Fretted or fretless? Make it a convertible

Our Facebook friend Kirk Dickison shared a video with us featuring this odd, “convertible” bass that allows fast switching between fretted and fretless modes. So we decided to dig around and find out some more.

Mikhail Chtchetinine, inventor of the bass, shares the background for the instrument:

“Having discovered the liberation of fretless guitar music, I went in search of a convertible instrument (fretted to fretless). Imagine my surprise when I found there were none to be had. No one had made one yet. Inspired by music and my technical background, I taught myself how to build guitars and one year later had crafted my first convertible bass guitar.”

Here’s the result:

And one more, close up:

Check out Mikhail’s web site for more.

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Leave a Reply to Sigurdór Cancel reply

  1. Cool!
    I'm glad I checked out the later video. Much better sound!

  2. Cool!
    I'm glad I checked out the later video. Much better sound!

  3. Awesome invention Mikey. 2 bass guitars in one, easy as a flick of a switch, that’s just brilliant.

  4. Douglas Somervell

    Pat Wilkins had a convertible bass at his booth at the NAMM show in 2008. Or it may have been 2007. The fingerboards were interchangeable.. this is a very interesting mechanism I’ll have to get a better look at it on the website. can’t help but still believe the best solution is 2 instruments..there a many things you will want to be different between your fretted and fretless the first to come to mind is the strings!!!

  5. Conner

    Can i buy one of these?