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Fretless & freted in the same bass

Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 10:59 am
by rikk

Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 11:08 am
by edski
I heard of that, first time I've seen it. Actually sounded like a pretty good fretless sound.

Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 11:52 am
by wints
I remeber seeing an Alembic for sale a while back that was fretted up to about the 9th fret and was fretless the rest of the neck.

Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 12:19 pm
by dswp
Naa,

you need one of these....

Image

Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 12:21 pm
by wints
That would work too...

Just a little heavy....

Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 6:51 pm
by dminer
A drummer friend of mine had one of those 70's/80's aluminum-necked basses (I can't remember the brand...maybe Kramer or Travis Bean.) Anyway, it had three interchangeable, magnetic fretboards...one standard, one fretless and I can't remember what the third one was...maybe short scale....I always thought that it was a pretty cool set-up! dm

Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 12:04 am
by ilan
"Anyway, it had three interchangeable, magnetic fretboards...one standard, one fretless and I can't remember what the third one was..."

It's called the Novatone system. There was an Alembic like that on eBay not long ago, that had 3 fingerboards, fretted, fretless, and aluminum fretless. Tony Levin had one of those installed, but it never really cought on.

Guild also had a Pilot bass with interchangeable fretboards - Darryl Jones played one.

Steinberger also toyed with an idea similar to the one in the video, they built the prototype XM2A-fretted/fretless. And then there was this one - 7 string fretted/fretless/fretted, and the Nexus, and the Neuser Fretless System.

Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 5:30 pm
by rikk
This bass just has a switch. Pretty neat. If Ric did this STANDARD they's sell so many basses the wait would be 12-18 months just to get one. Oh, wait, it is already 12-18 months. OK 3-4 years ;-)