Lo-E

Sometime in late 1989 or early 1990 I had a bass teacher who had just bought an SWR Redhead combo. It was the first time I had ever heard of SWR and I just LOVED it. Shortly afterwards I found a used Studio 220 and found that, while I really liked the tone, it was underpowered and not nearly punchy enough for a rock context. I traded up for some Ampeg gear and then moved through lots of other things over the years. About 3 or 4 years ago I was visiting a local guitar shop and saw a Groove Tubes preamp. The GT preamp was nothing more than a preamp version of the Studio 220, manufactured by SWR whose factory was right across the street from Groove Tubes! Paired with a 1,000W power amp I finally, after 25 years, had the tone of my Studio 220 along with enough power to complete with a loud drummer! It didn’t replace my other gear but it’s a great option to have along with my more aggressive sounding amps. Congratulations on your new/old SWR preamp! I hope it turns out to be as much fun for you as mine has for me!

With a single plywood top I strongly recommend skinning it with a layer of 1/4” (or 6mm) finish plywood, masonite or hardboard. Screw it down but don’t glue it. Any time the top gets chewed up you can quickly and easily replace the top layer, preserving the main top. Another option is to double up the main top with a second layer of 3/4” plywood that stops a few inches shy of the back of the bench. This will create a shallow tool tray along the back and you can then cover the added top with 1/4” plywood as I mentioned above.

I don’t have any multi-scale instruments but I think it’s a great idea. Those that I’ve tried required almost no adjustment on my part and felt really natural to play. I’m not so sure I see it as a solution to a problem, per se, as much as I see it as just another approach to design.

I’m not sure what their productions entail in other cities but the original production in NYC is comprised of the Blue Men (all accomplished percussionists) and a backing trio of multi-instrumentalists playing trap kit, keys, guitar and Chapman Stick. Both the cast members and band members rotate between the various productions to keep the chemistry between them fresh and keep it from getting too repetitive and boring. They all seem to genuinely enjoy it. I’m not sure if the original three Blue Men are performing the show at all anymore.

Wow, that bass is SO made in U.S.A. They wrote it twice!!

My experience with Boomers was that they felt and sounded very similar to D’Addario XLs but they lasted less than 1/2 as long. Boomers were my first strings and I really liked them at the time but my personal opinion is that D’Addario made a similar string in the XL and did a better job of it. Of course, some people swear by Boomers so I can only speak from my own experience.

My 1979 Ibanez Studio ST-924 was a lucky find. I bought it from a friend from school when I was 18 or 19 for $100. It was a really well made, professional instrument and I, not knowing any better, lucked into it. It was a great instrument to learn on. Unlike a lot of instruments that passed through my life in various ways, that one remains safe at home. I don’t gig with it anymore because it weighs as much as a Land Rover but I still practice with it a lot. I still love the neck. Some years ago I found another for sale locally and bought it. They’re fairly uncommon and, at some point, I’ll make one fretless.

A fresh setup is a wonderful thing! Just this afternoon I threw three of my basses on the workbench for fresh strings and setups. One of them surprised me with a cracked nut, making the job a little bigger than expected, but all three are now happy and playing like champs. I tend to let strings get pretty dead so my basses usually end up going longer than they should between setups. I have a couple more slated for tomorrow if I have time.

One of my Jazzes (a Noel Redding model) wears TI Jazz Flats at all times and I use it for R&B stuff or when I’m looking for a ’60s rock sound. My other Jazzes are used for a variety of rock and pop and they wear nickel roundwounds. I’ve changed brands a few times over the years but settled on D’Addario XLs a few years ago and they’re working for me; inexpensive, bright, they feel nice and they last a long time. Sometimes I’ll use DR Sunbeams on the active fretless for a warmer sound but not always.

Wow…. Some really great stuff already mentioned but I’ll add a few: Joe Jackson’s first three albums for Graham Maby’s playing Elvis Costello’s Attractions albums for Bruce Thomas (also BT’s playing on Suzanne Vega’s 99.9F Degrees) Robyn Hitchcock’s albums with Andy Metcalfe and Matthew Seligman Brian Eno’s Another Green World and Before And After Science for Percy Jones (PJ was a big influence on me) All of Peter Gabriel’s albums for Tony Levin Steel Pulse’s albums with Ronald “Stepper” McQueen The Selecter for Charlie Anderson Joni Mitchell Hijiera for Jaco The Band’s first two albums (I really love Rick Danko’s playing on these) REM’s first four records for Mike Mills’ wonderful melodicism I could do this all day!! And I haven’t even touched on my favorite jazz upright albums!

Looks to be solving a problem that doesn’t exist.

I ended up with one of the Czech NS CR basses and I really enjoy playing it…. but it sounds more like a fretless electric than it does a URB, I’m afraid. I’d still recommend it, though. It’s great fun to play!

At the risk of sounding defeatist, I gave that quest up years ago. IMO there are just too many differences in how upright basses and electric basses produce a note to get a URB sound from an electric. Making a new nut out of the same wood as the fingerboard helps a little bit on open notes. Piezo bridge transducers help a little bit, too but, at the end of the day, they’re two different animals. Playing with the right hand over the top of the fingerboard and sweeping the fingers toward the bridge like you would on an upright also helps. As far as strings go, I’ve gotten in the ballpark with flexible flats (in my case TI or light gauge Ernie Ball Series) or nylon tapes but I’ve never gotten a really convincing URB sound. Not to my ears, anyway. Eventually I just settled on a sound that was “upright-ish” and called it a day. When I really, really need to sound like an URB, I just play an URB. That’s probably not the answer you were hoping for, but it’s the best answer I can offer.

It’s very, very seldom that I use effects. I don’t even use the amp’s onboard compression, typically. If a specific song calls for an effect I’m happy to use it but I’m plugged straight into the amp about 99% of the time.

That makes perfect sense. As long as you're aware of where the note actually is, how you get there is up to you. I finger the string almost directly above the note, personally, but that's developed over many years of playing fretless and it happens to work well for the shape of my fingers, the sound I'm after and my vibrato.

I agree with everything Hellzero just said. One thing I feel is worth pointing out is that, if I’m reading your OP correctly, you should not be playing just behind the dots. You should be playing exactly on the dots. Fretless is unlike a fretted bass in that regard. On a fretted bass we play just behind the fret in order to get a clean note but there are no frets to create problems on a fretless and the spot on the fingerboard where the fret would be is where you find the note, not just behind it. If your bass doesn’t play in tune directly on the dots you will need to have the intonation adjusted so that it does. Some people will argue that it’s unnecessary to set the intonation on a fretless bass but that is completely untrue.

The DiMarzio pickups would be quite similar to the originals. The original preamps were pretty advanced for their time but most have gotten noisy over the years. Any modern, bypassable preamp would likely be a step up and would still allow you to play in passive mode. As for the finish, maybe you could drop fill the chip that bothers your arm and leave the rest alone?

Rotosound has been making tape wound strings for as long as I can remember. I think Fender has offered them for a long time as well. Tapes are pretty unique as far as strings go, offering minimal sustain and deep thud but also some top-end detail. In conjunction with a pick, Graham Maby used them to great effect on Joe Jackson’s first two albums. I think he used LaBellas but I wouldn’t swear to it. In my attempts to use them in the past I never really got along with them but now that we’re discussing them it might be time to give them another try. My tastes continue to evolve so they might be just the ticket for me now.

I need to find the strings with a packet that says: Please note; Given the near indestructibility of these strings, any half drunk, ham-fisted baboon could install them without incident. Just put them on your bass. Everything’s going to be okay.

If I’m not mistaken, Landscape is a side project of one of the luthiers working at Atelier Z so it would make perfect sense for the instruments to have attributes in common. I can’t swear by that connection but I believe I remember reading that when I got my Landscape ABG.

Youtube has definitely gotten me out of a jam or two but most of what you'll need to build this skill is experience. It's only after 35 years of setting up instruments that I've gotten as comfortable with the process as I am. While it doesn't offer the immediate satisfaction of Youtube videos, I strongly recommend Hideo Kamimoto's book Electric Guitar Setups as a good place to start. He wrote that book at a time when no other resource like it existed and I think it still holds up well. I've learned a lot since I last read it, but everything I've learned was built upon the foundation it provided.