Vintage vs Medium Jumbo frets - Any pros/cons?

[tele_jas]

I've been playing with medium jumbo frets for the last 3-5 years exclusivly and I just got my new Pink Paisley RI tele with "vintage frets" and I can definately tell a difference. I think I like the Med Jumbo frets bettter because I can really dig my fingers in to the strings even with low action. Do you think I'll ever get used to the vintage frets? Should I start looking for a new neck or give it a while?

Are there any advantages to vintage or med jumbo frets?

Thanks in advance

[Maj. Lee FUBAR]

I think it's just a matter of personal preference. Sort of like how some people like a fat neck, and some prefer a skinny neck. A lot of people think that vintage frets are more difficult to play because they are smaller and more difficult to fret with. Some people swear by them. Others like the medium jumbos because they are easier to bend with. YMMV, of course.

I would suggesting trying out the vintage for awhile and see what you think after you've played it for awhile. I'd bet you'll get used to them. If you're still not happy with them after a few months, then check into getting it refretted or replace the neck. Good luck!

[Tool user]

The Major couldn't have put it better: Preference, practice, adjust or refret.

I went the opposite direction from you. I played nothing but the old-school "vintage" style frets for the first 15 years that I played guitar & got along with 'em just fine. But once when I had a Tele refretted, I went the med. jumbo route and holy crow what an incredible difference. I was an instant convert, and now I have a tough time going back.

Good luck!

[eryque]

If you're a bender, you're probably not going to like the vintage frets. I had to raise the action quite a bit inorder to bend easily enough. I didn't mind this at all, and the the thing I liked about it was that I could play slide on this guitar without much fret noise, but it would never play in tune. Close enough for an audience of non-musicians, maybe, but far enough off that it constantly bugged me.

[Nick Fanis]

I absolutely HATE vintage frets (& IMHO this fret size choice absloutely destroys all the current Fender RI models)
I prefer the playability,feel & SOUND of jumbo frets especially with a VINTAGE radius fb!

[Paul G.]

But as I get older, my hands aren't as strong as they once were, plus a touch of arthritis.

Now I insist on bigger frets on my 25.5" scale guitars. On shorter scale guitars I still like them a bit shorter.

P.

[Telenator]

I find vintage frets to be awesome for rythm work but a real challange when soloing if you like to bend notes.

The Fender Aerodyne Tele has a vintage fretboard radius with medium jumbo frets and it plays awesome! Perhaps getting your guitar re-fretted is the answer. Go out and play an Aerodyne Tele. It will give you a fair aproximation of what a re-fret might feel like on a vintage fretboard radius. Personally, I love it for rythm comping.

[Darrell]

with every post above.

I think Vintage frets "can be" more forgiving after the guitar has had a few years of use.

Put I like medium jumbos right out of the box.

[The Doctor]

My Tele's on vintages and has been forever. I can't imagine playing it without them. Never had any trouble with bends, either, though they do go a bit chokey if you go past a full step's worth of bending high upn on the neck.

[tele_jas]

I just talked to a buddy of mine that has a tele with vintage frets and he doesn't like Jumbo or med jumbo frets and he bends all over the place and mostly plays metal. I guess it's a matter of preference, but I think my preference is med jumbo or jumbo so I'll be on the lookout for a new neck or a re-fret.

Thanks for all the input, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't me that felt that way.

[bwanasonic]

Until less than a year ago, I had been playing medium-jumbo to jumbo frets, and no less than 9.5" radius necks for more than twenty years. Now I have three 7.5" radius/ vintage fret guitars. If it was my only guitar, I would probably opt for 9.5"/ medium-jumbo, but right now I'm enjoying the contrast. The vintage frets seem more articulate for chordal fingerstyle playing, but do seem to take more work for real *bendy* playing. I may have one of my tele-style guitars refretted eventually.

Kerry M

[CancerLeoCam]

..medium jumbos are excellent for me. I think the biggest annoyance/getting used to issue w/ guitars I have is the radius. I love the 9.5"

The 7.25" can be a bit hairy for me if I haven't played one in a while.

[TG]

My number one (the avatar <-) has a fat 60's style C neck with vintage frets and a 12" radius. When you first pick it up after playing something else it feels abit wierd, but experience has shown me that it's the most comfortable and responsive neck I've ever had for playing live...especially long gigs. And I'm a very bendy lead player.
I don't know exactly why this is. It's just me, I guess.

If I get a medium fretted neck now it feels nice at first but I find myself struggling after awhile.
And jumbo frets...forget it. I can't even feel the fretboard wood. I don't like that.

[tele_jas]

Well, I just bought a Mity Mite maple neck and some MM tuners, should be here Friday. I want to keep this guitar for a long time and I might as well make it play like I want it to. It's a 21 fret, maple, w/med jumbo frets and a 9.5" radius. I think I'll like it better than the stock neck, the radius doesn't bother me as much as the smaller frets on the stock neck.

[Geo]

Vintage vs Medium Jumbo frets - Any pros/cons?

Little really here other than vintage take a bit more finesse,
physics, leverage technique or whatever one wants to
term it with bending which is really a good thing to me.
I've noticed slight more pressure is necessary when
bending above ~12th fret for clean bending but that
can become second nature after a while just like
adjusting to different fretboard radii.
Vintage seem a tad better with fretted notes intonating
truer but not totally real sure there.

[eddiewagner]

i reftretted my vintage james burton neck and now i love it. for me its medium to fullthrottle jumbo.

[Kelsey]

I prefer medium-jumbo frets, as I tend to bend a lot. I think they also are a little smoother with vibrato. From what I've seen myself and heard from others, the vintage-size frets also wear out sooner than m-j frets. The worst frets I've played were some wide and low frets on a few Gibsons and on my dearly departed '86 G&L ASAT, so there are worse options than the vintage wire.

[stevedenver]

if someone told you how high or low to wear your pants you'd probably do what worked best FOR YOU and what you felt to be comfortable, without anyones else's two cents

well............................

you chose

but give em a chance for a month or so
I play a fairly wide variety of sizes including vintage on my tele and old style gibson fretless wonder frets on one of my lesters, as well as jumbos and mediums and some others.....ive found that while at first odd in feel, if you play with it for a week or more...you adjust, and then its nothing going back and forth-smaller frets do have advantages as noted for chordal work and light fingering, pretty nice intonation too IMHO-

jumbos and mediums are a nice 'cos of bending and feel probably my overall preference too

folks say theres a definite difference in tone...i dont argue, but i cant say that im really aware of it...unless lighter frets make things a bit airy/woody and bigger heavier frets makes things tighter and more focused and sustained -kinda lsimilar in effect like tailpieces and nuts

[Mike Rice]

The major difference I notice with medium-jumbos, other than just plain feel, is what Kelsey mentioned. I think you can do much more dramtic finger vibratos more easily with the bigger frets. Conversely, chromatic slides of single notes or (especially) chords typically sound smoother with vintage frets.

I'm lost on the bending issue though. Maybe it's because I tend to keep my action a bit, but I don't notice any difference between vintage and MJs. I do notice a difference between 7.25 and 9.5 when bending, but not the frets.

[Jean-Baptiste]

I prefer the fatter frets myself. I also prefer a flatter fretboard radius, too.

My guitars are all over the map, fretwire & radius-wise, but I seem to unconciously adjust my playing style to whatever guitar I'm playing. There's also stuff I just don't/can't do on some guitars that's real easy on others.

When I finally wore the frets on my 52RI right down to the wood, I had bigger frets put on, but what I didn't expect was the re-radiusing that happened when my luthier planed the board down as part of the install.

This guitar's the best of both worlds now- vintage look/tone, but all the comforts of a modern instrument. I'm working as hard as I can at wearing down the frets on my 50s strat & my thinline RI so I can have the same thing done to them.

[CancerLeoCam]

Originally Posted by Jean-Baptiste

This guitar's the best of both worlds now- vintage look/tone, but all the comforts of a modern instrument. I'm working as hard as I can at wearing down the frets on my 50s strat & my thinline RI so I can have the same thing done to them.

That's why I am a strong supporter of Fender's AmSe guitar necks. To me, they just feel right-right out of the case (with a personal set-up of course).

[Southpaw433]

medium jumbo - are my preference, I have teles with both vintage and m-Jumbo - I can play the thinner vintage ok, but I have to work a bit harder. In theory the intonation should be more precise with thinner frets - but in practice it doesn't add much over the bigger easy bending frets.

For example I love my MIJ Tele '62 custom reisse, but it has a tight 7.5 radius and thin frets - if I'm in "E" and bend on the frets past the 12 fret , I'll "fret out" on the B string unless the action is raised too high to my comfort.

a Flater radius and fatter frets don't seem to have that problem.

[popthree]

jumbo's feel like speed bumps to me. i prefer vintage

[PJ]

If you look at the dimensions for vintage vs. medium jumbos, there's only a few thousandths different in height. More difference in width (which doesn't
impact playing much, if at all). But those few thousandths do make a big difference.