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. In tune might be ahead of, on or behind the actual line for each note. I use both and while I still think unlined looks better they basically play the same.Originally posted by Brad Johnson
Actually the only requirement on a lined fretless is the same as an unlined one... play in tune (if it's called for)
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Originally posted by Keech
A fretless bass is basically microtonal. So, in this case, a C# is not the same note as a Db. If you play one note open and try to harmonize, say, a 5th up on the next string and you play it by putting your finger between the lines, I can guarantee that it will not be a proper 5th. It will essentially be a wolf.
I love these responses
Db/C#? Way too esoteric for me
The fact is, microtones be damned, you can't guarantee anything. Unlike metrics, the periodic table and the Greenwich time system, there aren't any rock solid rules for fretline placement on a fretless that HAVE to be obeyed. Right or wrong, they end up wherever the builder puts them. Add in where the saddles for individual strings are set and all bets are off on where a note will actually be.
Don't believe it? Change the saddle position on a string from one max to the other. Are the notes still in the same place?
This is one of the main reasons people have a problem playing lined fretlesses. They put so much time into thinking about minutia when they could better spend it learning where the notes actually are... just like they did on an unlined bored. They just have more points of references, that's all.
I know one guy who can play his unlined fretless perfectly well and cannot stand my lined fretless because it throws him off. It is indeed kind of intuitive where to put the fingers but a beginner may need more than that.
That's not a bass issue, it's a mental one. Even during my days of not caring for lined fretlesses I understood that. I play all of these fretlesses:
Two are lined, the rest aren't. One has dots.
Invalid Link Removed
Originally posted by Keech
If you're playing music written for equal-tempered music, you wouldn't play them as separate notes. You couldn't. If you're playing quarter-step music, you have to play them as different notes because they are. But you need an instrument capable of playing those notes.
And there's no reason you couldn't do that on a fretless, even a lined one. In any event, since neither I nor most musicians I know find themselves in this situation...
Whose guaranteeing anything? What guarantee are you talking about? Microtones be damned nothing! If you play a fretless you had better understand that putting your finger on the line and between the lines produces a different note and it will not be a half step higher or lower. I produce quarter steps on my bass all the time.
Why it only seems like a few posts ago someone with your logon name said:
"A fretless bass is basically microtonal. So, in this case, a C# is not the same note as a Db. If you play one note open and try to harmonize, say, a 5th up on the next string and you play it by putting your finger between the lines, I can guarantee that it will not be a proper 5th. It will essentially be a wolf.
Sound familiar? Who guaranteed anything? You did
And I'm saying you can't guarantee this because IT ALL DEPENDS ON HOW THE BASS IS SET UP.
This has nothing to do with understanding that where you place your finger makes a difference. That's a given and no one is debating that. For some reason you seem to be locked into this idea that fretlines are somehow limiting. They aren't, any more than side dots or any other POINT OF REFERENCE short of an actual fret.
That's fine. As long as you qualified it by saying "right or wrong" because some settings are definitely wrong.
I was talking about where they put the lines ON THE FINGERBOARD. Gary Willis talks at length about the need to learn your fretboard, even if you have lines because the lines may not be at the exact position the note you want is. It's up to you the player to learn where the notes are on your instruments. Lines might just help you get in the ballpark faster. They don't "physically" stop the strings so the idea that they can mess someone up is more on the player than the bass.
It doesn't change the fact that if you put your finger on the line and play the note there, it will be a different note than one played between the lines--generally it is a quarter-step in difference which is not found in the standard equal-tempered scale. Therefore one of those two notes will be out of tune with the song--which may or may not produce desirable results.
Duh.
All your statement is saying is that if you screw up your bass, it won't play right. No one to my knowledge is arguing that.
If that's all you got out of it, cool. That must be all I was saying.
Anything dealing with basses is a bass issue to me.
Brilliant. So what about the physicality of the lined bass throws the guy you know off? Does he have the same issues if he doesn't face the steely glare of the lined fingerboard and instead looks away? Does it induce some sort of parallax-based palsy?
Yeah, it must be the bass
Again, I prefer unlined. I can however play either, mainly due to coming to the realization that the only thing in the equation that could screw things up was me. Doesn't sound like your friend has gotten to that point yet.
