fretless sb-2

[eknivsnikta]

anyone own/ed one of these? i play a '81 L1000 'hog fretless, and i love it, but i'm looking for something with a bridge pickup that's lighter and with a smaller neck--all of which the sb-2 offers. but i also want something that will work better for recording (i don't like the humbucking setting on my L1000, and the other 2 are too noisy.) i'm also wondering about the tonal difference between L1000 pickup on mahogany body and the SB-2 pickups on the ash body. and lastly i'm curious about ths possibility of removing the pickguard--is the routing and cavity fairly tight around the pickups and the controls, i.e. would i be able to just cover up control cavity with a metal plate like on an L1000?

[craigb]

I do have a fretless SB-2 and love it, but I'm not sure it would be what you are looking for.

lighter & a smaller neck? probably lighter, definitely smaller neck

bridge pickup? Yes, but. And it's the "but" that may the problem for you. IMO the SB-2 bridge pickup is just an adjunct to the P pickup that is used for adding some texture to the sound. It's overwhelmed by the P pickup in normal settings so it's not really a traditional P-J setup. I know of at least one person who cranks the P pickup all the way down into the cavity and raises the J pickup as much as possible to get a better balance (I've never tried it so I can't say if it's fully balanced). And it's an unmatched single coil pickup, so I'd guess if noise was a problem for you with your L1K that the bridge pickup on an SB-2 is not going to be any better.

If I were a bridge pickup guy I'd probably want an L2K with a skinny neck for fretless (but I'm a neck pickup guy so my SB-2 fretless is wonderful).

Here's an SB-2 with its pickguard off:


this was an older bass that had a diamond plate pickguard on it (hence the doubling of the pickguard screw holes in some places). It doesn't look really set up for losing the pickguard to me which is a shame because it covers a lot of nice wood grain on a translucent finish.

If you are considering the trans green one thats floating around it's a good bass. I had it for a while (decided I don't play fretless well enough to keep two around) and other than a couple of fretboard marks it was super.

[eknivsnikta]

thanks for the info, craigb! yes, i was considering the trans green one that's currently on ebay. nice to talk to a previous owner. have you recorded with yours, then? and do you happen to know what year the trans green is?

[craigb]

My band hasn't been in a studio for a long time (we're primarily a cover band). I did toss a couple of quick sound samples of the fretless up on soundclick when I got it:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/defa...&content=music

The settings are probably P pickup full up, J pickup backed off a bit until the sound "opens up" and I probably hadn't installed a tone control yet. Don't hold the lack of intonation against me (it's not much better now, either).

I don't know the year - the serial number is B030844 which you can check in the registry of the G&LDP to see about what age it might be. It weighs 9.6 lbs

[eknivsnikta]

thanks again! i think i may have actually listened to that a while back. i'll give it another listen.