Non-Rickenbacker Fretless Basses Sub-Forum

[rickenbrother]

Since several of the talented bassists here have a non Rick fretless bass, this section might be good to have more of their discussions about playing fretless basses, which may will help bassists who do have Rick fretless basses. I had asked Peter if he wouldn't mind that we discussed non Rick fretless basses and he gave us this sub-forum. Thanks Peter!

Free free to discuss and show off your other fretless basses! Include electric and/or acoustic double basses if you have them!

[FretlessOnly]

Thanks Peter and thanks Joey for letting us know. I'll get some photos up on here tonight. There's plenty of technical stuff to discuss as well.

[cassius987]

Good idea guys!

I used to have a MIM Jazz fretless, but had to return it. Now I'm all Ric bass in the fretless department.

[ajish4]

Sweet Joey, VERY COOL!

[cjj]

Dang it! Now I'm gonna have to go buy a non-RIC bass just to participate...

[teb]

Gee, I'm pretty well covered on this one.

The old Frankenstein Gibson - 31" scale, ebony fingerboard, stereo-wired with a mudbucker at the neck and a P-Bass pickup under the hand rest, and ancient Guild tape-wound strings.
A Pedulla Buzz - 34" scale, varnished ebony board, active Bartolini JJ pickups, black laquered round-wounds.
A Hofner V63 factory fretless - 30" scale, ebony board.Tape-wound strings (Rotos if I remember correctly).
and a fretless Kala U-bass, bass uke - 20" scale, rosewood board, piezo pickup under the bridge, solid polyurethane strings.

But they all sound exactly the same....

Actually, the Kala has a short-sustain thump, kind of like a string bass, The Gibson and Hofner sound pretty much like any good electric bass, but have smooth slides without those little clicks and steps and are versatile enough to play all night with. Depending on how you set the tone controls, the Pedulla has either a very deep, powerful rock and roll tone or the exaggerated fretless mwaahh that some folks seem to associate with any fretless instrument (imagine an entire orchestra where all the string section had that tone - not a pretty picture).

[jps]

Dang it! Now I'm gonna have to go buy a non-RIC bass just to participate...

I have a nice one you can buy (relatively) cheap.

[cassius987]

Dang it! Now I'm gonna have to go buy a non-RIC bass just to participate...

For a mere $100ish you can go get a fretless SX so that you feel good about your participation here.

Better yet, an Ashbory Bass! Those are fun.

[FretlessOnly]

Here's my non-Rick brood:

A '67 Czech 3/4 double bass that I used for 200+ gigs from about '96-'02. Mainly jazz, but also a local symphony for a couple of years, some bluegrass, blues and whathaveyou. It makes the occasional recorded appearance in my current prog band also.

The rest of my FLs:

'76 P-bass '97 CIJ J-bass

'06 Warwick Corvette Std. '08 Wishbass '91 Ken Smith 6-string

[ajish4]

Gee, I'm pretty well covered on this one.

The old Frankenstein Gibson - 31" scale, ebony fingerboard, stereo-wired with a mudbucker at the neck and a P-Bass pickup under the hand rest, and ancient Guild tape-wound strings.
A Pedulla Buzz - 34" scale, varnished ebony board, active Bartolini JJ pickups, black laquered round-wounds.

Love that Gibson & that Pedulla!

[cjj]

Dang it! Now I'm gonna have to go buy a non-RIC bass just to participate...

I have a nice one you can buy (relatively) cheap.

Oh yeah, I know about that one... And if I wasn't in the middle of moving, I might consider it. I guess I'll just have to see how everything works out after moving and building the new music studio...

[rickenbrother]

Glad you guys are diggin' this sub forum.

[teb]

Short sound samples:
The first two are the old Gibson stereo. The Humbucker is set pretty bassy in one channel of the amp and the P-Bass pickup is run all treble with the bright switch on in the other channel, mostly just to add the percussion. Tone is adjusted by adjusting the blend of the two sounds. The head is an old Acoustic 140 and the speaker for these was a Sunn 18' folded horn. Coming from a folk music background, this stuff needed to be very clean and the reason I originally got into fretless was for the smooth slides and no fret noise, not the typical, modern buzzy fretless tone. Originally I just had the humbucker, but when we got to Elektra to record in 1972, its dull tone drove the engineers nuts, so the P-Bass pickup was added. These two samples were flat-picked.

Samples three and four are the Pedulla through my Traynor YBA200 amp. Number 3 is set for a high-mwaah tone and finger-picked. Number 4 is flat-picked with a more normal sort of tone. Samples five and six are played finger-style through the Traynor. Number five is the fretless Hofner and number six is the bass Ukulele. The Uke is actually the hardest one of the bunch to play. Aside from remembering that the scale is so short, the biggest challenges are that it is incredibly sensitive (sound and tone-wise) to which part of your fingertip you pluck the string with, and plucking is kind of a delayed action. Those soft plastic strings don't always release exactly when you had planned. If I'm going to do anything serious with it, I have to play it quite a bit for a couple of days beforehand and get the timing nailed down.

Samples are here:
http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/M ... st%203.mp3

[iamthebassman]

Got a few fretlesses; my fave is an early Steinberger L2 previously owned by the late great Dee Murray of the Elton John Band. Used on a few 80's EJ albums and tours, most notably it can be heard on the song "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues". Dee was my inspiration to take up bass back in the 70s, and it's an honor to own one of his basses.




I bought this SX a few years back just to see if fretless was for me, it's a fun bass.


And this Dean upright, also a lot of fun to play.

[Rickenhands]

Thanks Joey!

I got my first Ric in January (a new MID 4003). Having only played fretless for the prior 20 or so years, I was stoked to get a fretted again, and especially to have it be a Ric. In fact, I've been so obsessed since I got it, I've all but completely neglected my beloved 5-string custom Benavente fretless, pictured here along with my Ric:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47530497@N ... 310497099/

I got her 10 years ago straight from Chris Benavente. She's the only one of her kind. He made another of the same body style, but it was a 4-string fretted. She served me very well. After learning of this forum (thanks again, Joey), I was inspired to break her out again. It was loads of fun to play after being used to my Ric. I really like the change, and I'll go back and forth more often now. Here's a video of me playing my bass a few years ago, so you can get an idea of its sound:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ultratone

Awesome stuff, folks. Long live fretless basses and their players!!!