Re: fretless guitar

I had a fretless guitar "built" (actually I had the
frets pulled out of a neck on a fake strat).

Sustain is the first problem. If the effect you are
looking for is pizzicato strings, then you'll get it.
A bass (upright or fretless electric) has great big
strings that actually vibrate for a while.

I found that I would have needed a lot of shedding
to even get scales to stay in tune. And a lot of that
shedding would have to be with recordings (or drones
but I play more 'harmonic' oriented musics) since
drift is not terribly noticeable in the heat of
the moment.

It was fun to plunk dyads and triads and hear them
with the just intervals, but I never could do it at
tempo (although its not that important to keep the
fast stuff "in tune"!)

My electric playing style features bends and bend
style vibrato. With a fretless, you really want to
only go with the direction of the string, using a
classical guitar vibrato and 'bending' done through
sliding. Another thing that required more shedding
than the sonic results meritted.

Randy Roos is a Boston area guitarist who had a
fretless guitar with a steel fretboard and a
"sustaniac" like pickup exciting the strings. It
wasn't always completely in tune but he did master
the expressive capabilities of the instrument. He
also sometimes played it using the fingernails on
his fretting hand rather than the fingertips. I
believe this is the technique used on the sarod.

So if I was to take it up again, I'd tune down a
fourth or fifth and scale the strings accordingly,
and I might consider an ebow for melodic playing.
I believe Nguyen Le may play fretless ebow guitar
on some of his recordings.

Bob Valentine

Robert C Valentine wrote:

> I had a fretless guitar "built" (actually I had the
> frets pulled out of a neck on a fake strat).
>
> Sustain is the first problem. If the effect you are
> looking for is pizzicato strings, then you'll get it.
> A bass (upright or fretless electric) has great big
> strings that actually vibrate for a while.

This is why I went with fretless bass. If I was going
to do it again, I'd look at a 5 or 6 string to extend
my upper range.

> Randy Roos is a Boston area guitarist who had a
> fretless guitar with a steel fretboard and a
> "sustaniac" like pickup exciting the strings. It
> wasn't always completely in tune but he did master
> the expressive capabilities of the instrument. He
> also sometimes played it using the fingernails on
> his fretting hand rather than the fingertips. I
> believe this is the technique used on the sarod.

When Jon Catler used his interchangeable stainless
steel fretboard he used his fingernails on the high
strings. Later when he got a fretless G&L (a luthier
had prepaired the fretboard with 3-Ton epoxy), the
sustain was so good he didn't need to use fingernails.

> So if I was to take it up again, I'd tune down a
> fourth or fifth and scale the strings accordingly,
> and I might consider an ebow for melodic playing.
> I believe Nguyen Le may play fretless ebow guitar
> on some of his recordings.

Who's Nguyen Le? The name sounds familiar.

--
* D a v i d B e a r d s l e y
* xouoxno@virtulink.com
*
* J u x t a p o s i t i o n N e t R a d i o
* M E L A v i r t u a l d r e a m house monitor
*
* http://www.virtulink.com/immp/lookhere.htm

[Robert C Valentine:]
>Sustain is the first problem. If the effect you are looking for is
pizzicato strings, then you'll get it.

With a clean tone this is true enough, though like most instrument
specific quirks, this too can be turned from a (potential) negative
into a positive. And while even the slightest bit of distortion might
be too much distortion for some tastes or contexts... I generally tend
to use a bunch of different shades (or degrees) of distortion on the
fretless, and as such, rarely ever find lack of sustain to be a
bothersome issue.

>With a fretless, you really want to only go with the direction of the
string, using a classical guitar vibrato and 'bending' done through
sliding. Another thing that required more shedding than the sonic
results meritted.

Hmm... One of my very favorite things about the fretless *is* the faux
string bends... and though (somewhat alarming) things like ever so
slightly rolling your finger forwards or backwards are a particular
favorite of mine, some players do take a much more straightforward
approach... or perhaps use the fretless as a more colorful and
intonationally detailed interpreter of more orthodox contexts
(<http://www22.pair.com/taxim/items/tx2036.htm> would be one such
example of what I'm trying to say here).

Dan

>and I might consider an ebow for melodic playing.
>I believe Nguyen Le may play fretless ebow guitar
>on some of his recordings.
>
>Bob Valentine
>
He does indeed. Very well.

George
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There are several options to combat the decreased sustain of
fretless guitars:

1. Make it a baritone guitar! Tune it down a fourth and use
heavier gauge strings.
2. Increase the scale length a couple of inches, and again
use heavier strings.
3. Just use heavier strings. On a fretless, you will not be
bending anyway.
4. Treat the fingerboard with superglue.
5. Treat the fingerboard with an epoxy-alcohol (wood or pure
grain) mixture. The alcohol thins it down for greater
penetration. Use many coats, and use a high grade epoxy.
This is my favorite. You have lots of control, and you can
vary the viscosity from 30-70 for the beginning of the job
to 70-30 as the coat builds up. Put on several coats a day
and give it a couple weeks to cure before sanding and
polishing. Use automotive sanding plane ($10-$20 at an auto
paint store) to sand and automotive polish (like Maguiar's)
to polish. I have done this a lot on fretlesses, and it
helps.
6. Play in really strong winds for that Aeolian harp
effect;)
7. Switch to bass. Bass players are studlier, and people
expect you to play out of tune anyway.

--
John Starrett
"We have nothing to fear but the scary stuff."
http://www-math.cudenver.edu/~jstarret/microtone.html

on 12/20/00 11:24 PM, tuning@egroups.com at tuning@egroups.com wrote:

> ________________________________________________________________________
> ________________________________________________________________________
>
> Message: 13
> Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 17:21:46 -0700
> From: John Starrett <jstarret@carbon.cudenver.edu>
> Subject: fretless guitar
>
> There are several options to combat the decreased sustain of
> fretless guitars:

> 3. Just use heavier strings. On a fretless, you will not be
> bending anyway.
> 4. Treat the fingerboard with superglue.
> 5. Treat the fingerboard with an epoxy-alcohol (wood or pure
> grain) mixture. The alcohol thins it down for greater
> penetration. Use many coats, and use a high grade epoxy.
> This is my favorite. You have lots of control, and you can
> vary the viscosity from 30-70 for the beginning of the job
> to 70-30 as the coat builds up. Put on several coats a day
> and give it a couple weeks to cure before sanding and
> polishing. Use automotive sanding plane ($10-$20 at an auto
> paint store) to sand and automotive polish (like Maguiar's)
> to polish. I have done this a lot on fretlesses, and it
> helps.

Hi John,

Thanks for the good advice regarding heavier strings and treating the
fingerboard. I'm in the process of picking out an acoustic guitar to do the
defretting deed on, and had been wondering about strings. How heavy a gauge
do you recommend?

I'm also interested in anyone elses' thoughts and experiences on using
standard acoustic type bronze wound strings on fretless, or whether to go
with something else, such as nickel wound?, flat wound? etc.

Thanks. Happy solstice to all, along with all the other winter holidays..

Seth

------
Seth Austen
http://www.sethausten.com
email; seth@sethausten.com

--
"To be nobody-but-myself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and
day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which
any human being can fight, and never stop fighting."
-- e.e. cummings

Hello list!

Yesterday the acoustic guitar that I'd ordered to turn into a fretless
showed up at a music store where I teach and was de-fretted by my local
tech. He's been a wonderful ally and resource to my tuning projects, having
previously made me a fretless banjo and re-fretted a funky guitar to 31 tET.

Last night I brought home my NEW fretless acoustic guitar, a Martin OM-15.
It is my first ever fretless guitar, been dreaming of having one for years!
I am amazed at how intuitive it feels to play, it seems that all the work
I've been doing to learn to play JI on slide guitar, fiddle and voice while
waiting for this guitar to arrive has paid off. It's really quite wonderful.
I knew that it would sound good, however, it sounds even better than I
could've imagined. It has aspects of a fretless bass, oud and sarod, all in
one. I can hardly wait to dig out all the saved posts with various scales to
try out on this instrument. Fun!

I particularly wish to thank all the other guitarists on this list who have
answered my questions and offered advice and pointed me towards various
resources and websites.

I shall post some pictures and hopefully some mp3s of this creature soon.

Seth

--
Seth Austen

http://www.sethausten.com
emails: seth@sethausten.com
klezmusic@earthlink.net

--- In tuning@y..., Seth Austen <klezmusic@e...> wrote:

> Last night I brought home my NEW fretless acoustic guitar, a Martin OM-15.
> It is my first ever fretless guitar, been dreaming of having one for years!

What is the fingerboard made of?

on 5/12/01 11:51 PM, tuning@yahoogroups.com at tuning@yahoogroups.com wrote:

> From: paul@stretch-music.com
> Subject: Re: fretless guitar

> What is the fingerboard made of?

Hi Paul,

It's one of the 15 series Martins, all solid mahogany body and top, I
believe it has a rosewood fingerboard. The OM is a smaller bodied guitar,
like a 000, main difference is a wider neck than standard, 1 + 3/4 inches at
the nut. It's what I am used to on my other guitars. It also has scalloped
bracing. It's an amazing little guitar for the money, I was never a big
Martin fan, except for a friends' vintage 1930s 000-28. But I do like what
they're making now, for a production model. We didn't do the epoxy treatment
to the fingerboard yet, the tech is going on a vacation and had time to do
the basic de-fretting, I'll probably have him do that when he gets back. I'm
concerned as to the longevity of the fingerboard with steel strings.

Do I remember correctly from a posting a while back that you're using one of
these 15-series Martins for your 22tET guitar? I've got some of your 22tET
posts saved and am looking forward to trying some of it out on this
instrument.

Seth

--
Seth Austen

http://www.sethausten.com
emails: seth@sethausten.com
klezmusic@earthlink.net

--- In tuning@y..., Seth Austen <klezmusic@e...> wrote:

>I
> believe it has a rosewood fingerboard.

No metal, huh?

>We didn't do the epoxy treatment
> to the fingerboard yet, the tech is going on a vacation and had
time to do
> the basic de-fretting, I'll probably have him do that when he gets
back. I'm
> concerned as to the longevity of the fingerboard with steel strings.

That's what I was thinking.

>
> Do I remember correctly from a posting a while back that you're
using one of
> these 15-series Martins for your 22tET guitar?

No. So far I have a 22-tET electric and a 31-tET electric. I'm
planning to get an acoustic (Martin?) in an unequal tuning with 22
frets per octave (the shrutar).

> I've got some of your 22tET
> posts saved and am looking forward to trying some of it out on this
> instrument.

Don't miss the broadcast on the 18th -- thanks Johnny!