Fretless: Just picked one up and started playing

I hope to see a fretless ritter in the future

Your fretted ritter is awesome!

Dean's are good value.

 

good choice with the dean

 

I'm totally with you- I've been getting into fretless a lot in the past months, and amongst other fretless basses, I picked that same model up at Bass Northwest. It was quite fun, and I didn't have much trouble with intonation either. Neck felt great, and the growl was wonderful.

I guess I'd be more in the market for buying a fretless if I wasn't planning on building my own custom one......

 

My best advice is to enjoy your instrument. I'm hoping to get my hands on a Cort Curbow Fretless in the future.

 

Does the Dean Edge 4 come with an option of passive electronics? I can only find active.

 

A few tips:

1) Make that action as low as you possibly can. The lower the better...remember, that distinctive "mwah" comes from the strings vibrating against the fretboard, therefore the lower the action, the more the string will do that. This makes a HUGE difference in tone.

2) EQ it to favor the mids and highs. I have a Carvin fretless with a piezo bridge, MM and J magnetic pickups. I don't use the neck pickup at all, and I have the bass EQ flat or even cut some, while the treble is boosted way up. Gives it a much more chorusy, pleasing tone, not muddy at all.

3) Pluck close to the bridge.

4) Four words:

Thomastik
Infeld
Jazz
Flats.

 

I can't believe this thread passed me by.......

My first fretless bass was a Dean Edge 5 that I bought New Year's Eve 1999. I played that as one of my primary basses for 4 years before replacing it with a Brice 6 string fretless (which is not as good a bass as the Dean was, but is adequate; good enough for me).

Here's a picture of my Dean Edge 5:


Here's a picture of me playing it in a friend's home studio, you probably will remember this from one of my avatars:


This bass was wonderful, the neck, once set up, rarely needed tweaking. The EMG-HZ pickups and passive EQ on the older "Edge" basses gave a full, warm tone that I really loved. The newer Dean branded pickups and active EQ are nice, too, I've played those in a music store.

I recommend Dean basses without hesitation based on my experience with the one I owned. It looked classy and sounded and played like a much more expensive instrument. It consistently impressed me. A very good instrument for the money. And very attractive looking as well, which counts for something!

The 5 and 6 string Edges were 35" scale, I don't know about the 4 string. You should check that. I used LaBella Deep Talkin' Bass flatwound strings on mine and I really loved them, they felt and sounded fabulous. I see the one you found is unlined, nice! Dean makes these in lined and unlined versions depending on what year they are. They know people like both so they switch off.

The Edge was my first fretless bass and now I can't imagine being without one. It is such a nice voice to have in your bass arsenal.

I sold my Edge to my nephew. Last i heard he likes it!

 

Setup wise, I personnaly don't like it when the action is too low. Maybe it's cuz when they're so low, you have to play softer, and then all the notes kinda sound the same. I prefer to have it a bit higher than the lowest possible, so I can get a bit more "feel" into it.

And you don't have to pluck at the bridge, if you want that "Hejira" singing tone, it's easier to do near the neck.

As for a Ritter fretless... I don't feel as if a fancy fretless bass is as important as a fretted. I dunno why. IME, you don't need active electronics or whatever on a fretless. The sound is really in your hands, much more than on a fretted I feel. But, then again, I'm building myself a fancy fretless (soon) just cuz I like nice looking basses

 

I have dabbled in and out of fretless basses for about 10 years. I love them, but I have just never found one that spoke to me tonally. My favorite was a Warwick Streamer LX 6. I just bought a Modulus Genesis fretless 5. We'll see how that works out.

My only advice about playing fretless bass is to add some element to your practice routine that focuses on developing a reasonably standardized approach to fingering, shifting and position playing. Fretless bass is rather easy to play when you are comfortable with where you are going. But, when you find yourself in an unfamiliar situation and need to think ahead (sight reading, improv or simply unfamiliar with the tune) you don't want to be in a position of hunting for notes. you can really get hung out to dry.

Ideally you have already approached playing the fretted bass in this way, but if not, now is a great time to start.

 

I feel the same way. Also, lower action on a fretless seems to accentuate the "bloom" of the note and more sustain. Don't get me wrong, I love the "bloom" of the notes on a fretless, that's where your "mwahh" comes from. And I like sustain, too. However, I still like a fast decay "plunky" kind of sound from a fretless, that kind of lends itself to the kind of uprightish or ABG type of sound more than the fretted electric sound.

 

I find fretless to be easier to play. I am a releative beginner, and as long as I look down at the markers on the edge of the neck ocassionally, my intonation is good. No fret buzz is a plus in my book, and I love the tone. Here is mine:

 

ooh, what kind of bass is that?

 

It's made with parts from Warmoth

 

If you want "mwah" then you'll need to adjust your setup some probably. Instead of typing out the process, just check out http://www.garywillis.com/pages/bass/bassmanual/setupmanual.html

It's pretty basic, but he explains it better than I can. You want your neck mostly flat on a frettless to get it to sing...