Beedster

[quote name='goonieman' timestamp='1438204577' post='2832592'] ...and here is the first! I prefer flatwounds on a fretless because I am into the 'Graceland' tones, but also really enjoy the super-fast feel of gliding around the fretboard without strings noise. I use d'addario chromes at the moment - the 'custom' set, AKA balanced tension. I also find that the 'mwah' from flatwounds is much more even and bloomy - you just have to lower the action. [/quote] +1 to all the above, to my ear flats also get rid of some of the nasal-ness without loosing the essential fretless vibe.

That guy's certainly having a bad day. Either way, I hope someone can identify the shop to enable me - and I'm guessing a few others on here - to avoid it like the plague, and with any luck to ensure that whichever member of staff filmed and uploaded this gets fired. May have been filmed by a customer of course, but something makes me think not. C

Have to say that in the early days when first playing and gigging fretless with the band, I found intonation a whole lot easier when I switched to heavier strings. In intonation terms these were simply more forgiving than lighter gauges and allowed me to develop the confidence to gig fretless. I'm guessing that heavier gauges are simply more stable and less responsive to being pulled. On that basis you only have end-to-end tuning issues to deal with as opposed to end-to-end and side to side issues. I still don't like light strings on fretless instruments.

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1434984326' post='2804405'] You have to play with your ears and not your eyes. [/quote] Eyes can be helpful, something I learned from my early days playing DB live - especially when with poor monitoring - was to use a chromatic tuner and check whenever necessary the agreement between what I think my ears are hearing (in tune/not in tune) and a reliable measure of pitch.

[quote name='ezbass' timestamp='1434917540' post='2803870'] Try as many things as you can and dispose of what doesn't work for you, that way you'll sound like you and not a clone of, whoever. Today I was using a pick with my fretless and was loving the sound. I may do it some more on other songs. There are no rules as such, just music. The modern bass guitar is only around 65 years old, so who is to say what's right and what's wrong? [/quote] Agreed, to my ear medium-heavy flats, played with a pick on a fretless Ric or Precision is a to-die-for tone. Probably true for a Jazz also I just haven't tried it yet.

[quote name='Hellzero' timestamp='1434908424' post='2803764'] I think that when anyone writes "do it your way without bothering if you're doing it correctly", does he remember that all these artists have studied (not learned, it's not the same) music, even when they say exactly the opposite ? [/quote] OK, you tell me what is 'correctly' and if I agree I'll agree with whatever else you say.....? The point is, there's no such thing as 'correctly'. The OP cites Jaco. Jaco wasn't doing it 'correctly' when he hit the scene in the late 60's, not by the then EB standards anyway. No-one above has said don't study or learn, but a few people have suggested that there are no 'fretless bass rules' as such, so study what you choose to study and learn what you choose to learn is good advice, whilst 'don't use slides' etc is just rhetoric.

[quote name='Hellzero' timestamp='1434884627' post='2803530'] By the way, I was kidding when I wrote that Beedster was right : Have you ever tried writing and reading without knowing the basic principles ? [/quote] The basic principles in question are those of music; tone, melody, harmony and rhythm. You're perhaps confusing rules of communicating a language - in your example reading and writing - with the aptitude for language itself. Language is analogous to sonic expression, and language is a phenomenon for which humans posses well developed/evolved processes that are independent of their ability to read or write them. [quote name='zawinul' timestamp='1434892736' post='2803609'] don;t listen to people who tell you what to do. From Percy Jones himself: ' [color=#555555]If you feel that a fretless bass is the best instrument for you to express yourself on then get stuck in and work hard with it. Strive to get your own “voice” out via the instrument and learn to differentiate between positive and negative criticism" [/color] [font=palatino linotype, palatino, serif][color=#555555]There are a lot of fretless players around and a lot of them sound the same, a kind of dull sound, lots of vibrato... blah blah....[/color][/font] [color=#555555]Theres a hell of a lot you can do with a fretless, as i'm finding out, but I would would say try and avoid that cliche sound, explore what it can do [/color] [color=#555555]Percy Jones and Mick Karn used slides all the time, harmonics, etc .... no rules[/color] [/quote] Exactly

The best advice I can give is to ignore what others say and follow your nose. Some people play a fretless in just the same way as they play a fretted, others consistently do things on a fretless that are impossible on a fretted, most stick somewhere in the middle. Not using slides too much? Well I'm not sure, if it's right for the music, do it, if it's not, don't. Been listening to Graceland today and the fretless on those tracks contain just about every cliche in the fretless book (plus some innovation for sure), but they're perfect for the songs and in many respects definitive lines. Personally, I really really really don't like chorus on fretless, but my not liking it and my suggesting you don't do it are - and should be - two different things. I guess the trick is to do what sounds and feels good to you. My fretless playing is pretty agricultural - often out of tune to be honest, and often a little too obvious (I used to play cello and often still think like a cellist) - but I like it, the musos I play with like it, and judging from the response I get at gigs, audiences are OK with it. I don't try to sound or play like anyone else or follow any rules other than my own, and I doubt I sound like anyone else.

[quote name='MacDaddy' timestamp='1434199242' post='2797551'] Voice of decent here. My old PJB M500 out-Ampeged Ampegs. Utter valve tone, not valve 'like' from MOSFETS. Not light though [/quote] Really? I used to gig both an M500 and a V4B at around the same time in my 'career' (I use the term loosely), and I certainly wouldn't say the former did or could Ampeg the latter. In fact to my mind it's chalk and cheese, both are high quality, but neither can do what the other excels at.

Feel you pain mate. Also worth noting that even if the PUP does sound like your bass only louder, and even if the soundguy gets it EQ'd right without feedback, and even if the PA is up to it, the majority of audiences won't hear any difference between piezo and mag. With DB, there's far more to what an audience hears than the quality of the tone anyway, a lot of it is what is played and how it is played as opposed to how it actually sounds.

[quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1434155691' post='2797279'] Yep you can get near, and the nearest I`ve been was with the Tech 21 VT DI, quite near with my Aguilar Tonehammer, but it`s still not the same. The sound is there, but the feel, and that "sag" you get with a valve amp just isn`t there. But for me, with a bad back, I`ll take near any day. [/quote] We all have our own words for it, you've used "sag", others use "heft", I use "grunt", but the essence of all the words is the same, it's something that all tube amps give that others don't. And key to it is feel and not sound, and probably more for the player than the audience, but it still makes a difference and to me simply makes playing so much more pleasurable. Re hybrids, having owned a SVT300 power amp a while back, I much prefer an SS preamp through a tube power amp than vice versa, although obviously this negates the weight and cost advantage that I'd guess is the essence of the tube preamp/SS power amp combination. End of the day though, tube pre + tube power = tone

[quote name='jimi_1985' timestamp='1434128278' post='2797035'] My situation now is GK + VT pedal or all out move to Ampeg? And if so, which amp? [/quote] Any amp as long as it is all tube, don't believe what some people say about SS gear getting 'close enough'. Close enough if you're half deaf and don;t care about your sound yes, but not close enough for me. I have a B-15 and a V4-B. Neither are rated above 100w, both can humble most guitarists and most drummers, and both sound superb. The VT Bass might sound a bit like some of the Ampegs, but it doesn't feel like any of them. [quote name='skidder652003' timestamp='1434128839' post='2797044'] there can be only one..... [/quote] Exactly. I think