www.FretlessBass.com

I am looking for input from players who have fretless basses with ebonol fingerboards. I know that are a few production models (Kingstons, Curbows, Ibanez GWB35 and EDA900, Squire VM, etc) and some replacement necks (Mighty Mite) out there so there should be some people who can provide some field reports, as it were.

How do the boards hold up to roundwounds? Any wear issues? What type of maintenance do you do to the board? I have seen recommendations of auto polishing chemicals to keep ebonol clean and shiny. How is the sound? If you use flats instead of rounds, do you get a bright mwah sound still?

I am looking at getting a new fretless and I want a durable fingerboard that will allow me to obtain a bright, singing fretless tone when I want it. I am weighing all the possible options such as ebony, epoxy or polyurethane coating, acrylized hardwoods and synthetic materials. I am just looking for real world input in regards to ebonol in this thread. If you can offer a comparison of ebonol with one of my other choices, that would be great also.

See todays entry in Spotted on Ebay - Moses Fretless Graphite Jazz Bass (Franken) - The Moses Graphite neck has a good reputation. Go here http://www.mosesgraphite.com/ to get specifications.

From Moses web site:

All standard model Moses necks have an integrated graphite fingerboard, and a black, wear-resistant, non-sticky graphite finish. All Moses neck models feature ‘fine tune’ truss rod systems. And the Moses neck delivers excellent swell and sustain, a strong fundamental, and increased, even harmonics.

The seller of that Franken Fender on Ebay is probably misinformed about having an ebonol fingerboard.

I've got a custom six string fretless with a Moses neck, I like it a lot, very stable and sounds wonderful, lots of mwah.

On the other hand, I installed a Mighty Mite neck with ebonol fingerboard on a Franken Fender and I thought it had a dead sound. Replaced it with a Warmoth P neck with Gabon Ebony fingerboard and that sounds great. I don't think it was the ebonal that killed that neck, I just think Mighty Mite necks are not the best. Ebonol on a good neck is probably terrific, I just happed to get a dead duck.

I have a Modulus Q5 with a phenolic fingerboard on graphite and that bass is fantastic. Mwah for days.

I put polyurethane on a Conklin Sidewinder 7 and an Alembic custom 6 string both with Macassar Ebony fingerboards. This helped a lot and seems quite hard but Diamond Coat is harder. No problems with wear, just don't use stainless roundwounds. The urethane really eliminated the ruts under the roundwounds. Mwah much better than natural wood but not as good as harder materials. Coating a fingerboard is labor intensive and may need a re-coat after some time if you use round wounds, but it will take much longer to rut than if uncoated.

Of all these, I have two favourites. For a natural sound I have an Veillette with uncoated Macassar Ebony board strung with D'Addario flatwounds (may change to groundwounds), and the Modulus Q5 graphite neck with phenolic fingerboard strung with D'Addario EXP coated roundrounds.

If I could only have one fretless it would be the Modulus, or something similar such as the custom with Moses neck. Something about these that lets the sound of the string overtones cut through. An added bonus is that these are just about maintenance free. No sign of ruts on this 1988 Modulus.

One last thing about phenolic and other super hard fingerboards. Because these have a much higher density, they also have a higher resonant frequency. This results in a tendancy to be brittle or edgy sounding if you also have highend pickups. To correct this characteristic I installed a John East U-RETRO preamp, highly recommended for any fretless and essential to get rid of harsh high frequencies while adding a very nice warmth.

Thank you for extensive and informative reply! I have come to espect nothing less from you. Bravo!

I am going back and forth on this. I put some new flats on my Spector core and cleaned up the board with fretboard conditioner and really liked the sound I got again. I also got a cheap Rogue fretless from a friend which seems to have an ebonol or some sort of synthetic board on it, strung it up with fresh nickel D'addario roundwounds and have been playing with that a bit. I forgot how much string noise rounds give you!