Fretless Telecaster (First post & First Warmoth build)

[natthu]

Hi All, This is my first Warmoth build...

The Warmoth Tele body is Mahogany with Korina top and black pinstripe.
Gotoh Bridge, Seymour 'Buckers, 3-way LP style switch.
Neck is a Fender Tele US Standard that has been de-fretted.
I'm thinking of having the cream dot markers removed by a local luthier...

 

[Updown]

Welcome aboard :icon_thumright:

Nice looking body you have there  :icon_biggrin:

Instead of all the trouble removing dots etc, why not just get a lovely RAW Warmoth fretless / dot less neck to for it.
May I suggest .... Pau-Ferro / Ebony  :toothy10: .... just my 2cents
Cheers  ccasion14:

 

[Cagey]

Nice job! Looks gorgeous!

I'll never figure out how you fretless guys do it, though. I'm lost most of the time with frets <grin>

 

[natthu]

Cheers guys!

@ Updown: I did not know that Warmoth had an option for fretless guitar necks (I know they do fretless bass necks)
I would love to have a custom neck built for this (and I may still do that one day), but I have a few other builds which are taking higher priority (and all my money ) at the moment...

@ Cagey: Sadly, I'm not exactly a gun guitarist on this thing yet (or any other guitar for that matter). I have been playing fretless bass for quite a few years now though and I think that my relative competence with that has helped with the fretless guitar somewhat.

 

[mayfly]

That is a wacky thing!  Do you have some recordings you can post that show what it can do?

 

[natthu]

No recordings yet. It is currently with a friend who is a far better guitarist than I... hopefully he'll lay down a few tracks.
I have found that it is excellent for slide - no need to raise the action as there are no frets for the strings to bottom out on. It also sounds killer with an eBow or a violin bow.

Before I lent it to my friend I was mainly trying to master playing chords, which has proven to be fairly difficult as I was expecting. My long term goal is to be able to play fretless competently in the same style as I would normally play fretted (I am mainly a rhythm and chords player), but to also add a small repetoir of techniques that you just can't achieve with a fretted.

My hope is to be able to hide the fact it's fretless until I pull out the 'special' moves.... stealth fretless.

 

[tfarny]

interesting! Do you have it in standard tuning? An open tuning with a slide I can see, but standard tuning + chording sounds insanely hard.

 

[natthu]

I have found dropped D tuning makes it easier to play root 6 powerchords (obviously, you just have to barr it)... but I have also experimented with tunings that are a mix of standard and some of the more common open tunings..... ie open tunings for the top 3 or 4 heavier strings but leaving the remaining high strings as G-B-e for a little more familiarity when playing small 'lead' parts or D shaped chords.