What should I do with this bass?

If it does not sound good enough to play as a fretted bass, I don't think you'll like it any better as a fretless. Sell it to a beginner, or trade it to a shop for a tuner, strings, cables, etc.

 

You can de-fret it and swap out the pickups- might be good for practicing/learning fretless.
Alternately,if you can find a young kid who wants to learn and can't afford a bass, give it away or sell it cheap. I did that once and have no regrets.

I have a cheap bass that I use as a travel bass. If I'm on a road trip and don't want to bring a nice bass (camping,etc.) but still want to practice, I throw it (in a gig bag) in the car.

 

give it to a school or a local music instructor.

They can always use them for younger students.

 

Big +1, or find a deserving kid who can use it.

 

Attack it with an axe and post pictures!

 

part it out and sell the parts ... I will buy the bridge.

Or smash it on stage.

 

Find a beginner or a four string player, and sell it to them for like $100.

 

+2

 

How about using it as a modding bass; get another neck ,amybe some pickups and see if that makes it more enjoyable to play.

 

There's a pretty long thread here on defretting a bass. If you hate the bass though you're wasting your time and energy. You will hate it even more once it's fretless. The fact that it may have neck issues makes it even riskier.

I'd say give it away. You'll gain way more from doing that than anything else you can do with the bass. I guarantee it.

 

The frets themselves add strength to the neck. When you remove them, the neck will react differently than when it was equipped with frets. Whether that's good or bad remains to be seen. I read somewhere that there are tricks to fixing necks by strategically removing frets and pounding wider frets into the slots. I guess my point is that you neck is weird with frets. It will probably go bezerk when you defret it.

Also - you'll need to cut the nut slots deeper to compensate for the now missing frets.

 

I have had two basses defretted my a professional. They came out ok. Sold both of them. But I still rcommend selling your clunker and use the $100 to but a pawnshop fretless.

 

Where'd you find this out...

 

Smash it

 

I don't remember where I saw this. I bought a '73 Mustang that somebody defretted. I was going to buy the tools and parts to refret it myself. I did a bunch of online research to see what was involved. One of the sites I came across was pretty detailed in how to refret an instrument. That's where I remember the author discussing the fret width and its supporting role on the fingerboard. I guess some necks don't have truss rods so if there is a problem with the neck that's how techs deal with it. In the end I decided that it would be better all around to just have a skilled tech refret the Mustang for me. Haven't done it yet, but soon....

 

If the bass used to have a back bow, but now it's OK, I don't think that defretting it will make it go "bezerk".

If you think that someday you will want a fretless bass, I think its a good idea to go ahaed and defret this one yourself. I did it to one of my cheap basses to see if I could even play a fretless. It's a lot harder to play than I thought. Now I have one I can practice on before I spend a lot of money on a good one.

There are plenty of threads here that can teach you how to defret a bass. It's not that hard and you can learn a few things along the way.

 

+500000000000000000

There is tons of schools out there that can't afford instruments for their students. We need to do what we can to make sure music education remains a part of education.