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Lined Fretless question

#41
Here's what I'm going by.

In The Fender Bass -An Illustrated History by Black and Molinaro, there is are photos on page 58 of a magazine ad showing a sunburst, rosewood fingerboard fretless P, with the caption "The fretless Precision started appearing in ads and literature in 1970. Although not a very common instrument, it was produced throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. The standard model fretless returned in the mid-1990s." The pictured bass is unlined.

Below it is a photo of two unfretted Jazz basses side by side, with unlined maple fingerboards. They are identified as a "remarkably rare set of 1970 Jazz Basses."

On Page 63 is a photo of another Precision, very similar to the one in the ad, and it is labeled as a 1973. To its left, and a little below, is a natural ash-body P with an unlined rosewood board and the caption calls it a 1974.

The next appearance of a fretless is in a reproduced ad from 1997, listing a "Jazz Bass Deluxe Fretless (not shown)".

The book otherwise ignores fretless basses, but the evidence is pretty clear.

Munjibunga, with all due respect, we have already debated that issue. The response is, "'cause I wanna.'

Actually, being a long-time Dobro/pedal steel player, I found myself a lot more comfortable with the (lined) fretless than I expected, and I immediately started thinking that unlined would be more of a challenge.

I've said this before, but I'm not Jaco. I am certain that, for the wonderfully expressive bass lines he produced, intonation could be a problem. Me, I don't play like Jaco, and, in fact, if I did, I'd probably get kicked out of the C&W/old rock cover band I'm playing in at the moment.

And, what the hell: I've still got my lined fretless J AND my two fretted Ps....
 
#44
jzucker said:
I'll say this again.

Nothing wrong with playing without lines. I'm just puzzled that someone would be anti-lines though I understand it for cosmetic reasons.

I think the suggestion of black epoxy is an excellent one.
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I'm puzzled that anyone would be puzzled by this. We like what we like.

My main fretlesses are unlined. I have others that are lined. While both work fine, since I don't need the lines if I were to get another one new it would be unlined. Why? Because I don't need the lines. I started playing fretless on basses that began as fretlesses and weren't defretted.

Not sure if that makes me anti-lines, more like pro-no lines;)


Hey, it happens.
 
#47
I think it should also be noted that double bass, violins etc. have greatly tapered necks when compared to a guitar or bass. This makes it much easier to play in tune since you can easily feel where you are on the neck.


Either way, I have to agree with Jzucker. Why?

There is absolutely nothing to gain (practically speaking) in doing this, and a bit to lose since it's going to be a bit of work, and you'll have an instrument that's more difficult to play.
 
#50
kipsus said:
I don't think the lines are necessary if there are dots on the side of the bass because with dots it's really easy to estimate where the lines would be and then adjust from there by ear. And playing unlined with no dots or other markers is a real challenge especially when shifting.
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Your indulgence for a slight veer...

I had a lined fretless Tacoma for a very short while. One of the reasons I sent it back was that the neck was just a fretted neck with the frets replaced with inlays. The problem with that was that the side dots were placed for a fretted neck and therefore placed incorrectly for a fretless.
 
#51
I think that's typical for lined fretless. My Standard JB has the dots centered between the lines, and no dots on the fingerboard.

Speaking of which, someone suggested fingerboard dots as an alternative, but the necks I've seen without lines and WITH dots look like distorted dice.

What would be nice would be small lines on the bass side of the neck that don't quite go to the low E string [on a four-string]. I saw a photo of Sting's Ibanez with those, and they seemed a) inconspicuous and b) quite useful for playing in tune.

In any case, it doesn't look like "disappearing" existing lines is a viable way to go about losing the lines.

And I looked at a couple of pictures of Jaco's **actual** bass, as opposed to the Fender replicas, and the lines look pretty dark, at that. Maybe staining would be the way to go...but, judging from the response on this thread, would that make my J fretless unsaleable???
 
#52
jzucker said:
Haha. How come it wasn't "we like what we like" when I posted that I liked 34" scale better than 35? :confused:
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You seem to be confusing "we like what we like" with "this works better, period".

You crack me up. You seem to look for these little opportunities to get your jabs in there. Nice cheap shot though... :D
Click to expand...
:bawl:


Most likely I'm laughing just a bit harder. As usual.
:D
 
#53
I answered the original question about 40 posts ago; go to Stewart McDonald's website (stewmac.com) and you will find fingerboard dye made for exactly what you are needing. If you don't want to be defending your decision to go with an unlined board for the rest of your natural life then stop responding to the people that are trying to convince you to not do what you want to do.
 
#55
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#57
Well, it's a MIM Standard, and I'm not sure I want to put that much into it. I don't know of anyone around here who could do the work, either (I have, in the past, had similar work done on g**tars but the luthier no longer lives in the area).
 
#58
lpdeluxe said:
I think that's typical for lined fretless. My Standard JB has the dots centered between the lines, and no dots on the fingerboard.
Click to expand...

Well, that's an excellent reason not to go with a lined fretless neck. Dots in the wrong places are worse than no dots at all. That's IMO, of course; some folks may like having to figure out where the fret would be if there were one, on the fly, and a different offset from every dot. ;^)

EDIT: Yeah, I know, just ignore the dots and look at the lines. But in the case of that Tacoma I returned, the body was so thick that it was hard for me to see the lines.
 
#60
^^ And that's why I can't stand lined boards. The offset side dots throw me off and actually make me dependent on the lines, because my muscle memory isn't 100% spot on yet and I need a quick visual reference. The dots are no good, so I'm stuck staring down my board like I'm playing poker with it. If they made lined boards with the dots in the proper position, then MAYBE I'd go for one... but then unlined boards look better anyway.
 

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