dsalling - Posted - 01/21/2023:  17:40:50

I have been playing guitar for 50 years, mandolin for 3, and bluegrass banjo for 5 years. So, definitely not used to playing fretless instruments. I love the sound of the cello banjo and was thinking of purchasing a fretless one because I love the sound of the slides. Will fret markers impede the cool sound when sliding up or down the neck?

copperheadautomation - Posted - 01/21/2023:  19:04:57

If by fret markers you mean something inlaid into the fingerboard then no it won't impede the sound at all!
markers as in a sticker of some sort I can't say for sure but I know they sell them for violins on Amazon so I think it would work out just fine.
I've made a few fretless banjos with epoxy inlay and none have a fretted sound!

 

rmcdow - Posted - 01/21/2023:  20:22:04

I have a CEB-5, and found that the strings (round wire wound) from Gold Tone sounded like an airplane taking off when sliding up the string. I changed to flat wound strings, and there is no sound from the strings when sliding. There are no inlayed fret markers as in the banjo above, so I can't speak to that type of marker, but I can't imagine that there would be any issues as long as the fretboard is completely level and the markers are not raised at all. If you want that sound of your finger sliding up a string that is wound with round wire, the Gold Tone strings will definitely give you that.

copperheadautomation - Posted - 01/22/2023:  08:53:12

rmcdow thats really good to know about the strings!
I usually use LaBella 17 Nylons on my banjos, but I'll keep the Gold Tones in mind if someone asks for steel strings.

BrooksMT - Posted - 01/24/2023:  18:44:44

I have a fretless mountain banjo, made from a kit by Brian Carver. When I first started playing, I laid a strip of low tack masking tape on the neck. I measured the fret spacing on my fretted banjo, then applied that to the tape with a black marker pen. I had to adjust "marker pen fret" spacing to account for the different nut-to-bridge length of fretless neck vs fretted neck. There are programs online that will do that for you, here's one example
omnicalculator.com/other/fret

If you play every day, and use your ear to determine where to put your left hand fingers, after a while it will become natural to move left hand to proper positions. I took the tape off long ago, just not needed (and my ear is a better judge of intonation than math, hoho). But the tape will get you started, reduce some frustration probably.

My ears are super-sensitive to intonation. I wrote a long BHO thread comparing Equal Temperment intonation (as used by Snark and most other electronic tuners) vs Just Intonation (what sounds best to my ears). This thread was in Music Theory, long archived don't know how to find it, sorry. The difference in sweet JI vs harsh ET made the masking tape superfulous after a while. Here's a couple JI fretted cigarbox guitar examples (not mine). The chords will be sweeter to your ear, if you have ears that can hear it, or develop those ears with experience.
youtube.com/watch?v=5dDHD8rDagU
youtube.com/watch?v=5YKpb-hQR4Q

The fret calculator programs for ET will be fine for beginning fretless work, I think.
Hope this helps

BrooksMT - Posted - 01/24/2023:  19:30:50

Found my Just Intonation discussion in Archive:
 ARCHIVED TOPIC: Just Intonation for banjo - offsets, pro/con, history

banjohangout.org/archive/341664

Hope it helps.