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Playing Style With Jumbo Frets vs Medium Frets


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My new JTV-59 arrived to my home three weeks and I am loving it!  However, because I've been playing guitars with medium frets for so many years, Jumbo frets are new to me and it's taking a lot to getting used to the feel of the neck and fret sizes (which by the way, are surprisingly very comfortable to me).

 

My question is, is there a certain technique to play Jumbo frets? Do I have to press down on the strings hard enough to touch the fret-board or does it take just, gentle press on the strings? I've notice that I've been playing my JTV59 like my medium fret guitars, it's difficult to keep my tuning.

 

Thanks in advance for your suggestions/comments/lessons!

 

 

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You need a lighter touch. You just need to press hard enough for the string to firmly touch the fret. You don't need to have your fingertips/strings touch the fretboard. In fact I changed the frets on my JTV-59 to medium because I couldn't get used to the light touch required. I was used to (and still am) pressing hard enough for the string to touch the fretboard and doing that with the 59 was causing the strings to actually go audibly out of tune. Like a vertical rather than horizontal string bending technique.

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You need a lighter touch. You just need to press hard enough for the string to firmly touch the fret. You don't need to have your fingertips/strings touch the fretboard. In fact I changed the frets on my JTV-59 to medium because I couldn't get used to the light touch required. I was used to (and still am) pressing hard enough for the string to touch the fretboard and doing that with the 59 was causing the strings to actually go audibly out of tune. Like a vertical rather than horizontal string bending technique.

 

Thank you Silverhead for your thoughts. You are so right, I keep pressing on the strings and for the life of me, the subtle out-of-tune-ness is just driving crazy. Luckily, I have a few days before Sunday service and I can try to adjust my playing on Jumbos. I hope to avoid swapping out my Jumbos for mediums, but we'll see. Stay tuned.....

 

Thanks again!

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Thank you Silverhead for your thoughts. You are so right, I keep pressing on the strings and for the life of me, the subtle out-of-tune-ness is just driving crazy. Luckily, I have a few days before Sunday service and I can try to adjust my playing on Jumbos. I hope to avoid swapping out my Jumbos for mediums, but we'll see. Stay tuned.....

 

Thanks again!

A vice-like grip on the strings doesn't help, no matter what size the fret wire is. You can press a note sharp on just about any size frets.

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A vice-like grip on the strings doesn't help, no matter what size the fret wire is. You can press a note sharp on just about any size frets.

Wow, thanks Crusinon2. . I've been playing the guitar wrong for all of these years. I thought myself to play, but asking someone on how hard I should press the strings did not even cross my mind...until now. :huh:

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  • 4 months later...

A vice-like grip on the strings doesn't help, no matter what size the fret wire is. You can press a note sharp on just about any size frets.

 

I didn't realize this either, so just to see, I checked tuning on the 5th fret.

Pressing down lightly, it was in tune with the string below.

Increased the pressure and and the two strings were way out of tune.

So thanks for that.

Boyd

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We used to call it "Gorilla Grip." 

I have friends who, to this day, believe that if the string doesn't touch the fretboard, there's something wrong with how you're playing. I was taught to use a light touch and to fret just enough so that when you pick, the string doesn't bounce off the fret. So my fingers tuck up *just* behind the fret. 

 

Now I understand how those fretboards with the big divots happen. 

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We used to call it "Gorilla Grip."

I have friends who, to this day, believe that if the string doesn't touch the fretboard, there's something wrong with how you're playing. I was taught to use a light touch and to fret just enough so that when you pick, the string doesn't bounce off the fret. So my fingers tuck up *just* behind the fret.

 

Now I understand how those fretboards with the big divots happen.

Yeah, it's not a baseball bat or a golf club, where too loose a grip will result in a skull fracture and concussion for some poor slob 30 yards away...;)

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This is where the TV can be your friend. Those mindless picking exercises will get the right touch after hours and hours (and hours). Its just a matter of getting it to the point where you don't have to think.

 

Former neck strangler :)

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I didn't realize that the JTV-59 came with jumbo frets! I had read that the JTV-89 did. Is the JTV-69 the only one with medium frets?

 

Until yesterday, I thought that all of the JTVs except for the 89/89F came with medium or medium jumbo frets (the advertising material says medium-jumbo).

 

The advertising material for the 89F says Jumbo and they match the jumbo frets I have on other guitars. 

 

One of the techs from Line 6 here says that he believes ALL of the JTV series share the same fretwire. None of us are going to sleep until we get this sorted out. 

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Until yesterday, I thought that all of the JTVs except for the 89/89F came with medium or medium jumbo frets (the advertising material says medium-jumbo).

 

The advertising material for the 89F says Jumbo and they match the jumbo frets I have on other guitars.

 

One of the techs from Line 6 here says that he believes ALL of the JTV series share the same fretwire. None of us are going to sleep until we get this sorted out.

Lol...well its not as if your local bureau of weights and measures is running around standardizing fret wire measurements anyway. There are a ton of different sizes, differing by millimeters, or a fraction thereof...depends on where you're buying the stuff. "Jumbo" doesn't really mean much beyond "its bigger than some of the other stuff we've got laying around". And, if the work is done correctly, some meat comes off with the initial dressing anyway...so whatever it measures while it's still on the spool is gonna be slightly different than properly finished fretwork. That of course assumes they're not just pressed in by a factory drone and sent out the door...some of the stuff I've seen makes you wonder (I mean on mass produced guitars in general. Sh*tty fretwork is a worldwide contagion).

 

And while we're talking frets...everyone should play on stainless frets at least once. You'll never want to go back to nickle-silver, and you'll probably drop dead before you need new frets. Best thing I've ever invested in is converting all my guitars to stainless...

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I just measured the frets on my JTV-69. They are .060" which is definitely jumbo. I've only had the guitar for about a week and since the mag to modeling switch didn't work, I barely played it, so I hadn't noticed the jumbo frets. I'm kind of dismayed, since I purposely didn't buy a JTV-89 because I thought it was the only one with jumbo frets. It looks like a Warmouth replacement neck is in the future for this guitar. And, yes it will have stainless steel frets, just not jumbos.

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I just measured the frets on my JTV-69. They are .060" which is definitely jumbo. I've only had the guitar for about a week and since the mag to modeling switch didn't work, I barely played it, so I hadn't noticed the jumbo frets. I'm kind of dismayed, since I purposely didn't buy a JTV-89 because I thought it was the only one with jumbo frets. It looks like a Warmouth replacement neck is in the future for this guitar. And, yes it will have stainless steel frets, just not jumbos.

I love Warmoth. The stock neck on my 69 lasted about 3 weeks...couldn't stand it. Infinite improvement.

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All JTV's use the same frets.

Well, if you open the Variax comparison chart on the Line 6 site, it says medium jumbo frets for all except the 89F, which says jumbo frets. Mine measure at .060" tall, which is jumbo by most standards. That was something I made sure to check before buying, but it did me no good.

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That's an error, and is getting changed. Someone brought that to my

attention last week.

 

0.060,... hmm, they are supposed to be 0.057 in, but that's +/- whatever the tolerance is.

And I don't know off hand the level of precision your measuring tool is.  I was told it was medium,

somewhere near borderline of jumbo. But I'll I check into that further the differences between

medium and jumbo. The fret wire maker has them as medium.

 

Being that I am the person at Line 6 that repairs JTV's, I have the service and repair info.

All JTV's use the same frets.

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No worries Partev, but I would consider .057" to be jumbo also. I had given up on jumbo and had my last guitar with them refretted.

I'm local to Calabasas. What's the chance of getting my mag/modeling switch to work without having to stuff a bunch of filler in the top of the knob?

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Yeah, the 57's tend to be in that borderline region, might be the source of confusion,

complicated by info on the site not being consistent between the model types.

 

The Model knob? Shouldn't be a problem. Log a ticket in your account

and a support person can get the ball rolling.

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Ok...who's gonna be the first to claim that they can tell the difference between 0.060" and 0.057" frets (without calipers)? That's less than a millimeter...you'd need fingers with better resolution than half of the CT scanners in clinical use today. ;)

 

One man's "medium" is another's man "jumbo"...

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Yeah, and I'm looking to clarify that better so that

people don't think we use two fret sizes. :)

 

"One man's "medium" is another's man "jumbo"..."--- yeah,

that is a bit subjective.

 

For some of us guitar builder/repair people, it's less about

being jumbo, small or medium, and more about having the

correct dimension spec across the instrument.

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