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Don't be scared to play fretless!
- Thread starter Katoosie
- Start date
I am strongly considering getting the dirt cheap short scale fretless Harley Benton Beatbass (Violin/Beatles Bass) at some point (and yes it got dots on the side of the neck to indicate where the frets would be) :
Sounds great to me, despite this is straight DI'ed and the player not exactly being a master of playing fretless.
Sounds great to me, despite this is straight DI'ed and the player not exactly being a master of playing fretless.
I have a Tony Franklin and that thing is just a pleasure to play every time. The fat neck and the fat tone are simply awesome. But it does take significant concentration to play well. Especially without fretboard lines - so you aim with/for the side dots.
Remember back in your athletic days (decades ago) have you ever worn ankle weights and then take them off just before the race? That's the same feeling I get when I switch from a FL back to a fretted bass..... I can fly
Remember back in your athletic days (decades ago) have you ever worn ankle weights and then take them off just before the race? That's the same feeling I get when I switch from a FL back to a fretted bass..... I can fly
D
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godofthunder59
Life is short, buy the bass.
- Feb 19, 2006
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- Endorsing Cataldo Basses, Whirlwind products, Thunderbucker pickups
Back in college I took double bass lessons for 3 semesters maybe 4. I left in '83 and didn't even consider playing fretless again until 2009 when I bought a fretless Fender Precision cheap. Honestly the transition was pretty easy once I got comfortable with where the octaves were it all fell into place.
Tried it, didn’t like it, sold it.Heya!
A thing I have noticed throughout my bass journey is that a lot of bassists say something akin to "I'm not good enough of a player to play a fretless" and I think that is all kinds of wrong.
Just think this:
If we lived in a time before the electric was even invented, you would have been playing a double bass. No frets.
Nowadays, you got a choice.
And that choice shouldn't prevent you from grabbing that fretless and going at it, so just have fun. They don't even have to be expensive
So have fun.
Good luck!
The tonal advantages of the fretted bass are intuitive, really, but to just state two of them: utterly precise, stable and repeatable intonation and the "muaah"-lessness of the note. Those are just facts about the tone of the fretted bass, particularly how easy and reliably you can get that kind of tone with literally no effort by the player other than getting that string mashed down against the fret at just the right time, and with the finger back behind the fret out of the way.
Yes, you can force that kind of "precision", pardon the pun, and tone out of the FL, with many years of hard work, a very high action and the strength of a gorilla, hard compression and ... well, you see where I'm going with this..
That's what I mean when I say the fretted bass is "better" for situations requiring that kind of synthetic/machine-like tone. Those are inherent tonal properties of the fretted bass, but the FL requires a lot of force to get the same thing out of it. You can hammer a nail with a crescent wrench, but a hammer is really the preferred way of doing that. The FL is not the right tool for that job is another way to put it.
Again, my goal here is only to tell the truth about the FL as best as I can render it, so guys aren't seduced into thinking the FL is something that it's actually not, or that the commitment to it will yield a result that it actually won't yield for them.
And finally, the idea that the FL is somehow a superior instrument that will make you a "better player" has a lot of myth around it too. I won't go into that here except to present myself as hard proof that that doesn't necessarily follow. I've played the FL for over 20 years now and I suck just as bad today as I sucked 20 years ago. And I fully expect to continue to suck going forward even as I continue to play the FL.
It is a brute fact that playing the FL will not improve your fretted playing as effectively as playing the fretted will. It will, however, make you a better FL player, but that's really all it will do....
L
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I accumulated 9 bass ukes, all of which I used regularly, when I decided to have a fretless acoustic bass uke made with all the talk about fretless influencing me. I tried getting used to going from fretted most of the time, to fretless some of the time, but couldn't, so i sold it. No regrets what-so-ever. I'm very happy being a 4 string fretted guy.
I'm a convert. Fast, fun, smooth, and sexy.
And, that's not even getting to how good they sound.
I don't want to go back to frets, ever again!
wow - is that stock? Never seen an unlined JB special(?)
The fretless has an advantage over a fretted in the expressiveness department. How you finger the string (I would call it fretting but that's not right) against the board (the amount of pressure, which part of the fingers (fleshy edge or fingertips), angle of fingers...) gives a lot more nuance to your playing than simply creating a fulcrum with a fret. Slight glissandos can give the impression of a trombone (too much makes you sound lost and searching frantically for the pitch) a little vibrato adds more personality. The MWAH with a bit of grunt to it can be heavenly. Fretted basses have the advantages of always being in tune (hopefully). Both have their appeal.
Yes, she's stock.
looks great! Love the black headstock with the plain dark board. Enjoy
Good words, In my particular case a fretless EB is a more lyrically expressive instrument, it has a timbre that’s much like the human voice.
It’s very melodic. Fretted basses are vert articulate and rhythmical, so both instruments have their place alongside each other.
IMHO, that's a great summary. I do love playing both kinds, and they make me play differently. That's a good think by itself.
This thread made me pull out my 6 string FL and put on Ben E. King - Stand By Me and play along.
In 45 years of playing I can't think of any occasion where another bassist has told me they're scared of playing fretless. Plenty don't like the sound and plenty don't like the feel but not one has ever told me they're scared.
FWIW I started on a homemade fretless as I couldn't find a supplier of fretwire in the north east of England in the mid 70's. Never looked back and I use my fretless Alembic fiver exclusively in my blues/rock band. Switch between fretted and fretless in my proggy metal(ish) band.
Graeme
FWIW I started on a homemade fretless as I couldn't find a supplier of fretwire in the north east of England in the mid 70's. Never looked back and I use my fretless Alembic fiver exclusively in my blues/rock band. Switch between fretted and fretless in my proggy metal(ish) band.
Graeme
At the moment (well, pre-Covid) I'm only playing in a world music band. Sometimes I need quarter tones
But really, I bought this Godin (see my avatar) because I liked the singing tone. And it's my only bass.
But really, I bought this Godin (see my avatar) because I liked the singing tone. And it's my only bass.
Looking forward to trying one out someday, only things stopping me so far are that a) I'm pretty much a beginner on bass still, and b) a lefty, so finding a decent fretless is even more of a pain than a fretted.
Used to think anything fretless would be impossible to play, but a while back I took up playing the oud for a year or so (mostly as a personal challenge). It involved learning to play standard musical stuff plus maqam scales that contained half flat and half sharp notes.
It was definitely tough at first, but was mostly a case of getting used to the sounds in your head, and then slowly getting playing closer to that.
I can see that starting on a fretless bass as a 1st instrument would be harder, but maybe easier if you'd already got all the scale/chord sounds in your head and can hear when something is wrong.
Used to think anything fretless would be impossible to play, but a while back I took up playing the oud for a year or so (mostly as a personal challenge). It involved learning to play standard musical stuff plus maqam scales that contained half flat and half sharp notes.
It was definitely tough at first, but was mostly a case of getting used to the sounds in your head, and then slowly getting playing closer to that.
I can see that starting on a fretless bass as a 1st instrument would be harder, but maybe easier if you'd already got all the scale/chord sounds in your head and can hear when something is wrong.
Came here to say something similar. I am relatively new to fretless, but I have been primarily playing songs I already know, slowed down, so I can hear the notes and get the positioning under my fingers. As soon as I start feeling like I'm hitting notes accurately, I increase the speed and repeat. This has helped me get a better idea of the exact placement of my fingers on the fingerboard without spending too much mental energy on also figuring out the song. I have made good progress this way and am starting to have more confidence with playing in tune, or at least recognizing when I'm slightly out of tune.
