I don't know much about bass eventhough I do play like 30 mins./week at school or so on an Ibanez R Bass (I think,) but anyways, what's the difference between a freted and non-freted (eventhough non-freted basses still have the fret positions or whatever) bass? I know it's a stupid question, but we all gotta learn at one point right?

freted basses basically have the metal bars that mark the frets, so it is easier to play clean notes. Fretless have painted on bars instead of metal bars, so there is softer sound and the transitions sound smoother, but it's harder to play and is more expensive.

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uhm, not all fretless basses have lines on the frets, some are unlined, that looks cool. Fretless basses have an all diffrent playing style, you'll need to "push" harder to get the same sound, its pretty difficult to play actually. just go out and try a fretless, also those fretless basses sound really diffrent.
I think somebody invented them for jazz or something, I don't like the sound.

unlined? hmm never actually seen those.. seems kinda pointless - what's the point of not marking them? only makes it a bitch to play

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Yeah, those statements are right...

And fretless bass is only sounds good in acoustic, the electric fretless is a waste of money.

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I know.. but it does look cool

Oh, I knew about no point and stuff, but I thought there was something else involved, with like the whole guitar. But if they don't line it, that would be a bitch to play. I had no intention to try one out, thanks for all the help.

well.
the secret is, they line the top of the neck, not the fretboard, so if your playing it you can still see what frets you are playing. though you can not see it on the fretboard!
anyways, unlined fretless basses look pretty cool, but indeed, they are a bitch to play even with lines..

You can get a wicked sound out of fretless basses, if you try. Sure they're a bitch to play at first, but once you've played fretted long enough, and trained yourself not to have to watch your hands while you play it's simple. It's like learning to type on a keyboard.

Some Pros to fretless : smooth pitch changes and slides, none of that annoying fret-rattle, and (to other players) you look a bit more professional. Also, it depends on how the action is set on how hard you're gonna have to press to get notes out, it's NOT how all fretless basses are.

Some cons : It takes quite a bit of practice memorize the fretboard, around where I live you pretty much have to special-order fretless basses or pay to have them removed. And (obviously) fretless basses aren't beginner basses.

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there's probably markes on the side of the neck, just a little dot or something

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some people aren't listening to a damn thing I say

The fretless bass was made for Jazz and Fusion and someother shit too, Ive seen like Latino Pop stars use them too. And in response to the comment about how to know where the different frets are, they are almost all marked with the fret markers on the side of the bass. I think they're ok, but they'er pretty damn hard to play, It takes a little bit of practice.

The point is to get all the sounds that come between each normal fret. They actually aren't hard to play once you become a confident bass player. I personally really like them. You realize when your playing that you actually don't use the frets alot to find your fingering (hu...huhu fingering). It sounds really great when you slide like from an open E to where the 12th fret would be. I want one, but the only one I played and liked is a warwick which is $700 (but that's cheap for a warwick). I think it would sound good to have a fretless bass in some metal bands.

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I know basses without any markers and the dots are in the middle of the fret. Thanks to those designers!!!!!!
And i like the sound. You can do so funny things with that. A real cool bass would be one with a fretless fetboard up to the bridge.
But what about violin-players and so they don´t even have any markers and the fretboard is so short, so they change whole notes just turning their fingers around. That´s hard!!!
Has anyone tried to put the frets out of a fretted bass. Perhaps i wnna do so. But first i wanna know how it sounds. Sure after putting out i will fill the gaps with anything. I hope someone can help me with this.

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taking out the metal bars will probably be helluva expensive and not too good on the fretboard. Most bars go inside the fretboard and are glued into place(or just put real tight in there). So you'll have to remove all the bars, the clean em up, then fill the little gaps where the sit... ain't worth it. And a fretless warwick for $700?! Gimme gimme gimme!

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Getting your guitar unfretted might cost you $500-$1000 depending on your guitar and the store. So if it's between $500-$700 I recommend you save up and get a Warwick, if it's over, just get the damned Warwick. Warwick's are helluva cool, I seen some guy play one the other day, sounded so smooth, especially when he switched to a fretless one.

Ok i went into 'street' its a little town near to where i live, and i was walking up the high street as i passed the local 'guitar shop' , and a really nice woodstain fretless bass caught my eye..i was looking at it for quite a while, (people must of been walking past me i thought what the heck i was doing) but i really wanted to play on it, and im thinking of getting it, but ive been playing a fretted 4 string for..about 9 months now, and this one doesent have lines..would it be weird for me?..should i get it, does anyone here own a fretless? (electric fretless) tell me why you bought it and was it hard to cope with, if you were playing a fretted bass for 'yay' long..

cheers!

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I played contra and fretless, I don't think it would be a wise desiscion to buy a fretless bass, one, it's gonna be hard to play without lines, especially i've you only been playing bass for 9 months, two, the fretless bass bas has a completely diffrent sound, I don't think I would ever want to use a fretless for metal...

I think it would be easier to play on a 5 string then a fretless 4 string..

ok cheers def-fx, i guess i wont get one..plus i prefer freted basses.

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so do I.

fretless basses are nice but I can't use them a lot for the music I'm in, it's cool to own one on the side though.

..are they any good for slapping?

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yes they are, but they have a diffrent slap sound, not completely diffrent but it just sounds more 'tight' but with less 'punch' added to it, I think it sounds a bit dull, but they slap just as good as any ordinairy bass. though I'm not a real slapper so I don't really care that much.

slapping is fun!

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Take a hybrid thing, instead.

Like this one. It's not modified. You can buy it with this fretboard.

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haha, that's weird, never played on one of those things!

dude that things only got like 7-9 frets...haha

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Wooo!!! A genius in maths. You can count.
It' got 9 frets, then the thickness of the fretboard increases, so that you can play well all across the fretboard. This fucking bass costs 3990€!!!

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hehe, it's a pretty fucking stupid bass anyway

for that ammount of money I would buy a david eden amp

I can't imagine anyone'll buy it.

I'd go for the EDEN-amp, too.

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ok this guy is attempting to make his own fretless this is what it looks before..

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And here he is taking the frets off, this is what he says:



'The frets are removed by heating them up with a soldering iron and a small bit of solder for better heat transference. This will break any glue bonds that may be holding the frets in place'

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and heres the picture of him finishing his fretless off..a job well done


here's what he says:


'Great care must be taken not to remove chunks of fingerboard from the fret slots.

Please don't try this at 3:00 AM Saturday morning after you've returned home from a gig that you wished you had a fretless. We've seen that.'

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That guy is crazy.
How could he do this???
It seem sto be a quite expensive bass. If he could afford this one it's no problem to buy a good fretless.
He's definetly crazy. How could he put a fucked uo smilie on such a wonderful natural-wood-top!?!?!?!?!

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Yeah I don't like that guy. He should have done that to a Peavey.

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damn, you guys are right, that bass has bartolini pickups and a nice body, the fucking smilie sucks but making it fretless is even dumber.

making a bass fretless is difficult, and it can fuckup the neck and the sound really badly.

if you want a fretless bass, don't convert it, or let it be converted by a guitar custom shop or something.
you'de better just buy a fretless then fuck a good bass up.

did you know jaco pastorius did make his bass fretless himself? haha, pretty silly, the fender relic of that guy is fucking expensive and he just fucked a normal fender up a bit.

I don't think there were many fretless-basses around when Pastorious did that. So he had no choice. And Fender loves him for that, because now they can sell fucked up basses for fucked up prices.
Pastorious refilled the gaps of the frets with finish (or is it laque? ) for boats. This had to be a very different tone of the original: 1. without frets 2. different tone because of tons of boat-finish.

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yeah, that's right! boat finish haha, pretty weird huh.

I don't like fender at all, they make heavy basses with an overall crappy sound, only the extremely expensive signature jazz basses are okay, but it's nothing special if you ask me, I'de rather have a musicman if I would buy a classic bass..

hehe, yeah crazy guy..what does smilie mean?

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I'm not crazy.
If you mean me??? No, i'm not paranoid.

It's the stiker on his bass. It's what you see on the left, if you reply. It's thei :d and this and this and so on.

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Ahh smilie..cool, its damn nice bass why put stickers on it.


No i wasnt saying youre crazy...(but you are)..haha, no the guys crazy

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hehe yeah, germans are pretty weird man!

ghe

but don't worry about metalpoldi, he only wears bra's and g-strings, for a german, he's pretty normal

but Pastorius, he rocks, but his signature model bass sucks ass

You forgot my lingerie. And my penis-piercings and that i fuck dogs.
Yes, i'm a quite normal German.
But it's impossible to live in another way, if your "neighbor-country" is the Netherlands.
You have to live that way to protect yourself from these cocaine-from-the-street-licking, wood-shoes-wearing, in-fact-under-the-water-living piss-brewers.
If you wear those clothes, just a few Dutch people come across the border to infiltrate the country. and consume good beer.

Back to the thread

I hate fretless basses, where the dots on the side of the fretboard are in the middle of the fret.
You think you play the right way and the you notice, that you play horrible crap.

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hahahhaa silly german

well, yeah those dots are annoying, I like the lines on the top better (so the fretboard is clean but on top there are stripes, it's more easy to play and it looks cool cuz you've got an all wood fretboard without lines.!)

Hey guys,
Im new to this forum and was looking up stuff on fretless conversions, and stumbled onto this place but it seemed cool so I signed up

yeah I am one of those "crazy" guys that is going to convert a fretted to fretless. Im going to be converting a Fender Highway 1 Jazz. (Basically same as American, but built outside US and bridge is not through-body).
I have an old guitar I practice on. So I have the fret removal down now. Im gonna do the finishing on it b4 starting on the Jazz.

I love the sound of fretless and they TOTALLY work in metal. No joke. It sounds uber cool. But you need active electronics or else it'll sound too jazzy.

Anyway, Ill probably end up takin pics of the process when I start it and make a web-page. Ill post the link when its all done.

Later

Does anyone know what bands use fretless basses? I know the bassist for Death on the Individual Tought Patterns album used a fretless.

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Sadus... Primus... and Jaco Pastorius... cant think of any else..

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cool i didnt know primus played fretless.

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yeah sometimes, in my name is mud he uses it, and tommy the cat, but sometimes he uses a 6 string fretless and sometimes a 4 string fretted

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steve is the reason why i like fretless so much, i wish more bassists could play like that around here...

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Yeah sadus are really good, he definetely does a lot of bass work.. not just typical bollocks metal bassing.. he actually does fills..

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A fretless bass is the next best thing to impossible to play for me...I perfer a fretted bass...

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Fretless's are nice, once you've heard Jaco Pastorius and learnt some of his stuff on a fretted bass, you get a real big craving to get a Fretless and play the stuff youve learned. I still havent got a fretless, i think i might get one, but if i do it wont be any old fretless, i'll get Jaco's fender product. (IMO its the only fretless that looks nice beside a fretless warwick thumb)

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I don't know if anyone cares or if it counts, but Opeth has used fretless basses on at least some tracks. I think it's mainly (or only perhaps?) in the mellow parts though. A good example of where it shows would be Advent, from the Morningrise album, from 03:32 to 03:48 and then the same riff again a few times.

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Def, Jaco invented the fretless. (incase you didnt know by now )

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