Happy Jack Posted October 5, 2007 Share Posted October 5, 2007 Dropped in to my luthier to see if he'd finished a bass he was working on for me, found a brand new Rickenbacker 4003 Fretless, in Fireglo, on his workbench. Why? He was about to reach for his fretsaw so that he could ... yup ... insert frets! He was as gutted about it as I was, but that's what the customer wanted. Why? Well, the waiting list for new, fretted 4003's is currently approaching six months but there was a shop that happened to have a 4003 fretless in stock ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_the_bass Posted October 5, 2007 Share Posted October 5, 2007 A fella I know has recently put frets and mop dots into a Wal Which is what his customer wanted Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaggy Posted October 5, 2007 Share Posted October 5, 2007 [quote name='john_the_bass' post='70051' date='Oct 5 2007, 04:46 PM']A fella I know has recently put frets and mop dots into a Wal Which is what his customer wanted[/quote] NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm going to cry now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martthebass Posted October 5, 2007 Share Posted October 5, 2007 To a Rickenbacker - what the hell, to a fretless Wal, that's just plain wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bnt Posted October 5, 2007 Share Posted October 5, 2007 When I found a bargain Hohner B2 and bought it, I found that was what had been done to it: it was the fretless B2Afl model with the phenolic fretboard, that had been fretted, and badly. I had them off in a matter of days, and filled the slots with epoxy. It was as if the bass gods were telling me "you've been talking about trying the fretless, now you've got no more excuse"! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soulfinger Posted October 7, 2007 Share Posted October 7, 2007 When I saw the thread title, I thought: "Jaco in reverse? You mean - no talent, no chops, no groove? I guess I qualify." I did have a chuckle when I read Dan Erlewine´s column in a recent Bass Player magazine where he got back a P bass he had defretted (the procedure was featured in a previous issue). The customer wanted him to re-install the frets because he found out he couldn´t play fretless. Erlewine´s comment was something like: "This is why it´s good to have a backup bass." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdwardHimself Posted October 7, 2007 Share Posted October 7, 2007 (edited) to be honest i don't really like fretless electric basses. If i wanted a fretless bass i'd just use a double bass (which is what i do) rather amusingly i annoyed someone in the for sale thread as they'd recently spent a lot of time and effort de-fretting a bass only for me to say "i would have bought it if you hadn't done that!" of course as happy jack knows, i probably wouldn't have bought it anyway. Edited October 7, 2007 by EdwardHimself Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Foxen Posted October 7, 2007 Share Posted October 7, 2007 I defretted my first bass, when I got a wishbass years later, it sorted me for fretless, so I refretted it as a skills project. Came out OK, never play it either way though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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