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Fanned Fret Basses...why so few?

#241
makatamusika said:
because it is so expensive!

the "affordable" ones retail for about 1500 USD, (Dingwall NG-2)
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Ibanez even cheaper. Street USD 1.000.

Review: Ibanez Bass Workshop SRFF805 | Bassplayer

"I have found that some B strings can overpower an instrument, but the SRFF805's low register is massive and well balanced—it sounds like one instrument, not a 4-string with a drop-the-bomb attachment. The lack of obnoxious overtones on the B string was refreshing, and it made me more inclined to use those very handy positions on the neck."

A very good review to all of you doubters. It's even below a grand right now. Just as their regular SR series. No better time to compare the two aside, a SR with pararell frets, and one with FF. Everything else basically the same.

There's always one bass for your flavor. This one is just as justified just as any other invention on the bass. 5 strings at all, a third pickup, neodynium pickups, Drop D tuners, active pickups, ramp, thumb rests, headless, graphite necks, ergonomic designs whatever. One can ask too, why not any of those has catched on. It's just a choice among all others.

What's really good with it today, is that anyone can make them without claiming patents or brand name of it. There's the same misconception that of headless. That Steinberger holds a patent still for all things headless. He hasn't. Never had. Not enough threshold of originality. He holds patent for many more things though. Neither Dingwall nor Ralph Novak holds patents for fanned frets either. But people still thinks that, because Dingwall has had some monopoly on it it seemed. Novax still makes basses too, high end ones, but those hasn't caught on as well as Dingwalls.
 
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#242
I wouldn't mind a 4 string 34-35 though fanned frets. The low E on 35" are the deal of you'd ask me, but the high G is a tad tight and thin sounding. Even there one can sense some problems. But they're always in the connosieur range too.


You could go the cheap route now, since MOSES GRAPHITE has started to make replacement necks in graphite for Dingwalls. Yes, we can ask ourselves a big why, if there ever was one! Hey, then it must've caught on hasn't it? Buy the rest of the bass from Warmoth or Usa Custom Guitars, and just slab it on. ;) But he made that major gaffe. Dingwalls hasn't pararell fret at 12 fret as Moses does. Dingwalls pararellt fret are at the 7th or 9th fret. So a direct replacement they're not.... ;)

But by and large if you have a long bridge, with a possibility to change the intonation range a full 0.75 inch from G string to low E, you could try out MOSES fanned fret (for Fender J and P basses too at 34-35) as a direct replacement. And see if you like it.
 
#244
Seen all of them (inluding Jaco) while they were at it. Not this troupe though. Weather Report (with Jaco) twice, Joni once (with a completely different band) and Pat Metheny Group several times. Coming to think of it, Pat Metheny is the one who's been here in Scandinavia most of the times (among these), and is the artist I've seen live the most times. I'ts like 12-13 times including his Group, trios, and side projects. And of course I bought the Shadows and light live vinyl.
 
#245
I have only seen Jaco the one time, during what I feel was his peak (with Joni). Pat and Lyle I have seen a few times since that concert tour, with the Pat Metheny Group. I have seen Michael Brecker on another much later show at the Cleveland Museum of Art about a year or so before his death. I saw Joni another time in the early '80s with Larry Klein on bass (I am not sure if this was before they got married).

As to Weather Report, I wish I had seen them but never got the opportunity. I did see Peter Erskine at a private clinic with the Ohio State University Jazz Ensemble, and I saw Joe Zawinul with The Zawinul Syndicate, with Linley Marthe on bass.
 
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#246
Back to topic. One thing with fanned fret basses too, that I don't like particularly, is seen on this Rondo (BRICE) 5 string bass with fanned frets:
Brice-Defiant-53437-Natural-Mahogany-Bass-front-and-back.jpg


The gripe that has DAWNED on me slowly as I play my Dingwall, is the slanted pickups which can clearly be seen in this picture. Most pickups have a complete cover, which means you can't see the pole pieces or - as in this case - the rails. Formerly I have made a staunch opinion about that the pickups should be aligned towards the slant of the frets in order to pick up harmonics up there at the right nodes along the string. But I've lately revised and changed my opinion on this. Especially when it comes to humbuckers this isn't as needed because the aperture is wide enough to pick up any harmonic node. The thing I've discovered is that the outer strings sounds weaker. Because as you can see on this pic, the acutal rails inside the humbucker pickup seems to go inside/outside the string leaving just ONE of the rails picking up tone, inside the humbucker shell. Which gives them an almost single coil pickuped sound. If you look at the new Ibanez, it almost seems like they've put a 6 string bass pickup on there just to make sure the magnetic field is consistent. Also with straigh/pararell pickup shells it's more easily swapped out to other 3rd party pickups.

If you should use pickups like this, use Dingwalls own (they use rails on all but the combustions) and the need for a pickup to look a bit like this instead.

custom_8_string_guitar_quilted_maple_mahogany_3_large.jpg


I e that the bridge pickup of this picture tells what it should really be like. That the the pole pieces should be slanted inside the pickup instead. Even if it had rails on. The actual form of the pick should be straight on top so you can rest the thumb on it, which is a nuisance with normal pickup shells just tilted. As for make a difference, on this particular instrument it wouldn't be possible to swap neck and bridge pickup. But on Dingwalls, and others they take just a pickup like the neck one on this, and slant it. When they really should make them like the bridge pickup instead. There's just an annoying edge to rest you thumb on on most fanned frets, even Dingwalls. This Conklin is as posh and expensive as any Dingwall too, so they're no slouches.

- - - - - -

What I mean is that either you put the pickups just pararell on the bass above (the Rondo one) and use regular rail or pole piece pickup OR you make them and made them to fit like the conklin bridge pickup at the last picture. You don't put regular pickups on there and just slant them the way it's fanned. If you use regular pickups not tailor made for fanned frets, DON'T SLANT THEM, put them on pararell as on this Novak bass instead (where they've thought about that) :

Sales_MoB_horz.jpg
 
#247
Honch said:
Of course, and that's why. But some does, and that's why they're around.
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Since the inception of the fanned fret system, I wonder how many basses have been sold with fanned frets compared to regular fretted basses?

I made an attempt to find sales figures but found bupkis. However, I did find a great photo of Leland Sklar flipping the bird at the camera while holding his signature bass during the Dingwall photo shoot.
 
#248
#252
I don't know, I think Jimmy Haslip can flip just about anything over and get a great sound out of it.

I always liked that he never got a lefty, just played it upside down. I've known a number of guitar players like that. I picture the kid who is just going to play, come hell or high water, nobody is going to tell him what he needs.
 
#253
eyvindwa said:
I recently bought a fretless bass. To make the transition as easy as possible, I bought the exact same bass as my main axe (Warwick Thumb), just without frets. I believe that for me, this greatly helped my intonation, as it felt familiar at once. Now, what if I had been playing a fanned fret bass? Do fretless versions of that even exist? Must be extremely hard to play in tune, I suppose..?
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I've wondered about a fretless fanned set up as well--it would work, but could be more of an adjustment.

But I'd still like to try one.

I went quite different for a fretless--I went from a 30" scale EB3 copy to a 34" Ibanez SR500F--but I see the value of getting the same type.
But I didn't want a shortscale fretless.
I've played a fretless Thumb, and liked it--good bass.
 
#254
Bassheart365 said:
I find your detailed critique of ff/Dingwall basses perplexing since you do not mentioned that you have ever owned one.
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I am not critiquing Dingwall basses at all, I am sure he makes very fine basses and as I have said I can see that the fanned fret design could appeal to some people. But he gives a detailed list of problems that I am having with my bass which will be fixed if I buy one of his basses with fanned frets. It is quite easy for me to give a detailed response to a list of problems that I am having with my bass since I do actually own my bass and I play it quite frequently at home and in real world performances with an actual 6 piece band that backs several on stage vocalists and a few hundred more vocalists in the audience. Some of these problems I am not having at all, some of them have other easy solutions which I adopted long ago, and some of them are problems that only some people view as problems. There is nothing perplexing about this at all. Anyone who owns and plays and performs on any bass, even a Dingwall, can evaluate it against Dindwall's list of problems that it has. We don't all get the same answer that Dingwall gets and there is nothing unusual about that either. Some of you seem to be commenting in this thread to rebut what you view as attacks on Dingwall basses or the fanned fret concept. Sorry if I give you that impression but I am just commenting on the OP's question: why do so few people use fanned fret basses? Now he may have been asking instead why are there so few fanned fret basses on the market but it is really the same question because if more of us wanted to use fanned fret basses there would be more of them on the market. Surely comments from those of us who have looked at the fanned fret concept and said no thanks are more relevant to the OP's questions than comments from those who bought one and never looked back.
 
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#255
Honch said:
Jaco played fretless as far as I could tell. He didn't even bother with 5 strings at all. He didn't bother with what kind of bass he played.

No, just the core of the string. Not the whole string. Ever heard of "open-core" strings? They have the same tension regardless of the open core goes over the bridge.
I agree, the mass per unit length of the CORE perhaps but not the whole string with windings of pure nickel or any other alloy you can come up with. On guitars, yes, the plain strings only. For example you can't ever do the core with anything else than steel, or stainless steel. You can wind anything around it though. If you should do the core in PURE NICKEL say, it would stretch so much you couldn't tune it up to pitch until it broke. It's extremely flexible and not suitable at all for using as a sole core or plain string on guitar. Or any other metal alloy, say copper or bronze(brass). All those things must be wounded around a steel core. Also, steel core makes the magnetism at 90 percent. The rest is just "filler material". All kinds of material surrounding the core is just for timbre and feel, not really contributing in any way to "mass per unit length" of the string. Or tension. Maybe longevity too, with all these coatings that's around today. And plating that slows down wear and tear.

Invalid Link Removed
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My comment about Jaco was intended to be humorous. I should have known better, it just ignited another firestorm....

Anyway, everything I have read says you are wrong, it is the total mass per unit length of the string per unit length that you plug into the tension equation. Core plus windings. The windings are there specifically to make the mass per unit of length greater which means more tension is required for any given pitch. To be sure only the core carries the tension, the string would unwind if you tried to make the windings carry the tension somehow. Here is an article about string tension, one of many that say what I am saying. Scroll down to the paragraph next to the line drawing of the thing that looks like an old lute of some kind. The author specifically says that strings are wound to increase the mass of low frequency strings, something I have read in countless other places.

Whether I have convinced you or not, take another look at that "lute" which the author says is an orpharion. I just picked this particular web page more or less at random from a web search to find another source that agrees with what I am saying. I was not expecting to find one that showed a fanned fret instrument and this one is from the 17th century. Now I have heard that Dingwall had to pay a license fee to use fanned frets because Novax Guitars had patented the idea. The US patent office missed the mother of all prior art when they granted that patent!
 
#259
singlemalt said:
I don't know, I think Jimmy Haslip can flip just about anything over and get a great sound out of it.

I always liked that he never got a lefty, just played it upside down. I've known a number of guitar players like that. I picture the kid who is just going to play, come hell or high water, nobody is going to tell him what he needs.
Click to expand...

The fan will turn out extremly un-ergonomic for him then. He would have to re-adapt and re-learn way more than us, who've played regular frets, and going to adapt any fanned frets which takes a couple of minutes.
 
#260
khutch said:
I am not critiquing Dingwall basses at all, I am sure he makes very fine basses and as I have said I can see that the fanned fret design could appeal to some people. But he gives a detailed list of problems that I am having with my bass which will be fixed if I buy one of his basses with fanned frets. It is quite easy for me to give a detailed response to a list of problems that I am having with my bass since I do actually own my bass and I play it quite frequently at home and in real world performances with an actual 6 piece band that backs several on stage vocalists and a few hundred more vocalists in the audience. Some of these problems I am not having at all, some of them have other easy solutions which I adopted long ago, and some of them are problems that only some people view as problems. There is nothing perplexing about this at all. Anyone who owns and plays and performs on any bass, even a Dingwall, can evaluate it against Dindwall's list of problems that it has. We don't all get the same answer that Dingwall gets and there is nothing unusual about that either. Some of you seem to be commenting in this thread to rebut what you view as attacks on Dingwall basses or the fanned fret concept. Sorry if I give you that impression but I am just commenting on the OP's question: why do so few people use fanned fret basses? Now he may have been asking instead why are there so few fanned fret basses on the market but it is really the same question because if more of us wanted to use fanned fret basses there would be more of them on the market. Surely comments from those of us who have looked at the fanned fret concept and said no thanks are more relevant to the OP's questions than comments from those who bought one and never looked back.
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This is the crux of the issue IMO. The "list of problems" aren't as problematic for all players as they are (optimistically) stated to be, and some aren't problematic at all. At least not for the vast number of players out there. Fanned frets have been around almost forever. If the advantages of having them were meaningful enough for enough players, then certainly fanned fret systems would dominate the bass landscape by now.
 

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