Excessive Fret Wear?

[jazzyvee]

I recently bought a Series I Europa 5 and it was in as new condition when I got it from a collector in Europe. There was not a mark on it and fretboard and frets were unmarked. I've had the bass since about October and last night when after practicing I remembered a comment I read from JJ noticing how a bass was played due to fret wear. Anyway I noticed some marks on the frets that look like the string wrap all the way up the neck on the E string with deeper indentation at the 24th fret on that string. Similar with the D-string but not pronounced at the 24th. There are also general string wrap pattern indentations on all strings between about 1st and 7th frets. That seems a lot of wear for 3 months use.
As for my playing time I've played it almost daily since i bought it and for between 2 and 4 hours on most days depending on available time.

The strings I use are D'addario Pro-steels 45 - 130. I don't consider myself to be a heavy player so not sure if this wear is excessive or not. I have other alembics that I have had for much longer, for example my Bocate Europa that I got in around 2005 and probably played the most of all has slightly more fret wear/marks though more evenly spread across the fretboard even though that is the one I had when I was learning to slap.


Any thoughts?.

[pauldo]

My Distillate has some serious 'looking' fretwear but the playability is not hindered at all. Measuring the amount of wear might be tricky but necessary to truly quantify how much wear is too much wear.  Although I am certain my bass hasn't seen as much playtime as yours it has had the frets re-dressed once in the 30 years that I have had it, coupled with a not very light touch and I would call it 'normal' wear.

Not sure what metal recipe Alembic uses on their frets and/ or if they use the same on all instruments. . . .

This could be an interesting thread.
Do you use more vibrato with your fretting hand these days compared to you Europa era?
Generally slapping is a more staccato playing style so not a lot of time to be 'wiggling' a note out where (at least for me) longer held notes can be wiggled excessively.

[jazzyvee]

I think you have hit on something there Pauldo, I do like a lot of wiggling on notes and maybe that's because I come from a guitar playing background and it was a big part of my playing style. Hmmm.....

[gtrguy]

I think nickel wrapped strings are easier on frets.

[JimmyJ]

Good thread.  You know, things are bound to wear a bit considering how we pound on these things for hours on end.  Ha! 

I've had only minimal fret wear over the years which hasn't required much servicing.  I think that's mainly because of the nickel plated ghs Boomers I've been playing forever.  My understanding is that fretwire is also mostly nickel so the two metals should theoretically wear similarly (?).  My strings do get "notched" pretty quickly so it could just be that my frets win this battle.

It's logical that steel-wound strings would more quickly eat the frets.  And that 24th fret E-string and upper G-string wear must come from slapping, no? 


But frets are serviceable, even replaceable, so this is just the cost of getting the tone we need.
 
Carry on!
Jimmy J

[mica]

Also, I find that travel wear the frets a great deal! Clamped in the the case, riding in the back seat, vibrating all the way. If you slip a thin sheet of cardboard between the strings and the frets, it will eliminate the travel portion of the wear. But, as Paul mentioned, even bad looking frets can play just fine.

Jimmy is right in the frets vs. strings battle - someone has to win Steel is harder than nickel, and so the frets lose in that battle, but they might win for tone. It's all a tradeoff.

We've been using a Jescar wire for a long time. Before that it was Dunlop, and of course any custom job will have whatever fret wire was ordered by the original owner.

[hieronymous]

As for my playing time I've played it almost daily since i bought it and for between 2 and 4 hours on most days depending on available time.

I don't make my living from playing, so that sounds like a lot of time to me!

I think you have hit on something there Pauldo, I do like a lot of wiggling on notes and maybe that's because I come from a guitar playing background and it was a big part of my playing style. Hmmm.....

I think this would have a big effect - it's kind of like when guitar players pick up a fretless and proceed to wiggle the string for vibrato - a non-guitarist bassist can be fine with rounds on a fretless and all it takes is some guitarist vibrato to mess up the board! Much less worry on frets but it could be part of the reason.

I've been using LaBella nickel rounds on my Stanley Clarke 5-string and really enjoying them - a bit higher tension and smoother feeling than steels.

[jazzyvee]

I have tried nickels before on guitar and bass and my fingertips seemed to get sore on both hands so i moved over to steels and dont have that problem. Early last year i tried nyxl's and they feel great but damn expensive to restring my whole arsenal with.

[smokin_dave]

In the almost 14 years I've had my Rogue and having used it almost exclusively the fret wear is not that noticeable.A guitarist I've played with in bands for 20 years was looking at my frets a couple of weeks ago and said it has almost no fret wear.He was amazed.He saw it the day it arrived in my life.

The thing is that I do play it with very low action and use a pretty light touch especially since the knuckles and joints in my hands are getting more painful to use with my advancing age.Arthritis.What a bummer but that fact alone I guess saves my frets as it was just the opposite when I was a kid.I would hammer away with high action on my basses.Fret wear was very prominent in those days.

I tend to use round wound steels almost exclusively unless something new comes along to spike my interest.They just sound the best to me and that's what I go for.Alway's striving and suffering for great tone.

Although playing Alembic basses I just don't suffer that much.

[mario_farufyno]

Funny that I feel the opposite of you, Jazzy. Always felt steel as being more abrasive than nickel, especially concerning D'Addario strings (hate those).

[jazzyvee]

No we are the same steels are more abrasive but that is not the pain I feel. It is a pain just from pressing the strings down similar to the pain you had when first started playing bass. It's the same on guitar which is one of the reasons why I now use steels or coated elixirs on guitar. It has been suggested I may have a slight nickel allergy but I doubt that the nickel content would get to the sensitive layers of skin with bass player fingertips.