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Originally Posted by Blues Cat That's really nice Mike. I wish I could get that much mwah out of my fretless. Anything you do special to get that?
The A string sounds like a chello. |
Hey man - fretless is such a different 'bass' to play from fretted as there are so many things that come into play - sorry this is a convoluted answer - but I had been playing my bass with the strings all musty, and with excess gunk building up on the finger board - and so I was getting a very dry, almost dead tone from the strings. But after I cleaned her up - just using a decent household wax - and boiling my strings (I do this less often these days, but it still works) the fingerboard is ebony and when it's clean and the strings are bright you can make notes 'bloom' to an amazing degree - obviously plucking the string near the end of the neck or even over the fingerboard will create this effect as well.
A little side note on the bass itself - it was made by this guy Jeff Chapman in Brighton - a small time luthier who makes great, great instruments, but is something of an eccentric (but very cool) guy, his workmanship and knowledge made this bass a very unique and beautiful instrument. It's incredibly light, probably the lightest bass I have ever played, it's made of an old shelf from a school that was being thrown away, he spotted it and after claiming it and researching the wood found it was a stunning plank of African Mahogany - it's possibly around 50 or 60 years old - so it's very stable, and with the ebony board just produces a fantastic tone. I'm actually thinking of changing the circuit from an EMG to a Demeter but I have few complaints, and get tons of compliments on its tone.
Thanks for listening.
Mike
