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How many fretless basses?

#41
Down to two: a Rob Allen MB-2, and a Barker B1 vertical bass. Both have Piezo pickups and huge round warm tone. The Barker also has Seymour Duncan basslines, but I find I hardly ever turn those up as the piezo (graph tech ghost) just sounds so good on its own. I play in a bigband now and then, and use the Barker for those gigs. Very eye catching, and fabulous tone. The rest of the fretless time goes to the MB2, as it just sounds so big and sweet and is so light and easy to carry around.

My first fretless was a Fender MIM Jazz, and I used it as a project bass to try out things like replacing the pickups, ending up with Bartolinis, replacing the volume controls with an East J-Retro, doing a copper foil shielding job, and trying out TI Flats. All were great projects, each one a success. This bass is now in the hands of another TB'er, as it was getting zero playtime.

I had a Zon Sonus 5 Fretless for a while but gave it up (to a TB'er) due to frustration learning to play a 5er. Still trying, but now on a Nordy VJ5. Same experience many years before with a fretless Cirrus 5-er. Loved the tone but could not get around on it. We'll see how the Nordy 5-string does. So far it's working!
 
#43
4. I'm not really missing frets.

Yamaha 800 AF - rosewood board, unknown flats. Bought it used. P/J pups.
Tune TWX-41 - rosewood board, black tapewounds.
Squier VM Jaguar with VM Jazz fretless neck, strung with stock jaguar strings.
Peavey Foundation fretless - rosewood board, unknown roundwounds.

The only fretted basses i own are a Dean Eric Bass signature and a Dean Q6. My dad has a MIM Jazz Deluxe that I'm thinking of getting a fretless neck. Oh, and I have an affinity P-bass body coming in that I'probably going to put the squier jaguar neck on. I prefer 24 frets and active pups. My main bass is the Yamaha.
 
#47
Just one - my Joiner Passive - P-Bass body & Sadowsky SC Jazz pickups. When I want to go active I use an outboard Sadowsky Preamp/DI pedal which gives me options.

DSC03142.jpg
 
#48
I own one P.O.S. four string Washburn that was defretted, had J p/u installed, has some really cheap knobs and an eighties black and blue marble paint job when I got it. It sounds okay. It's biggest problem is its owner; I sound like I'm strangling a cow with a piece of re-bar or something when I play it. Actually I bought for a specific song and for less than $100 with a hard case and other than the one song, which I became passable at, never put the time into learning the damn thing. I could never get any of the bands to learn songs that called for it. I really wanted to do New York Minute by Don Henley.
 
#49
One. I don't really ever use it other than for special occasions, like when we play an acoustic show (we only do one of those for every 15 regular shows it seems, so it doesn't get used much) or record an acoustic song (I try to minimize swapping basses so I end up just playing those songs on a fretted bass live). Someday I might get an urge to play it more; it's actually a pretty darn good sounding bass (MIM Fender Jazz that was defretted and filled by another TB'er). Maybe if I ever do any Weather Report or Intronaut covers I may use it more :).
 
#59
My main bass is a 1990 mij jazz bass with a warmoth neck. I also have a 2000 mim fretless jazz which was my main bass until the fingerboard started giving me problems.
My most unique bass is an unlined steinberger xl unlined fretless. This is an awesome sounding bass but I feel a little funny playing it live. I do use it about 10 times a year playing it in pit gigs.
 

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