Fender Jazz only with 20 frets; why?

[Ewo]

When you go to 24 frets you either have to have the neck a lot closer to the pickups than normal (which changes the tone) or extend the scale length.

Well, the Sadowsky Modern has 24 on a 34" scale, and the pups have been moved back toward the bridge. AFAIK. It def has a different voice from the _vintage_ designs Roger offers.

 

[bobdabilder]

I disagree.

I don't think cost is the issue. As others have pointed out, Fender used to make basses with 24 frets. If they sold, I am sure they would still be marketing them.

 

[StringNavigator]

When the fretboard runs into the bridge.

Now, that's one helluva cutaway...

 

[mccartneyman]

20 frets was and is plenty for most players. 21 s nice, but when's the last time you lost gig because you didn't have that high E?

 

[Andrew Post]

Why not 21 frets or 23? Is there a tone difference with only the 20 frets? Over the years they offered more than 20 but then they went back to 20. Is it just to keep with the tradition of the Jazz bass?

Most Sadowsky Jazz-style basses have 21 or more frets. There's a reason for that.

 

[40Hz]

I'm open to an alternative explanation, however it seems


Well not entirely, you have to consider that fender are a huge corporation like Ford or Toyota. It makes sense for them standardise the fretboard to 20 frets, if that's what the customers want and it's cheap. It's too risky for them to change it now, They'd have to change the body to match and that might turn into a 'new coke' fiasco. But I'm open to an alternative explanation.

I'm fairly anti-corporate and skeptical of capitalist philosophy and rationales. But I also don't buy into the socialist interpretation of everything being driven by greed and self interest.

I do seem to recall Leo saying in an interview (I'll have to see if I can get a citatiion for it) that the 20 frets seemed to him to have been enough for the needs of bass players in the era the PB and JB were created. Possibly because, with the heavy guage flatwounds of the period, there were diminishing returns in putting more narrowly spaced frets higher up in the neck? And his primary goal was to make a decent sounding but still affordable instrument.

As the playing styles and tastes in bass changed, his subsequent companies may have done things differently in reponse to customer demand. But that said, most players I know seem to hang (at least from where I'm sitting) between the third and twelfth frets 99% of the time.

I'm not a particularly big fan of the Fender bass sound myself, although I do have a good deal of respect for it. Suffice to say it does the job and has its share of admirers. So why Fender would want to change that just to address something not many of its customers are clamoring for seems silly to me. And to your earlier point, there already are the new generation JB lookalikes that address those issues (for some players) that Fender doesn't see fit to address itself.

I think that's more driven by what its actual customers want than by greed, cost cutting, or their clientele being ignorant sheep mired in the past.

Part of mark of the true master is knowing when your piece of art is finished - and having the confidence (and discipline) to put down your metaphoric brush and say: "It's done."

In the case of the classic PB and JB, I think it's more a case that they are "finished." And Fender wisely has chosen not to gild the lily, and therefor continues to produce them virtually unchanged.

P.S. - I apologize for the use of the word 'ignorant' in my earlier post. What I was trying to say was I felt your comment glossed over a few things and mischaracterized where (I think) Fender is coming from with regards to their mainstream offerings.

(Type something in haste, repent afterwards and have to apologize for it. I should have learned that lesson by now.)

 

[Quilbert]

Haven't read all five (!) pages, so maybe this has already been said:

Some builders choose 20 frets because it moves the "slap spot" a little bit closer to the nut. The thought is that it gives a bit more depth and fundamental to notes produced with the thumb strike. (The thump, as Larry Graham tagged it.) That's what I've read about the question.

So there's a tradeoff between that consideration, and the extra note range of 21, 22 (like my Sadowsky Will Lee), and 24. I like having an octave-and-minor-seventh range (easy to think of where I am in the upper register, in terms of intervals from the open string), and I'm happy with the slap tone.

I doubt that much thought has been put into the selection of 20 frets.

 

[Double E]

I bet it is a rare occurrence to hear this topic even casually discussed outside of this site.

 

[MobileHolmes]

It's essentially a legacy thing. Fenders are designed to be made of interchangeable modular parts, and, once you've speced the basic dimensions of the original instrument, the only way to add frets would be to make a neck that isn't compatible with the rest of them or to do an overhang of some sort. The overhang isn't a bad solution, but it can complicate trussrod access (it does on my warmoth strat that has one)

 

[PunkNerve]

No one even really plays beyond the 15th fret anyways, so it doesn't matter to me.

 

[DigitalMan]

I thought these were extra frets. No?

 

[buldog5151bass]

I bet it is a rare occurrence to hear this topic even casually discussed outside of this site.

There is a LOT of @#@$# that gets discussed here that isn't much of an issue in the rest of the musical world. It's a gaggle of bassists.

 

[Quilbert]

I'm fairly anti-corporate and skeptical of capitalist philosophy and rationales. But I also don't buy into the socialist interpretation of everything being driven by greed and self interest.

I do seem to recall Leo saying in an interview (I'll have to see if I can get a citatiion for it) that the 20 frets seemed to him to have been enough for the needs of bass players in the era the PB and JB were created. Possibly because, with the heavy guage flatwounds of the period, there were diminishing returns in putting more narrowly spaced frets higher up in the neck? And his primary goal was to make a decent sounding but still affordable instrument.

As the playing styles and tastes in bass changed, his subsequent companies may have done things differently in reponse to customer demand. But that said, most players I know seem to hang (at least from where I'm sitting) between the third and twelfth frets 99% of the time.

I'm not a particularly big fan of the Fender bass sound myself, although I do have a good deal of respect for it. Suffice to say it does the job and has its share of admirers. So why Fender would want to change that just to address something not many of its customers are clamoring for seems silly to me. And to your earlier point, there already are the new generation JB lookalikes that address those issues (for some players) that Fender doesn't see fit to address itself.

I think that's more driven by what its actual customers want than by greed, cost cutting, or their clientele being ignorant sheep mired in the past.

Part of mark of the true master is knowing when your piece of art is finished - and having the confidence (and discipline) to put down your metaphoric brush and say: "It's done."

In the case of the classic PB and JB, I think it's more a case that they are "finished." And Fender wisely has chosen not to gild the lily, and therefor continues to produce them virtually unchanged.

P.S. - I apologize for the use of the word 'ignorant' in my earlier post. What I was trying to say was I felt your comment glossed over a few things and mischaracterized where (I think) Fender is coming from with regards to their mainstream offerings.

(Type something in haste, repent afterwards and have to apologize for it. I should have learned that lesson by now.)

Lol- I'm not that thin skinned
I think though it was a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't. I had a fender 'boner' bass in the early 90's. It played ok but it looked a little weird and was quickly discontinued. I'm currently playing a jazz 'type' bass with 24 frets by Mayones. It looked great, but to be really honest I don't really use frets 21-24

 

[seansbrew]

There's 20 frets on my jazz bass?

 

[Double E]

There is a LOT of @#@$# that gets discussed here that isn't much of an issue in the rest of the musical world. It's a gaggle of bassists.

Okay but still not discussed much even amongst bassists, at least to the degree that anyone's questioning Fender's credibility.

 

[40Hz]

Lol- I'm not that thin skinned
I think though it was a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't. I had a fender 'boner' bass in the early 90's. It played ok but it looked a little weird and was quickly discontinued. I'm currently playing a jazz 'type' bass with 24 frets by Mayones. It looked great, but to be really honest I don't really use frets 21-24

I've got a JB. I've got two PBs. I have a Jag...any of which I'll bring along when/if asked or told) to.
Left to my own devices, I mainly play Gibson or Peavey.

I have no direct issue with 24 frets. (I seldom go up anywhere near that high.) But what I really don't care for are those beyond 20 frets they get by extending the fretboard with an overhang. I have yet to see a bass with one of those that didn't develop problems after a while.

 

[Jack Butler]

Leo added the 21st fret to the StingRay because players wanted to reach that high E. Why not high F, high G, high A, B, C, etc.? Where do you stop?

Since the lowest note is E, having the highest be the same note makes some sense in my opinion.

 

[Liam Wald]

Because Leo thought that should be plenty.

Just one of those little details that Leo got wrong on his early bass designs.
There is a reason that he switched to 21 or more frets on his G&L's.

 

[DigitalMan]

This question has a striking resemblence to asking why they don't make condoms larger.

 

[Ewo]

I doubt that much thought has been put into the selection of 20 frets.

All I can tell ya is that I was reading a thread about a comparatively rare version of the F-bass BN5 with 20 frets. IIRC it was called the studio model. And George Furlinetto reportedly said some people preferred 20 frets for the reason I described, above.

Hey, I make no claim that my memory is infallible--but that's what I remember.