Fretboard Markings

evil-monkey

is it unusual for an acoustic not to have markings on the fretboard until the 5th fret?? the 3rd has no marking on the board, or no dot on the side. is this odd??

Dord

Pretty strange alright, what acoustic is it?

Voodu Child

I wouldnt worry about it. There's a 'standard' way of marking fret positions, but lots of makers have done different things over the years. No 3rd fret marker was kind of an 'old' way of doing it, and some makers have done it more recently 'just because' (you'll see it on some Rics, early Martins etc). Other times you'll see double dots on the 5th or 7th, and all kinds of other funky stuff.

Its nothing to worry about, so long as you're not talking about fret markers that have actually fallen out.

SoWatchaWant

Some fancy Spanish guitar of a mates doesn't have 'em either. It's weird, and kinda offputting, I think, but you find it happens on expensive guitars for people who basically mean business!

Johnny Storm

Same with my son's 3/4 size nylon-strung beginners guit. Also has only one mark at the octave.
Maybe it's a Spanish/classical type thing?

Malice

I don't think it's odd as such. I don't think there's a standard for fretboard markers so manufacturers probably treat it as an "anything goes" area where they can stamp their own individuality on the instrument.

If you're losing your hand position on the neck, you can always look at the dots on the side of the neck.

Eoin Madsen

evil-monkey wrote: »

is it unusual for an acoustic not to have markings on the fretboard until the 5th fret?? the 3rd has no marking on the board, or no dot on the side. is this odd??

My old Yamaha is the same. It's less common, but not uncommon.

Creamy Goodness

yup my martin has no fret markings at all, but does have the markings on the neck so that you can easily see where you are but ya should know that already

Teferi

My Yamaha doesn't have markings till the 5th.

I'm so used to playing with it that guitars with markings on the 3rd confuse me a little bit as I'm so used to using the 5th as my positioning marker.

Malice

My first electric guitar was a Fender strat which had standard fret markings so I got used to them. When I switched to an Ibanez K7 (which has nothing except a K7 logo on the 12th fret) I thought it would be difficult to get used to looking at the side of the neck for position but it's not really and I prefer the cleaner look of the blank fretboard now.