20 or 21 is sufficient for anything I play. I think the song that uses highest fretting for me is Alright Now.
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"Ain't no dough past the 5th fret."
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For my needs, I can't imagine needing 24 frets. I just learned a new song this weekend (a Young Rascals song, Lonely Too Long) and discovering that I needed to go up to the 16 fret was unusual enough for me that I had to clamp a GPS onto body to help me find my way up there until I played it a few times.
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I have a 24 feet bass, and feel like I very much under-utilize that part of the neck. Maybe if I got super-into chording stuff. If I did go that direction, it would probably be time to get a 6-String and do it right.
24 frets isn't necessary at all. I happen to like 24 because it looks more symmetrical to have 2 groupings of 12.
That said, it's not an absolute necessity. My wishlist also includes Fender's original 5-string bass which only has 15 frets.
Most Standard Fender Precision and Jazz only go up to 21 frets, until you start looking at Signature Artist models.
That said, it's not an absolute necessity. My wishlist also includes Fender's original 5-string bass which only has 15 frets.
Most Standard Fender Precision and Jazz only go up to 21 frets, until you start looking at Signature Artist models.
That's a long a$$ bass!!
Once a night I go to the 19th fret for the intro to Sweet Child O' Mine. 
I have a 24 fret 6 string. I have only used up to fret 23 and that is when noodling around on Patitucci's "Our Family". Even when I solo I rarely hit that high.
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I think it's more symmetrical a 21 fret fretboard since it gives you three complete octaves from E to E.
By the way having three semitones more won't change you life.
Bryan R. Tyler
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Well sure, that makes sense, and I bet your solo sounded great.I guess my point was, there are plenty of bassists out there who could have soloed over the same song using a 20 fret bass.
Who cares what they would have used? If they don’t play it the way you wanted it played using the same note frequency, then they played it wrong.
I think you completely misunderstood my point. Obviously there are songs where the bassist goes lower than low E, or higher than high Eb. I would be a fool to deny that fact.
My point, rather, was that you can play any song ever written on a 20-fret, standard-tuning bass, by moving passages up or down an octave. There are plenty of bassists who have the skill set to play any song, in any of the 12 keys, on a Fender-style bass, and it will sound good.
You bring up an interesting point about the 5-fret bass. There are styles of music where the bass instrument has a more limited pitch range than the nearly 3 octaves of a modern electric bass guitar. An extreme example, I used to play in an Indonesian Gamelan ensemble, where the bass instrument is only capable of 5 different notes! While this might seem limiting, the music is beautiful.
So long as it had two strings, everything could. You would just have to transpose octaves.
I used to think that, but then I realized: 20 frets is the exact number necessary to give you 2 full octaves in every key.
If you have only 19 frets, you can't play a 2 octave Eb Major scale.
And if you have 21 (or more) frets, you can play 3 octaves in some keys, but only 2 octaves in other keys.
But if you have exactly 20 frets, then you can play 2 octaves in each of the 12 keys.
A lot of people think 20 frets was a random decision by Leo Fender. But there is actually a very logical musical reason.
