Good suggestion. All my basses have Warmoth necks, except for my fretless. It's got a Mighty Mite neck. If you're going for lots of mwah, the ebonol fingerboard on the Mighty Mite give you something that no wood fingerboard will give you - sonically, it's in a whole other neighborhood. If you want subtle mwah, Warmoth makes the best necks around.
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Defret or Replace?
- Thread starter Jacobfred
- Start date
Good suggestion. All my basses have Warmoth necks, except for my fretless. It's got a Mighty Mite neck. If you're going for lots of mwah, the ebonol fingerboard on the Mighty Mite give you something that no wood fingerboard will give you - sonically, it's in a whole other neighborhood. If you want subtle mwah, Warmoth makes the best necks around.
Dude just watch a video and do the defret yourself. If you mess up royally you were going to replace it anyway.
Yeah, but if the bug bites me to switch up the fretless and just want to replace the body and electronics I'd like to have the original neck in good shape to slap on and minimize the loss and wait time for it to sell.
Yeah, I've owned a Squier VM fretless for about 10 years now with the ebonol board and it's a bit much for me. Fun for the Jaco, Pino, or Mick Karn thing, but I'm leaning a little more Roy Mitchell-Cardenas on MuteMath's Flesh and Bones Electric Fun live album. 70s fretless precision with some flats thrown on.
I actually just got notice that Moog fixed my Minifooger Delay and apparently the prices on those skyrocketed, so maybe that'll fund a good chunk of a new neck once I get it back.
Here is a Mightymite neck I love on a parts bass I just threw together this week with a squire body and spare parts out of the drawer. P neck profile and the ebonal board is as flat and even as any I have had. Total cost was a lot less than a defret job.
I have a defretted Peavey Foundation, and I have issues with the action on it - it's a ski ramp, and no amount of truss rod adjusting has come close to fixing it. The way it looks to me (and a few others who have examined it) is the missing frets removed some of the rigidity to the face of the neck, so it's more inclined to bend that direction, and the truss rod just isn't enough to compensate.
Getting a replacement neck means you can switch back to the original if you ever want to. And take the replacement neck to a new body if you so desire.
Unlined ebony is awesome for fretless; do that, you won't regret it.
Well put JRA!all of your choices will get you what you want if you really know what the end result is supposed to be. the differences are all about the cost, and since you're not that hung up on the cost, and since you won't be doing the work: the warmoth neck build will give you the most options from the factory to your door.
folks who can't rationalize putting money into an ax because of lower MSRP are the same folks who go through a bunch of axes based on looks and/or peer pressure. crowd-think is not the way to get serious about a musical instrument.
sounds to me like you already know what you want and how to get there: you don't need approval from this mess/heap to proceed --- good luck!
You can get a nice Mighty Mite unlined fretless neck from GC for about $100. Best price I have found. Watch this video. The replacement project goes very well and the results are excellent.
You can get a nice Mighty Mite unlined fretless neck from GC for about $100. Best price I have found. Watch this video. The replacement project goes very well and the results are excellent.
Right, I know I could get a MM neck, but I stated earlier in this thread that I didn’t want the ebonol fretboard because my current fretless already has it and I’m looking for a noticeable upgrade.
Again, cost is not my only factor in this. I would rather build something of a mid-tier (sub $1000) bass. But I appreciate your input and that parts fretless build looks like a great instrument.
You can get a nice looking fretless neck on eBay for $85 to try out so you don't have the spend a fortune. Some of the vendors have very good reviews on the necks.
If you really like the Franklin bass, Neither a defretted original nor a fretless replacement neck will get you there. Ebony really does make that much difference, in both feel and tone. Warmoth makes better necks than Fender, and you can get them any way you want them, so it's a pretty easy decision for me personally.
Warmoth necks are not cheap but they are the sh*t. I have two of their guitar necks and they are rock solid. Haven’t used their bass necks yet, but if you want a solid instrument that won’t need a lot of adjustments I don’t think you’ll find a better option.
I did a defret on my first P style bass, ended up destroying the rosewood fingerboard. That was due to the round wound strings, not my shoddy workmanship (it was passable at the time). I stripped the rosewood off and ordered an ebony fb from Warmoth and it’s been great. The fender style neck still needs truss rod adjustment often, which is why I think a full warmoth neck would be more stable with their “super bass construction.”
I did a defret on my first P style bass, ended up destroying the rosewood fingerboard. That was due to the round wound strings, not my shoddy workmanship (it was passable at the time). I stripped the rosewood off and ordered an ebony fb from Warmoth and it’s been great. The fender style neck still needs truss rod adjustment often, which is why I think a full warmoth neck would be more stable with their “super bass construction.”
