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Permalink Reply by Jerry Jordan on June 25, 2019 at 6:51am

So you don't want to use a slide? Yes raising the action would help, plus a little relief to the neck, if you want to play fretless with out a slide., heavier strings should ring a little better.,.,.chime in folks.,.,.

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Permalink Reply by Tom T on June 25, 2019 at 7:26am

If you have it set up with open tuning (D A D, etc) then you can pick some great tunes with a pick and slide. Picking individual notes using a slide is fairly easy to learn and there are tons of videos online that will show you how.

It is possible to press a string against the fret board for a note (like an acoustic bass player), but it is not really necessary to pump out some great tunes.

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Permalink Reply by Taffy Evans on June 25, 2019 at 9:42am

Hi, I think your high action is more likely to cause intonation problems more than dull sound. But with no frets you can compensate for that.

Hard materials at the nut and saddles give a brighter string response and more sustain as they do not soak up string energy, when using frets the same happens.

It could be that replacing this hard surface with a fleshy finger on a wood surface, you are loosing this effect.

Just a thought. Taff.

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Permalink Reply by JL on June 27, 2019 at 2:53am

Yes, the string height is too high, when you finger the note the string is pulling so hard up into your finger that you dont get a good "edge down" at the end of the string, the last tiny bit is mooshed up in your flesh and sounding dull like you are palm muting.

fretless string height at the nut should match a fretted string height above the first fret.

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