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New Sound

Hi, I play a fender frettless jazz bass with steel-nickel flat-wound strings. I like the sound of the double bass quite a bit more than the sound my bass makes.

I mostly play blues and jazz. And have in the mail a set of tape-wound strings.

Any suggestions for how to give my bass a new and cool timbre?
 
When you get the tapes on, you may want to explore lowering action and/or adjusting neck relief (this will change the "mwah" or "double-bass" sound). If you don't know how to adjust neck relief with the truss-rod ask a tech to show you...be very careful, you can damage the neck. Another source is bassist Gary Willis' website.

You can experiment with bass mutes--a little bit of foam under the strings right by the bridge. Changes the attack, sustain and decay.

Mess around with Mid-range. Fretless is all about mid-range (adding, taking away, etc.).

Install a piezo bridge (and buffer). Adding piezo to fretless opens up all sorts of dynamic range.

EXPENSIVE OPTION - Buy a Rob Allen Mouse bass (or other piezo specific bass). Search on TB....there's a whole community of fretless nuts who love the upright vibe (and a whole lot more) that Rob's basses give.

IMO THE BEST RECOMMENDATION: Practice your vibrato technique. I assume you know that if youre familiar with the "cello" part of your screen name. Most fretless bass sound is in the fingers. Watch youtube vids of Jaco Pastorious, Steve Lawsen, Mark Egan, Pino Palladino, Mick Karn. Check out electric upright genius Eberhard Weber (he uses chorus, delay and insane technique).

R
 
Great answers from everyone! I'll chip in with this overtly obvious point/question:
what upright sound are you going for? Guys like Brian Bromberg and Tom Kennedy use
very low action and interesting pickup combinations(Back in the day, Kennedy use to have electric bass pickups at the end of his fretboard on the upright). Other guys like the action set higher, which sometimes gives more "boom" to the tone along with a faster decay of the note. Once you figure out the specific type of upright sound you're going to emulate, it will be easier to decide which of the options the others have mentioned will best suit you. Respectfully, Mark