Heyyyyyyyyyyyyy once more!
So I do not really know where to start, except by stating the most obvious thing - I blame @monsterthompson for making this entire thing a reality. MonsterThompson got a small bass from a custom builder and it kind of fired off my want for a fretless bass, since that builder was making fretless or fretted, I thought to myself that I would slowly save up for a small fretless 6 string bass but it never happened because I saw this bass for sale... and I just got it yesterday.
Thing is, the bass was on the complete opposite side of the country... so I took a train at 3am and spent an entire night and day just... traveling. 500km one way, that is 300 miles. And then the same distance back. I was so sleepy at the end of it all.
Road trip!
But the journey was nice and comfy, so there is that.
Finally, I got to my destination and I bought the bass from a very kind man, both me and him were happy with the transaction. He has some more high end basses to sell, so he will be working towards that
But, here is the case with the bass at the train station.
And the bass itself.
More info soon.
I played it at the train station thru my mobile rig, then I took it outside and played it on a bench until my train came to take me back home.
Fast forward to the next day - I'm at home with the whole thing.
It came with a gigbag, NS branded one... some tools and a manual. Nothing great, nothing bad - just good enough with good material quality. Nice.
I have had a small talk with @ficelles about the string choice for a fretless (since ficeless is all about the fretless) and I decided on some Daddario Nylon Tapewounds after doing some small amount of research, I think they're quite fancy and feel great. I feel like it was a good choice. My idea was to get something more of a typical, classical and upright tone out of this bass and it worked out quite well in the end.
Some more pics!
Okay so lets talk about the meat of this bass. It has some custom made EMGs that follow the design of the body (yeah, the pickups are curved) and a piezo pickup. The knobs are volume, blend between the EMGs and piezo, bass cut/boost, treble cut/boost and the switches are bridge/both/neck as well as the piezo low/mid/high.
So, as you can guess... along with different playing techniques, positions and options, this bass is crazy versatile. I mean you can make it sound mellow but also clanky as hell if you want to, it is very responsive to changes and I am surprised of how well its voiced. Definitely liking it.
As you can probably imagine, being a headless bass make it just a machine of total musical destruction - it's lightweight, ergonomic, balances perfectly and feels just as good. No sharp edges anywhere, it just feels like someone put a lot of thought into the design of the whole instrument, and it feels (and shows). If you take a peak at the manual, you will see this:
All of this just comes together so well, and I definitely appreciate it. Just look at that!
Oh and btw, for some reason all my basses are made by the Chech - funny how this works out.
Unlined ebony fretboard.
Matching maple neck.
"Headstock" which accepts single ball end strings, tapered, preferably.
Time to clean her up and put the strings on.
Damn. Those stainless steel strings definitely made some short work of that ebony fretboard. Need to clean it up and put some oil on.
And done!
Just gonna make sure the intonation is spot on and then I'm off to playing her
Have a wonderful day, TB!
So I do not really know where to start, except by stating the most obvious thing - I blame @monsterthompson for making this entire thing a reality. MonsterThompson got a small bass from a custom builder and it kind of fired off my want for a fretless bass, since that builder was making fretless or fretted, I thought to myself that I would slowly save up for a small fretless 6 string bass but it never happened because I saw this bass for sale... and I just got it yesterday.
Thing is, the bass was on the complete opposite side of the country... so I took a train at 3am and spent an entire night and day just... traveling. 500km one way, that is 300 miles. And then the same distance back. I was so sleepy at the end of it all.
Road trip!
But the journey was nice and comfy, so there is that.
Finally, I got to my destination and I bought the bass from a very kind man, both me and him were happy with the transaction. He has some more high end basses to sell, so he will be working towards that
But, here is the case with the bass at the train station.
And the bass itself.
More info soon.
I played it at the train station thru my mobile rig, then I took it outside and played it on a bench until my train came to take me back home.
Fast forward to the next day - I'm at home with the whole thing.
It came with a gigbag, NS branded one... some tools and a manual. Nothing great, nothing bad - just good enough with good material quality. Nice.
I have had a small talk with @ficelles about the string choice for a fretless (since ficeless is all about the fretless) and I decided on some Daddario Nylon Tapewounds after doing some small amount of research, I think they're quite fancy and feel great. I feel like it was a good choice. My idea was to get something more of a typical, classical and upright tone out of this bass and it worked out quite well in the end.
Some more pics!
Okay so lets talk about the meat of this bass. It has some custom made EMGs that follow the design of the body (yeah, the pickups are curved) and a piezo pickup. The knobs are volume, blend between the EMGs and piezo, bass cut/boost, treble cut/boost and the switches are bridge/both/neck as well as the piezo low/mid/high.
So, as you can guess... along with different playing techniques, positions and options, this bass is crazy versatile. I mean you can make it sound mellow but also clanky as hell if you want to, it is very responsive to changes and I am surprised of how well its voiced. Definitely liking it.
As you can probably imagine, being a headless bass make it just a machine of total musical destruction - it's lightweight, ergonomic, balances perfectly and feels just as good. No sharp edges anywhere, it just feels like someone put a lot of thought into the design of the whole instrument, and it feels (and shows). If you take a peak at the manual, you will see this:
All of this just comes together so well, and I definitely appreciate it. Just look at that!
Oh and btw, for some reason all my basses are made by the Chech - funny how this works out.
Unlined ebony fretboard.
Matching maple neck.
"Headstock" which accepts single ball end strings, tapered, preferably.
Time to clean her up and put the strings on.
Damn. Those stainless steel strings definitely made some short work of that ebony fretboard. Need to clean it up and put some oil on.
And done!
Just gonna make sure the intonation is spot on and then I'm off to playing her
Have a wonderful day, TB!
