New Year, NBD. First fretless!

[JRA]

beautiful piece, @SunByrne --- all shiny and new and wonderfully fretless! you'll get the hang of it and up to speed in no time! congratulations on your new instrument!

 

[kobass]

Very cool bass! Congrats and enjoy the "speedbump-free zone!"

 

[magyk8ball]

Fretless is where its at!!

enjoy the new bass

 

[GTHintz]

As someone who bought his first fretless recently congratulations and good luck and have fun learning a new side to bass. I noticed that it forces me to be more accurate with my fingers and that's helped me play everything cleaner. And having a change of pace to my main bass is really nice.

 

[Five String]

That is beautiful. Really like the supershiny fingerboard. Ebony you say?

 

[BAG]

I noticed that it forces me to be more accurate with my fingers and that's helped me play everything cleaner.

When I've been playing a lot of fretless and then go back to fretted I find I sometimes get a bit of fret buzz from being right on top of the fret. A bit of the finger pad can be a tiny bit too far forward and the note gets choked on the next fret.

As for strings, I absolutely love the sound and feel of black tapewounds on my Franken-Jazz fretless...... but in some scenarios I get some annoying noise/buzz from the pickups. With normal metal strings it's no problem as I'm touching metal, but the tapes are effectively insulated. I've tried rounds despite the fact that I really dislike the feel and they were a bit too bright with too much mwah. Half rounds are OK in sound and feel.... but the tapes are still the best sound for this particular bass.

 

[B-Mac]

So, this year I decided one of my new challenges would be to learn to play fretless. I love that "mwah" sound and it should be good discipline for me to learn to play fretless.

Of course, to do this, I needed a fretless bass. I didn't want to spend too much so I set myself an $800 limit. Going in, I didn't have a strong leaning toward P, J, or modern. However, I did want something with passive pickups. Active EQ OK if I could turn it off. I also wanted one with an ebony fretboard, both because I like ebony and the harder wood is supposed to be good for fretless. (I'd take roasted maple, too, but the only fretless I could find with that is the Sire V5, which literally nobody seems to have in stock.) What I discovered was that unless you want a Tony Franklin or an entry-level Squier, it's really hard to find a fretless right now in the U.S. Something mumble supply chain mumble something.

So I decided to check out Anderton's and Thomann, and when I went to Thomann there it was: a Sire V9 for $168 less than list. Bonus: that made the price $666. Surely this must be the bass for me! (As of this writing, they still have some left at this price. Shipping was like $75 so still under budget.)

I ordered it late last week, and it arrived today—surprisingly quick! I didn't pay for expedited shipping or anything, but UPS was on their game, even coming from Germany. Way to go, UPS.

Here it is:

View attachment 4529786​

I love the quilted top. The brown burst is only OK. When the light's good it looks a bit orange-ish which I like better. While I'm not a huge fan of the Sire V-series headstock shape, I think it looks a lot better when it's color-matched with the quilting and the burst. I like the binding on the fretboard, and I appreciate that the lining for the stops is on the subtle side.

My luggage scale puts it at a pleasant 8 lb 13 oz. (that's 4kg on the nose for anyone outside the U.S.). That's about a pound lighter than I expected so I got a bit lucky there.

Came with flats of unknown brand on it (dark blue silks at both ends—anyone know?); I'll probably put Pressurewounds or Compressors on it soon. It came strung through the bridge rather than the body, which makes sense for flats.

Fortunately, today's weather was cooperative and there wasn't much difference between indoor and outdoor temperature so I didn't feel the need to let it acclimate to being indoors for very long. Plugged it in and it sounds... like a fretless jazz bass. Mwah right out of the box, particularly on the G string. I mostly played in passive, but I futzed around a little with the preamp, and wow, you can get some really weird sounds out of it. Not sure I'll ever use them but some were actually pretty cool, and it's nice to have the option when I want it.

I can tell my intonation isn't very good, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be considering it was the first time I've tried a fretless. How people play unlined fretless the first time I have no idea.

Anyway, more pics attached.

View attachment 4529790 View attachment 4529791 View attachment 4529792 View attachment 4529793​

Man, if that plays and sounds as good as it looks you’ve got a real winner there!
Enjoy!
For me, I noticed that if I have the exact same bass with frets it helps me with the fretless, but since yours appears to be lined fretless it probably won’t help much.

 

[Killing Floor]

Hey, have you been able to spend time with it? Is it as sweet as it looks?

You can intonate to that 12th mark. Just hit the octave and press to the line and match to your tuner just like on a fretted.

 

[SunByrne]

That is beautiful. Really like the supershiny fingerboard. Ebony you say?

Yep, that's clear in the specs, and close up it certainly looks like ebony. There's some thin coating on it, but I can't find anywhere that says what that is.

Hey, have you been able to spend time with it? Is it as sweet as it looks?

I got in about an hour with it last night after I posted this thread; hopefully another hour or so tonight. (Once you get a fretless, gotta learn "The Chain," right? That's tonight's plan.)

With the caveat that I don't have any other fretless experience to compare it to, yes, it certainly seems sweet to me and I'm really looking forward to picking it up again tonight. The neck is wonderful, just a terrific feel going up and down. Weight and balance are also great (though I'm not as sensitive about balance as many—I pretty much always use a strap anyway).

I don't know who at Thomann does the setups—maybe it's just the Sire factory setup—but the action is nice and low and everything feels right. Came out of the box tuned a half-step down, which is a good way to ship.

I won't comment on the tuners because I like to live with a bass for a few cycles of crazy humidity changes before I really feel like I know. As long as they're better than my SBMM short scale, they'll be fine.

Sound is exactly the idea I had in my head of what a fretless jazz bass should sound like. Good output in passive—not crazy hot but strong and punchy. Switching from passive to active keeps almost exactly the same volume, though I mostly played it passive. Not surprisingly, I like the bridge pickup solo more than the neck pickup solo, but it also sounds great with both pickups on.

So far it's a blast to noodle around on—sliding and vibrato are just as fun as I hoped. My fretless technique definitely needs some work but even within my second session with it last night my ears say I'm getting better (slowly, to be sure). The lower frets are definitely more challenging—clearly I've been a little sloppy about exactly where I fret with all that space, and you can really hear on a fretless when you're not consistent.

Sorry, I'm rambling, probably TMI. Just excited to have a new toy, I guess.

 

[Vitamin D]

I knew it would be a Sire! I just threw the same D'addario flat chromes on my Sire V5 (fretted) and am loving it. A lot of good overtones in those strings, and in active mode, I am getting a long-sought after fullness and thump.

Congratulations and have fun! Looks great, hope it feels and sounds great, too.

 

[Killing Floor]

Yep, that's clear in the specs, and close up it certainly looks like ebony. There's some thin coating on it, but I can't find anywhere that says what that is.



I got in about an hour with it last night after I posted this thread; hopefully another hour or so tonight. (Once you get a fretless, gotta learn "The Chain," right? That's tonight's plan.)

With the caveat that I don't have any other fretless experience to compare it to, yes, it certainly seems sweet to me and I'm really looking forward to picking it up again tonight. The neck is wonderful, just a terrific feel going up and down. Weight and balance are also great (though I'm not as sensitive about balance as many—I pretty much always use a strap anyway).

I don't know who at Thomann does the setups—maybe it's just the Sire factory setup—but the action is nice and low and everything feels right. Came out of the box tuned a half-step down, which is a good way to ship.

I won't comment on the tuners because I like to live with a bass for a few cycles of crazy humidity changes before I really feel like I know. As long as they're better than my SBMM short scale, they'll be fine.

Sound is exactly the idea I had in my head of what a fretless jazz bass should sound like. Good output in passive—not crazy hot but strong and punchy. Switching from passive to active keeps almost exactly the same volume, though I mostly played it passive. Not surprisingly, I like the bridge pickup solo more than the neck pickup solo, but it also sounds great with both pickups on.

So far it's a blast to noodle around on—sliding and vibrato are just as fun as I hoped. My fretless technique definitely needs some work but even within my second session with it last night my ears say I'm getting better (slowly, to be sure). The lower frets are definitely more challenging—clearly I've been a little sloppy about exactly where I fret with all that space, and you can really hear on a fretless when you're not consistent.

Sorry, I'm rambling, probably TMI. Just excited to have a new toy, I guess.

Yep. The Chain activates the factory’s warranty. Don’t sweat the flats and sharps, it really won’t take long to get used to it. Have fun.

 

[Ggaa]

Were they any customs fees?

 

[SunByrne]

Were they any customs fees?

Nope. I think the threshold for that is $800.

 

[OldShark]

The lower frets are definitely more challenging

That's interesting, I still feel the upper frets (particularly the 2nd octave) is way easier to mis-intonate for me...

 

[jdaunt]

Very nice score! Biggest advice i’d give for learning fretless is get a tuner with a nice big display (i went with the Peterson Strobostomp HD) and set it down somewhere in front of you so you can watch it without staring at the fingerboard/your hands. Obviously for a bit you’ll need to look at your hands as you build up your muscle memory, but try to get used to looking away as soon as you can.