New Forum - Turn fretted into fretless pros and cons

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Hello,

I've just got a 2nd hand Warwick Corvette Rockbass, the bass is in great condition however, I want to turn it into fretless. I've heard that it's price may lower, but I really want to have a fretless since that's pretty much all I've played, I currently own a 4 string fretless bass by a brand called Eagle, so I wanted to jump into a 5 string bass to see what are the differences.

I would like to know what kind of treatment I should give to the bass if I turn it into a fretless, also, if the sound will differ from a a factory fretless.

Please, share your knowledge regarding this matter.
 
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If you have the skills to do it yourself, and there are various approaches/opinions on the matter I would say go for it. I have done this on 3 of my basses in the past with good results. The 2nd/3rd were particularly good and the first was playable, but just not as pretty of a conversion. I removed the fretted and then sanded the board to get it it uniform. Took the dust and mixed it with epoxy to refill the fret slots with a matching color. Then epoxy'd the whole board. You'll need a straight edge and some way to ensure the neck it flat when doing this. It's a pain, but not too bad.

An option I've always wanted to try was leaving the frets in and grinding them flush so that I could in theory still use them to get get a fretted sound if I wanted but slides and general playing would sound fretless.
 
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only ever did this once but I paid someone to remove the whole board on my thumb 5 and replace it with a new unlined ebony board with the dots in the correct place. It did not cost much and came out looking like it was made that way. I would look at this before trying to pull frets out.
 
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I would advise against defretting your instrument. If it sounds well the way it is, keep it so.
You can find good 5-string fretless in the Marketplace...
And you will have the best of both worlds!
But if it is really necessary to defret your bass, look for a very good luthier and prepare your wallet...
 
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