Why A "Zero-Fret"?

[bh2]

Heh... not the old sicky Shergold again! I didn't have it long enough to find out... it was stolen after it's first gig.

 

[lousybassplayer]

Nope. You would have moved the "nut" and the "bridge" but you have not moved any of the frets - and hence all the frets will sound out of tune.

The only way is to have the zero-fret physically at the position of the old nut, which is quite a fair bit of work.

Duh! Yeah, shortly after I posted that and pictured it in my head I realized that would be the case. A small difference, but enough to notice I am sure. Of course you could do that with a fretless, but um.....yeah, that's just dumb.

 

[JimB52]

Shergold's older brother, the Hayman 40/40, came with a zero fret.

Link Removed

 

[Bongolation]

With a conventional cut nut, your bass string is supported up off the fretboard by the depth of the cut slot, and side-to- side by the width of the slot.

A zero fret takes care of the depth issue perfectly.

Only if the manufacturer uses the same size fret for the zero fret.

Incredibly, this is not always the case. Gretsch, for example, uses a larger fret for the zero fret which completely defeats the purpose. Why, I have absolutely no idea.

I'm a firm believer in the principle of the zero fret, but they tend to wear pretty rapidly, in my somewhat limited experience.