Completely New to Fretless Bass

[ElGringoBurrito]

Hello all. I have been playing upright bass for nearly 5 years now. I recently got the idea to start a band but realized that my upright probably wouldn't fit with the kind of music we wanted to play. So I'm thinking about getting a fretless electric. Can anybody tell me if it's easy switching from upright to fretless? Do the fingerings for notes transfer over? Are the positions the same? Any help is appreciated.

[FretlessMainly]

For context, I took up fretted electric in 1980, double bass in 1992 and fretless electric in 1999. I found fretless electric to be an easy transition from double bass, but certainly my experience with fretted electic helped. As far as fingerings go, it's far easier to translate double bass fingerings to electric than the other way around.

Lots of electric players use the one finger per fret technique across the whole fingerboard. This is nearly impossible on double bass, although my hands are big enough to do it, it can lead to physical problems. But certainly, you should find that the 1-2-4 fingering in lower positions and 1-3-4 fingering in higher positions is very feasible - you may even start to mix in the one finger per fret technique.

The biggest difference between double bass and fretless electric is the parallax issue (sighting at an angle). On double bass, your eyes are near the nut in lower positions, and as you move up the neck, your head follows your hand but is usually a bit behind it - so your parallax error is always past your fingering hand toward the higher notes. On electric, you have a mixture of both left and right parallax error since your eyes tend to line up over the 12th "fret," give or take. But, the majority of your notes are likely to be at or below the 12th fret, so the bulk of the error is in the opposite direction. So, you may need to stretch a bit further than it looks to get that low F, for example.

[ElGringoBurrito]

Thank you so much. This is a big reassurance. Great insight.

[MalcolmAmos]

Originally Posted by FretlessMainly

Lots of electric players use the one finger per fret technique across the whole fingerboard. This is nearly impossible on double bass, although my hands are big enough to do it, it can lead to physical problems. But certainly, you should find that the 1-2-4 fingering in lower positions and 1-3-4 fingering in higher positions is very feasible - you may even start to mix in the one finger per fret technique.

The biggest difference between double bass and fretless electric is the parallax issue (sighting at an angle). On double bass, your eyes are near the nut in lower positions, and as you move up the neck, your head follows your hand but is usually a bit behind it - so your parallax error is always past your fingering hand toward the higher notes. On electric, you have a mixture of both left and right parallax error since your eyes tend to line up over the 12th "fret," give or take. But, the majority of your notes are likely to be at or below the 12th fret, so the bulk of the error is in the opposite direction. So, you may need to stretch a bit further than it looks to get that low F, for example.

Yes great answer. I have not made the switch to double bass - hope Santa is reading - but messing around at the music store the sighting angle and one finger per fret was what I saw right at first.

[sbassface]

I went from fretless to upright as a "lucky" kid, then fretted electric bass. I think it would have been a natural transition in either direction. Your ear helps too! great info above ^ . I was trying to play pink floyd lines on my upright becasue that's what I was doing on electric (fretless). I guess that's what I mean by ear, if your playing music you have already internalized a scale or whatever, your ear serves a double purpose real time intonation also you have a reference from what you already know it's suppost to sound like, just my 2 cents. Fred

[Anonymatt]

Parallax error. Mainly, you're the best.

I remember being stoned outta my mind trying to explain that to a buddy of mine and he gave me a hard time cos he thought I was BSing him w/ "parallax". You explained it waay better than I did, though, surely.

[Anonymatt]

I forgot: Don't worry about the fretless man! It'll be fine! A couple weeks on that thing and you'll know where everything is.

Though, from doublebass to fretless electric, you'll take your problems with you. Just like life!