SBO24 - Yewphoria

[smart51]

I've played this every day for a week now and it plays really well. I like the 30" scale in a fretless more than the 32s I usually play, it feels more comfortable. What doesn't feel more comfortable is the lower edge when I play sitting down Its fine for a short time, but wearing a strap solves that.

I don't know if the neck has settled a bit, or whether it's because the fingerboard overhangs the end of the neck, but it rises up a bit towards the end. It kills the higher notes a bit. When I take the neck off to refinish, I'll sand some fall away into the fingerboard to fix it.

 

[MonetBass]

I've played this every day for a week now and it plays really well. I like the 30" scale in a fretless more than the 32s I usually play, it feels more comfortable. What doesn't feel more comfortable is the lower edge when I play sitting down Its fine for a short time, but wearing a strap solves that.

I don't know if the neck has settled a bit, or whether it's because the fingerboard overhangs the end of the neck, but it rises up a bit towards the end. It kills the higher notes a bit. When I take the neck off to refinish, I'll sand some fall away into the fingerboard to fix it.

View attachment 6994150

Yeah, that bottom edge could use some smoothing out.

 

[smart51]

I've been playing this as my daily for the last few weeks, including a lot of stuff that isn't really suitable for fretless. Jamiroquai and stuff with fast runs of octaves. Trick but fun stuff. It's a really nice instrument to play. Short scale really suits my short fingers for a fretless, where you have to stretch all the way to the line to hit the note.

If I pluck the strings over the fingerboard, there is a ridiculous amount of mwah that builds over about a second and a half. That can be a lot of fun too. But it has quite a short sustain. I wonder if the two things are linked. The swelling mwah adds something to songs that are usually played on a double bass but don't sound quite right on a bass guitar.

 

[smart51]

I finally got round to refinishing the neck. The heel of the neck rose up a little on the treble side, which I've sanded out. The tone and sustain is better on the high notes now, all apart from the 24th position. I can live with that. I took the opportunity to reprofile the back of the neck to make it more comfortable while I was at it.

Does finish affect tone and sustain? I could be imagining it, but I seem to have more of both now.

 

[smart51]

This is my entry into the scratch build category of SBO 2024 - Yewphoria

Specs

30" scale 4 string fretless bass guitar
Three piece yew multilaminate neck with walnut pin stripes.
single piece yew body.
custom active humbucker pickups.
unlined fingerboard, with a lined edge for reference.

Aims

I wanted to see what a short scale fretless would be like. I've only got little fingers and a 34" scale fretless is a bit of a stretch. With a 34" fretted bass, I just play the low note on the fret and the higher note behind the fret. You can't get away with that on a fretless.

I also wanted to explore what could be done with native timber. The hardest native wood is Box but there's no hope of finding a big enough straight piece to make a fingerboard for anything bigger than a viola. Yew is the next hardest, and is also very stiff. When I found this piece with all the colour in it, I had to make the body from it too.

Pickups

These are some I made a while ago. They're each twin coils with a low turn count and a built in preamp to boost the level. The neck pickup is thick and bassey but doesn't pick up the mwah much at all. The bridge pickup is a bit thin sounding but has huge amounts of mwah. Blending them together gives a whole range of different tones.

 

[abarson]

That's a nice project!
Although I see that you followed where the chunk of body wood led you, I can't help but see a little similarity to the Lace Helix.

 

[Beej]