CrashClint
I Play Bass therefore I Am
And she will definitely give you more love and sympathy than you could ever receive in the Roscoe forum.
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Roscoe Club
- Thread starter JOME77
- Start date
Thanks Dave,
I may go ahead and order another set myself and give'em a try. Joe has a set ordered to try on his fretless (with a coated natural wood board). That will be a couple of data points in the next couple of weeks.
I used my SKB Custom 5 fretless at rehearsal last night for Sunday and had so much mwah that the drummer noticed! Actually he is a bass enthusiast. I'll be using it on Sunday. For anyone really interested, the songs are:
The Way
Forever Reign
Arms Open Wide
Love Come Down
Dan K.
The Way
Forever Reign
Arms Open Wide
Love Come Down
Dan K.
Our keyboard player notices sometimes (he also plays bass) and one guitar player, but the majority of the mwah is lost on most everyone else. I have tried fretless a few times with varying levels of success. When we do "stripped down" versions (acoustic, cajon and bass) church the fretless is maybe more appropriate, but honestly, it seems that fretted is the preferred fit.
My wife is smarter than me, but I still may trade away the fretless for a Sadowsky PJ4.
CrashClint
I Play Bass therefore I Am
On your fretless Roscoe, what is the optimum string height at the 12th marker to get the most mwah out of your bass? The string height on mine seems kind of high compared to my fretted Roscoe's.
I think I've finally got the relief I want so I'm tinkering with saddle height.
The high 3 are right around 0.100" at the 12th. I know some go lower, but my experience has been that if I go much lower the mwah gets choked. That might have been before I got the relief set right tho...
Is that optimal ? I donno. It seems to work for me. I am no expert tho. (The experts will tell you to forget the measurements and adjust for results, which IMO works great if you are an expert. If you don't know what you're doing, like me, having some kind of baseline keeps you from getting into ridiculous territory...)
On my fretless it's .06 from the bottom of the string to the fingerboard (at the 12th fret). I set my relief to pretty much zero on my fretless basses (straight a neck as as possible). Of course as ArtechnikA says, the measurement is a starting point. From there use your ears to fine tune it. If the note chokes too easily (and that'll depend on your touch) then you need to raise it up a bit. IMO the key to maximum mwah is getting the relief set to as close to zero as possible on the bass (trueness/leveling of the finger board affects this) and getting the string height as low as you can without the string choking.
You're "touch" makes a big difference. The more gently you play, the lower the action "can" go, and more MWAH will result.
Consistency is the key. The more you play fretless, the better (and more consistent) you'll become. I've reverted back to my fretted being my primary player and I've noted my fretless playing has suffered.
Consistency is the key. The more you play fretless, the better (and more consistent) you'll become. I've reverted back to my fretted being my primary player and I've noted my fretless playing has suffered.
Another really good reason to go with the hard gloss finish!
Well, in this case, that would just seal it in.....
CrashClint
I Play Bass therefore I Am
Mine is set higher at the 12th. I unfortunately have the Wilkinson bridge on mine and the saddles are jacked way high. The neck is probably zero relief, it is flat like I set my fretted basses. Now that I have a good starting point on height, I will start lowering mine. Thanks guys
CrashClint
I Play Bass therefore I Am
This bass left Roscoe a bunch of years ago so no telling what it was set at back then.
I adjusted my fretless string height last night. String by string I lowered until I got almost like a buzz then came back up a 1/4 turn on the bridge. I couldn't find my scale to measure so I used just my hearing. I am now getting some nice mwah but I think I am losing sustain because of the bridge. I need to take a picture so you guys can see what I am talking about, there is still a big gap between the bottom of the saddle and the saddle plate. On my other Roscoe's the saddles are sitting on the saddle plate on all but two strings.
That's pretty much what I do for setting my fretless up - neck as flat as I can get it, lower string until it stops sustaining, raise until I get sustain.
The "gap" between the saddle and the plate is more in relation to the neck angle at the neck pocket, the flatter the angle, the higher the saddle will need to be. This varies from bass to bass for a bunch of reasons, and can be tweaked after the fact (i.e. we can recut that angle, if you want us to - or you can "shim" the neck a bit to get the same result).
Would love to see pictures..
Does my 5-string Fretless Upright count? I can only get a sharpened pencil in this far under the string haha.. Will I get enough "Mwah", ha.
When will Roscoe grow up into the big boys upright club with Roscoe Revolutionary Upright/Standup Basses anyway? Cause I'm all in.. $15,000+ or whatever, I'll buy it.. haha
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songwriter21
I have an obsession for wood. The musical kind.
I may be the black sheep here, but I changed the bridge out on my Custom 5, because the preset saddle heights (when bottomed out) are too high for me, at least with the A string. I swapped the factory zinc bridge out for a custom brass one, directly from Jason at Hipshot. I don't notice a difference (to my ears, anyway) in sustain and projection, but the weight is balanced in the body more to reduce neck dive. Most importantly, though, is that I've been able to lower my action much more than before. I have a medium touch, and like "guitar-low" action, or as John Entwistle once said, "action behind the frets".
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