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makeshift fretless

H

hanx

Apr 13, 2009
243
1
Queensland, Australia
#1
I want some ideas of ways to temporarily cover the frets on my 4-string fretted ibanez.

It doesn't need to be very playable, i just want to stuff round while trying to "train my ear" at this stage. Just something that will be cheap and easy and let me experiment a little.

Doesn't have to look good or even sound that fantastic, but probably needs to stay in place without me having to hold it there. Also needs to not damage the bass of course.

Ideas?
 
#2
So, you want something to fill the space between the frets?

For the hassle of doing that I think you could get an import fretless for a couple hundred $.

I play by ear 90% of the time and I also play fretted and fretless. I think I get more "ear trainin" by doing scales over the tops of songs, sounding out lines/melodies, and figuring out how to play any given lick in as many positions as possible. And it is easier for me to concentrate on that on a fretted,

IMO the fretless requires more technique then a fretted, but not really a better ear,
 
#7
Fretless most definitely requires a good ear. Without a good ear, how do you know if your technique is right? Sure it may feel right, but if you don't know the difference between an A and an A flat, you're toast.
 
#8
nah i think you're missing the point, i do WANT a fretless, but i really should wait, i am aquiring stuff way too quick (a guitar and a bass in three months, with amps, and i can only play two riffs so far), just wondering if there's something i can play with to hear the frequencies in between the semitones.

i just wanna stuff round a bit, doesn't really need to be playable. i was trying to tune by ear and got to within a quater tone, because i could hear the note was closer than the one next to it but couldn't hear if it was actually right because they sounded so different on different strings.

I just want a bit of something or other i can put over the frets i think, i thought of plastic sheeting but it's too flexable, plywood is too thick, i just want to cover one or two frets so i can hear some of the frequencies in between the semitones. Is there a little tool out there for that i can get? I don't want to raise the action either, i like the low action on this thing.
 
#9
If this is to help you get your bass in tune then would investing in a tuner not help?

Try playing the harmonic above the 5th fret on the e-string and the harmonic above the 7th fret on the a-string and then fiddle with the tuners while the note is still sounding.
 
#11
This is my understanding of the situation (correct me if I'm wrong):
hanx is trying to tune his bass. He's playing the 5th fret on a string and the open note on the string below. Now he wants to train his ear to hear when the 2 pitches are the same. So he plays the open string and plays it with the 4th fret, 5th fret and 6th fret and adjusts it until it sounds more like the 5th fret than the others. Now by 'making' it fretless he hopes to do the same thing except with quarter tones instead of semi tones. Hoping to get it perfectly in tune.

If this is all you are trying to do then you can achieve the same results by playing harmonics, if you are familiar with them.

If not: rest your finger on the e-string above the 5th fret but don't actually press the string onto the fingerboard. Play the note. You should hear a note much higher than if you were to actually fret it. If you do the same on the a-string except the 7th fret you would hear the same pitch if it is in tune. The advantage of playing a harmonic is that it will continue to sound even after and take your finger away from the string. This means that you can then adjust the tuning whiles the 2 pitches are sounding.
 
#12
The makeshift fretless-ness wasn't a tunning method idea, i have a tuner (which is what told me i was a quater-tone out), i just wanted to do some experiemnting and explorring.

The idea started when i was (over ambitiously) trying to tab something out, and noticed that if not tone-deaf then i'm at least totally tone-illeterate, i couldn't even confidently tell whether successive notes were higher or lower, let alone what the interval was.

I wanted to have a bit of a practice recognising frequencis so i tried tuning it from drop D back to standard E by ear. My goal wasn't really the tunning as such, i was just trying to find a really simple exercise in recognising pitches that were higher, lower, or the same.

I noticed that i couldn't tell if the note was the same (5th string vs open string) but i could tell which note was closer, and therfore which way to go. The string i was tunning was actually the fretted string(E). I was letting both strings ring, the way i could tell if they were the same was more the way they resonated together than anything else.

I want to play with in-between pitches, cos the frets kind of digitise/pixilate the concept . . . i kind of want to explore more quantitatively, i was just wonderring if anyone could think of a simple way to do this without buying or borrowing more instruments?
 
#13
That technique sounds interesting... are you supposed to aim for when they kind of resonate together? I'll have a go at it at some less ungodly hour (it's 2:30am here in Oz), thanks :)

I'm familiar with harmonics, my favourite is on the 12th fret cos the harmonic and the fretted note are the same main frequency but with a very different charachter to the sound...

I've got a whole sheet on harmonics in my excel file i'm building. I'd never noticed the ratio of the harmonic at 5 and harmonic at 7 (do you call them the 2nd and 3rd harmonics? or 3rd and 4th?) aproximates the interval bwtween neighbouring open strings.

back of the onvelope math:

harmonic at 7 / harmonic at 5
= 4 times open string Hz / 3 times open string Hz
= 1.33333

neighbouring open strings
= 5 semitones
= one semitone ^5
= (12th root 2)^5
= 1.3348

It's not exact, but it only makes about 0.1 Hz difference, which i assume is way less than you'd gain in accuracy by being able to adjust tunning while they were ringing.

Speaking of harmonics, i theorised that there should be another just to the nut side of the 4th fret, and just to the bridge sinde of the 3rd, i think i've found at least one of these works. I have been told these are called "false" harmonics, but to me they seem real, just rather weak?
 
#14
Jacko yanked his frets out with a butter knife and filled the holes with putty.

Sounds like you are working on training your ear, but are having trouble hearing the lower frequencies. Try borrowing a friend's guitar for a few days and doing the same stuff you're trying now. Get used to hearing the notes, then pick up the bass and try it again, it will be easier the more you do it.

Good luck!
 
#16
a really good way to train your ear, is to have a piano play a note, and you try and match it. i do it all the time. works great, and really helps when playin with someone and your trying to figure out what they are playing
 
#17
SpiceBot said:
Jacko yanked his frets out with a butter knife and filled the holes with putty.

Sounds like you are working on training your ear, but are having trouble hearing the lower frequencies. Try borrowing a friend's guitar for a few days and doing the same stuff you're trying now. Get used to hearing the notes, then pick up the bass and try it again, it will be easier the more you do it.

Good luck!
Click to expand...

got a guitar i'll have a play with it, but it was more that i cpuld hear closer or further away (5th fret now closer to neighbouring open than 6th fret) but i couldn't hear when the notes were actually the same. i think it was the same on the guitar...
 
#18
vbasscustom said:
a really good way to train your ear, is to have a piano play a note, and you try and match it. i do it all the time. works great, and really helps when playin with someone and your trying to figure out what they are playing
Click to expand...

i was going to try this, i dragged an old keyboard over from my parents' place, but turns out it's broken (took about 6 D-cell batteries to find that out, why didn't it just take a single 9V odd old thing)

but i can't even really match equivelent note on different strings on same instrumnets, i think different instruments will be way beyond me for a while yet?
 
#19
Hi Hanx,

As a former college ear training instructor, let me strongly suggest that you join a choir for a little while. It could be a church choir or a community choir. Both are usually free.

Getting your ear and your brain to work together is often accomplished more easily if you get your voice into the loop. If you can learn to sing in tune, and to match intervals vocally, your brain will start to connect the dots for you when you play the bass, especially if you play your choral parts on the bass as you sing/learn them.

Alternatively, you could take ear training and/or sightsinging (solfege) classes at a local college.

Good luck,

Joe
 

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