Fretless Metal

[Rev J]

To me fretless in Death Metal seems to be a good choice from a frequency perspective. For the most part the guitars use a scooped EQ, the vocals try for a low growl, the kick drums are trying for a meaty sound with lots of attack plus 90% of human hearing is midrange so you have 3/4s of the band fighting for 10% of the overall spectrum. Just about every fretless I've ever played/heard has been midrange heavy. To me that's the perfect way to be heard in that genre.

C/S,
Rev J

 

[DiabolusInMusic]

Death metal has the most fretless players aside from jazz in my experience, all the ones I know were previously listed. I personally do not care for death metal, but there are some monster players, especially DiGiorgio.

 

[Kragnorak]

Surprised that Linus Klausenitzer from Obscura hasn't been mentioned.

Here is Linus playing a bass line that I wrote. I couldn't do it myself for two reasons: 1) I don't have a 7-string fretless which is what the artist requested for the entire album and 2) I'm not good enough at home recording (or bass, lol) to play material this complicated and hit the marks. I learned that Linus is awesome!

1) Cannonata, by Keegan Ostrowski