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Post subject: Fret Sizes
Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 10:40 am
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I have only been playing for about a year. I have a mim strat with vintage frets and I have trouble with some barre chords to really ring true. My fingers are slinder side and was wondering if it is me or the guitar? What fret size is considered the easiest to play?

Thanks in advance for your input.


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Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:03 am
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It will take some patience time and practice to build your finger strength and dexterity no matter what size frets you play. Now with that said fret size is a personal preference like neck type, strings etc. Some people love the smaller frets some the Jumbo. I do personally like fenders standard medium jumbo. I had a Rickenbacker with smaller vintage frets and I found myself digging in the fret board with my fingernail for sustain and I had a Gibson with Jumbo frets that when I would slide up to a note it felt like a car racing over speed bumps. But to each his own and every fret has its place in a style of playing. But I will be honest with you, they only make a difference with me when playing single notes. I can easily play barr chords on any size fret. Just takes a little time you never know you may be one of the players that loves smaller fret. It’s all personal preference. Good Luck


Last edited by stephenr66 on Wed Jun 04, 2008 1:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:40 am
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Yep, all just personal preference. Different are "easier" for different people.

Some people love the big jumbo "speedbump" frets, and even get scalloped necks. I don't think anyone would argue that Yngwie has trouble playing fast on a scalloped neck.

To me, I also end up feeling like big frets hinder my playing feel and speed. The fastest neck I've played on - to me - was a very thin maple fretboard with very wide, but very worn down and low frets. It was on an OLD Peavey T15 student guitar, and I could just fly on that thing all day. My current main guitar, a 98 MIA strat, has a great rosewood neck (not as slick as a maple, but I like the feel anyway). Over the last 10 yrs, I've worn the frets down enough to "dress" them once or twice to get rid of the sharp edges from the strings wearing them down, but they're not quite as low as the Peavey neck was.


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Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:55 am
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It's a personal thing, but I like the medium jumbo best. I have both the medium jumbo AND vintage frets.

My MIM strat came with Medium Jumbo frets, but I recently had the frets dressed and now they're about the "vintage" level. Much easier to play, but harder for me to slide, as my fingers are on the wood of the fret board, more than before I had the frets dressed. I have a '72 thinline tele with Vintage frets and I can definitely feel the difference from my strats.

My personal preference is medium jumbo frets.


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Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 12:24 pm
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Yup, medium jumbo is the default setting. These days, it just feels normal.

I have another guitar with vintage frets, and somehow it requires me to start playing fingerstyle. (Which ain't nice for anyone.)

And I have LPs with huge-feeling frets on 'em, and then I find myself bending down to find a high-gain setting on the distortion box.

A Strat neck with medium jumbos is kinda the home position. The comfy shoes.


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Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 1:21 pm
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Like it has been said, it is all personal preference. I have 4 electric guitars with 4 different sized frets. I have no problems going from guitar to guitar.

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Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 2:16 pm
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I like the medium jumbos on my JV and deluxe player!


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Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 4:44 pm
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One of the things I like about having different guitars is the differing feel of each one. My "72 RI has medium frets. my HM Strat and Charvel/Jackson has jumbo frets. Then I go to my Les Paul Custom Black Beauty, and the frets are sooo low, as to not need much pressure to finger chords or solos. Do I like it better than a Strat?? No, just different. Sometimes different feel lends itself to different styles.


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Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 6:56 pm
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paisley strat wrote:
... Sometimes different feel lends itself to different styles.


Exactly. Sometimes grabbing another guitar that feels different will inspire you to play different and generate all kinds of new ideas that you wouldn't have thought of otherwise. I recently picked up my old MIM strat after a few months. It plays, feels and sounds much different than my main MIA, and I found myself playing all different kinds of things just off the cuff. This would never happen if all my guitars played exactly the same and were "perfect".


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