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Got it from Thomann for 260 EUR in order to try "going fretless". First impressions after a few minutes of playing (really busy these past few days):
Pros:
Actually looks nice.
Seems to give very nice "muah" in most of the upper parts of the neck with the stock strings. When listening to some YouTube fretless tutorials I've found that it sometimes sounds so similar to the guitar the guy in the video is playing that I have to double check that it's actually me playing I assume that once I get the time to take out some relief from the neck and tweaking the action - this will extend to all or most of the rest of the neck.
Very nice tone.
Cons:
Most fretless tutorials say that you should probably get a marked neck to begin with, but now that I got it - it almost looks too easy. At least nearer to the bottom of the neck - you basically just need to fret on the line to get the right tone. I guess I'll have to learn not to look in order to make this more fun and more educational. You don't really have to listen that well with the marks...
I'm not sure I'm seeing this right, but it looks like the pickups are simply bolted on and that you can't really adjust hight. Will see when I set it up.
As with many cheaper basses - the pickups don't really give many tonal options and both sound sort of similar.
Extremely noisy. Seems like shielding and grounding is very poor or non existent.
Relicing seems sort of redundant. It simply looks like a new bass that someone chipped of a few pieces off of.
It is shaped and balanced like a real jazz, which reminds me of why I don't like them ergonomically. On the knee it neck-dives pretty significantly and the recess for the knee seems to be too far back. (People who like the way jasses balance will mark this as a pro).
But bottom line I'm pretty happy with this purchase. If I'm still playing this in 2-3 months - it will be time to get a "real" fretless, and if not - it's just the 260 EUR (possibly partly recoverable via resale, but lefties can be a bit hard to get rid off...)
Next steps are to fix the setup with the stock strings, until I get the Rotosound SM55 set I've been eying for this.
Update (it doesn't look like anyone is too interested, but I'm actually also writing this for my own reference):
I eventually had some time to set it up with the new strings today. Some further observations that weren't readily apparent before:
At least with the stock strings, and with the Rotosounds, it seems impossible to intonate this guitar correctly according to the fret-lines. The bridge is a little too close to the neck. I maxed out all the available adjustment (even trimmed down 2 of the springs to get a little extra), and then I found that a. it's very hard to squeeze in the string when the saddles are so close to the bridge, and b. that with the rotosounds this actually makes the felt wrap covering the ball-end sit over the saddle, which produces a strange muted sound. I guess I could ask a tech to move the whole bridge like half an inch backwards (it looks like this should be possible with no issues and even without leaving any exposed holes) but since this will cost like half the guitar and since I don't plan to use the fret-lines anyway (see above), I've given up and intonated the whole thing so that you need to press slightly after the lines.
I had a scary moment adjusting the truss rod. It looks like this is a 4mm hex socket, but the wrench was really loose in it. It looked like I might really strip this if I wasn't careful. I think it went OK in the end, but possibly I'll only know for sure the next time I need to adjust it.
It's a really good thing that they included the hex keys for the bridge adjustment (and that I managed not to lose them), because they are tiny and it doesn't look I have any such size.
After proper adjustment ("proper" meaning looks-good-to-me because I have zero experience adjusting fretless), the guitar does give very nice mwah over most of the neck.
Will have to let the neck settle down for a day and check again tomorrow but it's looking good so far.
I assume that once I get the time to take out some relief from the neck and tweaking the action - this will extend to all or most of the rest of the neck.
