stevepetergal
Well-known member
Does anyone make one? Has any of the builders out there thought about in?
Fan Fret Ukulele?
- Thread starter stevepetergal
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BlackBearUkes
Well-known member
I've made a couple in the past. Took forever to sell them. I think they scared people. Their sound was good, but since it was a tenor scale uke, there wasn't much to be gained sound wise.
nscafe
Well-known member
Fan fret guitars certainly scare me. Seems like there would be a major adjustment required to play one of those if you're used to playing guitars with standard fret spacing.
benjoeuke
Well-known member
Ralph Novak gave me one of his first fan fret guitars to play at gigs, it was surprisingly easy, didn't take any special technique or anything... it's just that to me the intonation improvement was minimal enough as to be outweighed by the cost of labor and custom parts.
I also played Mike Marshall's fan fret 10 string mandolin, that was pretty cool because with all those strings it did make a noticeable difference... not sure if it really all that necessary for an uke though..
I also played Mike Marshall's fan fret 10 string mandolin, that was pretty cool because with all those strings it did make a noticeable difference... not sure if it really all that necessary for an uke though..
Rick Turner
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Fan fret guitars scare people who haven't played them. They are remarkably reasonable to play.
OP
OP
stevepetergal
Well-known member
The reason I asked is, the first time I saw a fan fret guitar, I thought "What a great idea!" Looks to me like it works with the way the wrist actually moves. Looks easy to play. Ergonomic.
Rick Turner
Well-known member
I built a six string six course mando guitar a while back. It was tuned (low to high) F, C, G, D, A, E, and the only way to pull off that spread of pitches with that many strings was a fanned fretboard. It worked remarkably well, even though the scale was short for the low F and long for the high E; it would have been impossible without the fanned fretboard. Ralph Novak did the fretboard for me. That was one of those instruments that I hated to part with. It would have been a life-time keeper if my client hadn't paid me for it!
nscafe
Well-known member
That's good to hear. I figured I would just be honest about my ignorance and let someone enlighten me.
I've played quite a few fan fretted guitars and even with the more extreme spreads, they aren't hard to get used to at all.
My slight feeling is that on ukes, the benefits may be less due to the shorter scale lengths involved.
My slight feeling is that on ukes, the benefits may be less due to the shorter scale lengths involved.
OP
OP
stevepetergal
Well-known member
Less, but still benefits?
BIGDB
Well-known member
What does fan fret mean??
OP
OP
stevepetergal
Well-known member
A fan fret guitar has frets that are not parallel, but set up in such a way that they are closer to each other at the bottom of the neck than at the top of the neck.They are in a "fan" shaped arrangement. See the link below and look at the full picture of the guitar.
http://www.traugottguitars.com/guitars_fan_fret.html
http://www.traugottguitars.com/guitars_fan_fret.html
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