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Do you use your fretless bass' neck pickup?

Do you use your fretless bass' neck pickup?

  • Not at all

    Votes: 16 18.2%

  • I favor the bridge PU a lot, but never mute the neck PU

    Votes: 26 29.5%

  • I keep them both at the same proportion (50-50)

    Votes: 31 35.2%

  • I don't look for "mwah" on a fretless bass

    Votes: 15 17.0%
  • Total voters
    88
Alvaro Martín Gómez A.

Alvaro Martín Gómez A.

TalkBass' resident Bongo + cowbell player
Nov 10, 2000
6,935
155
59
Bucaramanga, Colombia, South A
#1
Hi everybody.

Just curious about this. Since "pickup blend-wise" the best way to get the typical "mwah" tone from a fretless bass (in my experience, at least) is soloing the bridge pickup, I'd like to know how many of you follow that approach. I've mostly panned the pickups around 75% bridge - 25% neck just to keep some bottom end coming from my instrument, but recently I've been opting for muting my bass' neck pickup and pushing the amp's low frequencies if I feel them necessary. So far I like the result (still in experimentation phase), and now I'd like to hear your opinions on the neck pickup's use on a fretless (if you look for that "mwah" factor without losing bottom end). Thank you in advance for your input!
 
#2
**** your pool... i use only the neck pickup and get plenty of mwah and all that!!! never need the bridge pickup on any of my basses... except when i want to record guitar sounds :P
and most bass players tend to play more or less ony bridge pickup... i suspect all that comes from jaco... well jaco was THE ONE AND ONLY!!!

be a real bass player play from the middle up ;) that's where the real bass is!!!
 
#4
I can't select any of the options, as my EBMM fretless has only one pickup! Theoretically, I'd probably use 75/25 neck/bridge as that's close to how I use my non-fretless basses, but that's not related to any real-world experience. I don't generally like my fretless to have a very different tone than my fretted basses.
 
#7
I tend to leave the pan right in the middle for most things, since my fretless 5 is very sculpted and articulate in the mids and little 'burpy' by nature, but if I want more articulation or a tighter bottom-end I will pan ever so slightly toward the bridge pickup. Since I play a lot of Americana/Country influenced music, I tend to use the neck pickup a LOT and re-EQ it to get as close to a P-Bass character as possible. Big, thick and a little wooly.... it works GREAT on fretless. YMMV though... My fretless 5-string is a Lakland 55-01 and I like the tones it offers. Your particular bass may speak better with a different pickup pan selection.
 
#14
I make decisions about pickup blend on a song by song basis - just as I do with note choices and fingerings.

So-called mwah is not something I set up my bass to generate all the time because I do not want to hear strings buzzing conspicuously against the fingerboard on every song I play (other players are usually surprised at how high the "action" is on my fretless basses).

I tend to treat mwah as a special effect I choose with my fingers for the occasional accent note, and for ballads.
 
#18
JTE said:
On both of my fretless basses I'm all over the place with the PUP blend, except I seldom use the bridge PUP soloed. Just not that useful in my world.

None of the poll options include "whatever the SONG needs".
Click to expand...

This. I blend whatever I need to get the job done on each individual song. Sometimes that is all one pickup or the other. Sometimes it is a blend. Sometimes it is both pickups in series.

Mwah is a function of technique and set up. While the bridge pickup does assist in bringing out the frequencies that make mwah noticeable, it isn't required. I can get a nice hollow mwah by soloing my neck.
 
#19
It all depends on the song. My most common setting with fretless would be favoring/soloing the bridge pickup with tone rolled most/all the way off. This brings out the archetypal electric fretless tone and gives it definition without sounding thin like it would with tone control maxed out (to my ears). Of course you don't always want that Jaco-ish sound, so in a typical rehearsal I use the entire spectrum of pickup blend based on the song/style, though rarely if ever bring the tone control past halfway.
 

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