Fretless advice

[Tamochantern]

Ok, forgive me if this has already been a thread, but I wasn't sure what the search terms would be.

I've been playing bass for about 16 years and I've always played fretted four string with a little dabbling into five and six string, but lately I've been wanted to get into fretless. Now I already have a fretless Pbass that is unlined and a fretless Jbass that is lined. Unfortunately, I've never spent a lot of time with them because I've been in school. Well I've finally graduated and now have more free time.

The point of this post is to ask some of you fretless gurus if I should start off on the lined bass to ease my way in and work my way to the unlined or just cut out the middle man and go straight to to the unlined.

Ultimately, I want to be able to play the unlined in public for two reasons 1 - it just looks really cool. It's a 1979, black and tort with pickup and bridge covers and a black thumb rest, and 2 - it sounds way better than the MIM jbass.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[fdeck]

In my view, the unlined board looks cooler, but you might end up being the only one who notices. I play both upright and fretless electric, and I find it easier to play in tune on upright. There are more clues, such as the curves at the two ends of the neck, and the neck is simply a lot shorter. In the upper registers, you have clues such as where your arm touches the bout, and so forth.

On electric, forget it. A two octave neck with no markings is just too much for me to figure out where a note is unless it is within a short interval of where I am already playing. So I am happy to have the lines. I filled my fret slots with "mahogany" Plastic Wood, which is pretty inconspicuous out on a rosewood fingerboard.

The one thing to avoid on a lined board is to keep looking at the lines. They should only be for occasional reference, like when you make a big position jump. Otherwise, they detract from your playing.

Of course if I practiced fretless electric 4 hours a day until I had mastered it, then I might think differently.