Kiesel Aries Bass

[Real Soon]

It escaped limbo. I'm slowly getting the action and relief into place, and then the intonation, but the previous owner didn't abuse it. I'll say, Kiesel's website is awful and also misleadingly incorrect; I looked at some archived listings of in-stock instruments, and they made it sound like they had none of the features they DO have. For example, push-pull active/passive switching on the volume knob, and not 2-band but 3-band with sweeping mids for the active electronics.

With a bit more reading, I'm more comfortable leaving the roundwounds on there; I'm not the type of cat who drags the string across the fret/fingerboard every other note, and I like using a lighter touch with the left hand. So, I think this neck will survive some years, and I've got INFINITE mwah.

This isn't my first fretless, technically, but it's the first one I've owned in the time I feel like I'm actually somewhat of a bassist. Also, I don't know why I thought it had Bartolinis on it; they appear to be Kiesel's proprietary humbuckers, and they sound quite fat and juicy. Rolling just a little bit to the bridge gets me fairly Jaco-y if I want, and the opposite gives me a woodier sound that sits deeper in a mix (I jammed with it Friday and got to experiment with that).

I really like it!

 

[Real Soon]

Gigged my Aries 6-string fretless last Friday. Intonation was obviously not perfect this soon into the fretless journey, but it wasn't bad. And the sound really punched, and I got to work the whole fingerboard out. I'm a fan!

 

[Real Soon]

Not the liveliest thread lol, but my bass sure has a lively sound.

It's lived in the studio while I did gigs needing FSO basses over the winter, but tonight I brought it out to do some work with an americana group that sometimes records songs with upright bass.

I didn't try to make it sound LIKE an upright, but did try to maintain some mwah while muting the brighter frequencies and enhancing a range of mids. The mwah + some vibrato helped emulate the important details of the songs in question, and I think it was a success overall. Backline amp was a big-boy Fender Rumble, which certainly didn't hurt things.

I'm thinking about adding a mute to actually shoot for the upright-bass transient, and with the rich mids they deliver, I'm going to keep the roundwounds on to see if I can get something woody and resonant, and still not too bright. I think I can do it; the preamp is a beast in this thing.