Fretless suggestions

[matthewbrown]

I no longer own a fretless bass although I played a fretless for years. I'm interested in a semi-hollow 34" scale fretless. Something on the lightweight side and ergonomic would be ideal. I've been looking at Ibanez, but can't decide. Does the hive mind here have any experience with this type of bass to share that will help me decide?

 

[sethlow3]

Rob Allen
Rick Turner Renaissance
Godin (the new ones aren’t light, but the old acoustibass is)
Sandberg Thinline

 

[ardgedee]

What kind of budget are you looking at? Number of strings? Any other features?

Epiphone recently announced a fretless version of the Jack Casady bass. That's the only mass-produced 34" semi-hollow fretless I can think of.

 

[pingvuiini]

Depending on your budget, Rob Green has reintroduced the Electro bass after discontinuing it. Available fretless 4 or 5 string. I sure wish that they were available lefty. Ah well......

 

[Jeff Scott]

Martin Keith?

 

[Eddie Booph]

If you can find one and it's in the budget, Fender made a fretless PBAC-100 in the 90's. I have a fretted one and it's wonderful with a cafe Walter buffer and TI jazz flats (or Labella LTF). The ergonomics might not be what you're looking for, but the one I have plays and sounds amazing.

 

[PennyroyalWe]

Not 34”, but probably the cheapest semi hollow fretless out there. Harley Benton Beatbass FL VS Vintage Series

 

[Geepers]

I presume this is the Ibanez you’ve been looking at:

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[Jazzdogg]

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/benevolo-cinque-demonstrated-by-marco-panascia.1642368/

 

[REV]

These are great if you can find one.

 

[GrowlerBox]

I presume this is the Ibanez you’ve been looking at:

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I just bought one of these, receiving it about a week ago. I’m really enjoying the simplicity of piezo-only and single active tone control. The ergonomics are great, especially if you get on with slim necks (it’s by far the slenderest I’ve played, even compared to a much older Ibanez bass I have), and it’s feather-light. I’ve experienced no neck dive, but I do use a pretty broad strap. I chose it over a similar Cort, presumably from the same factory for the body contour and the absent magnetic pickup.

The piezo is nice, each under-saddle pickup has a gain adjustment on the back. The stock Chrome strings are not, in my opinion, an ideal partner for this pickup system, though. The piezo registers everything, and the Chromes are too much. I’ve never had my high and low-pass filters set so narrowly. I’ve just swapped them out for Labella LTFs, which are very nice, and many others are using Labella black tapes to good effect.

For the money, I haven’t seen a better bass in this category.

 

[thisheregiraffe]

I tried out a fretless Epiphone Jack Casady recently at a local music shop and I thought it felt and sounded fantastic. Took a look of restraint to not bring it home with me!

The Ibanez SRH505F is also very nice.

 

[RandomKaren]

Jack Casady fretless. If they did a 5 string I'd have one by now.

 

[bherman]

I just bought one of these, receiving it about a week ago. I’m really enjoying the simplicity of piezo-only and single active tone control. The ergonomics are great, especially if you get on with slim necks (it’s by far the slenderest I’ve played, even compared to a much older Ibanez bass I have), and it’s feather-light. I’ve experienced no neck dive, but I do use a pretty broad strap. I chose it over a similar Cort, presumably from the same factory for the body contour and the absent magnetic pickup.

The piezo is nice, each under-saddle pickup has a gain adjustment on the back. The stock Chrome strings are not, in my opinion, an ideal partner for this pickup system, though. The piezo registers everything, and the Chromes are too much. I’ve never had my high and low-pass filters set so narrowly. I’ve just swapped them out for Labella LTFs, which are very nice, and many others are using Labella black tapes to good effect.

For the money, I haven’t seen a better bass in this category.

I have this one also, put a set of black nylon tapewounds on it and its really pretty nice.

 

[Why Nautilus‽]

I’ve played an Ibanez GWB35 for decades now and it’s never steered me wrong. Gotten compliments from teachers, players, and audiences.

Let me know if you’ve got any questions on it, I’m happy to share my experience

 

[matthewbrown]

I presume this is the Ibanez you’ve been looking at:

[This invalid link has been removed]

Yes, and this one: SRD900F | SR | ELECTRIC BASSES | PRODUCTS | Ibanez guitars

 

[BigBoneRed]

Yes, and this one: SRD900F | SR | ELECTRIC BASSES | PRODUCTS | Ibanez guitars

+1 The SRD kicked my GAS level up a notch.. looks great visually, and appears to be pretty friendly ergonomically as well. Nice to see that it's modestly priced~

 

[Dana R Gregory]

Here is mine and I love it. The Ibanez SRH505F 5 string fretless. Only 7.4lbs with 16.5mm spacing, this is a very comfortable bass to play. Try it, you'll like it.

 

[40Hz]

You might consider a Willcox Saber VL. Interesting bass that uses a Lightwave optical pickup. That allows you use any string you want since, like a piezo, it doesn’t depend on magnetism to sense it. It’s an active bass with an onboard rechargeable battery that holds a charge for an amazingly long time. And the onboard preamp lets you dial in pretty much any sound you’d ever want. There’s also the option to add a hex pickup if you want to use it to drive a guitar synth. Gorgeous tones, featherlight weight, and looks to last for days.

It can be ordered as a 4 or 5-string. And you can get it either fretted or fretless. The fretless neck is available both lined or completely blank.



I was lucky enough to enough to find an older lined fretless model on the used market at a price too good to pass up. But even new they’re competitively priced with a USA Fender.

 

[KeepItMoving]

Lots of good thoughtful comments here! The only thing I would add is something that surprised me when I was on a similar quest earlier this year — the pricing on used Rob Allen basses can be quite low.

I’d always admired the Rob Allens but new ones in the $4000-6000 range are out of reach. And used ones are typically listed at around 3/4 of new, as one would expect. But a lot of those sit unsold for a long time, and when I looked at actual selling prices in the classifieds here and on Reverb, I found a bunch that went for much less, like well under half the new price.

Just something to keep in mind. I’d been all set to order an SRH-500F, which is a terrific instrument, but someone listed a used MB-2 on Reverb at a very fair price and I couldn’t resist.