Learning to do fretless setups

edspyhill · Post by **edspyhill** » Mon Sep 20, 2010 12:33 pm

I bought a low-priced Stagg fretless bass - a Fusion BC300 4-string. It arrived needing a setup, of course, but I expected that.

The relief is small enough for now but the strings at the nut were too far off the fingerboard making the bass uncomfortable to play. I have a set of bass slot files I bought from Warmoth so I lowered the slots to 0.20" for the first phase. Plays much better. I might take it down to 0.10" later.

Ed

Reason for buying the Stagg: First off I wanted a playable bass I could practice doing setups on, experimenting with different setups. It has an alder body, maple neck and rosewood fingerboard. From researching the fretless version I found that the body and neck were of good quality wood with some cosmetic issues. Pickups are considered so-so with a very noisy J-pup at the bridge. I plan to put a set of Dimarzio P/J pups in it.

Rando · Post by **Rando** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 10:50 pm

.010" is where I ended up with two basses I defretted.
.005" may be possible if you are very careful.

Go very easy on it.

And then some pencil lead (graphite) in the slots will help the string not bind as you tune up.

You'll find that the straightness of the neck will have a lot to do with tone.
I usually run around .010 to .015 underbow, but your mileage may vary.

I had good luck with DiMarzios on a J-bass I used to have. Also had a Badass II bridge on that one.

oeblio · Post by **oeblio** » Tue Nov 02, 2010 11:33 am

Rando wrote: I usually run around .010 to .015 underbow, but your mileage may vary.

.

Why underbow?

Randy Ryan · Post by **Randy Ryan** » Thu Nov 11, 2010 3:38 pm

I'm assuming that he's referring to "relief" which may have to happen depending on the state of the neck. I try to go straight but found out that I had to shim the neck (bolt on) because the action was still too high even with the saddles lowered all of the way. After shimming the neck, it made it seem almost like "backbow" so by adding a bit of "relief" (loosen truss rod) I was able to make a "straight" neck even though technically I was adding relief. Does that make any sense?