Dom in Dorset

I play with a drummer who has also played with Nick Turner's Space Ritual - that puts me on the extreme outer edge of the Hawkwind family tree. sort of.

I don't know if this is true or not but a friend of mine recently told me that a lot of fretless basses have the pick ups set very low, far bellow the strings "flush with the body"
My bass has a piezo bridge pick up so I can't be sure. Might be worth a try.

I've been playing fretless for a few months now. For my first fretless I used a de-fretted rosewood board and filled the gaps with blackwood dust and glue, faint lines to encourage myself to learn to play without looking. I'm getting on well with it and played a good gig in a dark venue where I couldn't see the lines at all.
I'll be useing the same pick ups and bridges for both necks initialy so I could swap the necks if I'm not happy but I'd rather not nacker the strings by faffing about with them too much.
I'm selling a few things to raise funds and will start work ASAP, I will be posting stuff on the build diary when I have something to show.

I'm planning to build a twin neck, fretted/fretless.
I've made most of the decisions and one question remains...
Which neck on top, which neck at the bottom?
I like to play fretted with my right hand flopped over the back end of the bass Entwistle style, so fretted at the top?
Is it more important to have the fretless at the top for greater ease of control?
Before you say "why have twin neck, wouldn't it be easier to use two basses?" - It's not about practicality, I like prog rock and think that twin necks are cool.

Bowie's "Star Man"
you can see people's faces during the intro and first verse looking puzzled -they know this song but what is it?
When the chorus comes in that look changes to "Oh wow! It's that one!" if they are p1ssed enough they all join in on the nah nah nah bit.
It's a bitch to play and requires the vocal range of a god.

[quote name='redzombie' post='701227' date='Jan 5 2010, 06:43 AM']I want to write and record an album and play everything on it, as well as sing. Might get one or two friends to "guest" on guitar or vocals here and there, just so it does sound too samey.

That's all I really want to do, nothing else really interests me anymore musically. I've turned into a right self-centered bastard.[/quote]
And I thlought I was the only one!

[quote name='Mykesbass' post='700411' date='Jan 4 2010, 01:22 PM']Get the new three piece out gigging.
Learn how to do some really basic BV's whilst playing - any tips out there?[/quote]
I do backing and ocasional lead vocals and I find that I can only do it when I know the words and bass line off by heart. The slightest chink in the armour and things start to go wrong. Practice- a lot and don't be ashamed to simplify the bass part in order to be able to sing at the same time.

[quote name='thunderbird13' post='700338' date='Jan 4 2010, 11:58 AM']Now that is something that I would love to do ! - if you get round to it please do a build diary[/quote]
I'm on a budget and I'm buying in the necks so I'll be starting as soon as I've got enought for them (I think I'm £40 off at the moment, shouldn't be too long)

write and record demos fro a solo project that I've wanted to do for years.
build a twin neck bass
get better on fretless
play some more gigs

Talking of laklands:

Beatiful in the same way that a Tbird isn't.

[url="http://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/products/2458-rotosound_jazz_bass_flatwound_high_c"]http://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/products/24...latwound_high_c[/url]

Even if you could get classical guitar strings long enough they won't work on an electric bass, the black nylon bass strings (picato etc) are steel strings with a black nylon coating.

My next home build project is a twin neck fretless/fretted and I'm going for wizard pick ups. I've heard great things about them, the prices look good and they are British (Welsh) made - you can't say that about many things these days!
I'm leaning towards their P bass pick ups, it'll work out slightly cheaper for my project and I'm after big fat tones.
The last time I checkked them out they were doing about three types of Jazz pick ups.

What bass do you think just looks good? You don't have to own one, or have even tried one. You don't have to like the way it plays or sounds.
I'm a T bird fan so you'd expect me to go for something a bit weird but here's my choice:

And the end view:

I just love the simplicity of the design, the jazz bass has a beautiful body but coupled with the black headstock....
It may not have the contoured body of the usual Jazz but there is something about that shape.

I think my biggest concern re: MIM is quality control.
While I'm sure there are some great MIM basses, I've seen and heard of some that weren't (mostly neck issues). Ibanez on the other hand seem to have a better record for consistency IMO.
If you get to try the bass in person and you like the MIM then all's well, if you are buying "blind" by mail order then I think Ibanez are a better bet.

I like a drink, but if I'm being payed to play music I'm not being payed to get wasted (if such a job is ever advertised I will be applying)
I don't make a big deal of it with other band members , it's up to them. My brain needs all the help it can get.
Having said that the last gig a played was walking distance from my house and the only drink on sale was mulled apple juice.!

"Musicians who don't seem to be alcoholics"- that's a good sign, I got so sick of being in bads that were tight in rehursal and sh1t live due to the presence of a bar. Personally I adopted a "don't go over the drink drive limit before or during a gig" rule and 9/10 don't drink at all until the gig is over these days.

In theory the P/J pick up combo sounds like a great idea.
I've tried two, a pretty limited sample and I'm interested to hear other peoples opinions.
Dean active - the weadiest output , I had to double check that it was active, checked the battery (new).
Stagg fusion bass- not great either, but then it's a £150 bass.
Niether seemed to have much oomph or useable range of tones.
Both were blown away by a second hand Encore P bass
My impression is that (to sort of quote the Mighty Boosh) "elements of the P bass coming together with elements of the Jazz to create something not quite as good as either"
Or were they just bad examples?

I've not tried either but I've been impressed with all things Ibanez and not impressed with all things Mexican.
I'm not sure if the Ibanez is going to be the sort of tone you are describing.
I'd go for a quality (IMO passive) Jazz style bass (or anything with jazz pick ups) or I know it's cheaper than you were planning but Squire Jazz basses seem to be well respected.

It looks like the G string is falling off the side of the neck!
I'd have said that the pick ups aren't original but the neck one does look like it's always been there.
One of the best basses I ever had was a tatty no-name jazz.

[quote name='crez5150' post='689654' date='Dec 20 2009, 12:14 PM']Or just don't look at your hands ;0)[/quote]
I had tried not to but I think that it's hard to avoid it until you are forced to.

I made myself an acoustic fretless about three months ago and I've been taking it along with my fretted to rehursals since then. I've been using it on about 50% of the songs, either due to confidence , required sound or I prefer fretted if I'm singing.
A few weeks back I was asked to join a second band replacing an upright player. I jumped at the chance to get some extra time on the fretless only taking that one to rehursals.
We did our first gig last night and to my horror I noticed that under dim stage lighting the black lines where the frets used to be on the dark brown board become invisible! I had good on stage sound and I'd learned the set inside out so It didn't turn out to be a problem, but it was unsettling for a moment.
A word of advice: if you are about to play your first gig on fretless make sure that you run through the set in a dark room!

The only problem that I can think of is that you may find that you are little too quiet and mellow when played unplugged.
If you're using the bass plugged in then it's probably fine , I've got black nylon flats on my acoustic fretless, unplugged- dull and quiet, plugged -cavernous.

[quote name='TRadford' post='687654' date='Dec 17 2009, 07:32 PM'][url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=70931"]£30 collected, not far from you.[/url][/quote]
"Not bad at all & AMAZING value for money." -popped up in the next post.
Only idle curiosity on my part, i'll not be snapping it up.