Question on 8 string bass

First let me say hello, this looks like a very interesting place.

I am an older first year engineering student and amateur bass player. Last summer I received a used ESP B-208FM 8 string for my birthday. I freakin love the tone and changed it over to BEAD which makes me like it even better. But one thing I didn’t like is the string height difference between the octaved strings, there is a huge difference between the B strings for example. For me it is a playability issue, I wonder if other players haven’t felt the same way.

Well I bought some monster .102 fret wire and hand made stepped frets so that the top of the strings are level, cut a new nut and filed the bridge adjusters accordingly. Only did the first 12 frets so far as this turned out to be an ordeal but it is fantastic to play now. I kinda have an idea on how to make these, what it might cost to produce & install. Because of the large amount of labor it won’t be cheap, somewhere in the 6-12 hour range to make and install a set. I can’t see a cheap way they could be manufactured, definitely not a diy job installing them.

Any opinions on this? If a refret job like this ran $300-400 would that be in the range of possible interest? Trying to figure out if I should pursue this further or if I should just be happy with my own bass. Sorry I can’t show a picture, since I haven’t patented anything yet. Or maybe I reinvented the wheel, somebody already makes these.

 

For those that are curious these are the current string dimensions I have on it for a BEAD octave tuning. The bigger strings are easy enough to get by buying a 5 string pack but the smaller ones I haven't figured out how to get in a set.

B .130 b .054
E .100 b .046
A .080 b .042
D .065 b .024

So you can see where I really ran into string height difference with the B, .076 difference in height on that one though the E strings are pretty different too.

 

Not the same thickness, the same surface height. The oversized frets are notched under the bigger string so as lower it to the same level as the smaller octave string, so the top of the octave matched strings are level.

With the B strings for example, the .102 high fret is notched down to about .030 for the larger string, for the upper B string it is not notched. Then of course a nut has to be cut for the changes.

 

I'm not explaining it very well. The frets are notched under the lower range (bigger) strings so as to have around the same top surface level with the upper range (smaller) strings. The idea being that it is easier on the fingers to fret & easier to pluck or pick. And indeed that is the case, much easier to go faster.

 

My apology, I explain like doodoo. And yes the setup on this was terrible, right off the bat the factory nut was cut wrong, strings spaced wrong. It's like they went well, maybe someone down the road can figure out how to fix it up.

 

Lets see if I can figure out how to post image. Should be pic of early trial of cut fret that didn't work out

 

Actually the depth was spot on, if you can picture the larger strings over the notches and the smaller strings to the left of the notches.

 

Some kind of nickel alloy. Actually a .160 should fit, it's milled with a 3/16's ball end mill. These are HUGE frets, as big as they make I believe.

 

The reason for the big fret is so that I can mill a deep enough notch so that the smaller octave string beside it is roughly on the same level. Notice in this picture of how the bass was originally that the matched octave strings are not on the same level.

 

That is the way all octave 8 string basses are that I have seen. That is why I made special frets for mine.