What's not to like with this cunning plan? (Err....)

[Maxra]

Advice please - I'm currently a fiddler, so I'm used to no frets. I bought a used Guild Jumbo Junior 23 3/4" A.B.G. (standard strings, may change for flats). It's got frets, but I always fancied fretless. My intention is to learn melodic bass to play with UK/Euro style acoustic folk bands. I live in two places about equally, and the only way to avoid carting the bass around is get a second one. I can't afford another Guild right now, but I see Harley Benton does a fretless bass uke for sale for their usual low price. Reviews say the usual HB thing of 'good value for the price, but don't expect perfection' - fair enough. The H.B. has a 21" scale. So:

* I've played different scale length fiddles/violas/cello/mandolins, and that works OK for me. Should I get on OK with the 3" scale difference in these basses?

* Has anyone experience of the Guild J.J.B. with flatwound strings on, eg the new Aquila flat spirals?

* If I take to fretless, I may want them both that way. Has anyone converted a Guild J.J.B. to fretless, if so does it work OK?

Thanks, Max

 

[Chris Laarman]

For comparison:

I have a Fender CB-60SCE acoustic bass guitar. It is fretted. I replaced the factory roundwound strings with flatwounds. (That required some improvising, as at least the E-string would shoot the plug out of the hole.)

For /me/ that proved enough to shelf my wish to proceed to a fretless bass. That may be due to the gauge and tension of the strings, resulting in a lower action. Besides, I want a bass instrument to provide a foundation for harmonies, rather than interfere with guitars. [matter of taste] - Oh, and my reference is the amplified sound, as picked up by the piëzo bridge element.

Finally a warning, intended to be helpful, not at all offensive: mind the pitch difference between a violin and a bass, rendering an "interesting" vibrato relatively greater. (I remember attending a workshop Free Jazz, over forty years ago, where the leader demonstrated the difference in being out of key between a double bass and a piccolo flute. The piccolo out of key sounded "interesting", the bass out of key sounded "wrong". - Obviously, key is a greater difference than tuning.)

 

[Killing Floor]

Hey, Max, can you still play violin? If so you just leaned the power of your brain to compensate. It’s what athletes call “hand-eye” coordination. I routinely switch between 30 fretted, 34” fretless, 27” and 25” guitar and I also play violin.
It takes a day or so of productive practice on the new instrument and your mind will handle the rest. Do not stress, not a problem.

 

[buldog5151bass]

Some people have no problem changing between scales, so do. Consider just playing fretless, sell off the Guild.

 

[Maxra]

...mind the pitch difference between a violin and a bass, rendering an "interesting" vibrato relatively greater.

Thanks Chris and others - when I took up cello, I was surprised to discover that it appeared harder to pitch precisely at times than a violin. I don't think that was just inexperience with the instrument or the frequencies, as I played it for more than 5 years. Vibrato is certainly different. It had to start a lot wider and slower on cello than violin. I'm glad bass guitar sound has changed so you can usually hear the pitch, even with e.g. reggae tone. In the early '70's I heard a lot of live 'college level' rock bands. Bass players often used something like a Gibson EBO with a Selmer Goliath 18" cab and a big boomy sound. They could have played any note on the bottom two strings and you couldn't tell what pitch it was from the audience.

 

[Chris Laarman]

In the early '70's I heard a lot of live 'college level' rock bands. Bass players often used something like a Gibson EBO with a Selmer Goliath 18" cab and a big boomy sound. They could have played any note on the bottom two strings and you couldn't tell what pitch it was from the audience.

My memory seems to agree.

Well, as we (here) all know, basses have a wide range of sounds, multiplied by the different styles of playing (fingering, slamming) and (again multiplied?) by the styles of music (swing, funk). My heart seems to lie with the sound of a double bass, but I loved emulating a sousaphone in trad. jazz on my old Ibanez MC-924. I allowed myself another solid-state bass (Harley Benton MJ-4EB) on the condition that I keep roundwound strings on it to keep one foot in the mainstream. Yet I'm considering a similar one (the 5-string MJ-5EB) and flatwound strings. (I'd actually want a solid-state bass with both magnetic and piëzo pick-ups, like the Godin RG-4, but that's far out of my reach. However, I can add a magnetic pick-up in the sound-hole of my Fender CB-60SCE with piëzo bridge pick-up.)