Official Luthiers Forum!

This is something new to me....Just had a visit from a guy here in town who wants a fretless acoustic guitar.......Has anybody built one?....Would he be wasting his money because I told him if I decide to do it I would want the money up front ....No much request that I know of for an instrument like that.....Any thoughts on this ....Thanks Larry

Has he ever played one ??? Or does he think it will just be cool to have ???

I did a fret rip-out on an electric for a guy .. it was interesting, but not easy to play chords in tune, and you need a completely different technique ..ie, you pretty much cant bend strings, you have to slide them, which I guess is the point. After about a month, the guy had me convert the nut and saddle action for slide.

Get the money up front, and be prepared to make another neck with frets for it. Did I mention get the money up front.

An idea might be to make it, with fret slots, but leave them empty. If he likes it after trying it this way, fill them with walnut or ebony or whatever he wants. Otherwise, fret it.

_________________
Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Tony this guy is prepared to pay the money upfront... He has not played one...I have to admit he is a really good guitar player...He thinks he will have a easier guitar to play with a better sound....I couldn't argue either way but I suspect the sound will be low and completely different than a fretted guitar.....

As usual I am a bit daft... How would this be even possible to play? I don't even quite understand how a fretless electric bass works to be honest.

_________________
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils - Louis Hector Berlioz

Chansen / C hansen / C. Hansen / Christian Hansen - not a handle.

Christian

Ouds are fretless.

Chansen ....Think violin or string bass .. no frets there !!!! the only difference is the tone difference between a metal fret and an ebony or rw board .... the string will still vibrate, but without the metallic ring or sustain

Larry .. before he springs for the real thing from you, maybe get him to buy a cheapo of some sort and rip the frets out for him .. see if he likes that. You will need to drop the nut slots and the saddle too.

_________________
Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Tony ,,Thanks ,,,Good Idea...I will suggest that to him

There's no reason why a fretless guitar wouldn't work for single line, melodic playing. But chords would obviously be quite difficult, and some chords shapes would be impossible to play in tune. If he's an accomplished player, I would assume that this is apparent to him. Maybe he knows exactly what he wants to do with it, and it would serve his purposes well.

A while back, I was discussing an idea with a great player I know - I can't remember if it was his idea or mine, but that is no matter. The idea was to make a guitar with very low frets and very low action, and to leave the frets off entirely from some point up on the neck, like no frets beyond the 9th fret or something like that. In theory (if one could work out the action/playability), this would allow chording up most of the neck where we usually play chords, while allowing fretless playing up higher. One of these years I might experiment with something like that.

_________________
Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Yeah, they're hard to play chords on. But you can do some pretty cool stuff with open tunings.

I've seen more electrics than acoustics, but they're out there. Look on youtube. Fretless banjos too!

_________________
Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

Wouldn't you completely lose out on sustain if you did this? I don't see the sense or function in a fretless acoustic.... Maybe I'm missing something. Please do keep up with updates if you do end up building one. I'd definitely be interested in seeing how it works out and what it can (or can't) do.

Yes, you do pretty much loose all sustain. There is a reason you don't find many steel string fretless instruments unless the the string is constantly driven with a bow. Gut strings are different, as are lower frequency bass strings, they will sustain a bit. Higher pitch steel strings will be rather muted and decay very rapidly.

I've done a few electrics this way (not too enthusiastically), and they can be interesting and fun so long as you take them for what they are. One was for a rather good jazz player who used with .015"s on most of his instruments. With a set of extra heavy strings I have to say I was quite surprised at how well it did sustain over other examples I've heard. Heavier strings do seem to stand a better chance at producing a clear sustained tone than lighter ones.

And yes, get the money up front. Also tell them that when you finish it, it's done and it's theirs. If they find it sounds like crap and is worthless, you have no interest in hearing any complaints at all about it. Maybe not the best example of customer service, but it's how I would set the terms. If I do anything experimental for special request, I always make it clear that it is their idea, their experiment, their problem if they end up not liking it. I'll provide materials, labor, and consultation on design, but whatever design aspects they bring to the table will be clearly their liability. If they decide they wanted it fretted after it's done, I'd charge them the same as if I'd never seen the instrument before.

_________________
Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

I believe it was Linda Manzer who built a fretless nylon string archtop for Pat Metheny. You can hear it on his Beyond the Missouri Sky record he did with Charlie Haden (the recording features the "Picasso" guitar, the acoustic Sitar guitar and others she has built for him as well). Seems like I read somewhere he wanted a guitar that sounded like Jaco's bass and the fretless archtop was her solution. Cool sound for single line playing, check it out. The question was posed to him on his website a while back about his favorite tuning for his fretless guitar and his answer was, "In..." .

Go...learn....
http://www.unfretted.com/loader.php?LINK=main

They're wonderful instruments!

Some thoughts on this, first make sure the neck is very stiff, use CF rods this will help with the sustain, think maybe of using something like cherry for the neck which will also help. Also, do not use ebony for the fingerboard as this will also dampen any vibrations. Otherwise, I think in altered tunings it might be feasible, though personally not for me.

Colin

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Why no ebony?

Jammy, thanks for the resource.

Dan

_________________
Dan
http://www.acme-archtops.com

Jammy, thanks for the resource.

Dan

_________________
Dan
http://www.acme-archtops.com

I believe I have seen more than one photo of the Ramirez shop where the fret slots were cut after the fingerboard was installed. So, even if the fretless guitar is not suitable, it is not necesarily that difficult to cut the slots and convert the guitar later.

They do indeed do it that way round, but I can imagine it being a tricky process without their specialised tooling!

Still, it's a pretty easy job to change out a fretboard, so the conversion isn't difficult...

Hey, sustain ain't all it's cracked up to be. I'm kind of serious about that.

_________________
Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Yes! Me too Todd. I have played a few nylon string fretless guitars and really loved them. You can do things with vibrato and you can get that slight sitar buzz when you dig in that really can't be done with frets. It is a lot more work to make it sound good, but well worth it I think. 5 and 6 string chords are pretty tough but punching out chords on the 4 higher strings is very possible. You just have to find the position that allows for the simplest fingering.

_________________
Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

Here's a little video of Ned Evett, one of the most famous fretless-ers playing one of his many glass fretboard guitars.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j10F9_K9 ... re=related

He's also got himself a fretless reso which sounds wonderful, though I can't really find any vids of that one. Great player, and a nice chap. I've seen him live a few times!

I don't see that this is such a big deal at all. Why not make it with 2 fret boards that are removable and key into small pins for alignment? One board is fretless and the other is fretted. Wasn't there a thread here a year or 2 ago about a guitar that had multiple boards for different tunings or different fan frets or something along those lines? Best of both worlds. MHO.
Craig S.

Its conceivable, but it would remove entirely the fingerboard's structural support for the rest of the neck (for which you'd have to compensate).

_________________
The member formerly known as erikbojerik....

I would think if you were playing it in a jazz style with lots of fast runs that a fretless with less sustain would be what you would want.

Ya, I wouldn't want to play chords with it. What a nightmare