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oposition to fretless basses>

S

steelhead2

Jun 18, 2009
554
6
Rogue River Oregon
#1
OK why is it i keep getting hit with;'why do you have a fretless?' are you playing jazz? ya know my dad was a session bassist andblahblah

or;no! bring your P bass i want you to be on tone(while the 325lb blues harp man blows the hair off your face doing 64th notes thru his bullet mic

i like my fretless J BECAUSE; it's easy to go out and jam with folks and find the tone,the lines,,fake it if you will but,i have a 'P' and find it's way more difinitive due to the pups but can be harder to EQ on the fly(compared to the J)

soanyway,,it's late having another glass of wine to many,,but i'm tired of being dogged about the fretless deal,when are these folks gonna wake up and realize; standups don't have frets(yeah,guys that have 4 decades of experience p'd me off tonight,what can i say?),fretted P bass only:confused:,,

ok sorry for all the wind long story short here= anybody else get bashed for showing up for an 'open mic' night with a fretless?

EDIT>i need to point out the (old guys) playing were all over the map it's a senior center type deal,the playlist is decided upon between the potluck dinner and the bingo so to say,,ah well,,should have toured with Zep when they asked me to stand in i guess;) at least i got to play!
 
#2
my introduction into playing fretless bass was literally a guy pulling the last Fender Jazz in the store off the wall and saying "well, can you play fretless?"

My dad never understood why I would play fretless when frets make it that much easier to play in tune.
I always told him I'd rather learn the legitimate way but he never got it.

I never let anyone give me crap though about playing fretless because I made sure nobody could tell the difference if I played my fretless j or my standard p.
The only reason people could ever figure out that I played fretless was if they actually picked up my bass and tried to play.
 
#6
Q: "why fretless?"

A: "Because it is a completely different instrument compared to a fretted; it allows you to do things you would not be able to do with a fretted. It is not an easy choice for just anybody, but rather for really dedicated musicians; the reward coming from the speakers when you properly master a fretless is priceless. For all the rest there is a fretted bass".

:cool:
 
#7
The way I see it is this:

Guitarists have either that single coil, Fender type sound or the Hum bucker Gibson-esque type sound, which is cool for the higher harmonics.

For bass as followers of my other infamous threads will no doubt know, pick-ups matter not.... But we have Fretted or Fretless. Each has a Definite character!
 
#8
I never get flack from other musicians that I play with. The only time I ever get any stick is from other bassists, there seems to be a train of thought in my location amongst bass players, that anything other than a 20 fret, fretted, four string bass, is just for showing off...

So when I show up with my six string fretless I get some stupid comments from other bass players, however all the other musicians love it, and to their request, I spend most of the night on the stand, while the other bassists watch from the bar!
 
#9
I have a fretless bass in my arsenal, and use it on some of our songs at gigs. I've received nothing but compliments on it, because it sounds so effing sick (and different from what most people are expecting).

I've never taken it to an open jam, though, so no experience with that situation. But if I did and someone bagged on it I would just take a sip from my beer and share with them my views on why I chose to bring it.

At the end of the day, what you choose to play is up to you, and you don't have to justify it to anyone (and it's certainly not worth getting upset over).

Fretless for the win, though. Seriously. I love mine. :bassist:

-K
 
#10
harp player = was this a blues jam?

when I showed up to blues jams with anything other than a P bass I got a look from the band leader (I was the house bassist in this particular jam).

I think it all depends on the players at the jam really... There are not as many fretless players so they simply may not be used to the sound of a fretless...

:-/

Its a shame..
 
#14
Posers:)
Who cares what you play it on as long as you are making music come out of it?
Suddenly at the Grand Ole Oprey mult-string boutiques started showing up. The guitarists still had their Teles etc. but the bassists had wisened up.
To what you ask? To the fact that that big doghouse full of harmonic content tone on old records from country, R&R and blues takes more than a Fender alone to accomplish. That upright with a mic in it through some fat RCA tubes in a Pultec is a long way from a Fender bass and amp. Unless you do the B-15. Any way you shake it a flat amp with a fat pre or heavily eq.'d amp probably with tubes and a passive eq. can get you there.
All this to say, unless image trumps sound it's no one's biz what instrument you play.
 
#16
msb said:
Were you playing the groove or did you go Jaco ?

Lots of old school blues types will lose it if you drop the groove ... or go all mixolydian on them .

Questionable intonation will also put a twist in their shorts .
Click to expand...

Very true! This points to how we play rather than what. People shouldn't know you're playing fretless. If you're going "mwah mwah" all the time I can see bandleaders getting perturbed.
 
#17
I must be blessed. My guitarist complains that I don't play my fretless enough.

As someone else said going Jaco all the time and crappy intonation are probably the biggest reasons people have issues with fretless players.
 
#18
bh2 said:
No... cept I turned out for an audition with my fretless SB1000... it was a rock gig.

After I'd tuned to the harmonics I was told to 'piss off'.
Click to expand...

Someone certainly needed to "piss off", but it wasn't you. I am speaking as a total amateur who has yet to develop the ear and skills to play in an open jam, plays four string fretted basses. Short scale, no less. (I took up the instrument in my mid 50s, have small hands, and arthritis in my fingers)

I have never understood the kind of nonsense you are talking about here. I LOVE the sound of a fretless. I love the sound of all kinds of instruments that I don't play. I've seen threads where the OP has questioned the need for fretless, more than four strings (we all know about Jaco) and am amazed by the closed mindedness of such a position. Isn't learning ANYTHING a quest to expand one's horizons?

If I ever got to a point where I thought I was that competent, I'd look into a fretless. I can't think of a fretless performance that I did not enjoy.

Carry on.
 
#19
msb said:
Were you playing the groove or did you go Jaco ?

Lots of old school blues types will lose it if you drop the groove ... or go all mixolydian on them .

Questionable intonation will also put a twist in their shorts .
Click to expand...

That speaks to how rather than what we play on. Folks shouldn't notice we're playing fretless. Going "mwah mwah" all the time can make a bandleader perturbed.
 
#20
Heck, on my list of things to get is a fretless bass, as soon as I get to a level of skill in playing where I can actually use it and continue learning. I absolutely dig the sound of a fretless bass, and anyone who'd give me **** about it is just going to get my standard response to things like that: "it's my bass, i'm playing it, and i don't hear anyone else complaining about it, so go have a nice cup of STFU, kthxbai!"

IMO; screw what other people think or tell you. It's your bass, you're playing it, so eff it.
 

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