NBD - Sire V7 Fretless 5

[Bobthedog]

Just arrived, my first fretless. First impressions, very well made and great tonal options. Good string spacing and a pretty good B considering a 34” neck. The white is a creamy tone so looks much better in the flesh. Comes with flatwounds as standard. The only negative for me is no side markings other than dots in the middle of the frets. Per another thread there is no sight of the fret lines when playing. Coming from playing my long necked fan frett (37” B) Dingwall for the last few months this is going to take some work to get used to but then for the moment time is one thing I do have. 
 

 

[police squad]

Looks nice Bob, you could always add secondary dots on the side, level with the lines.

I built a fretless P bass with no lines on the maple board and the dots were where they would have been on a fretted bass.

I installed black dots where the frets would have been and it works perfectly

[Bobthedog]

48 minutes ago, police squad said:

Looks nice Bob, you could always add secondary dots on the side, level with the lines.

I built a fretless P bass with no lines on the maple board and the dots were where they would have been on a fretted bass.

I installed black dots where the frets would have been and it works perfectly

For the moment I have added some sharpie lines where the frets are. Dependent on how I get on, I may have some proper markers put in later on. 

[Rich]

My fretless Ray neck had the same in terms of side dots, i.e. where they would be for a fretted bass... I blacked them out with a sharpie pen and then put big white Letraset dots at the fretlines, which I painted over with a smear of car touch-up lacquer. You can just about make them out in this pic.

Edited June 3, 2020 by Rich

[Bobthedog]

2 hours ago, Rich said:

My fretless Ray neck had the same in terms of side dots, i.e. where they would be for a fretted bass... I blacked them out with a sharpie pen and then put big white Letraset dots at the fretlines, which I painted over with a smear of car touch-up lacquer. You can just about make them out in this pic.

 

Very similar. If I cannot make the transition easily to knowing where the notes are , I am probably going to go the @Happy Jack route of having some inlays put in. I am waiting too on a stroboclip tuner to work alongside my ears to find where the correct fretting position should be.

[Bobthedog]

On 31/05/2020 at 13:21, Happy Jack said:

This is an excellent post. My only addition would be that lined fretless is an abomination, and completely pointless at that ... when you're playing a bass, you can't actually see the frets!

What you need to see is the ENDS of the frets. Ibanez recognised this 50 years ago and produced this:

That's a Lakland Skyline Duck Dunn where I switched to a fretless neck.

The job of installing those fret ends was (apparently) very simple, and was not at all expensive.

 

 

[lownote]

1 hour ago, Bobthedog said:

Very similar. If I cannot make the transition easily to knowing where the notes are , I am probably going to go the @Happy Jack route of having some inlays put in.

I had the Bass Gallery correct the 12th fret note markers on my Revelation as they were out. This involved blacking out the originals and adding new ones a centimetre away.  As you might expect the result was professional and not obvious at all in anything but bright light, close up.  Not expensive to have it done, but then I didn't need the whole board done.  You'd need to get a quote.   

[jrixn1]

I just picked up a Squier Classic Vibe fretless jazz, but it has this problem:

 

 

Running a finger down the fingerboard, can definitely slightly feel each "fret"; and then there is one marker that is coming out.  (This bass is getting sent back to the retailer, of course.)

On the Sire, is the fingerboard smooth/coated, or can you feel the fret markers?

 

[ezbass]

4 minutes ago, jrixn1 said:

I just picked up a Squier Classic Vibe fretless jazz, but it has this problem:

 

 

Running a finger down the fingerboard, can definitely slightly feel each "fret"; and then there is one marker that is coming out.  (This bass is getting sent back to the retailer, of course.)

On the Sire, is the fingerboard smooth/coated, or can you feel the fret markers?

 

There is always a certain amount of feel betwixt board and markers due to different shrinkage rates, my Rob Allen even has tiny, almost imperceptible ridges (which he mentions on his website), but that’s awful!

[Bobthedog]

23 minutes ago, jrixn1 said:

I just picked up a Squier Classic Vibe fretless jazz, but it has this problem:

 

Running a finger down the fingerboard, can definitely slightly feel each "fret"; and then there is one marker that is coming out.  (This bass is getting sent back to the retailer, of course.)

On the Sire, is the fingerboard smooth/coated, or can you feel the fret markers?

 

Ouch! The Sire is absolutely smooth and no feel at all to the fret lines. 

[lownote]

I have converted two basses from fretted to fretless. Providing care is taken in the filling and sanding there should be no reason for the fret slot inserts to be palpable.