have used them on a fretless P), and tried some of those pressure wounds (which I hated). I really love the Ken Smith Slickrounds on this five string fretless. Growl and mwah.

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

I don't think I've tried the Slick Rounds, will have to - I really like the Ken Smith Compressors though (pressure, not ground, didn't realize he offered both).

 

[Jim Carr]

I don't think I've tried the Slick Rounds, will have to - I really like the Ken Smith Compressors though (pressure, not ground, didn't realize he offered both).

If you are stringing EADGC on fretless or BEADGC, you can get a .029 C single. However, Juststrings stopped carrying the C lately. Don't know why.

 

[BlushResponse]

If you're asking for opinions; I've used D'Addario half rounds (45-100) for years. Cool guys like Pino use round wounds to get the sound we all love, and he replaces fretboards all the time too. To my ears, and the way I play, the half rounds have been the best of both worlds. And to put it into perspective, I play primarily on fretless, so even with the half rounds, I tend to put a lot of wear on my board. Like others have said, that just means I take it in to get evened out every couple of years.

 

[Scottkarch]

I have a few fretless. 2 rosewood and one maple and have rounds on them all. If you want the sound, just go roundwound and realize that some day you may need to refinish the neck. A few hundred way off in the future for a redressing or two over the life of the bass... or pay someone to put on a nice epoxy finish on it now and use steel rounds or barbed wire without worrying.

I play mine every week and even the maple isn't showing enough wear that I'm the least bit concerned. I LIKE when basses look played and used. It's a lot less stressful not worrying about wear but being proud of it.

 

[Doner Designs]

Beautiful bass! You could do a lot worse than to try Ernie Ball flats which are very bright sounding and are inexpensive. Similar would be Daddario and Roto. I think those will sound quite similar to half rounds and have a nice smooth feel.

 

[Sixgunn]

Dadgum the torpedoes!! I have steel rounds on both of my fretless basses (all of my basses actually). The fretboard wear is VERY slow. Especially on ebony.

 

[Old Blastard]

I love the sound of D'Addario -- if I spelled the right and I'm too lazy to check -- tape wounds. My Japanese Jazz Special was wearing from the roundwounds after 20 years and the tapes were a good compromise. I've since switched to nylons. I really like the sound for some odd reason and my other basses still have roundwounds Except my Squire P-bass. All P-basses require flats. I really should get a tort guard, too, but will likely stick with white-on-black. I'm a little radical like that.

 

[MethodsofDance]

I really like the Chromes and I'm also quite happy with Rotosound Jazz 77s. I felt the Fender 9050s started out great but got lifeless a lot quicker. I'm very interested in the new EB Cobalt flats.