Convertible Fretted To Fretless Guitar And Bass

[psw]

Here is a guitar and bass fret sustem where the frets rotate back into the fretboard converting the guitar or bass from a fretted instrument to fretless. Cool, cause of the video clips...I actually found a few patents on this idea, which surprised me.

Anyway...worth a look and the clips are nice and small...

Demo's of Bass and Guitar fretless to fretted switcheroo

pete

[TGwaH]

What a neat little trick. Do you have links to those patents handy by chance?

[psw]

Here's one but the idea goes back a while with a few different approaches. I don't know if this is Mikey's but I imagine it is the same principle...

Patent...retractable frets

If you haven't looked at patents before, you need to download soamething like intraview to see the images (there are links at USPTO) and that patents are referenced and cited to one another...so once you have found one, you can trace the idea backwards and forwards in time...check it out, cool stuff and free!

Ok...so what happens is there are half round stainless steel frets that rotate. The lever pushes two rods either side of the fretboard that rotates each fret so either the round side is up, or the flat (level with the fretboard). So, there is a fair amount of mechanics in there, and I don't know how you acommodate fretboard curvature...hmmmm

I don't know how successful it really is, certainly the bass is cool...bit of a novelty otherwise. I ran across it as I am researching fretless guitars at the moment. The clip shows a little of what a fretless guitar might sound like...mostly you hear them in an avante guarde context, not this rocky/blues thing with a clean sound. A bit like a slide guitar isn't it, but able to form small chord shapes.

Neat-o clips though... pete