Is fretless decreasing in popularity?

[swarfrat]

Was just playing and decided to try singing. It was another of those moments of "this just might work given a lot more time".

For me the key is using the deepest groves in your brain. I don't care if its baby shark, happy birthday, or the 70's Juicy Fruit commercial. whatever. Stuff you know down cold. For me this has always been hymns. Not even the stuff we're doing in church now. Like from the hymn book from when I was like 5-10, and I was being drug to church 3x/week. Some of these i haven't even heard in 30 years but they're in there and will be when I don't recognize my wife or kid and call the CNA momma. Whatever that is for you, that's what you want to practice singing with fretless on.

Even if i never sing in front of mic while playing fretless, I think that its incredibly helpful.

 

[Bass4Gsus]

Right, but surely within two decades bassist X would have said that they used their fretless on song Y. I have a fretless that I play on a song or two, but I really can't think of any songs that have fretless. And "maybe they are hiding their technique to sound fretted" is essentially a "no".

I don't have the patience to do the research but there are many. Many use lined fretless and when I was making my decision it was the number of well known bassists that I knew or found out about who used lined fretless that made me go with lines. Bunny Brunel is one that used lined fretless. I remember him because I have his signature model. If you don't do all the fretless tricks on every note and play it straight no one knows. I just don't write these things down and memorize them, because now that I made the decision to play lined fretless it's part of a long ago made decision, and I have CRS. And there were a number of them in "rock" too, it's not just jazz or prog. My green bass is the fretless.

 

[jamro217]

Not at my house.

 

[MultiScaleMale]

I don't have the patience to do the research but there are many. Many use lined fretless and when I was making my decision it was the number of well known bassists that I knew or found out about who used lined fretless that made me go with lines. Bunny Brunel is one that used lined fretless. I remember him because I have his signature model. If you don't do all the fretless tricks on every note and play it straight no one knows. I just don't write these things down and memorize them, because now that I made the decision to play lined fretless it's part of a long ago made decision, and I have CRS. And there were a number of them in "rock" too, it's not just jazz or prog. My green bass is the fretless.

I’ve been looking. No luck. The most “recent” usage that I can find is from the early 90’s. From its heyday in the 80’s overall usage has declined since then. Greatly.

 

[Portamenti]

I love my fretless. Most of the time people don't even know it's a fretless. But the fretless sound is there when I want it. Not every note has to be an advertisement. I get more raised eyebrows because it's a 5 string, because they can physically see that and then get judgmental. Many famous players play a lined fretless and you don't always realize. So tough to say is it more or less.

It wasn’t until the 5th gig (post audition, post 3x3hr rehearsals for 60 country tunes) that someone in my band noticed I was playing Fretless.

If it’s a party gig and I might hop off stage to boot scoot with the crowd - I’ll play fretted so I can focus on my feet instead my pitch. And if we’re doing something new that I’m singing harmony on… I sing bass vocals and sometimes my wires get crossed whereby my fingers play my vocal note and I sing the bass note

 

[Watchootognbout]

I don't see the point of a fretless of you're going to play it straight on and never take advantage of the sounds a fretless can make. Might as well just play a fretted bass.
Unless, you like to brag on the internet that you're better than everyone else because you don't need frets to play perfectly. I guess there's always that.

 

[SteveCS]

The insinuation that fretless is loosing popularity because people are too lazy to learn them. That's one of those comments I was referring to
...

Perhaps, but there are countless examples of folks asking how to improve their intonation, or how to play better in tune, who then proceed to throw the right advice and information back at those of us providing it. They then go off looking for the shortcut. There are cases of the same folks following the short-cuts then coming back a year or two later with the same questions wondering why nothing has changed. Improvements don't come from practice, they come from practicing the right things, which ofter requires an investment of time and effort to learn the right things to practice first. After a while it is reasonable to assume that the 'loyal customers' just can't be bothered. YMMV

 

[swarfrat]

Sheesh. i was just saying something i found helpful for me . Do i get a card number when I'm allowed to comment?

 

[gstaats]

I’ve been looking. No luck. The most “recent” usage that I can find is from the early 90’s. From its heyday in the 80’s overall usage has declined since then. Greatly.

Perhaps people "noticed" fretless more in the 80's and 90's. Not so much now.

 

[MultiScaleMale]

Perhaps people "noticed" fretless more in the 80's and 90's. Not so much now.

It seems the argument for a resurgence of fretless is that there is an army of fretless bassists that play their fretlesses in a manner such that they cannot be distinguished from fretted basses. This is how conspiracies are born. Heh. Some people still play fretless, but it's a small number and nobody is asking for fretless on their albums.

 

[Tom Bomb]

When it comes to the crunch, none of this is important.

What is important is that we all get decidedly hung-up on evident trivia and then, exercising our best nature, proceed to relentlessly bully all and sundry, til the cows come home.

Fret not. We got this.
​

 

[gstaats]

It seems the argument for a resurgence of fretless is that there is an army of fretless bassists that play their fretlesses in a manner such that they cannot be distinguished from fretted basses. This is how conspiracies are born. Heh. Some people still play fretless, but it's a small number and nobody is asking for fretless on their albums.

Earlier in the thread, there were bassists mentioned that play fretless and no one notices. Not an army, but they are there. If a fretless is played like a fretted bass, does it matter what bass is play on an album unless the clank is needed, like for slap/pop technique?

 

[ad9000]

I'm old enough to have seen the arc of fretless popularity since the mid-70's. I think it peaked around 1977 with the height of Jaco's fame, and it has steadily declined since then apart from a mid-1980's bubble around the time Pino Palladino appeared on Paul Young's No Parlez album and fretless players like Tony Franklin, Les Claypool, Gary Willis, and Bathiki Kumalo were also fairly visible.

I've always had a fretless, not because I've ever felt it was my primary voice on the instrument but because I like the sound and thought I should have one on hand as a tool in my toolbox. Really the only times I've busted it out in recent years would be when I've been asked to play it on sessions. Fortunately there is such a thing as a lined fingerboard (!) I felt like the amount of practice to get really good at fretless was something I wasn't willing to commit to and that I'd rather put my focus on other things (like upright).

If you feel that fretless is the best means for you to express yourself though, popularity is completely irrelevant.

 

[Ric Vice]

Research could verify this but my anecdotal evidence tells me that of all the Lakland 55-94’s I’ve seen for sale, only a
small group of them are fretless. My estimate would be that one out of every 10 basses is a fretless instrument.
It could be higher maybe 2 out of 10. Just my take.

 

[gstaats]

Research could verify this but my anecdotal evidence tells me that of all the Lakland 55-94’s I’ve seen for sale, only a
small group of them are fretless. My estimate would be that one out of every 10 basses is a fretless instrument.
It could be higher maybe 2 out of 10. Just my take.

Agreed. There aren't a ton of options for fretless. Kiesel doesn't even allow returns on a fretless instrument. Used prices for fretless instruments are lower than their fretted counterparts as they are harder to sell - especially as they go up in string count. Many places (guitar center, music go round, sam ash) seldom carry a fretless. There aren't as many of them out there, that is definitely for sure.

 

[SteveCS]

...
My estimate would be that one out of every 10 basses is a fretless instrument.
It could be higher maybe 2 out of 10. Just my take.

I'm not sure even back in the mythical hey-day it was any higher than that. I certainly don't recall walking into any dealer and having to seek out the fretted basses. That said, the range of brands offering something at all levels has fallen off a cliff - Sire seems to be the main player as far as offering something off the shelf and across the price range goes. This from the Anderton's site this morning...

Yes, you guessed it - the Toontrack thing is a fretless bass plug-in. As players we are now officially redundant!

 

[Ric Vice]

My take is that Fretless Basses aren’t as readily available to purchase because the demand simply isn’t there. So companies build fewer of them to avoid
having more than they can sell. This limits number of bassist who can own one even if they wanted to. It’s a boutique market.

P.S. The “Jaco” fretless sales bump doesn’t exist anymore. Just my tale of course

 

[RichterScale]

I have no data or research to back this up, it's more of a question:
I would think that there may have been a higher % of fretless players in the past, but aren't there more instrument makers and people playing bass now than ever before?
So (completely made up numbers to make a point),...if there's 100 bass players in the world in 1970 and 20 of them play fretless, that's 20%.
If there's 200 bass players in 2023 and 20 of them play fretless,....that's only 10%, but just as many. Make sense?
And there are more instrument makers now,both large scale and small. Many of them offer fretless basses. And it seems a large portion of folks on TB play fretless.
So, at a glance, it doesn't seem to me that there's less fretless offerings or players than in the past. Maybe just a smaller % of a much larger number of players and manufacturers (?)

 

[Zoot H Rollo]

i just bought this, i currently own 2 fretless basses

i started on a fretless 1972 Precision

so, in my house, there's a resurgence

 

[majbass]

There seems to be fewer fretless basses being made by mainstream builders these days. Some like EBMM aren't making any fretless anymore. I would suppose they must not be very popular now, but fashions come and go.