Fretless Mandolin?

[NoNickel]

I was thinking lately that it might be easier to get more of a fiddle effect to your playing with a fretless mandolin (microtones and such). On the other hand this might be totally unworkable on the instrument and just be a catastrophe. The alternative might be using a slide, which I know Sam Bush has done on some recordings. Has this totally worn out as a topic?

[MikeEdgerton]

Here (http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/search.php?query=fretless&exactname=0&starteronly=0&forumchoice%5B%5D=&prefixchoice%5B%5D=&childforums=1&titleonly=1&searchdate=0&beforeafter=after&do=process) are a few. There are more. It's always interesting to discuss this one though.

[chasray]

Maybe a 4-stringer electric would work.

[rico mando]

pull the frets .fill with wood filler. and then you have a fretless with marker lines to help you find your notes

[EdHanrahan]

... marker lines to help you find your notes ...
... or whatever silly sound the instrument might be coaxed into producing.

IMHO, an orchestra's violin section playing pizzicato (spell?) is tolerable in limited doses. A solo fretless mandolin, sitting near the campfire, might soon be deemed more useful for, uhmm, an alternative use.

[NoNickel]

Here are a couple of particularly cogent replies from another thread, which I think pretty well answers my question:


'I think this got discussed before here. If I'm remembering incorrectly I'm sure I'll get corrected. I thinkg the reason a fretless mando isn't in production is there is almost zero sustain on it. Because your finger tips aren't fret-hard so to speak, after you pick a note it will imediatley die off. Like if you fret right on top of a fret instead of behind it.

The Violins, cellos, basses and violas don't need frets because the note is sustained by the friction of the bow/rosin as it rubs the string to maintain vibration.

I hope this is reasonably accurate.

Jamie"

and then:


A violin is basically a fretless mandolin. Same tuning, similar scale length. They sound lousy when plucked.

So, as the lawyers say: "Asked and answered."

[NoNickel]

This post from Flowerpot was also interesting:



Yep, it's the sustain thing. It's tough to get mileage from slides or vibrato when the note dies too quickly.

I played an old mandolin of mine fretless for a day or two while I was doing a re-fret. Just for fun. What I discovered was:

1. It didn't sound that awfully different from having frets when playing a regular tune or chords (it wasn't that hard to get the chop chord in tune), only a bit less bright.

2. Sliding into or out of notes was almost a complete waste. By the time you slid up into a note, the note had decayed so much that all you heard was the note a half-step down, sliding up through a quarter step, and dying before reaching the real note. So slides sounded crummy (imagine playing a Dobro and replacing the steel bar with a carrot).

3. Hammer-ons and pull-offs were basically inaudible.

4. Double-stop slides combined with tremolo are cool and will catch somebody's attention immediately.

5. It was fun but I was glad to get the frets back.

[MandoPheel]

Would the sustain really be that much worse than a fretless banjo? The ones I've heard played claw hammer style sounded pretty cool (for a banjo!), particularly the hammer-ons and pull-offs.

[bolannta]

A cavaquinho in mandolin tuning has guitar-like sustain. They are built for steel strings. The D'Addario EJ70 ball end mando set works well and has a little less total tension load than their cavaquinho set. Several grades of Giannini cavaquinhos are sold online. The student ones are not too expensive. Slide playing without pulling the frets is an option.