fretless question...

[masprague]

hey all,

I am new here. This is a great forum, as I have been reading it for quite some time. However, I just decided to splurge and buy a Warwick Corvette Fretless.

Its been fun trying to get my hands (and my brain) to actually have to think to hit the right notes.

Well I bought this bass at Guitar Center and as we all know they never do the greatest setup job, as I was playing a Corvette fretted, that had open string buzz. terrible.

Anyway, So I as I am learning to play, I noticed that if I play the perfect pitch G on the E string, "third fret", then I drop directly below it to the A string to play a D, I notice that it is slightly off. I did lots of tests just to make sure that I am not moving or anything.

is there any way to fix this??

thanks

 

[MuzikMan]

You can adjust your intonation by moving each saddle back to lower the pitch or forward to raise the pitch (or is it the other way around? )

BTW third fret A string is a C

 

[doctorjazz]

^^ Moving the saddle towards the neck will raise the pitch at the 12th position relative to the open string. Moving it away from the neck lowers it.

Something I've noticed, especially on unlined boards, is that you have to account for your finger's position relative to your eyes and also for the curvature of the fingerboard. In other words, sometimes when it looks like you're moving your finger directly across the board to the same position on a different string, you actually aren't. It's just the distance playing tricks on your eyes.

Use your ears and figure out exactly how to adjust to correct for this. All this is, of course, assuming that your intonation is set properly and you're in tune.

 

[masprague]

any tips for setting the intonation on a fretless?

Its super-easy on a fretted, but like you said, its hard to line up you fingers due to curving....

thanks for all your help