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[Edwin McCravy]

As you may or may not know, lutes have movable gut frets tied around the neck.  These can be moved up or down the neck to "tune" them to an exact pitch.  

Check out this site on tied-on lute frets and how they are tied on.

http://www.wadsworth-lutes.co.uk/frets.htm

I am presently experimenting with this idea of tying gut frets onto my Ashbory bass.  It seems to be working although I need to figure out a good way to raise the bridge a little to keep the strings from buzzing against the tied on gut frets.  Fishing line may work, too, if I can find a good way to tie them on tight.  

Edwin McCravy

[jmf]

The gut frets allowed the fret positions to be relatively easily altered which was handy because (a) equal temperament wasn't the standard at the time of the lute's heydey and (b) string manufacture may have meant that the strings weren't of consistently even gauge.

I've pondered whether fret sized strips of that sticky silicone rubber which they sell in the form of rollers to take the dust off vinyl records (or dog hair from your jacket) might not be an appropriate modern day substitute for the Ashbury. You might be able to clean the fret board, stick the fret on at the selected position then dust everything with slyde-ryte to stop the 'fret' sticking to the string.

JMF

[Zerozeddy]

I am presently experimenting with this idea of tying gut frets onto my Ashbory bass.

Have you come to any conclusions on this trial yet? How high up the neck can you play and maintain (fairly) correct intonation?

[bholder]

Seems like the string height should be addressable by a shim under the bridge - an 1/8" piece of wood or even cardboard would probably do.

[John Kavanagh]

My Ashbory is still in the mail, but I'm jumping in anyway, because this is something I know about. I played the lute fairly seriously once, and one of my main instruments is the viola da gamba,  which also has tied frets. On viols most people use a different knot, with doubled string, that makes a wider fret. I think I have a picture of the knot somewhere.  Gamba players usually use old strings, and often graduate them in thickness up the neck.  

If you don't have old gamba strings lying around, you can use monoflilament fishing line - I've got 40lb test on my gamba right now. The trick is you want something that won't wear the strings out too fast, but you don't want the strings to chew up the frets either. When I switched from gut to Perlon strings, I started chewing through gut frets so I switched to nlyon.

Another nice thing about tied frets (I may try them on my Ashbory when it arrives) is that you don't have to put them on all the way up the neck. The gamba usually has seven, and above that you play without, nice for vibrato on high notes. There's a local bass guitar player who had his custom bass made with seven frets - so he can get that singing tone in the solo register, but the clarity of frets down low. It sounds good.

EDIT: okay, I've got the Ashbory. I love it. If I can ever get it out of my wife's hands again (she loves it too), I may try a fret or two, but my first thought is that those soft rubber strings are just going to moosh into the fret, so (if it doesn't damge the string) the fret is just going to be a marker anyway and not affect the sound much. And the neck already has markers. The story may be different with the polyurethane strings I've ordered from Road Toad.  

[John Kavanagh]

Here's a link to that double fret knot  I use on the gamba.

http://vdgsa.org/pgs/frets.html


 I usually used this style for the first five frets of the lute when I played lute, too. It looks more complicated, but I find it easier to get them tight - the single-strand ones aren't bad with gut, since you can put it on wet and let them shrink, but the doubled style is easier with nylon. You could fret an Ashbory almost all the way up, but you might want to switch to thineer frets at some point.

[David Beede]

Another alternative for movable frets I've heard of but never tried are thin cable ties. No knotting skills required.