davegardner0
Senior Member
- Messages
- 240
The purple bass I built two years ago has seen some pretty heavy use lately from its owner (my wife). She really likes it BUT ever since I got my roasted maple neck for my black telecaster the bass's old plain maple, gloss finished neck has been seeming a little sticky and slow to her. Plus, it seems to need a truss rod adjustment about every two months to keep the action from getting high and I'm a little tired of that.
So...you can probably guess what's coming! We're thinking about a roasted maple 30" SSB neck from the showcase. I've just been SO SO impressed with Warmoth's roasted maple so far, for both playing feel and stability.
One thing I've been thinking about though is fret size. For the existing neck I went with regular 6150 "jumbo" frets. But one piece of feedback she's given me is that pretty much any additional thinness of the neck would be a good thing for her. So for this neck I'm thinking of going with the small 6230 frets, in stainless so they don't wear fast. I've noticed with guitar necks that as the frets get lower the neck definitely starts to feel thinner front-to-back. Plus she says that when she plays, her small fingers don't actually touch anything besides the bass strings. She actually doesn't care about fretboard material because of this (she never touches it) so I'm thinking it'll be the same for the frets.
So my question is, can anybody think of a reason why the small vintage frets wouldn't be good on a bass? A quick perusal of the internet's forum wisdom seems to suggest that most guitar players like larger frets for bending (me included) but many bass players seem to prefer the smaller frets. A lot of them also seem to not care at all about fret size.
What do you guys think??
Bonus: some pics from our band's gig last weekend, with the SSB in action!
So...you can probably guess what's coming! We're thinking about a roasted maple 30" SSB neck from the showcase. I've just been SO SO impressed with Warmoth's roasted maple so far, for both playing feel and stability.
One thing I've been thinking about though is fret size. For the existing neck I went with regular 6150 "jumbo" frets. But one piece of feedback she's given me is that pretty much any additional thinness of the neck would be a good thing for her. So for this neck I'm thinking of going with the small 6230 frets, in stainless so they don't wear fast. I've noticed with guitar necks that as the frets get lower the neck definitely starts to feel thinner front-to-back. Plus she says that when she plays, her small fingers don't actually touch anything besides the bass strings. She actually doesn't care about fretboard material because of this (she never touches it) so I'm thinking it'll be the same for the frets.
So my question is, can anybody think of a reason why the small vintage frets wouldn't be good on a bass? A quick perusal of the internet's forum wisdom seems to suggest that most guitar players like larger frets for bending (me included) but many bass players seem to prefer the smaller frets. A lot of them also seem to not care at all about fret size.
What do you guys think??
Bonus: some pics from our band's gig last weekend, with the SSB in action!


