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fretless Stingray 2EQ FTT Silky Comp VCA type Wounded Paw very light overdrive joy to the world

My purchase for next year will be a fretless 5 I practice quite a bit on fretless , lots of slow - mid tempo walking

There's some really interesting tonal interactions you can get with a combination of a fretless, a compressor and some overdrive - with the right balance, you get a tone that is creamy and warm, but cuts through everything and sits perfectly in a mix without overwhelming everything else. You're playing the effects as much as you're playing the bass at that point, but it's worth it.

Screw holes now countersunk!

Thank you everyone for your help. Especially I enjoyed Phil Starr's explanation of speaker development and it has taken me a long way towards understanding why they sounded as they did. One of the advantages, Phil, of being 73 is that I saw Free at the IOW in 69 and they were brilliant. I also owned a Marshall 50 watt in the late 70's, then traded it for a solid state, but I wish I still had it. My stage tone comes from overdriving the valve pre-amp a little, using the dirty switch on the amp, only using the bridge pickup (often turned to full treble) and playing with my fingers right up near the bridge, which as you know is hard work. I always ask for my cab to be mic'd, rather than DI, and I get a reasonably close sound to Andy Fraser, but it's still not clear enough and tends towards too much bass. I wonder if my bareface super compact could be some of the cause. One of their cabs can fill a whole venue by being multi-directional, and maybe this brings the room acoustics into the equation more. To be honest I am not very technical but I am grateful for any opinions. Pic is me in 69 in my first band. Back row, left.

Played my fretless last night at an acoustic jam in our village. I had to feel my way through a few unfamiliar tunes, but it felt great and blended very well. I enjoy having three options..passive p/j with rounds, active soap bar with flats, and the fretless. I believe these cover all situations I’m likely to experience.

I now find 4 strings weird.I skip over them in the classified ads for sale like you wouldn't believe. In fact I wish could filter them out of the search listings 😄

real gone kid - Deacon Blue

Real Eyes, Realize, Real Lies - Machine Head

Sold mine last year, if only it had the neck profile of the status, for me the nut was too narrow (38mm from memory) I read that Ned asked Stanley Clarke for advice on the neck to which he advised a narrow nut and deep front to back, neither to my tastes🤷‍♂️

There’s never a good time to admit that!!

Iron Lion Zion - Bob Marley

Three and a half years break from playing it for me (other than the odd noodle at home). It really has made me appreciate it more. Spurred on by my use of the fretless at the last rehearsal and gig, I carried out a comparison experiment that you can’t achieve under normal gig/rehearsal conditions, just to check if it wasn’t just the different feel and tone of the instrument that was making me feel so good about it (emperor’s new clothes and all that). I copied an old live recording I had from about 10 years ago into GarageBand, sucked out all the bass frequencies and recorded 4 new bass lines, using different basses, both clean and driven. I was surprised by the results. Not only did the fretless sound better in the mix than the fretted bass, both clean and driven, but the driven, fretless tone was the out and out winner.