Jazzer's frets of choice

[JCat]

What's your preferred fret size for Jazz?

1. Wide and tall (> 0.1 x > 0.05)
2. Wide and low (> 0.1 x < 0.04)
3. Narrow and tall (< 0.09 x > 0.05)
4. Narrow and low (< 0.09 x < 0.04)
5. Medium (0.9-0.1 x 0.04-0.05)
6. Fretless
7. Doesn't matter (I'm a Trombonist)

Edit: The guitar community is not immune to trends. On the contrary we're often victims of trends; locking tuners/locking hardware, robot tuners, narrow nuts/wide nuts, heavy weight (oh yes, it was a thing in the 70s)/weight relief, ultra low frets/super jumbo frets, scalloped frets, stainless frets, hot pickups, modern wiring, fat necks/slim necks etc.

Over all, the guitar community is a pretty conservative bunch, so it's fascinating that these trends get a stronghold at all. Anyway, I believe that jazz guitarists in general are less sensitive to trends than players of other genres, but I may be wrong?
Of course there are the different perspectives of the player, the tech and the collector. In this poll I'm mostly interested in the player perspective.

[wintermoon]

really depends on the guitar.

[vintagelove]

The bigger the better.

[Litterick]

Whatever is on the guitar.

[Christian Miller]

I have no opinion about this. Is that bad?

[kris]

I don't have a guitar fret measuring device.It must be very accurate to measure.

[kris]

I have no opinion about this. Is that bad?

The more expensive the better.

[gitman]

As long as this is possible :
- the intonation is spot-on
- I can grab the string with the tip of my finger and control it

I don't care about the actual size. If the fret is too high it feels like a speed bump, if it's too low I can't control the string,
if the crown is too wide the intonation is affected. When I put together my last Parts-Tele I ordered the neck (Musikraft roasted maple) with Dunlop 6105 frets and it feels and plays great. My guess is that the frets on my Trenier Jazz Special are the about the same.... it's a medium jumbo size.

[John A.]

I can say that I don't like really low flat frets (as in the infamous "fretless wonder" Les Paul customs), and I don't like the skinny frets in some vintage fenders. But as long as the frets are somewhere in the neighborhood of "medium jumbo" +/- a pretty wide margin and are in decent condition, it's fine with me.

[jim777]

I believe most of my guitars are some flavor of 'medium-jumbo', but it's been at least 25 years since I played a guitar and the frets really stood out to me as wrong for the guitar.

[Klatu]

I dig the Heritage fret size, so when it came time to refret an old 1940s Epiphone Triumph, I called Heritage to find out what they put on their guitars. They told me that their default fret size was medium jumbo 47x104, so that's what I chose. I have no regrets, and intend to use the same size when I address my other guitars.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

I suspect that most of us (including me) don’t care about a few thousandths, given that our guitars have probably been through at least one or two sessions with a fret file. My LP is on its last crowning and dressing. When the demon wear appears again, I’ll have to refret it. My Carvin was the only long term guitar I’ve ever had with SS frets - I ordered it with medium height and width but don’t remember the exact size. I played it on many hundreds of gigs and they held up great for 25+ years. I dressed and polished them once about a year ago, and they were ready for another 25 when I sold it.

Some of the most widely used frets on better instruments are between the cracks in the choices given. For example, Jescar 47104 wire used on carved Eastman archtops is 0.104 x 0.047 out of the box. It’s also interesting that the same wire will have a bit less exposed height on finished fingerboards than on unfinished ones that is definitely enough to feel. My recently acquired Raines Tele7 (designed and spec’ed by Chris Forshage) appears to have SS fret wire that feels a bit higher and narrower than Jescar 47104s. The fingerboard is unfinished maple, and they feel a bit higher than the frets on my Eastman 810CE7.

[mr. beaumont]

Yes, I choose frets.

[iim7V7IM7]

For archtops, my favorite fret wire is Jescar EVO 0.047" x 0.095".

[bluejaybill]

I have one guitar that has .092" wide and .048 high, (Stewmac #152), so a medium, and another that are wider, like .10 and around the same height. Both are fine, I don't like them too high for reasons of intonation. And I don't like low, I don't like to feel the fretboard too much.

[hotpepper01]

Anything but narrow and high

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I'd love to have Fender vintage frets, but in SS. (Checks: Dunlop 6230 = .080" x .043")

As it is, I think most of my guitars are medium jumbos.

[ccroft]

...Some of the most widely used frets on better instruments are between the cracks in the choices given. For example, Jescar 47104 wire used on carved Eastman archtops is 0.104 x 0.047 out of the box....

Thanks for that NeverShoulda! Now I know how to vote, and what frets to ask for on a guitar I'm about to commission.

[ronjazz]

I go for the jazz frets.

[bluejaybill]

Thanks for that NeverShoulda! Now I know how to vote, and what frets to ask for on a guitar I'm about to commission.

Pretty sure that's what Mark Campellone uses too, or thereabouts. Great fret size.

[bluejaybill]

I go for the jazz frets.

Yes, I would ask for the ones with the most George Benson licks in them.

[Gabor]

I have no experience about it, neither theoretical knowledge, but always had a very strong opinion :-)

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I don't like high frets. I try not to have a "death grip" with chords, but some tricky chords end up that way, and high frets mean notes go sharp.

[whiskey02]

I believe most of my guitars are some flavor of 'medium-jumbo', but it's been at least 25 years since I played a guitar and the frets really stood out to me as wrong for the guitar.

”Medium Jumbo” means something different ( bigger) than it did when Gibson started putting them on late ‘58 into 1959 and forward until 1983. Those frets are now Dunlop 6130 at .106 x .036, commonly called “low wide” now and often mistakenly interpreted by folks who have never really seen a fretless wonder LPC, as fretless wonder frets. I had my ‘13 LP refretted with them as I could not stand the stock Jescar “shaped like a school bus” it came with. Most ( les paul) players who hate the 6130’s do so because it’s not as easy to bend string as with larger frets, although all the rock n roll guys who played bursts se3med to do OK with them.

[JCat]

”Medium Jumbo” means something different ( bigger) than it did when Gibson started putting them on late ‘58 into 1959 and forward until 1983. Those frets are now Dunlop 6130 at .106 x .036, commonly called “low wide” now and often mistakenly interpreted by folks who have never really seen a fretless wonder LPC, as fretless wonder frets. I had my ‘13 LP refretted with them as I could not stand the stock Jescar “shaped like a school bus” it came with. Most ( les paul) players who hate the 6130’s do so because it’s not as easy to bend string as with larger frets, although all the rock n roll guys who played bursts se3med to do OK with them.

My "fretless wonder" still got its original frets that are incredibly long lasting due to the wide and low profile (meaning one gets to play wide and low frets for an incredibly long time...not everone's cup of tea perhaps.) For many years this guitar was my reference for what a good guitar is supposed to play like until I eventually had to accommodate to taller frets.

My Gibson guitars made after the millennium came with tall and narrow frets that have been annoyingly fast wearing. A couple of fret dresses later the fret height is now down to a happy medium and the guitars are broken in.

The "school bus" profile is an attempt to give a narrow fret the crown of the same radius as a wide and low fret, to make the crown last longer. This "roundiflat" crown has been advocated by some well respected luthiers (and it will inevitably materialize as someone is frequently polishing frets using fret guards). But these narrow "shool bus frets" got shoulders that make them feel very different (like speed bumps) compared to wide frets.

I dig the wide, medium height frets of my Epiphones. The crowns last many times longer than the narrow Gibson frets.
Apparently, since 2019 Gibson has reduced fret height. I don't know if they grind the same narrow fret wire they've been using in the last 20 years or if the new frets are once again wider?