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Thread: Fender Jazz Fretless Setup Questions

  1. #1
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    Fender Jazz Fretless Setup Questions

    Hello,
    This is my first post.
    I recently bought a new Fender American Deluxe Jazz Fretless Bass.
    Can anybody help me with general setup questions?
    *Why are there two truss rod adjustment locations? (Headstock and by the body joint)
    *My bass seems to have dead spots on the g string around the 5, 6,7 fret positions. Can this be solved?
    *How much neck relief should there be.
    *Do the nylon tapewound strings sound good on the fretless?

    Any help or comments will be appreciated.
    Thanks!
    Ron

  2. #2
    Forum Member jrgtr42's Avatar
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    Re: Fender Jazz Fretless Setup Questions

    howdy!! welcome outside the asylum, and congrats on the new bass. Those are killer instruments...one of these days....
    I personally don't have a fretless (yet) but I sold and worked enough on them to get an idea of what I like and what are general standards.
    I learned a lot of this from Mike Pedulla, (yes, that Pedulla, of the self-namesd company. I worked in a guitar store in Massachusetts, and he was gracious to come in a couple times to talk about his basses and basses in general. Really nice guy.
    Anyways, to set up fretless, the neck should be as flat as possible. This is to get the intomation as close as possible to the lines (less distance for the string to travel to hit the neck is less stretch, hence notes are closer to in tune.
    Likewise action should be very low, to get some of the growl of the fretless while still having enough height to allow the string to vibrate properly. This takes some trial and error to get the balance right.
    The dead spots most likely can be solved, but depending on the reason behind them, there could be a few fixes.
    Are you sure the headstock is a truss rod adjustment, not just a fix point? I seem to rememeber that all the AmDlx had the body-side TR adjustment. Haven't looked closely at them lately, but in the '04 catalog I have, there is nothing on the headstock to adjust. (doesn't necassarily mean anything.)
    Nylon tapewound strings may work, if there is a metal core. If not, you won't hear a thing, since the pickups require metal to make a sound.If there is a metal core, they likely won't be as loud as a regular string, there's less metal mass over the polepeice to excite the magnets.
    Hope this helps, and let's see some pictures!

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    Re: Fender Jazz Fretless Setup Questions

    jrgtr42:

    Thank you for the reply. I built a fretless a long time ago from parts from a catalog. It looked and played super (P Bass w/ tobacco sunburst), but the neck did not have fretlines. I realized I was not disciplined enough to try to really learn how to play that thing. I quit for some time to go back to school. I recently decided to get back into playing and got a new Carvin bass and sold my old Carvin. I wanted to try the fretless again, but this time with the fretlines. I ordered a new Fender Standard MIM Jazz Fretless from an online store. When I got it, some of the pickgaurd screws were loose, a couple were covered with scoth tape. When the tape was removed, the screws fell out. I sent the bass back, and decided to get the best that I could afford, and I really like the quality of the new bass. I am, however, not familiar with Fender instruments, my only other Fender was an old Squire P bass, which I loathed (but it was built like a tank). After that one I got my first Carvin, and they are about the best I have played-very easy to set up and adjust. The new Fender is a high quality bass, but it will take some time to learn how to work on it. Do you know of any good resources-books, etc? The manual is fairly generic (its for basses and guitars-well I guess they both have strings), and does not address fretless setup. I have noticed that since I have been playing both the fretted and the fetless, that my playing is improving. The fretless seems to be improving my left hand articulation.

    Thank you,

    Ron

    Now, if I could just figure out how to insert pictures...

  4. #4
    Forum Member jinx667's Avatar
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    Re: Fender Jazz Fretless Setup Questions

    I definitly agree that the neck should be flat as possible and the action low. I have the Jaco sig jazz bass, and that is how I have it set up.

    As far as dead spots go I would say that neck probably needs to be adjusted, or Action raised a little on that string.

    There are alot of books and video that cover basic guitar/bass setup, but I have neer seen one that specifically covered fretless basses. If you find one be sure to tell the rest of us.

  5. #5
    Forum Member jrgtr42's Avatar
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    Re: Fender Jazz Fretless Setup Questions

    Agreed...there are some great resources for instrument setup, including Les Paul Forum member and fairly-frequent contributor Dan Erlewine, who has a couple books, including Guitar Player Repair Guide which is one of the main resources for do-it-yourself setups and repair. Unfortunately, he doesn't go into fretless there.
    I dida quick google search under, Fretless Bass setup, and came across this, www.garywillis.com in which he appears to mention fretless setups. There are also a bunch of other sites that may be of help, but I didn't go into any of the others.



    Getting pics online is pretty easy. The only tricky part is that you have to have them hosted somewhere, like Lilipix, run by the same person who handles this forum, Les Paul Forum and Cafe Wah (see links at the top of the page) many people use photobuckey, I use photosite.com. One the pics are online, just use the quicklink abov, the one with the mountain, and insert the URL of the picture.

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    Re: Fender Jazz Fretless Setup Questions

    jrgtr42 & jinx667:

    Thanks for the replies. I also looked on the web and found the Gary Willis site. This looks like a good place to start.

    I uploaded a few pictures to the lilypix site. Just search by by login: Bass_O_Rama.

    Thanks again!

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