AUdIoCoUrSeS
Joined: 31 Oct 2002
Posts: 2014
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| Fretless Bass |
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Any fretless bass users around?
Jaco Pastorius
was one of the most well known fretless bass players?
What are the main technical differences in terms of playing style between fretless and fretted?
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Thu Jul 21, 2005 8:32 am |
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jsnyder
Joined: 12 Oct 2005
Posts: 1
Location: Mendocino County, California |
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The biggest difference is that fretless playing is based much more on touch sensitivity, like playing an upright bass, but to a lesser degree.
Playing an upright bass is all about muscle memory and the sensitivity between your fingertips and ears. An upright player (a properly trained on, that is) can play in complete darkness because it's all about touch, not sight. Fretless electric is much the same. Since the electric is obviously smaller and powered by electronics, the touch sensitivity is lessened to a degree from the upright.
Some fretless bass guitars suck because they don't have good resonance in the body and sound kind of wussy. A good quality body helps the vibrations move from the strings, back through the body and back to the fingertips, which is very important. I play an Alembic fretless that has and ebony fingerboard, like an upright. It resonates beautifully and helps the intonation.
Since intonation is not a factor in fretted bass, it becomes more of a percussion instrument. You can produce more punch and pop in a fretted because of the metal-on-metal. Fretless gives you the variable of intonation, which produces more metal-on-wood sound (which is why the wood material is important) and you get more subtleties of tone.
That's my take on it, anyway.
Jim |
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Tue May 23, 2006 5:41 pm |
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