What effects are neat for fretless besides Octaver (and of course compression)?

[phxlbrmpf]

I tried my fretless with a bunch of effects (courtesy of my Zoom B2) today and felt that distortion and chorus seemed to take away a lot from the fretless "feel", i.e. they took away much of the "mwah" and it even felt as if intonation wasn't as cruicial as it used to be when playing my fretless "dry" due to all the overtones covering everything up when using distortion. Of course kicking in my octaver made a world of a difference and got me in the neighbourhood of Pino's awesome trademark fretless+OC2 sound. What effects do you like to use with a fretless to keep the "mwah"? Thanks a lot in advance.

[niftydog]

Well, the other classic is chorus. In a similar vein, detune is good too. I'd even consider a subtle tube-y overdrive.

ring mod.

[syciprider]

Anything that adds ambience or space.

Reverb, chorus, light phase maybe. Not flanger IMO though... too clangy.

[grygrx]

Fuzz

[beggar98]

HUGE +1 on fuzz, a la Jaco on Word of Mouth.

[Matt Till]

The distortion and chorus you used came out of a Zoom, so they aren't the best representation of what's available. Generic answer, but, you can make any effect sound cool with a fretless.

That clip was cool grygrx: I'd guess that to be a synth bassline due to the tonality and the fretlessness, I dig it.

[elros]

I dig to put an envelope filter, or a phaser (or both!) on my fretless, when the situation is right for that sort of thing.
But also, for different situations, reverb and perhaps even delay is all right.

[phxlbrmpf]

Thanks for the advice, guys, I eventually figured out I'd msessed up when putting together my chorus patch for the Zoom and managed to come up with one which boosts the mwah a bit. I'm really broke right now so I'll have to do with what my Zoom puts out.

[Swift713]

I use a little doubling delay on fretless. You can make it a chorus with a little vibrato technique when you want.

[Swimming Bird]

Ebow + delay is fantastic on a fretless.

+1 to any effect working well though.

[CraigG]

The secret to making effects work is moderation. IMO, bass is a much better sounding instrument when effects are minimal.

[Era V.]

A little bit of chorus is all I'd really use with my Fretless. If you really want to try some distortion I would recommend the Marshall Guv'nor, it has a 3 band EQ which gives it loads of range and it sounds great through a bass.

[bassic_element]

Originally Posted by Swimming Bird

Ebow + delay is fantastic on a fretless.

+1 to any effect working well though.

if using Ebow you would need really light strings, right?

[olaff421]

Originally Posted by Era V.

A little bit of chorus is all I'd really use with my Fretless. If you really want to try some distortion I would recommend the Marshall Guv'nor, it has a 3 band EQ which gives it loads of range and it sounds great through a bass.

I love the Guv'Nor!

Funny story about that pedal. The one that I use is originally my guitarist's but he stopped using it so he could use the distortion on his amp. The amp went down a few weeks ago so he wanted to use the Guv'Nor again. It sounded like crap. He twittled for ever and could never get a good sound. I think that it is marketed as a guitar distortion pedal, but it is a bass distortion at heart.

As far as effects for fretless. There was a thread about this a month or two ago. I'll give the same resonse I did then: A good 'mwah' pedal sounds great!

[dirtgroove]

Originally Posted by CraigG

The secret to making effects work is moderation.... :

Boo Hiss!

[hunta]

BMS is fun. A fuzz with a tone blender also fun. Very light delay/chorus is nice.

[Darkstrike]

Delay! Espically with a high Feedback, min Delay settings.

[Rickett Customs]

overdrive, chorus,'verb,wah,synth and maybe some light compression.

[GeoffByrne]

I've discovered (through fiddling around) that I like Phase better than Chorus for Fretless.

The Guv'nor has a 4 band EQ, by the way.