Help! Fretless bass nut setup.?

[rosssurf]

I am setting up a friends Pbass with a new fretless neck. What should the nut height be? I imagine i will need my feeler guages for this one.
What do you recomend?

[RoadToNever]

I'd look up an article about clearance between nut and 1st fret on a fretted bass and use that as a reference.

[David Schwab]

Since it's a fretless, there is no first fret. When I do fretless nuts I let the string rest right on the fingerboard. This gives you an even "mwah" tone on open strings, like you get on an upright.

If you make the nut high enough for a fret, the open notes will sound different, and you might end up playing a little sharp down there.

Just check for humps in the fingerboard! it has to be nice and flat for low action and a good fretless tone.

[Bruce Johnson]

On my fretless basses, I use a small ebony block as a "zero block" that the strings rest on as the fulcrum point. I trim that block to about 0.010" to 0.015" above the height of the fingerboard surface. If you're using a conventional nut, that's about the amount of clearance you want under each string right at the nut. It's about the thickness of an index card. Like David said, a fretless fingerboard needs to be true, that is, not have any lumps or waves along the path that the string follows. Mine are generally set up with medium to high action and relief, so they can be plucked aggressively. It just depends on how your customer intends to play the bass.

[rosssurf]

Thanks for all the info and help folks!

[Rick Turner]

Pretty much down to the fingerboard...

[Bruce Johnson]

I like to keep a tiny bit of clearance (that 0.010" to 0.015") so that there's a little bit of feel at that first position. I like to be able to shut notes off by releasing pressure, but keeping the finger on the string. If you make it too low and sensitive, you can't work with it and control how the note ends.

I know, I know, I'm an old dinosaur....I play mostly below the 7th fret and slower than 8th notes. I'll take a single rich, warm whole note over 64 lifeless metallic pings any time. Even if it's unfashionable.

[David Schwab]

Bruce you want the open strings to sound like the fingered notes. Having the string raised over the fingerboard at the nut or a zero fret will change the open string tone from the fingered string tone. Think about how the string is vibrating when you press it down against the fingerboard. It's touching, and then angles up. You aren't pressing it down to a fret which would raise it up higher.

You can actually get a similar tone if you use very low wide frets because of the break angle over the rest of the frets. I played Jeff Berlin's Dean bass a few years ago, and he had his frets so low it felt like a fretless. It was the lowest action I had ever played on a bass, besides an Alembic. Jeff's bass got an even buzz on every note. The Alembic didn't buzz one bit.

[Bruce Johnson]

That's exactly why I use the ebony block as the "zero fret". It has a wide contact area (1/4" wide) and the softer edge gives the string a softer tone, similar to a finger on the fretboard. The reason it's up that 0.010" to 0.015" above the fingerboard surface is to keep the open note precise. And, as I said, I like to have a little bit of feel when pressing that first position. On my basses, with the setup I use, that ebony block gives me the closest match in tone between open and fingered strings. Remember, I'm using smooth flatwounds with fairly high relief and action, much more like the setup on an upright bass.

On my fretted basses, I use stainless mandolin wire which ends up at about 0.030" high after leveling and dressing. You can hardly feel them, and barely hear any difference in tone between fretted and fretless models. On the fretted models, I use a stainless zero fret of a larger size which ends up about 0.010" higher than the other frets.

[David Schwab]

I like zero frets as well. I use the same size zero fret as the rest of the frets.

I'm refretting this bass after I removed all the frets and binding to rehshape the neck (and then rebound it of course). I might go with either mando frets, or wide low frets.