fretless slab doublers: neck volutes help intonation?

mburd · #1 02-07-2008, 08:42 AM

I have taken the physical reference for my left hand for granted since camping out in upright bass land for the last 4 years. I'm now getting back to more slab-doubling and am finding that my left thumb is always looking for the volute when I'm in 1st position; particularly when reading. On my slabs without a neck volute I find it difficult to nail the "home" position. Frequently swapping basses compounds the difficulty of developing muscle memory for me.
Anyone ever fabricate a "faux volute" or come up with a creative strategy for
dealing with this?

MrLenny · #2 02-07-2008, 08:57 AM

Fender type basses don't have a volute. I have neck thru basses with good
volutes and it is a good reference for 1st position. On the opposite side, my buddy plays fenders and doesn't like my neck thru's because they throw his thumb off position.

mattfong · #3 02-10-2008, 04:16 PM

Whats a volute? lol

**Damon Rondeau** · #4 02-11-2008, 08:34 AM

This is tiny little trivial point, but seeing as though we're in the bass instrument business around here, it might as well be documented.

To a guitar person, a volute is a carved area on the back of the neck, making the transition from neck to headstock. I'd look for a picture, but I'm lazy and don't want to take 5 minutes.

To a violin person, a volute is the spiral-like scroll shape that sits on top of the pegbox.

I don't know where the heck the guitar people picked up the word for that usage, but there you are.

I also can't really imagine how a guitar-type volute could give you anything more than a teensy, minimal little bit of help with your intonation and position-playing.

mattfong · #5 02-11-2008, 07:41 PM

Well anyways, I play both DB and fretless BG and I don't have any tuning issues when moving between the two.

My fretless bass has postion markers on the side of the neck, but half the time I don't even look at the neck so I dunno if thats a huge factor or not.

mburd · #6 02-12-2008, 08:44 AM

URB's are chocko-block full of wonderful physical references; whereas slabs and some EUB's have less.
Some slabs; like Alembic, Pedulla Buzz/MVP and Spector USA bolt-ons have a pronounced volute that makes a handy reference for the left thumb to help the hand quickly and accurately locate 1st position. I often switch between many non-fretted instruments, and find this adaptive technique useful. I recently got a Turner RBFL5 that has no such reference for my left hand. When reading jazz charts, this makes my left hand feel like tumblin tumbleweed. If I played just this bass exclusively I'm sure I'd quickly develop an adequate muscle memory. But I don't..
I posted this here as opposed to the slab side as I figured there might be more doublers here.

Bruce Lindfield · #7 02-12-2008, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattfong

Well anyways, I play both DB and fretless BG and I don't have any tuning issues when moving between the two.

My fretless bass has postion markers on the side of the neck, but half the time I don't even look at the neck so I dunno if thats a huge factor or not.

There's a big difference between "tuning" and having good intonation!!

mattfong · #8 02-12-2008, 11:47 PM

When I say tuning I mean intonation haha. Sorry for the confusion.

Bruce Lindfield · #9 02-13-2008, 03:05 AM

I've heard a lot of people who didn't know the difference between the two - unfortunately for them, the audience were quite clear that it sounded 'bad', even if they didn't know what 'intonation' meant either!