Synth Bass on Fretless
 

I'm not sure if this goes here, but I had the Idea the other day about playing modern electronica-style bass lines with heavily processed fretless bass. You get the portamento and like that just can't cut it with a fretted, although you'd almost certainly need at least one extra string, since the range is usually lower.

Is anyone doing this? And would it work?

I have a Squier VM fretless jbass, and if I need to, I can use an octave effect to go lower. The Digitech bass synth works pretty good And does the octave thing quite well.

I did a very similar thing with an old band of mine called Deluded Buddha's; sporadic rock/metal guitar lines and riffs and sparse rap-style vocals over heavy electronica-influenced drums and bass.

I ran my custom 4-string fretless into a bunch of effects including octave, fuzz, wah, overdrive, 2 envelope filters, phaser, delay, and occasionally an ebow for some really nice synthy tones and no real need for a bottom B.

There's some stuff on YT but this is after me and the previous drummer left and the bass player is using a fretted bass with no effects but it gives you an idea of what can be achieved.

My fellow countryman and Talkbass member Pantherairsoft plays electronica on a 6 string fretless.

His website is here: http://www.sheponbass.co.uk/

He also does lots of interviews with other effect-using bassists.

Ta Da!

I do indeed. Well actually, I'm playing a fretted now... But due to health reasons. I had a matching fretted and fretless 6 string but had to go uber light short scale due to shoulder and hip problems. I sold both basses but could only afford one shorter bass to be made so went with a fretted as it gave me more options for other music.

That said, I prefer the fretless sound for synth stuff and miss mine ALOT! Nearly all the recordings with Our Helical Mind are on a fretless. I found I needed to add some brightness on the amp EQ to get the synth sounds right, due to the inherent muted tone of a fretless (on a fretted that needed sparkle is already there), but it's worth doing as the slide etc just make it sound so much more synthetic... Which is obviously the goal!

I will be getting a short scale fretless as soon as I can. I miss the sound!

I used to do a lot of shows with a Warmoth fretless into a Korg G5. Total squiggle-synth-fest. Lately most of my fretless work is for more "organic" sounding projects, so the G5 only gets used with my fretted basses...but it worked great with fretless.