DTB

I have been lucky enough to be able to play all sorts of instruments in my life. Fretless bass is one of my absolute favourites closely followed by alto sax.

Played it again today. The frets HAVE TO GO!!!! Gonna talk with Luthier on ‘phone with a view to taking it in for him to see the work involved and getting a quote, but they are coming off one way or another!

Yes I can understand that, but then if it lives up to my expectations then it does.

I suffer a lot with depression. some of it is down to my life choices, so my bad, some of it is down to my illness and some the required medication. one of the things I do when I am down is buy music stuff. My credit card is in a constant state of being paid off. i don’t normally regret my purchases, and the stuff I have brings me imense happiness. I often say out loud I absolutely love music, probably more than I should and certainly more often than i say I love my wife!! anyone else indulge in retail therapy? I am currently looking at either an Atelier Z fretless or and Ibanez headless fretless to make the decision of not defretting my Yamaha seem like a better decision. i guess in a way i am addicted to gear, and justify it any way I can. i am lucky my wife just encourages me, if want it and u can afford it just buy it and stop talking about it is what she says. Hence my credit card never really going down.

One of the luthiers I contacted said he would be okay with defretting it and to take it along so he could have a look and give me a quote. but in any case I will be leaving it as is, apart from the new strings. at least that is today’s answer 😁

The block inlays i think are fine. I saw someone playing fretless with similar inlays. They are no where near where you would fret a note in any case.

I will let you know, was going to do it today but both my wife and son are off sick. Honestly, I am the one on the chemo medication and told don’t be around sick people and I the only one who doesn’t catch these colds etc.

Yeah, I am firmly in the don’t be stupid camp this afternoon, defretting would take a lot of value off it and they are getting very expensive now, especially from Yamaha London, it’s just a shame I don’t play it since getting my fretless and I used to play it every day, it was my main bass. Think I will put some Cobalt Flats on it, I have those on my fretless and half the problem is I dont like the feel of roundwounds now, the cobalts have a very bright tone just like rounds but for me anyway are much nicer to play. If I change my mind and get it done I will post it here. thanks everyone

The dot markers on my lined fretless are the same, in the middle not on the line.

I already play fretless. and they don’t do a fretless version of the BBNE2. It was my main bass before I started playing fretless and I miss the build quality and the weight, tone and feel.

I saw a converted one (not aBBNE2) the other day with block markers which I previously thought made it impossible to do, but obvs isn’t. I know two luthiers, one now only does his own brand stuff, and the other I not sure if it is something he would take on. I normally do all my own repairs etc but I have never pulled frets out.

Shielding the whole of the pickguard, not the cavity, can take out a bit of treble on a strat or similar, and I like a real bite to my guitar tone (Martin Miller style) so that’s why I did it in strips as minimum as possible. can’t see why it would be any different on bass? And again I like the jazz bass high mid growl so if I had to earth the pick guard I would do it as minimalist as poss.

A while back I bought a heavily discounted BBNE2 and traded a multtiscale 6 string Ibanez I wasn’t getting in with. now I am all about fretless and have had this irritating idea that won’t leave my brain about having the Yamaha de-fretted. Am I crazy? Would you do it?If so are there any decent luthiers in Suffolk you would trust to do it, or should I just leave it well alone for when I am back in love with fretted again. ???? Every time I pick up the Sire V10 I wish it was the fretless Yamaha and I don’t think Mr East even plays a fretless unless it is an upright. Aaarrrggghhhhh!!!

I have a PRS Silver Sky that had terrible static problems as soon as the central heating went on. Pick guard and neck were full of loud static which rendered it totally unplayable. i tried all sorts of stuff, including commercial anti static sprays, diluted fabric conditioner etc. all they did was leave some degree of residue on the guitar which worked for about 5 minutes. in the end i took the neck off and place a single piece of silver foil in the neck pocket, to which I soldered (tricky but possible) a ground wire that went to one of the ground wires, any one will do. I made certain that the neck screws contacted the silver foil when reassembling so that the neck plate and therefore the surface of the neck were grounded. This solved the neck problem. I did the same for the scratchplate, rather than shielding the whole thing which can be bad for tone, i did strips making sure the pickup adjusting screws and rear of scratch plate were connected then wired that to ground. sometimes I get the odd crackle now and again still from the scratchplate, when this happens I rub the scratchplate with a fabric conditioner tumble drier dry sheet, and that solves what the earthing cannot for a long time. strange because I had another Silver Sky with a maple neck and fingerboard rather than rosewood and a satin finish on neck not gloss, and it never had the same problems. if you get caught out on a gig, a bit of spit rubbed on the area of the scratchplate that is static will work for a while. good luck.

Hi, have you fixed this? i have a lot of experience with this if you still need help.