BP, Guitarbeurator.... you definitely bring out the Mwah!

[Psychicpet]

In between working at the guit.shop here and teaching tonight I went and put some fretless on a friend's track and went from the fretless Bongo5 into my SVT DI then into the board (the Neve strip didn't make things bad either) but I'm tellin' ya, it was a quick half hour to nail it down and the comments on tone never stopped!
and yes...........
I HAVE ROUNDWOUNDS ON MY FRETLESS!!!

I'll try to get a copy as soon as it's finished up but man... what a great sounding fretless

 

[Steve Dude Barr]

You do know that Jaco Pastorius used round correct?

 

[bovinehost]

I HAVE ROUNDWOUNDS ON MY FRETLESS!

You're insane! You're living on the edge! Get out of the way, people, he'll take you down with him!

Do you notice immediate wear on the board with those? Someone mentioned to me that only a few minutes with rounds on their fretless board and they could already see slight marks from the strings......just curious.

the homey don't play no fretless,
jack

 

[Figjam]

I had roundwounds on my fretless for a while.

 

[bovinehost]

Figs, check your PMs.

Yes, roundwounds on a fretless, I'm not OT here!

 

[Father Gino]

You're insane! You're living on the edge! Get out of the way, people, he'll take you down with him!

Do you notice immediate wear on the board with those? Someone mentioned to me that only a few minutes with rounds on their fretless board and they could already see slight marks from the strings......just curious.

That's right. Within minutes you'll have little marks on the fingerboard. Within hours you'll have noticeable wear on your fingers. Within days they'll wear right through the neck. Within weeks they'll wear right down to the core of the earth, thus causing the extinction of humanity!

 

[PeteDuBaldo]

You're insane! You're living on the edge! Get out of the way, people, he'll take you down with him!

Do you notice immediate wear on the board with those? Someone mentioned to me that only a few minutes with rounds on their fretless board and they could already see slight marks from the strings......just curious.

the homey don't play no fretless,
jack

Sounds to me like that person may choke the chicken a bit too forcefully.

I've seen wear from stainless roundwound EBs on fretted fretboards before, but not yet seen a fretless with any miles.

 

[Dr Stankface]

That's right. Within minutes you'll have little marks on the fingerboard. Within hours you'll have noticeable wear on your fingers. Within days they'll wear right through the neck. Within weeks they'll wear right down to the core of the earth, thus causing the extinction of humanity!

We'll not risk another frontal assault. That rabbit's dynamite!

 

[maddog]

You do know that Jaco Pastorius used round correct?

Yes but Jaco had epoxy on his fretboard.

 

[Father Gino]

Sounds to me like that person may choke the chicken a bit too forcefully.

When I'm choking my chicken… well I'm not going to get into that here, but I certainly do not use stainless steel!

 

[smallequestrian]

My fretless has rounds. There are marks apparent, but no actual grooves.

 

[pan_of_qld]

You do know that Jaco Pastorius used round correct?

I'm not sure he practised/rehearsed with rounds tho'?

 

[Psychicpet]

Finally... I get some people on the rounds side with fretless.
Yes Steve, I do know that Jaco used rounds it just seems that in the past whenever the topic of fretless bass has come up so has the mindset of "flats only" so hence my cheeky exclamation of using rounds.... even if it did only make me chuckle.

 

[Steve Dude Barr]

I prefer a certain unnamed brand of rounds myself on fretless (dark green silks).

 

[Psychicpet]

as for the wear issue, yes you can notice marks BUT as said by smallequestrian, no actual grooves. For all the years I've played fretless I've never gotten to a point of needing a fingerboard to be re-dressed. I do like a lighter gauge string and lower action on my fretless though so that I can make the bass and the strings do more and get it to sing a bit better that way for me, a lighter touch=more mwah and 'tone' (imho)

 

[bassmonkeee]

I recently put some unnamed purplesilk rounds on my fretless Bongo after using flats on it for the last year and a half.

To be clear--I wasn't using flats because I thought I had to, I simply liked the tone. I've seen no appreciable wear on the fretboard and if it ever does get worn, I'll get it planed. No biggie. If the tone someone hears in their head requires rounds on a fretless, knock yourself out.

I would never sacrifice tone for fretboard life. No one listens to a song and says, "I don't like the tone, but I bet his fretboard is pristine."

Using rounds on a fretless is like using tires on a car. If you don't drive, you won't wear out your tires--of course you won't get where you want to go, either...

 

[MingusBASS]

I still use rounds on my fretless and it sounds ridiculously nice.

Andrew

 

[higher1]

I too have rounds( EB slinkys to be exact ) on my fretless blue beast that just had a 17th birthday april 3rd.

I played her all nite last nite. and man what tone. even more bottom end than my baby (92 SR5) and MUWAAA for days and days. I notice a lil board wear. but nothing serious.

 

[Golem]

It would be handy if when players say they see no wear from rounds on their FL, could the player specify whether this particular ax is their primary player, occasional player, an in-between? Is it also a practice mule?

The only RW on any of my FL are the Acousticores. Even with the crazy low tension, they do cause more wear than flats. As to primary bass, practice mules, etc etc, I do play primarily FL but I also rotate an unholy number of basses, so the wear is distributed and therefor minimal on any particular ax.

Some of my FL have multiple coating of 'Tru Oil' [gun oil] on the FB and flats have yet to wear thru that stuff but the Acouticores went thru it to the wood, so there is a definite increase in wear with rounds.

As was pointed out in an earlier post, you do what you dig and you pay the cost to be the boss. I happen to like flats, even for fretted. If Acousticores were also made as flats, I'd switch.

BTW, if you use bronze or solid nickel RW, you can sand the top and bottom to reduce finger noise [mainly for piezo PUs] and FB wear [any wooden FB]. No it does not do crazy things to your intonation, and you can feel and hear the improvement. Use wet-dry 400 grit automotive type sanding paper. Clean up real good when you're done. Having grit and metal dust embedded in your strings and FB will cause rapid wear! Don't bother trying to sand stainless or plated stainless: you get minimal result or you ruin the plating.

 

[Darth Tater]

Rounds are the ONLY way to go for fretless!