It's a wonderful day because I paid off my new fretless bass! I mentioned it here before. It's a Yamaha RBX-260F. 4 strings, natural finish, one p-style pickup. It sounds so good, I can't believe it. A bass should sound good unplugged, right? Well, this one does. I'm playing it right this minute through a zoom pedal(my amp doesn't stay at home), and it sounds great through it, too.
Something I always wondered was why you always saw fretless paired with 5 strings. It seems like every fretless is a 5 string. Well, now I understand why that is. Open strings don't have that awesome sound fretlesses are famous for. I don't have any inclination so far to play an open string, because it doesn't sound as good.
There's something special about that fretless sound, though. I'm not even talking about the slides. One note, with no vibrato has such a unique sound. I'm amazed. This just reinforces my dream of having a 6 string fretless.

congratulations!! yeah, i hear ya about the open strings.

i've never been a fan of open strings - as a player i've always felt that they were too difficult to control - when you fret a note, you can adjust the pressure of your fretting hand to make up for dynamic inconsistencies in your plucking hand, but with an open string, once you hit it - BOING - there it is and there it goes, off into the wild blue younder. if it's too loud, oh well, you're stuck with it, unless you want to stop it, which is almost as bad.

yeah, i've never been a fan of open strings.

I actually meant to put this in bassES, not bassISTS. Sorry.

I am another player who seldom uses open strings....for the reasons mentioned by John. That is another reason why I like my 6 string...I can play further up the neck.
And actually....I see far more four string fretless basses than five strings. MOST people have ahard enough time playing a four string fretless.....:)

The Nor Cal air is finally clear, it's Friday & I've saved up enough to get me a Memory Man w/Haz. :hyper:
On topic, I just finished a defretting an ABG, after which I remembered why I rarely played it- it had a funky rattle on the open D. Adding 1/8 of a turn to the truss rod cured it(beforehand there was no tension at all, likely the cause of the rattle, eh?). WOO-flipping-HOOO! :)

holy cow. 8 year old thread. this one should be in the smithsonian :eyebrow: