The "Fake Fretless" Technique

[Rib 13]

I normally keep my videos over in the YT section but I know not everybody visits there and I felt this was something from my past (and present) that I wanted to share. The "fake fretless" technique was utilized often by many Top 40 players back in my day and I never hear it talked about much anymore so I thought I would share this somewhat forgotten technique

 

[JRA]

pretty cool, sounds good!

 

[Les Fret]

I wouldn’t call that a technique. It’s just using bridge pickup and a chorus and adding some left hand slides.

But nothing replaces a real fretless. You could also swap basses while the rest of the band plays an intro or so. But I agree if it’s only for one or two songs it’s not worth the trouble of bringing your fretless. Especially not in a top 40 band where the general public doesn’t care if it’s fretless or not.

 

[Watchootognbout]

I'd say that works.
You've got several common fretless factors down enough to fool most.

For instance:Lars K Norberg formerly of Spiral Architect,was repeatedly rumored by many fans to have played fretless bass on their album "A Sceptics Universe"

But he said in a interview:

"There has been some confusion about the bass, whether I use fretless on the album or not. To end the confusion,I used a Steinberger Q4 on that record all the way through, and its definitely fretted.
This is the story: That bass has actually a very hard sound to it. Thats great for certain things, but can also be limiting. Anyway in order to create more variations to my lines, I started to experiment with different approaches to simulate fretless bass.
My goal at the time was to create a hybrid style thus getting the best from both worlds. I used no effects in order to accomplish the illusion of a fretless bass. Basically I just tried to play more legato. For instance, one thing I did was to play a lot of parallel octaves in order both to get that richer fretless-sounding sound and the desired glissando feel: Listen to the first half of Moving Spirit for extended use of this technique. It's reminiscent to using an octaver.

Since then Ive bought myself a fretless bass, a Gary Willis signature. I use that one in the new project with Steinar. I also have the fretted version of the same bass. As of now I'm not sure which bass I'll use on the new SA. Perhaps a combination? Time will show."
Andreas Jonsson #30

 

[Rib 13]

I'd say that works.
You've got several common fretless factors down enough to fool most.

For instance:Lars K Norberg formerly of Spiral Architect,was repeatedly rumored by many fans to have played fretless bass on their album "A Sceptics Universe"

But he said in a interview:

"There has been some confusion about the bass, whether I use fretless on the album or not. To end the confusion,I used a Steinberger Q4 on that record all the way through, and its definitely fretted.
This is the story: That bass has actually a very hard sound to it. Thats great for certain things, but can also be limiting. Anyway in order to create more variations to my lines, I started to experiment with different approaches to simulate fretless bass.
My goal at the time was to create a hybrid style thus getting the best from both worlds. I used no effects in order to accomplish the illusion of a fretless bass. Basically I just tried to play more legato. For instance, one thing I did was to play a lot of parallel octaves in order both to get that richer fretless-sounding sound and the desired glissando feel: Listen to the first half of Moving Spirit for extended use of this technique. It's reminiscent to using an octaver.

Since then Ive bought myself a fretless bass, a Gary Willis signature. I use that one in the new project with Steinar. I also have the fretted version of the same bass. As of now I'm not sure which bass I'll use on the new SA. Perhaps a combination? Time will show."
Andreas Jonsson #30

Thank you for sharing. That clip was pretty awesome. I do parallel octaves a lot as well when using this technique and I realized I didn't do any in my vid clips. Oh well lol

And to all readers: I also would like to add that I'm not saying this is a fretless bass replacement and I do not think I implied that in my video......lately, my channel is being geared toward working bass players or aspiring working bassists, most of which play fretted basses and try to gig as lightly/ stealthily as possible and to show them a tonal option many of us did back then that seems to have been forgotten over the decades