Fretless virgin

[DarkHeart]

Ok this is probably a pointless thread but as the title says im a fretless virgin, what are the best tips to success for someone who has always had frets to rely on? I will eventually get pics of the gorgeous fretless jazz ive just built when the person (not from here i hope) that ive bought the control panel off, gets his finger out of his arse!

[pietruszka]

I can strongly suggest playing your fretless blind. If you can do that, then playing fretless will only be a small step! Spread your fingers a little more than you think, and don't over do the vibrato!
Go fretless, you won't ever regret it!



Dan

[lowdowner]

[indent=1]You'll get used to 'finding' the notes on a fretless but the best advice I had from my teacher is to think about what a fretless does that a fretted can't and take advantage of it - otherwise you might as well have a fretted. For example, you can 'slide' into notes, have a real vibrato from very slight to great big 'sweeps'. harmonics sound very different... in all, experiment with the unique sounds you can get from it rather than thinking of it as a fretted guitar with the frets removed (if you know what I mean)[/indent]

[lowdowner]

Oh, and in the second octave the notes are very, very, tightly packed - it sounds obvious, but it takes a while to get used to!

Fretless will improve your 'ear' like nothing else

[BassBus]

Practice on fretted so you can play fretless better. Apparently someone called Jaco did that.

If you can play a fretted without any fret buzz then you'll be bang on with your intonation on fretless.

Listen to all the great fretless players, Willis, Mick Karn, Bilbo. They all know/knew what they were doing.

[SpaceChick]

[quote name='lowdowner' timestamp='1379703236' post='2216014']
Oh, and in the second octave the notes are very, very, tightly packed - it sounds obvious, but it takes a while to get used to!

Fretless will improve your 'ear' like nothing else
[/quote]

This!!

My ear and listening at my intonation is fascinating.... I'd say record yourself and listen back too, sometimes you can't hear intonation issues in a band setting when there are other things going on.

Gosh, even watching Roger Waters and The Wall on Monday night whoever played the bass (couldn't tell as they were behind the wall!) made some shocking intonation errors!!

[Fat Rich]

Firstly, practice looking at your guitarist's headstock and scowling, that way everyone will think he's out of tune.

Secondly as BassBus says look at where you're fretting the note on your fretted bass and get your fingers as close to the fret as possible without choking the note, and try to always play that way. You can even try playing exactly on the fret so you get a sort of palm muted type sound, if you can do that consistently without too many buzzes you're pretty accurate.

It's just practise, if you can try to only play fretless for a while and it'll soon become second nature. I haven't played one for ages and got a new one yesterday and my intonation is hopeless again

Edited September 21, 2013 by Fat Rich

[Bilbo]

You have to listen to what you are playing rather than rely on position playing. If you can't hear your notes, you can't guarantee your intonation. Make sure that, when you are playing your fretless, you can hear it. Practice listening. Sounds stupid but it isn't. And remember that you never get a day off of agonising over your intonation. Ever.

[White Cloud]

[quote name='DarkHeart' timestamp='1379702825' post='2216009']
Ok this is probably a pointless thread but as the title says im a fretless virgin, what are the best tips to success for someone who has always had frets to rely on? I will eventually get pics of the gorgeous fretless jazz ive just built when the person (not from here i hope) that ive bought the control panel off, gets his finger out of his arse!
[/quote]
I don't think this is a pointless thread at all. I think it is an excellent question!

My advice...as previously stated avoid overuse when it comes to the old vibrato.

[Grangur]

[quote name='DarkHeart' timestamp='1379702825' post='2216009']
Ok this is probably a pointless thread but as the title says im a fretless virgin, what are the best tips to success for someone who has always had frets to rely on? I will eventually get pics of the gorgeous fretless jazz ive just built when the person (not from here i hope) that ive bought the control panel off, gets his finger out of his arse!
[/quote]
Thanks DarkHeart, for starting this really useful thread. I'm *cough* an err... virgin too.

I've not succeed in securing a fretless yet, but having restless nights in anticipation

What I'd really love is a Warwick fretless, but funds wont go that far yet. Does anyone here have any suggestions on what to look for in a first fretless?
I read/heard somewhere to go for one with lines. Is this critical or will marks do?

I've seen this - it may be useful to others:
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKOUdzIYqT4[/media]

Cheers

Richard

Edited September 21, 2013 by Grangur

[Mike]

Something that really helped with my intonation on both fretless and double bass was to use organ drones - literally a few minutes of an organ playing a C, for example, and playing through scales, arpeggios, melodies with the C for constant reference. Really highlights any intonation problems.

These aren't the ones I have but there are some here: [url="http://www.2reed.net/awesome.html"]http://www.2reed.net/awesome.html[/url]. Also some others here: [url="https://www.idrs.org/multimedia/midi/PUB/Drones.htm"]https://www.idrs.org/multimedia/midi/PUB/Drones.htm[/url]

Good luck!

[geoffbyrne]

This'll cause an argument!

My advice is to get an unlined fretless with the side-dots in the correct position.

I've had both lined & unlined & found the lined to be a hindrance rather than a help, insomuch as I ended up playing with my eyes rather than my ears & I did not progress as fast as when I used an unlined.

G.

[BassBus]

Lines/no lines is a whole other debate. You will get people saying yes to both. When I started double bass I drew pencil lines at 3rd, 5th, 7th as reference points. As time went on those marks naturally wore off. By then my hand knew where to go (usually) and my ear guided on any correction needed.

There will always be dots at these points on the side of a fretless bg neck to give that reference. Eventually with practice your hand/eye/ear will coordinate and give you the right note. As always it will take practice.

Lines will give you more of a reference point. However, if you have a high action on the strings you are still going to have to compensate as when you press on the string you are stretching it. That will change the intonation point. If you have a very low action that's not so much of an issue.

If you start on an unlined board that cuts out one lair of learning, i.e. not having to learn to play without lines.

[DarkHeart]

[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1379763051' post='2216522']
Thanks DarkHeart, for starting this really useful thread. I'm *cough* an err... virgin too.

I've not succeed in securing a fretless yet, but having restless nights in anticipation

What I'd really love is a Warwick fretless, but funds wont go that far yet. Does anyone here have any suggestions on what to look for in a first fretless?
I read/heard somewhere to go for one with lines. Is this critical or will marks do?

I've seen this - it may be useful to others:
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKOUdzIYqT4[/media]

Cheers

Richard
[/quote]

im in the process of building another fretless jazz which will be to sell if your interested, its a couple of weeks away yet but it will be cheap

[pietruszka]

The droning idea is a good one, I'll be giving that one a shot! I've recorded with my fretless several times, each time I asked if the intonation was ok. And each time the engineer said it was fine! It always sounded on the mark when listening back to it, but I'm sure there was a cheeky bit of melodyne in there!
As bilbo says, you'll constantly question your intonation from now on!



Dan

[Phil Adams]

My band have pleaded with me to revert to fretted.
N'uff said

[Roger2611]

I bet more often than not you can hit the right note without really having to look at the fret board, when you are playing fretless you will still be able to get very close to the note without looking leaving only a tiny slide either up or down until you hear you have hit pitch....a lot of the fretless sound is the tiny slides into the notes

[lurksalot]

the way I did it was to just buy a cheap fretless , stagg £50 shimmed the neck and played it, listening and working out if I could handle the thing . Its quite interesting to run a tuner while finger positioning to learn your guitar , I bought a warwick after selling that and it is the most gratifying feel to play it, I really need to play it more ,

[oggiesnr]

On both fretless and double bass I spend part of my practice time playing scales and arpeggios slowly against the tuner. It's then a question of listening and adjusting, as time has progressed I adjust less and am gradually playing faster with good intonation.

Even when practicing pieces I'll have the tuner running and every so often I'll stop and just check against the tuner.

What really messes me up though is that I also play with a cajun box player and his squeezebox is not in concert, it's in a hybrid tuning which is flat in part and sharp in others. When playing with him I really have to listen hard to both myself and to him as the reference pitch. Great fun!

Steve

[ead]

If you have the facility to do so, record yourself playing something (simple to start with) on a fretted bass, then play along on the newly acquired fretless. Good intonation practice amongst other things.

[Grangur]

Hey! I lost my cherry to [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/216596-ibanez-gwb35-gary-willis-fretless-5-l400/page__p__2213943__hl__willis__fromsearch__1#entry2213943"]Gary WIllis![/url] Or was it Mike? I dunno.

It's good fun. I'm now getting the strings changed to flats and getting into the joys of intonation. I've got the good Mrs G telling me, "Are you sure it's tuned. I think I heard a note there that was off"... grrrrr!!

Thanks guys for the tips

[ead]

Good choice, a nice bass by the look of it. I hope you get into it - which I'm sure you will.

When Mrs ead kindly pointed out the inadequacies of my playing I was forced to remind her that both Cb and Fb are recognised notes in some cultures

[ezbass]

[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1380036971' post='2219913']
Hey! I lost my cherry to [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/216596-ibanez-gwb35-gary-willis-fretless-5-l400/page__p__2213943__hl__willis__fromsearch__1#entry2213943"]Gary WIllis![/url]
[/quote]A really nice fretless, good score, congrats. Should you get bored of the endless sea of black they do strip back quite nicely
[IMG]http://i308.photobucket.com/albums/kk344/ezbass/P1080146.jpg[/IMG]

[Grangur]

[quote name='ead' timestamp='1380093638' post='2220587']
Good choice, a nice bass by the look of it. I hope you get into it - which I'm sure you will.

When Mrs ead kindly pointed out the inadequacies of my playing I was forced to remind her that both Cb and Fb are recognised notes in some cultures
[/quote] Of course they are. And they both appear in some tunes in the CMajor key too.

I like Ezbass' re-model of the bass too. I'll bear that in mind. It may also change colour as well. Watch this space...

Right now I'm experimenting with strings though. I've changed to flats and they all now seem really high tension and the output is low too. What I'm using is RotoSound 45-105 (G-E only so far) and the existing round-wound B gives so much more volume than the flats.

What have others found?

[Dingus]

[quote name='lowdowner' timestamp='1379703161' post='2216013']
[indent=1]You'll get used to 'finding' the notes on a fretless but the best advice I had from my teacher is to think about what a fretless does that a fretted can't and take advantage of it - otherwise you might as well have a fretted. For example, you can 'slide' into notes, have a real vibrato from very slight to great big 'sweeps'. harmonics sound very different... in all, experiment with the unique sounds you can get from it rather than thinking of it as a fretted guitar with the frets removed (if you know what I mean)[/indent]
[/quote]

By way of contrast, this is exactly the opposite of what my teacher used to tell me about playing fretless. He drummed it in to me to studiously avoid doing all the cliches like sliding into notes and melodramatic use of vibrato, except where they were the right choice for the music. Back in those days of the early '80's there was an increasing amount of very bad and very amateur - sounding fretless playing appearing on a lot of records ( as well as some great playing , too) , and in light of that trend , I am grateful for the good advice he gave me that has served me well all these years. Just the very occasional fretless "trick" is enough to let people know you are playing a fretless without making it sound as if you trying to show everybody what you got for Christmas.

Edited September 25, 2013 by Dingus