Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tony Brown on May 7, 2013 at 8:48pm

I'm with you all the way so far.

My first CBG that I bought is a beauty, 4 string with frets and is great but I still manage to catch the slide on the frets occasionally.

Just finished making my 4th one Fretless as usual. With a low action they all play well with a slide and all play fingered notes with no problem so I see no reason to go to the difficult procedure of Fretting.

I worry about getting just one in the wrong position and by that wrecking the whole fingerboard.

Permalink Reply by Michael Recchione on May 8, 2013 at 6:50am

My first build was fretless - I call it "The Dancing Bear", after the Mark Twain quote, "The amazing thing about a dancing bear is not how well it dances, but that it dances at all..."

After that, the subsequent builds all had frets.  I think putting frets on a neck is the most overblown and unjustifiably feared activity - people (including myself) are really nervous about it until the first time they do it.  Then you realize it's really one of the easiest and quickest parts of making the instrument.

I use weird scale lengths, so I use a simple spreadsheet that I wrote that generates a table with, for each fret, the distance from the nut, from the bridge and from the previous fret.  There are similar fret calculators online, just google.  Then it's a matter of measuring (I work to the nearest millimeter, which is plenty precise enough), drawing a pencil line with a square against the fretboard, and then cutting to the line - I use a Japanese Dozuki saw, I think with 24 TPI.  Turns out that's exactly perfect for the tangs of fretwire.  Measure twice, cut once.  If you've ever done any woodworking, this is cake.  The whole operation takes less than an hour, from measuring and marking all the way to dressing the frets after they're hammered in.  Then figure on a few minutes fine-tuning after the strings are on.  (I've still never gotten it perfect, in terms of not having to lower a fret that's causing a problem,  before putting the strings on, but, given that it takes about 10-15 minutes to get it perfect afterwards, I'm ok with my process as-is.)

I've played "real" guitars with a slide for many years, when I felt like it, and the frets never bothered me.  On the other hand, having frets makes playing without a slide much easier (especially for chords), and it just sounds a lot better - brighter, more sustain, a cleaner note, etc.  Stopping the string with just your fingertip (as in a fretless guitar) results in a duller sound and less sustain, because your fingertip is soft and damps the string.  It's fine on a bowed instrument, where the excitation is continuously renewed by the friction of the bow on the string.  Not so good in a plucked instrument (though there are exceptions, like the oud and related instruments.  Then again, people don't tend to play chords on an oud...)

Anyway, all the above makes me a fan of frets... 

As far as most players in the videos using a slide, I'd agree.  But I'd also say that most are still at the "dancing bear" stage of playing.  When you want to go beyond that, frets really make a difference.

Permalink Reply by Don Tucker on May 8, 2013 at 1:15pm

I've never built one with frets myself. My concerns were :  #1 it's so damn hard to find a perfectly straight  1x2 and #2 even if you do find a perfectly straight one, will it STAY straight through the years? Most of the CBG's I build are for sale and I doubt I could get enough extra $ to justify the time and expense of fretting AND a truss rod. Maybe those of you with fretting experience could tell me if my concerns are justified, or am I just out in left field?

Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on May 8, 2013 at 3:43pm

Nope it's very doable. Making a guitar without frets is like making a car without wheels IMHO. Sure you can sit and turn on the radio, maybe even turn the engine over and rev shit out of it. Are you getting anywhere? :D

Don't stress about the truss rod. Glue a few those 1x2s together and turn em on the quarter and ur golden

Permalink Reply by Michael Recchione on May 9, 2013 at 4:00am

I guess it's all about what you're trying to build and who you're trying to build it for.  I build them to play them, and fretless gets really old really fast - it really limits what you can play.  I love the blues and rootsy country stuff, have been playing those 3 chords all my life.  But I also like to play a lot of other kinds of music, and fretless really doesn't cut it for that.  I guess my previous point was that you can play slide on a guitar with frets, but you're really limited when you try to play other stuff besides slide on a guitar without them.  So, for me, it's worth the hour it takes to put frets on.

I've never used a truss rod, (so far), and I've never flipped the neck sideways.  The flatness of the neck stock has never been an issue for me.  I look for pieces with more or less straight grain - not perfectly straight, mind you, but just not wild, then plane them flat on top, and then laminate a 1/4" fretboard on top of the neck stock - this gives plenty of stiffness, especially for a shorter-scale instrument with (usually) fewer than 6 strings.  I've made a 6-string CBG version of a Greek baglama (a little longer scale than a mandolin, with 3 courses of 2 steel strings, under high tension).  It's got a maple neck with a laminated-on 1/4" poplar fretboard, and I've never had the slightest problem with warping on it.  I guess if I were building an instrument with 6 steel strings and a 25" scale length, I'd start thinking about a truss rod.  But even that isn't a big deal - especially if you go with a non-adjustable rod, like the old Martin square tubing ones.  Probably about another 30 minutes to do it.

Permalink Reply by tdq on May 9, 2013 at 11:59am

"I guess it's all about what you're trying to build and who you're trying to build it for.  I build them to play them, and fretless gets really old really fast - it really limits what you can play."

Not sure I agree with you on that one Michael! I build mine to play too and personally I quite enjoy the sound and feel of fret less - but I did ask! Interesting to hear other's take on things. I do agree that for 3-4 strings and short scales a truss rod is overkill.

Permalink Reply by Michael Recchione on May 9, 2013 at 12:23pm

It would be interesting to compare notes on what sorts of music we like to play.  As I said, I do play slide, and fretless is fine for that.  I also like fretless bass.  But there are a lot of styles of music that proper intonation is really important for, especially when you're playing chords - "close" or sliding into the right note doesn't cut it.  All your fingers need to be exactly in the right place, which is pretty hard to get right, particularly as you get further up the fingerboard from the nut.  Not impossible, but hard.  Not to mention the more muted sound and lessened sustain that you get from a finger-stopped note on a fretless instrument - ok for some things, not so good for others.  And then there's stopping more than one string with a single finger, as in barre chords or even in just using one finger to stop two strings - that really sounds muted on a fretless, at least when I do it.  But - it's a matter of taste, and what you like to play.  There's no right or wrong here...