Fretless - lined or unlined? Let's survey this question..What's your preference?

[bucephylus]

Unless your belly is big enough to use as a tray table, a lined fingerboard is pretty much hidden from your eyes when you're standing on stage and playing. Side dots are far more useful in that situation.

...the fingerboard lines are probably the least useful of all of them.

Agree with this perspective for lower register playing (where the money is); but, not at all my experience playing parts in the upper register, where the fingerboard surface is much more apparent. No, my belly is not a tray table. I may be old and decrepit; but, not that far gone. Time is unkind. LOL.

 

[Algo]

I will probably get (or more likely make it myself) an unlined.

 

[tfer]

Agree with this perspective for lower register playing (where the money is); but, not at all my experience playing parts in the upper register, where the fingerboard surface is much more apparent. No, my belly is not a tray table. I may be old and decrepit; but, not that far gone. Time is unkind. LOL.

On fretless, most of my playing is done between the 8th and 12th frets. Being able to reach those lower notes in that position is one reason that my fretless is a 5 string.

 

[Josh Kneisel]

1) are you a regular fretless electric bassist? - No I mostly play upright these days though (I do intend on purchasing one)

2) does the fingerboard or top edge of your favored fretless bass have lines, or is it fully unlined? - unlined since its an Upright

3) all other things equal, if you bought your next fretless bass from a brand that offered the choice of either a Lined or Unlined fretless neck, which would you purchase? - Unlined

4) if you only had the one choice (as with Godin) of your less favored fingerboard preference, from your favored fretless bass brand, would you buy one? - No

5) Please describe your view on this subject? - I think fret lines get distracting and can effect intonation on a negative way unless the thing is set up perfectly. I have to ignore the frets at this point if Im playing a Bass Guitar otherwise I get all crosseyed

 

[inazone]

1) yes, but mostly fretted
2) both - BG lines, EUB no lines
3) either, I'm more of a good bass / bad bass kind of guy
4) either
5) JMO, lines or unlined are like the color or type of wood. I either like it or don't, again a good bass or bad bass. With that said I like the looks of dark lines on a dark board or light lines on a light board and bare ebony.

 

[nostatic]

But as we've pointed out, you are using visual cues. You look at side dots, or the neck, or your hands. Consciously or not, you're doing the exact same thing as a lined player. You're not playing and didn't learn completely blind, and there aren't a bunch of blind fretless players outdoing Willis and Jaco.

As I noted, I *do* use visual cues. Of course - we all do unless we're 100% blind. It just depends on how we bias them in our sense-making. A dot and a line are different representations of the same thing, but we process them differently. The dot requires extrapolation in our mind to hit the right note unless we're on the top string which gives a very strong correlation between the dot and the finger position. That abstraction from the dot is different than looking at a line and trying to hit the line.

Again, plenty of great players on unlined, plenty of great players on lined. *I* consider lines an impediment, *I* personally found them to be a distraction, and I understand from a training perspective why that *could* be. You are free to believe what you want to believe. I didn't offer "dogma" - I offered my opinion which is based upon my experiences and understanding of human perception. Other people have other opinions, based on their personal experience and their understanding of human perception. Both could be right - such are the vagaries of dealing with human systems.

In the end it is up to the individual.

 

[oldfretless]

What's the best blindfold for metal?

 

[_sky_]

I like lines but just for looks. I don´t use them as guides.

 

[MarkoYYZ]

I did a poll about this, and the results were basically that unlined was preferred, especially from an aesthetics standpoint. I was all gung ho about doing only un-lined fretless for Hammersmith until this past NAMM. Our own fretless guy Remco Hendriks likes the both lined and unlined boards, but specifically wants side lines of they're not on the front - not just dots. We had two other fairly known fretless dudes hang out and one of them you would all know very well - Juan Alderete. @lowendmafia brought him by the booth to meet us and JA was intrigued by our alternate scales as well as our willingness to do fretless on any model. He was adamant that a fretless needs to be lined, because a rock gig is not like a jazz session, and you simply need the visual reference points since you can't fully trust the sound that you're hearing.

Perhaps those who look down upon a lined fretless can re-think their viewpoints, if even players of that stature are also of the mindset that lined is not only acceptable, but needed. In the end it comes down to the needs of the player - and I don't think anyone is going to say Juan Alderete needs training wheels.
.

 

[silvertone]

Side dots are helpful....

 

[amper]

All BS aside, I do see from a lot of lined board players that they don't feel like they could play an unlined board. I don't believe they would have much problem with it, after a short adjustment period.

I've never played a lined fretless outside of a dealer's showroom. When I decided to buy my first fretless, I bought it unlined because I really do feel like lines make you look like you can't play without lines, and I'm just insecure enough that that matters to me. Plus, I like the connection with traditional stringed instruments. I was actually a bit scared, because I was afraid my intonation would be awful and it would take forever to learn, but I doubt it was more than a few days before I sounded just fine.

Not having owned a lined fretless, I do wonder if it might be a distraction when shifting back and forth between fretted and fretless.

I do kind of like the look of partial lines on some instruments, like the ones that are just little tick marks and aren't all in a row. It can look pretty cool if well done, like the cascading position markers on an NS Design instrument.

And yes, both of my fretless instruments do have side dots, and it's true that upright basses generally do not. However, upright basses also generally stay at a more or less fixed height off the ground, making it much easier to learn that type of muscle memory to hit the same positions more consistently. Bass guitars are all over the place, so I think side dots are appropriate, but I feel like now, after 15 years of playing fretless, I could probably manage without the dots, too, if I really had to.

 

[Watchootognbout]

All BS aside, I do see from a lot of lined board players that they don't feel like they could play an unlined board. I don't believe they would have much problem with it, after a short adjustment period.

I've never played a lined fretless outside of a dealer's showroom. When I decided to buy my first fretless, I bought it unlined because I really do feel like lines make you look like you can't play without lines, and I'm just insecure enough that that matters to me. Plus, I like the connection with traditional stringed instruments. I was actually a bit scared, because I was afraid my intonation would be awful and it would take forever to learn, but I doubt it was more than a few days before I sounded just fine.

Not having owned a lined fretless, I do wonder if it might be a distraction when shifting back and forth between fretted and fretless.

I do kind of like the look of partial lines on some instruments, like the ones that are just little tick marks and aren't all in a row. It can look pretty cool if well done, like the cascading position markers on an NS Design instrument.

And yes, both of my fretless instruments do have side dots, and it's true that upright basses generally do not. However, upright basses also generally stay at a more or less fixed height off the ground, making it much easier to learn that type of muscle memory to hit the same positions more consistently. Bass guitars are all over the place, so I think side dots are appropriate, but I feel like now, after 15 years of playing fretless, I could probably manage without the dots, too, if I really had to.

I've had six fretless basses over the past thirty years.
Four were conversions.
Two were bought unlined.One of those was a failed experiment.
But the last unlined was an ABG that I had to sell.

But after seven years of lined fingerboard,I'm having my only six sting fretless converted to unlined.(See post #165)
I'm confident that I can handle it.

I think I may do without side dots and re-order a set of Fret-FX LED's.