Unlined or Lined: Irrelevant?

[kesslari]

Irrelevant.

 

[narud]

if you post on talkbass about your intonation being great on unlined, id wager your ear isnt that sensitive to pickup up issues. if youre blowing in the upper register, lined is a must imo. compare willis or jaco to steve bailey or christian mcbride blowing over changes. as amazing of players as bailey and mcbride are, their intonation in the upper register when soloing isnt as good as the greats who played with a lined board.

 

[glocke1]

I was playing that Tony Franklin again. My teacher really discouraged unlined fretless, but I am confident that I could be competent on an unlined fretless if I bought one. Once I thought about some more, I really thought why am I worried about lined or unlined fingerboards? Fretless depends on a good ear and muscle memory whether a bass has lines or not. I just need to practice on the basses I own already. I do not want to fall into the trap I was in when I was young of worrying about a 24 fret bass instead of buckling down and learning the fretboard and theory. That Tony Franklin is sweet, but someone else can have it.

Unlined all the way...It's more work but in the end forces you to rely on good, logical fingering techniques and to develop a good ear.

I think the increased challenge of unlined fretless also forces you to play less stuff that is B.S. and focus more on the groove and making good note choices.

 

[Smooth_bass88]

lined or unlined... it's completely irrelevant. It's about the tone you get. My fretless happens to be lined. Side note: the vast majority of calls you get will not require fretless (but it's nice to have one).

 

[JohnnyBottom]

Lined, I want to be able to say I play fretless bass fo sho

 

[Biggbass]

On my fretless I only reference the side markers. It has lines but they are black and only span the visually top half portion of the board so they may as well not be there to begin with. Once I'm locked in it's all by ear from there on unless I move more than a couple of steps up or down the neck.

 

[IamGroot]

When it comes to fretless basses, I draw the line and don't fret about the precision, just the jazz.

 

[Bryan R. Tyler]

If you are a child, learning Bass, lines are fine.
If you are a grown-up, its horribly wrong.
No one in the orchestra has "lines" on their stringed instruments.

View attachment 3740168

I’m hoping you’re joking. No one on the New York Jets plays with a baseball glove even though most baseball players prefer them either. Here’s the crazy thing- different things are different. Lines are of far less use on any instrument you look down on rather than across...meaning all the orchestral instruments. No use hindering your playing for the sake of trying to do what people doing a different thing than you are are doing.

Also, it would be adorable for you tell Gary Willis he’s doing it wrong.

 

[AngelCrusher]

The tf looks amazing though I prefer lined for upper register solos.

 

[JPaulGeddy]

I was worried when I bought my first fretless neck, and it was unlined (great deal, perfect specs otherwise). Once you get used to the dots, you realize how unimportant the lines are anyway. But as mentioned, play whatever you like, makes no matter. Play enough and you're not looking at the neck hardly at all anyway.

 

[Stewie]

You're all wrong, fretless basses are stupid! So are uprights. In fact all basses are stupid, any fool can do the job with a Strat and an octave pedal, Almost all Strats have frets.




EDIT: the above is sarcasm

 

[logdrum]

Wrong! I was talking about LINES, not dots. Learn to Read English logdrum.

Many schools either add lines or dots to help beginners. Your comment that only children need lines and grownups should not is a off putting. I have taught adults to play the DB and if they want lines or dots, I encourage them and some have kept them on even if they can play in tune without looking. Many Kays from schools have lines that are there permanently unless you sand down the board. There is no shame in playing those as they have a great sound.

 

[Jim Carr]

I love how many fretless snobs hate the idea of lines, yet most of them love a bassist who used a lined fretless.

Irrelevant. Play what you want, be happy.

Yes, and don't forget that on a dark stage, lines too, are irrelevant.

 

[lbbc]

I had a lined fretless and loved it...but eventually went back to fretted basses

 

[bucephylus]

So let me qualify a bit. The average ear struggles to resolve +/-10 cents. Thanks to years of formal ear training at a very young age, about 10 years before I picked up a bass, my ears start really protesting at +/-5 cents. Most of the time I hit within, and can hear errors at, +/-3 cents, so I will be correcting errors that most people can't even detect.

In fact, pitch perception is actually an aptitude that can be measured, but literally can not be taught or learned. It is to varying degrees in our genetic codes. The Johnson O’Connor Foundation has literally decades of measurement and data that do not disprove this.

The other two musical aptitude’s are tonal memory and rhythmic memory; both of which can also be measured. I measured 96th, 87th and 82nd percentiles respectively when I was tested. Brutally honest tests. I thought that was pretty good; but, they advised me to seek other occupations, since there are others out there with all three in the upper 90’s. Ah, nature....

 

[FeltTipPen]

Irrelevant. My first fretless could have been the Fender Jaco bass but I wanted a five string.

 

[Nutmeg]

Like you said, why worry about it. Best just to buckle down and get use to learning how to play fretless by getting familiar with the instrument you have. It’s going to be a long term process either way.
Funny thing about what your teacher said, my teacher has lines on his fretless and when asking him about whether I should get one with lines or not he said go with no lines.

 

[Joebone]

if you post on talkbass about your intonation being great on unlined, id wager your ear isnt that sensitive to pickup up issues. if youre blowing in the upper register, lined is a must imo. compare willis or jaco to steve bailey or christian mcbride blowing over changes. as amazing of players as bailey and mcbride are, their intonation in the upper register when soloing isnt as good as the greats who played with a lined board.

Can't speak to Bailey or McBride, but I'm much more comfortable with lines when above the 12th fret, which is also where you can happen to see them clearly.

 

[gwangi]

The way I view the situation with a unlined fretless bass is like playing trombone, there are no lines on the slide.
I played trombone all thru grade school all the way til senior in high school and then switched over to bass back in 1980, I trained my ear and everything was like 2nd nature on the trombone, I kind of honestly wished when I did start playing bass was on a fretless instead of a fretted but I got the Geddy Lee & Chris Squire bug.

 

[BergerHead]

I'm not into fretless, but the ones i've played on were a question of minutes to go clear with, none of them were LFs ...