Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Seems to be a good buzz going on about the 4001FL and 4003FL basses. It's about time.
Let's not only discuss these basses, but the actual playing of them; the techniques, sharing tip as well as the uniqueness, fun and enjoyment of owning a Rick fretless bass.
I'd like to call on:
John Martin, who mainly plays fretless bass guitars and has been playing upright bass since '92 in jazz trios, quartets, quintets, big bands and a local symphony Orchestra.
Joshua Chandler, who I think has surprised many with his fretless talent.
Tony Cabibe, who I'm gonna bop the next time I see him if he gets too modest on us. He's had years of upright experience and actually feels more comfortable with a fretless bass than fretted.
Jeffrey Scott, who lots of us know as a killer fretted bass player, I think he got some tricks up his sleeve on fretless as well.

Yeah, I'll add my own 2 cents in here also,, but I wanna hear from these guys first.

Anyone else with fretless experience should pipe in as well!

Just to kick things off, fretless and fretted basses are two very different animals, and should be approached as such. That isn't to say that learning FL is all that difficult; it's just different. The technique I use on FL is different from what I use on an fretted instrument, or, I should say, I try to make it different. That's the main struggle when you play both fretted and FL instruments; differentiating between the two in terms of finger technique.

A few differences:

1. FL is not really good for slap and all that. There are two main reasons for that: 1) frets play an integral role in the slap technique/sound, and 2) to save your fingerboard, it's best to use flatwounds on a FL, or your fingerboard can get chewed up fairly quickly - this is true for most all FL basses.

2. In part due to the differences in strings, a fretted bass imparts a crisper, more "live" sound, but a FL bass offers something no fretted instrument can offer: the ability to make the instrument speak in your own personal voice; one that really can mimic the timbre and nuance of a conversation.

3. Fretted basses can be fingered anywhere within the fret, but typically it is best to be just bit "behind" the fret. A FL bass needs to have each note stopped (i.e. fingered) right at the correct position. This is obviously the hardest part of playing a FL - in order to have correct intonation, you need to develop a technique that results in proper intonation. Just a note here: you can also use the lack of frets to slide up or down into notes, which is part of the whole "voice" sound on a FL. A word of warning: using this technique as a way of avoiding proper fingering technique is a slippery slope. It's best to learn proper finger positions first, and then to experiment with this sliding technique. Like any other color in your palette, you want to use these things sparingly to greatest effect.

I'll leave this for now. I feel like I'm coming across as sanctimonious, which was not my intent. Let's have a few more folks chime in!

As a newer fretless player (only been at it for a year and a half) I'll just say that, regarding intonation, it's really important to get to know your instrument intimately so that you don't have to watch the fingerboard when you're really playing. Your ear working with your muscle memory is a better guide for you anyway. For the first month of ownership I played my 4003FL for a few hours every night, running down the same charts, checking a tuner occasionally. Rather than do lots of hard bop walking bass, I just worked on pop charts to really work on getting a "pure" tone. After long enough the notes sort of "revealed themselves" and I was perfectly happy to take the bass to any gig, but I think if I had just taken it to a jazz gig on the first night I owned it things may not have gone quite as well.*

John is quite correct that a fretless can mimic a conversation like few other instruments. To practice developing a "voice" on my bass, I'd actually ask my wife to tell me about her day, and then try to "play back" what she said on the fretless. It was fun--and often rather funny! We had a lot of laughs, but it was also great practice for me, trying to learn the nuances of fretless tone.

I recommend "Fretless Bass" by Chris Kringel as a fantastic, comprehensive primer or getting started on fretless. It's a very thoughtful, unintimidating book that covers all of the bases and to conclude each section uses popular charts from many genres to show fretless techniques from basic to advanced in action. When I got to the section on Pino Palladino's playing on "Every Time You Go Away" I knew I was in for a rewarding challenge. To be truthful, I still haven't mastered everything in this book. Some semi-advanced, open-ended stuff gets brought up at the end.

*Okay, I can't lie: I was asked to sub for another player for one of the usual jazz gigs doing standards and I brought the 4003FL after only playing it for a week. It was sort of sink or swim, but no one gave me any funny looks, I really locked in with the drummer, and when we did Freddie Hubbard's "Red Clay" I added some slides to the main bass riff. The band leader--a really cool but kind of picky guy named Arzo, who's been in the biz for many years--looked over at me and went, "Daaang that sounds good!" Right in the middle of the song! I guess the moral is don't be too worried about nailing your fretless abilities down to take yours out and enjoy it; otherwise there's just no point! And to the instrument's credit, the keyboardist--a tone freak with perfect pitch--said my bass sounded way more like an upright than he would have expected from any electric bass. Good times.

FretlessOnly wrote:A FL bass needs to have each note stopped (i.e. fingered) right at the correct position. This is obviously the hardest part of playing a FL - in order to have correct intonation, you need to develop a technique that results in proper intonation.

I find that you really need to know your own fingertips well, including changes to the callouses on them.

rickenbrother wrote:

FretlessOnly wrote:A FL bass needs to have each note stopped (i.e. fingered) right at the correct position. This is obviously the hardest part of playing a FL - in order to have correct intonation, you need to develop a technique that results in proper intonation.

I find that you really need to know your own fingertips well, including changes to the callouses on them.

Brings up a good point about intonating your fretless on the 12th (and also occasionally the 19th) semitones. I find that to get the most accurate placement you must find where the harmonic rings out the loudest and the truest and try to land your fingertip on the point immediately below the position of the harmonic.

And callouses are a good point. You will find them to be different - to me, more spread out across the whole of the tip of my finger rather than concentrated in one spot of the tip. In some ways, this is easier to take, since there is a spreading of the "pain," as it were. But when playing, you need to adjust your hand pressure to slide into a note, since the callous will slow down your sliding technique a bit. Depending on the state of the callous, of course. Playing regularly will help a natural build-up as with any instrument.

These are things that just naturally come about after a few months of regular practice. Joey makes a good point, though - as many of you might only play fretless on occasion. In that case, you need to keep your brain switched on.

Just so you know, after years of only playing fretless, I would pick up a fretted bass now and again and I couldn't play it - I was putting my fingers on top of the frets rather than just behind them. So, doing both is good for some things, and, well, not as good for other things. Just like most things in life.

Sometimes I find myself turning my fingers for better intonation. I guess this is a lack of better experience thing to do? However I do see upright players do this at times, so maybe it's not bad.

I can't really add anything to the discussion of technique other than to say, "Thanks guys!" This is going to be another great thread! I've always wanted a fretless, but have never had one. This is exactly the kind of stuff I've been wanting to know! Now I'm really getting RAS for a fretless...

Thanks again for putting all the effort into the posts this thread, and keep 'em coming!

rickenbrother wrote:Sometimes I find myself turning my fingers for better intonation. I guess this is a lack of better experience thing to do? However I do see upright players do this at times, so maybe it's not bad.

If I get what "turning" means, I wouldn't say so; it shows that your ear is communicating with your brain to produce the best-intonated note possible. No matter what, you can't hope to arrive at a note the same way each time. Sometimes it involves a position shift, sometimes a shift and a finger cross-over, sometimes a slide up sometimes a slide down to...you see the point. So, a technique has to include a provision for "tweaking" the note once you've arrived.

Actually, turning your fingers is the first step toward developing a vibrato technique, so that's good.

cjj wrote:I can't really add anything to the discussion of technique other than to say, "Thanks guys!" This is going to be another great thread! I've always wanted a fretless, but have never had one. This is exactly the kind of stuff I've been wanting to know! Now I'm really getting RAS for a fretless...

Thanks again for putting all the effort into the posts this thread, and keep 'em coming!

Glad you like it! My intention is to help people play their FL's better and maybe get the interest of those who never seriously thought about trying fretless. Also to help prepare people who might go for it. I think this thread is going well so far. More to come!!

FretlessOnly wrote:If I get what "turning" means, I wouldn't say so; it shows that your ear is communicating with your brain to produce the best-intonated note possible.

I mean that I turn my finger so my nail faces the bridge. I don't do it constantly, but I have found myself doing it at times to get the best intonation of a note.

FretlessOnly wrote:2) to save your fingerboard, it's best to use flatwounds on a FL, or your fingerboard can get chewed up fairly quickly - this is true for most all FL basses.

Not this one!

Here is another fretless bass I use RW strings on.

I think Steve is the official RRF fretless bass "fashion" model!

As I no longer own my 4003FL my comments are in reflection only. It had a unique voice different from other fretless basses I have own over the years. When I first got it I found the sound much darker with little of the typical mwah one gets from most FL basses. I replaced both pickups with 7.4K toasters and that opened the sound up considerably, but I still tended to favor the bridge pickup to get the most out of it. When I got the bass it had RIC RW strings on it that I fairly quicky changed to Chromes ina custom light set of 40-55-75-95, primarily to minimize wear on the CV finish of the fingerboard.

As to technique, as much as I try to just listen for intonation I do look at the side dots for reference. The reason I sold the 4003FL was due to the placement of said dots. As we all know they were placed just as if the bass were fretted, and this did not make it easy for me; that was my only real gripe with that bass, other than that I would still have it and it would be my main FL bass in use.

Having a light touch on the strings, both fretting and plucking, is something that, to me, is helpful in getting a great sound from a FL instrument. Being too heavy handed chokes the mwah (Jaco excepted!). Something that I tried to do is make the FL bass sound non-FL, if you can do that then it is easier to expand the vocabulary with the typical FL techniques such as glissando, vibrato, sliding harmonics, etc. This I learned from reading article by Steve Bailey, a true master of the FL bass.

Unfortunately, these days I rarely play my fretless basses as they are not suitable to the music I am currently playing.

OOH,

Another great thread of Fretless!

Hopefully, we can combine our knowledge and help others discover the FL world.

Well Joey, as far as my upright playing goes, that was another lifetime ago, but I am currently GASSING for an EUB (Electric Upright Bass).
Musician's Friend has a neat looking one for abour $700.00 but I really have to do a lot of research on these things being I won't be able to play one before
purchase. I miss the feel, the tone and even the bow every now and then, ESPEICALLY at this time of year when the Chritmas music comes into play.

Looking at one of these...
http://bass-guitars.musiciansfriend.com ... sku=514435
OR
http://bass-guitars.musiciansfriend.com ... sku=512015

These are basically entry level units, the prices go well into the thousands....IF SANTA is good, and I hit the lottery.....
http://www.alembic.com/prod/classico.html
BUT at about $20,000 to $25,000.00 it ain't happening!
Standard upright basses, GOOD ONES, command VERY HIGH prices. We are spoiled with our basses, you guys should see the
money those upright players have invested in those things!

Ok, enough of that....I think John mentioned that switching back and forth between fretted and fretless can be an issue. IT is for me, I usually choose which bass I'm going to use by the line up of songs we are doing on a given week. It averages out to be about once a month where the music just SCREAMS fretless. I am more exact in my playing when I'm on my fretless, in that I play slower, more percise. Some songs are REALLY FAST ROCK type songs and I'm just not quick enough or confident enough to use the FL on these songs. Frankly, some of these songs just wouldn't sound right to me with a set of flats on a fretless, so my needs change from week to week. With the Christmas music now working its way into the set list, I'll be working the fretless more now until the end of the year.

SO, lets bring it on and see where this goes! Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far and I look forward to seeing where it goes!

jps wrote:
As to technique, as much as I try to just listen for intonation I do look at the side dots for reference. The reason I sold the 4003FL was due to the placement of said dots. As we all know they were placed just as if the bass were fretted, and this did not make it easy for me; that was my only real gripe with that bass, other than that I would still have it and it would be my main FL bass in use.

Interesting. My 2008 FL has the side dots where the fret would be, and the fingerboard dots just as in a fretted bass, so I only look at the side dots. What year was your FL and when did this change? I remember a thread several months ago where someone was insisting that Rick never made a FL bass as I was describing mine, or something like that.