Non-Rickenbacker Fretless Basses Sub-Forum

[woodyng]

i took the bass to a set-up guy,who is going to fix it up,and it turns out he has a set of lollar p bass pickups i can get installed for $75! i think the standard pickups sound pretty decent,but i believe i am going to jump on this,i have only ever heard great things about lollar pickups in general,according to the reviews,these are very similar spec to early vintage fender pups.

[woodyng]

allrighty! i picked up the yamaha last night,took it to practice,what a difference! the tape wounds are set up perfectly for me,feel and sound great,and the new pickup sounds a lot more full and less abrasive. the stock yamaha pickups are ceramic magnet type,and seemed a bit harsh,the lollar pickups are scatterwound alnico type,much warmer.i am stoked that this bass is as nice as it is for the $$. (current total $302,incl new strings,pickup,and setup)

[rickenbrother]

So, I take it that you like it!

[FretlessOnly]

I love the grindy sound of the Fender 9120 tapes, but they do tend to have a real "plasticy" high end component, so I think your choice of alnicos is a good one. I recently went the opposite way with a fretted Jaguar bass - I had Jim Mouradian reinstall the stock ceramics in there after I shielded the cavities, which is fine for now. I still have the alnicos to slap in there if need be. (I have 9120s on both my CIJ Jazz FL and the Jag.)

Woody, I think you will find that the mwah you get from the tapes is quite a bit different than what you'd get from metal flats. Not necessarily better or worse, just different. It's probably a good idea to get another fretless and string it with 9050CLs for a full color palette.

[jps]

Woody, I think you will find that the mwah you get from the tapes is quite a bit different than what you'd get from metal flats. Not necessarily better or worse, just different. It's probably a good idea to get another fretless and string it with 9050CLs for a full color palette.

Hey, don't forget to get a third one to put rounds on for an even more complete palette!

[rickenbrother]

Woody, I think you will find that the mwah you get from the tapes is quite a bit different than what you'd get from metal flats. Not necessarily better or worse, just different. It's probably a good idea to get another fretless and string it with 9050CLs for a full color palette.

Hey, don't forget to get a third one to put rounds on for an even more complete palette!

And a fourth one to install halfrounds and really get all the fretless basses covered!

[FretlessOnly]

Then of course, you have your 35" scale FLs.

And active and passive.

Maple, rosewood, ebony.

5-string, 6-string.

Hollowbody...

[woodyng]

so....ya'll are trying to instill new terminal gas in me,yet again!? yeah,as the saying goes,you drive me crazy,but it IS a short drive! i did notice a very different overall change on the tone,it seemed like the "mwah" was very pronounced before,and with the new strings and pickups,just a lot more controllable,as in ,if i want it,i just have to dig in more to get it. if i were more of a soloist,the previous set up would be perfect,but i am much more of a simple,supportive type player,so the new setup really suits me. Since the bass has a really light,thin body,i feel the new pickups help give it some more depth. And most importantly,i am really getting into playing it,i do not even look at the strings,just the side markers,and mostly am just listening for my fingers to "hit the note". i am anxious to try out some glissy stuff on our couple of slow ballad numbers.

[woodyng]

john-i can resist 35" scale,active,5 and 6 strings with no problem,these are all things i have tried and not particularly liked....now, a hollowbody,hmm,yes, a fl tobacco sunburst lakland hollow body would be rreallyy nice.....i played the yamaha last night with another group that does rather heavy power trio music,and we all really liked the sound of it,it seems like the ease of playing it lends itself to taking more chances and busy riffing....i do have a buddy that plays fl exclusively (on a custom made 5 string 37" scale bass!) who says once you get used to fl,playing a fretted bass slows you down.....

[FretlessOnly]

I played FL exclusively for about 10 years; now I have two fretted basses and it's crazy some of the things I can do on fretted bass with very little effort. I do a fair bit of hammer-ons and pull-offs and the hammer-ons on fretted bass are so much easier than they were years ago.

[woodyng]

i would venture to speculate that playing the upright makes switching over to any EB a relative peice of cake,especially with the fretting hand! i wouldn't mind trying out an EUB with a 34" scale,baby steps for me all the way!

[FretlessOnly]

Interestingly (or strangely), I found the leap from fretted electric to upright easier than the leap from upright to fretless electric. Then again, I blew out my ulnar nerve on upright due to over-gigging and lazy technique, so the FL electric was a natural fall-back after the 6-month recovery period.

[iiipopes]

OK. It's been awhile. Where was I? Oh, yeah...after all this time, it just wasn't coming together (no, I didn't sell it). The nut was just too wide, and every time I grabbed something on the E or A strings, the palm side of the knuckle of my index finger hung on the side of the fingerboard. So I did major surgery. After consulting the crew on the DB side of TalkBass, I purchased a small modeler's block plane, the appropriate sharpening tools, and dived in to trim the neck. I've never done anything like that before. Of course, I got the usual red flags that I was about to ruin my bass, and that I should have a luthier narrow the neck from both sides, replacing the nut, etc. Folks, I've worked on guitars and basses as an "amateur" luthier for over 35 years. I can tell what needs to be done, even if I don't have the tools or the expertise and need to send something to my favorite luthier, like refretting. And to up the ante, with actually taking wood off, rather than just adjusting something, I had one chance to get it right. Yes, I took a small modeler's block plane to my bass and planed off the edge of my fingerboard and neck on the G string side from @ 1 7/8 to a hair less than 1 3/4 width at my "false nut." It took all day. I trashed my kitchen with wood shavings, as I don't have a proper workshop. God bless my wife and son for understanding. When it was done I spent two hours just cleaning up the house. It was worth it. Left hand technique and faculty immediately improved since I wasn't reaching to the point of strain for everything on the A and E strings. While I was at it, I scooped the G string side of the fingerboard a tad more to clarify intonation. With the Spiro Weichs, I now have string clearance as measured at the end of the fingerboard of 5-6-7-8 mm, respectively, which for DB is considered great. I need to adjust the soundpost a tad, as the D string is a tad boomy after everything.

I must digress on strings. DB strings are insane. A good set of professional quality strings runs new @$200. So unlike electric bass, there is an active market for used DB strings, because with their flat windings, they don't deteriorate like electric bass round wounds do. I ended up with a "4/4" set of TI Spirocores, the "standard" for jazz strings, at less than half the cost of a new set. They have even less tension than a set of Weich (the German word for light gauge) 3/4, when strung at 3/4 scale length. It's a completely different universe. The actual 3/4 set, which you would think would be standard, actually has a tad more tension than the 4/4 set strung to the shorter scale length. Feel free to PM me if you want a further explanation.

Next: pickups. Anyway, with cash flow as it is currently, I couldn't afford one of the "big three" (Fishman Circle, Upton Revolution II or David Gage Realist) piezo pickups new, installed. But a guy on the forum had a used-but-never-installed 2nd tier pickup in my price range. It's on the way. Hopefully, it will work out. Last summer, I picked up a couple of Radio Shack piezos at a garage sale for pennies. I've been experimenting with them, and, well, they simply "not have way." Too tinny, feedback, incorrect impedance matching, etc., won't work under any circumstance. It's a shame, because I've relied on Radio Shack for a variety of other kinds of parts, for decades. And will again. So I hope this pickup does the job, as cash is tight, but I have to be able to be amplified, if for no other reason than to be able to send a signal to the board to record.

And now, to let the tung oil that I applied to the back of the neck to dry. A lot of orchestral guys ride their necks bareback, so to speak. But as everyone knows, riding bareback is risking infestation of the bacteria that attacks wood fiber, turning it black, and deteriorating a neck over time. I'm not planning on replacing my neck, so I tung oiled it. I have a custom fanned fret electric guitar with a conventional nut, fanned frets, and my custom wiring, fanning everything forward. This guitar was the first instrument I applied tung oil to the neck. I really, really, like the feel of it, especially after several coats, then a final buff. So I'm looking forward to the same comfort on my DB.

OK, now the final question: endurance. Even with the string action at the nut lowered to the edge (pun intended) of musicality, the longer scale along with the higher tension make for a real exercise of endurance. It's just something that has to be dealt with. I made it through the last rehearsal of my QCDB playing the keyboard player's Eberle bass (albeit with an older piezo pickup that was great at the time, but now sounds limted) a 1 1/2 inch nut like a Fender J-bass I just could not come to grips with, and D'Addario Helicore strings, which with their nickel windings sounded good on his bass, but turned my fingers black as I have a sensitivity to nickel. So TI Spiros it is.

Last note: for a break, I plugged in a couple of CD's and played along with my 360-12WB FG ckbd as I was gathering my thoughts for this post. Not only, by comparison of the tension of the DB strings, was it easy to play, but it reaffirmed my unbridled enthusiasm for an offset bridge saddle for the low E string to keep both the low unison and the octave wound string intonating properly. It's almost there -- stay tuned!

[iiipopes]

Alright! I got everything done, fitted a pickup to it, and took it to QCDB rehearsal Monday. Fantastic! Everything did exactly what was needed. It's a keeper. Now, to get a proper speaker cab for it. My ancient Polytone doesn't have the low end, and my Triad is just too hi-fi sounding for an upright. But we're almost there, and I have my first gig with it in May.

[iiipopes]

Setback: I was all set to go for a QCDB gig, and I got rear-ended on May 6. Nothing broken or torn, but I'm sore as #*!!. Ended up playing the gig sitting with an electric instead. It's alright, though. The Shadow pickup has turned out to be not consistent, which may be as much my installation as the pickup itself, so I've ordered a Fishman Full Circle which takes the place of a height adjuster on the bridge. Once installed and set, there is much less chance of something coming undone unexpectedly. Over the weekend I was actually able to play @ 5 to 10 minutes on it before my shoulders and neck cramped up.