Fretless 4 string guitar/mando/something idea

[coldbrightsunlight]

I have a strange idea for an instrument I want, and ILF is always the logical place to go with dumb gear ideas. I've long wanted a fretless guitar but never bothered so far, and always been put off by it being a whole guitar, somehow. Too many strings when I'd probably not play 6 string chords. Also it's nice to have things that feel a little different to take you to different places. Recently I've been getting into playing viola, and while playing in a guitar-y style through fuzz it hit me that a mandolin/tenor guitar would be the ideal fretless electric plucked instrument, and would be a lot of fun. The shorter scale, 4 strings and different tuning (clearly different tunings are possible on a standard electric, but this is where the idea came from) would lend itself to feeling different and being fun, in my head. Viola inspired the idea but doesn't scratch the itch as the shape and construction obviously don't really lend themselves to properly playing like a guitar. I'd want something I can really strum and bash and bend on.

Done a bit of research and it seems I'm not the first person to have thoughts in this direction (that would be unlikely!!) - see this beautiful hack job. https://reverb.com/item/71447082-fretle ... lack-relic

but there's definitely nothing out there as far as I can see that just exists to buy. I've come up with a few options:

1. Get an electric tenor guitar / mandolin (Eastwood being one obvious choice here but presumably not exclusive) and remove the frets. Relatively straightforward, it's already set up for roughly the tuning I want (probably either viola or cello tuning, or 5ths tuning somewhere in the middle of the two). Seems like a winner, the eastwoods are more expensive than I thought but maybe a bit of hunting will turn something up cheaper.

2. Get something custom. For example on my travels I found this: https://alphershop.com/products/micro-m ... eq=uniform this is spookily close to what I want, just WITH frets. And presumably there are other people that would do something. But, relatively expensive and probably a fair wait.

3. Get a short scale guitar and swap out the bridge and nut for 4 strings, remove frets. Bit more work than option 1 but still doesn't sound toooo crazy? (though finding a bridge with the right spacing might be interesting... Need to look at the "weird guitars" and see what spacing they're using). But feels like more of a gamble with it feeling good with the 4 string setup - principally thinking the neck is going to be bigger and that might be odd. hard to say


Anyone know anything I don't, got any inspiration?

[dubkitty]

how about a Squier Mini Jazzmaster? they're 22.5" scale like the good Duo Sonics and are cheap enough that you wouldn't feel awful if you fucked it up. they also don't look nearly as silly as the Mini Strats.

i'm also thinking in general about conversion necks for guitars with bolt-on necks. with a narrower neck you could use the stock bridge and pickups without the E strings (the middle 4 string positions), though you'd want to take the extraneous saddles off so they didn't rattle.

i shouldn't have looked at the Reverb link...now i want one.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Oh those are cute! Hadn't heard of em. Yeah was looking at duo sonics and stuff but this does maybe look like a more easily available option at least from a quick google. Cheap too! I think this idea does make more sense as either a cheapie DIY or paying quite a lot for a Proper Instrument not modded by me. The middle zone is where it gets weird and scary about fucking stuff up yeah

[dubkitty]

this is the perfect sort of thing for cheap experimentation...it's good to have a proof-of-concept before you go about ordering something up.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Yeah, the more I think about it, getting hold of the cheapest short scale I can find that's not complete shit, then having a go, is the way at least to start. My previous attempt at defretting went... sort of OK, but that was on a bass that already played badly, I think if I started with something decent I could get it done. Might at least get a quote from a luthier too just to see how expensive it'd be to get it done better (though I'd also appreciate the practice/learning/project element)

[dubkitty]

colored wood filler is about to become your new best friend. they sell it at StewMac and other such places in rosewood or ebony. if you want to do the Jaco fretlines thing you could fill any chips first with the wood colored filler using a piece of plastic or card stock in the fret slot to keep it clear, let it dry, and then use some other material to fill the gaps.

list price is $190 USD. you couldn't buy the parts for that price without going all GFS. humbuckers aren't ideal, but you can back them off the strings so they're not so woofy. i used to play country rock on a ES-335 through a Twin with the Bright switch on and Bass on 4.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Yeah there's no way I could put anything together cheaper, which is wild!! It still feels... kinda wrong buying a new guitar for this monstrosity. But obviously <24" scale guitars don't come up used with the frequency of telecasters... So we'll see how long I wait before caving and getting one of those.

I did also find this adorable/awful baby SG thing though. https://www.voxamps.co.uk/products/sdc1

[Blackened Soul]

One thing, if you want to not do the big project thing, you can find fretless strat necks, mightymite and things from china pop up

[coldbrightsunlight]

Ah that would be neat. Will scan around for those. Really can't make my mind up about which direction but I'm certainly thinking about it a lot

Wish I hadn't sold my old starter strat copy, that would have been pretty perfect to try this out. So maybe the "proof of concept" solution is just buy some beater for £50 and have at it.

[Blackened Soul]

I think that is a good idea..
https://reverb.com/item/77312181-mighty ... gLRCvD_BwE

https://reverb.com/item/36238511-new-fe ... ished-neck
A cheap one
https://www.ebay.com/itm/334534513419?c ... gKUSvD_BwE

I had constantly evolving project fretless thing called the thang.. it started me finding a honher rockwood bass neck with a cracked fingerboard for $20 in a shop that I replaced the fingerboard on with an ebony fretless board.. the neck though was/is the most rubbery thing and moves all over the place.. so first I tried to make a normal bass with it, my first attempt at making my own body.. then I got a 2nd from warmoth to replace Thant neck.. but then I got bored one day and pulled that neck out again and bolted it to a chunk or wood, made a wooden buzz bridge and string it with piccolo bass strings for a weird sitar/sarod/bass thang… with a real shitty epiphone mudbucker that had no lows… I then moved that to a Ibanez roadstar ii guitar body that I filled in the trem rout and recut the horns to look like a mustang… I then went to a normal bass bridge and tried all kinds or random strings and tunings… then… I put on a normal bass neck… then I drilled two more holes in the shitty fretless neck, and stuck it on a Jackson stealth body I had with a Floyd rose… so it ended up a fretless bass vi with a Floyd…. I used that for one or two songs on icebear’s world… then I took it apart for good.. still have all the parts somewhere…

[coupleonapkins]

Mini Jazzmaster n' Hannah Montana tenor conversion vid I finally found:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVlSXFa9vDg

But those Cozarts also eggsist, but not to sure in yer neck o'er th' vvooods



Hi-lite 2 allodis is that the parts are plentiful, even if you have to pull the frets out yerslef (Squiers have very soft fretboards, fwiw)

[dubkitty]

oh my god. i don't need anything new to GAS over, but how can i resist? they're weird, they're cute, and they're cheap. and the Cozart even has 4-string Tele hardware!

with different tunings and preparations you could probably have a whack at oud, sarod, and/or balalaika stuff. add one of those Keeley ADT boxes or some kind of delay you can set in milliseconds and here comes mandola and bouzouki. i wouldn't be able to resist putting super light strings on and going Arabic.

[coldbrightsunlight]

omg the Cozarts are fantastic. How did I not find this in my searching

Well, in the meantime, I've made my own, with 15 minutes of initial work well worthy of the HACK JOBS thread.

Found a very cheap mini guitar (scale is ~18.5") for sale, drove over last night to check it works and buy. Seemed playable so I grabbed it, and today swapped out the middle 4 saddles with 2 spare ones from a jazz style bass bridge which is impressively close to the size they actually need to be. It was playable using the D & B string nut slots but I roughly cut a couple of new ones to give it a go.







Note the new nut slot cut at a nice jaunty angle on the 3rd string

So far, very fun to play, definitely confirms I need a tenor in my life. Got it tuned GDAE and it's great, can't decide whether I want to stick here, head up to CGDA or something still in 5ths in between the two. Can I make this playable enough that THIS tenor is the one... that remains to be seen Probably going to order some fret pullers soon though

[coldbrightsunlight]

I had constantly evolving project fretless thing called the thang.. it started me finding a honher rockwood bass neck with a cracked fingerboard for $20 in a shop that I replaced the fingerboard on with an ebony fretless board.. the neck though was/is the most rubbery thing and moves all over the place.. so first I tried to make a normal bass with it, my first attempt at making my own body.. then I got a 2nd from warmoth to replace Thant neck.. but then I got bored one day and pulled that neck out again and bolted it to a chunk or wood, made a wooden buzz bridge and string it with piccolo bass strings for a weird sitar/sarod/bass thang… with a real shitty epiphone mudbucker that had no lows… I then moved that to a Ibanez roadstar ii guitar body that I filled in the trem rout and recut the horns to look like a mustang… I then went to a normal bass bridge and tried all kinds or random strings and tunings… then… I put on a normal bass neck… then I drilled two more holes in the shitty fretless neck, and stuck it on a Jackson stealth body I had with a Floyd rose… so it ended up a fretless bass vi with a Floyd…. I used that for one or two songs on icebear’s world… then I took it apart for good.. still have all the parts somewhere…

what a journey. The hohner rockwood synchronicity is amazing though! The universe speaks.

Next steps are to intonate the thing a bit better, have a think about making/finding better bridge saddles/entire bridge, then seriously consider the fret removal... Medium-long term, the finish is absolute shit so I'm going to remove it and do something else. But the thing is heavy enough it's clearly real wood, guess I'll find out whether it's glued together scraps fit for a solid colour spray or a decent piece when I get the old one off New pickguard too because that is baaaaad and has actually started to split between the plys around the neck.

[dubkitty]

18.5