Taped frets

[icecycle66]

I like a very soft sound, almost fretless but not quite.
Frets just sound, so, fretty and twangy. Too much clickity-clack when playing aggressive. Too much attack when playing soft.
I hate that, but I also don't like the sound of straight fretless. Fretless is too slow and I can't do as much string manipulation without frets.

So here's my striking now. Highs rolled all the way out. Mids rolled way down. Finger striking the strings. Nickle strings. Taped frets.
Yes, I've begin taping over my frets. I have two layers of black electrical tape covering every fret.
It's working pretty well. It's kind of a pain in the ass to do and redo when the tape starts wearing away.

Has anybody ever heard of a hard rubberized or nylon/polyester/other fretting system?
(If not I got dibs on naming it.)

[madbean]

Fret condoms?

[galaxiex]

The Lute and many other eastern stringed instruments use tied-on nylon frets.

Google search nylon frets images.

[jposega]

F*ck those jerks on TalkBass (TheEmptyCell from TB here). They've got their heads so far up their butts about what is or isn't musical....

Like I said, check out the Marco Fretgroove system. Might be hard to DIY, but it's a concept.

As I suggested, get a cheap bass (if fretted, pull the frets) and experiment.

Look into something like surgical tubing. Shrink wrap around some heavy wire. Carbon fiber? Graphite? 3D printed something?

[wgc]

Sounds pretty cool. I've always liked fretless but agree about the attack.

I think I'd try getting some weed wacker filament and super glue it into the fret slots on a cheap neck. Trim to size after its dry. Should last a little longer and easy enough to change.

You might have to search around for the right diameter but once you find it, it should help make things pretty consistent.

[icecycle66]

I like the weed whacker idea and the rubber band idea from over at talk bass.

Even further than this.
Here's my idea.

I want a maple neck with a removable fingerboard.
The reason the finger board needs to be removable is because I want multiple fingerboards that fit into the same guitar neck.

For instance I may be playing on a next with extra jumbo frets, but I want to switch to a neck with mandolin wide frets. Just swap out the fret board and there you go.
This will also expand into alternate fret materials.  I would like to have a fret board with pine frets, another with mahogany frets, and another with ebony frets.
Maybe have a fretboard I can slap on the neck that has delrin frets, and one with brass frets.

I need a special neck made with a selection of interchangeable fret boards.
Can you do anything about this?

Maybe some sort of tray system or easy bolt on fretboard system that with a few bolts you can change out the whole fretboard.

[GermanCdn]

I don't know that I'd want to be bolting a fretboard on.  You don't have a lot of wood to play with, so it would be really hard to hide the head.

Best way I could thing of doing it would be using a keyed fretboard (like G&L does with some of their bridges, you'd machine a slot or two in the neck blank, and then then glue a corresponding piece(s) of wood to the back of the fretboard), and then embed strong magnets at both ends.  Problem is, over the long run, your fretboards are going to want to bow because their length to thickness ratio is so high, and your truss rod would be useless, as unless you've got complete adhesion between the fretboard and the neck, tweaking the neck will not translate linearly into the fretboard.

Pine and Mahogany frets would not last a song IMO.  Ebony maybe, but you'd have a bitch of a time trying to stabilize the wood.