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First or third fret.

#21
The tone from the the first fret inlay is amazing!!
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:)
 
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#28
The 1 3 5 7 9 12 markers may be a legacy of Leo getting upright players to switch to electric. Tose positions would be very familiar in terms of Simandl poisitions, plus those positions get the most use on the upright, especially if you play country.
 
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#31
brianrost said:
Rick puts a side dot on the binding at every single note position on their fretless basses, just to further confuse you while playing. To complete their jedi mind trick, the dots on the fingerboard are located between the note positions.
Click to expand...

I'm getting a fretless made from F Bass, and I definitely want small side lines at every single fret position, but side dots under the lines to denote 3,5,7,9,12,15,17,19, to avoid said confusion.
 
#32
pica said:
Okay I admit I broke down and bought some inlay stickers for a bass I'm working on. While looking online to see where the fret markers go on a 24 fret bass (I kind of already had an idea). I saw pictures and some basses have a fret marker on the first fret but most didn't have one until the third fret. Just curious why some have a marker on the first fret and some don't.
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No. g&l tributes don't have the block on the first fret. Pretty much everything else has one on the first fret. Leaving it off, makes it look unfinished. Like you forgot it.
 
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#38
Last edited:
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#39
While the logic of not having one on fret 1 is absolutely correct, my main guitar ...which has mother or pearl canadian maple leafs inlayd as fret markers... starts at fret 1. I love that about the guitar, because I'm proudly Canadian, and have performed live with this guitar starting at expo 86 and ever since (I still have it).

My second main guitar, an early (before they went color matching) RG770, also has it's first lightning inlay at fret 1 - and it too is a real inlay.

So it depends on your goal, and the quality of, and appearance of, the inlays. I wouldn't want it to start at fret 1 if it looked in any way fake. Mine look amazing, and I love them as they are.

Basses though tend to be a little different - and as all of mine with inlays are much less over the top than those two guitars, I would think that dot inlays for example would look weird at fret 1.
 
#40
Lesfunk said:
I think the reason for first fret block markers is for aesthetic continuity only.
They look weird with the first fret block missing
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Quoted for emphasis. :D When I first started building guitars, I noticed this very issue. When using block markers, especially large ones, if you skip the first fret they look weird more often than not. However, when using small dot markers, I find it looks best to skip the first fret and start on the 3rd. It's kind of relative as well as you go from smaller dots to larger shapes up to large blocks. Around half the size of a large block, I find it gets to the point where it starts to look better with a first fret inlay too.

Whether using blocks, shapes or dots, I've found that all of them look stupid if you put one on the 12th and also the 13th to emulate having one on the first fret. :smug:
 

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