Fretless players: When do you play your fretted?

[lowendfriend]

I play both regularly. I am just as comfortable with both, but I know where you're coming from with the fretted feeling weird. I found that if I only play one or the other for a long while, the other feels weird. That's why I cycle through them now.

Well said....my experience exactly. I'm on a fretted kick lately after almost a year of mainly fretless.

I actually like playing the fretless at gigs usually, because I like the sound of the Lakland 55-01 for a lot of blues stuff and I like to be able to slide into notes if I need to.

Lately, I've been tweaking the sound of my fretted Warwick Corvette $$ 5er and I'm liking the BOMP-ey tone.

I don't know how these folks with 10 basses function!

 

[troutmask]

I prefer practicing on my jazz bass which is fretted, helps with my intonation as well as the neck being a bit larger so when i go back to fretless its a breeze.

 

[portlandguy]

I only play my Fender MIA fretless jazz - sold all the others with frets - I have no idea why they put frets on bass - the double bass does not have any. My fretless jazz will sound like any other jazz until I do slides, etc. It also has a bit more growl when played aggresively. I do not slap, I do pop and no problems with that - popping sounds great on a fretless no metal clang.

 

[klaus486]

I'm 90/10 fretless/fretted. I do most of my fretted playing at work.....gets it out of my system then I play my custom fretless J for everything else!
Only thing I miss is chords but I try hard to do those too on the fretless.

 

[SteveC]

Shouldn't have read this...

My fretted is a Geddy Lee jazz with DR HI Beams. It works for everything I do really, but...there are times - even if it's just for myself at home with BIAB or whatever - when I'd like a fretless. There's a nice Clement unlined fretless 4 out there. I haven't tried a Clement but people say he makes a heck of a fretless bass.

 

[Matthew_84]

My action is about 3mm off the fretboard, the action is so slow I can barely stand to play it.

You know, I have been thinking about this... 3mm is about the same as my bass (maybe a tad higher), and since I re-levelled my board, I know she is dead flat. There are no more humps at the fretlines and the buzzes can happen anywhere on the board now, not just at the lines. But my fretted is somewhere around 2.5mm... I've read so many posts about how a fretless can have lower action than a fretted, but I'm not so certain that that is indeed accurate. Sure, you can lower it and get a lot of "mwah" (or buzzing). But what I've just realized is that with a fretted the action has to be high enough to not buzz off of the next fret. So as long as you apply proper pressure then the first possibility of any buzzing occurs about an inch away (or whatever), but on a fretless, you can buzz a millimeter away. This may be very obvious to many, and it seems obvious now that I have re-read it, but I've just read so much on here regarding the opposite...

Any who... Carry on

 

[Matthew_84]

Shouldn't have read this...

My fretted is a Geddy Lee jazz with DR HI Beams. It works for everything I do really, but...there are times - even if it's just for myself at home with BIAB or whatever - when I'd like a fretless. There's a nice Clement unlined fretless 4 out there. I haven't tried a Clement but people say he makes a heck of a fretless bass.

And yes, get a fretless! Best bass decision I've made IMO.

 

[chuck3]

I love playing fretless, but when I'm playing rock I use a fretted - just seems to fit the music better, plus as someone else mentioned, if you're singing (which I do a fair amount of), it's harder to pay attention to the pitch of the fretless.

However, I have a once-per-month jazz gig, and for that I always use this baby:

 

[pkstone]

Since I got my fretless, I hardly ever play the fretted. I'm beginning to be temped to get a fretless neck for my Jazz bass, so it can serve as a backup. Right now, I have to occasionally practice on the (fretted) Jazz just so I'll remember how to play it if I need to, i.e. if the fretless is (horrors!) unavailable.

 

[banditcosmo]

I play my fretted when learning new songs then once I have them down I switch back to my fretless.

 

[Matthew_84]

Since I got my fretless, I hardly ever play the fretted. I'm beginning to be temped to get a fretless neck for my Jazz bass, so it can serve as a backup. Right now, I have to occasionally practice on the (fretted) Jazz just so I'll remember how to play it if I need to, i.e. if the fretless is (horrors!) unavailable.

Yeah... I should really play the fretted more often. The only problem is that I don't want to, LOL.

 

[FunkMetalBass]

I try to cycle through all of my basses pretty regularly. The fretlesses both need to have their necks leveled properly (that'll teach me to try to epoxy coat my boards), so they don't see quite as much quality play time and noodling, but they do see it nonetheless. I'd say 65/35 fretted.

 

[kiwi60]

For me, I then to let the song tells me if I should play fretted or fretless.
If it's a Ella Fitzgerald number (for instance) with a real old world jazz or big band vibe then the fretless (with flat wounds) gets the nod, but if it's something more modern like a George Benson groove for instance then I tend to grab the fretted.
Having said all that, there's nothing wrong with mixing it up if the mood takes you , the only problem can be executing a fast instrument change between songs.

 

[Engine207]

I'd pick my fretless - it's a Fender Tony Franklin P that has a big, full sound.

I saw that bad dog Saturday night with Kenny Wayne Shepherd. He was smokin'! Here's a grainy iPhone photo...

And some video... Voodoo Child Encore

To answer the Matthew_84's original question, I found that after I started getting the hang of fretless, it's all I wanted to play. I worked on intonation and technique until I could play just about anything fretless that I played on my fretted basses. In fact, I sometimes add some vibrato or sliding harmonics at just the right times to make it interesting for the song. For example, one Evanescence tune has a long, slow fade where harmonics sound really nice.

I still love playing my fretted basses, but they just don't offer the same freedom as fretless.

 

[THORRR]

I, too, rotate my basses to give them all play time since
they're all set up great and all sound really good with
subtle differences. I love my fretless for noodling around
at home and for improving my accuracy when I find myself
getting sloppy on the fretted.

I can get more growl out of my fretted basses but my fretless is so eeeeeeeeasy to play it's hard not to use it all the time.
It's a lot of fun to play and the absence of frets makes the neck
feel even thinner in the hand. (I like thin necks)

But, truth be told, I use it about 25% of the time because of the
wider tone range of my fretted instruments, and the color selection, too.
Some gigs I want my Candy Apple Red with White Pearloid pg, and others I want my all Black Stealth Aerodyne, and still others my Vintage White with Red Tort guard, etc. etc.

It's really nice to have a selection to choose from. For decades I played only one sunburst Jazz for everything, and
changed the strings maybe once every year or two, maybe.

Wish I still had that '67 Jazz.

 

[grisezd]

I play in a small time classic rock cover band. It's not my dream gig, but I try to give it what I've got. I usually play my 30in fretted for the first set, to sort of get my feet wet. If I'm feeling it I'll use my 32in fretless the rest of the night. I do tend to play "tighter" on the fretted, move around the song a bit more on the fretless. It demands a little more concentration but it's so much more rewarding to fly around on that smooth fingerboard.

And on the setup tip, I never was happy with my fretless until I got the nut slots just right. Funny, I never noticed an overly high nut on a fretted before but on fretless it's critical (to me) that it's right.

 

[SteveC]

And yes, get a fretless! Best bass decision I've made IMO.

Oh, I've had. Few. A Carvin 6 string, an Azola Bug Bass, a Wendler, a couple Rob Allen's...

 

[Lo-E]

And on the setup tip, I never was happy with my fretless until I got the nut slots just right. Funny, I never noticed an overly high nut on a fretted before but on fretless it's critical (to me) that it's right.

About 20 years ago, Carl Thompson taught me to file fretless nut slots until the file scrapes the shiny finish off of a matchbook cover. This highly imprecise method has worked for me flawlessly for 20 years!

 

[SLaPiNFuNK]

Not often at all!

 

[rondohd]

I don't own a fretted bass so I play fretless 100% of the time. I play blues through an Acoustic 370 and a Carvin 1523 PA cab.
Rondo