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Seriously - just under a grand less than a new Ric fretted 4003, and about the same price as a secondhand fretted 4003
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I expect to see some videos of you playing Liberty City by Jaco any minute now...
but i wish it had a sort of bar-like bottom half that followed the outline of the curve of the body, instead of a full wooden lower body half, so you could get your fretting hand right up to the bridge.
it just seems a lot of inviting and potentially interesting fretboard going to waste because the bottom half of the body is stopping your hand go all the way up.
it seems to have a double bass neck on a bass guitar vibe that i really like. though probs weighs a f*ckton.
but congrats to you for your NBD. i hope you have serious fun playing with it.
Weight wise - I’ve not weighed it but it’s certainly no more than my 64 Precision and I would guess at about 8.5lbs
Had a play late at night when the house was quiet and got stuck into some proper tunes to play along to.
- Intonation is going to take work, but it doesn't feel as impossible as I thought it would
- Sounds wise, it's glorious. I love the sound. Not really doing much of the gliss thing, but a bit - and the expression/vibrato is better when subtle.
- You can make it sound (largely) like a fretted
- The Piezo pickup is immense. It's got such a good tone - it's got really strong lower and upper bass, some solid lower mids and a bit of treble - the boost control cuts a bit of bass and ups the treble and upper mids enough to give two really usable sounds in one. On it's own, I'd say it does a similar job to a P bass - fits most things
- The magnetic pickup is clearly aimed to add some mids and allow a more mid-focused sound. I opened it up and the pickup is actually a hand wound Jazz pickup - so single coil.
- There is some noise on the magnetic only, and it is weaker than the piezo, but blended together it rounds the sound out to a colossal sound or can be tweaked to get a really full range of tones.
- I'm torn on the single coil. I could swap it out for a split coil Jazz for noiseless - but I'd lose some of the sparkle and twang/grind that the single coil gives it. If live, I'd go piezo for noiseless - it's quieter than a hum bucker - in fact it is totally silent so I don't need to have a noiseless magnetic. Similarly, I don't want to lose the unique flavour it brings. I don't know if I'd get a split coil that gives as good a tone as the single coil that's in there at the moment. (Maybe @TheGuitarWeasel might have an opinion?) and if I swapped it, I'd want a noiseless Jazz that gives more punch, more output but still has the sparkle and twang/grind of a single coil.. Hmmmm
Either way, it plays just beautifully, it looks gorgeous, and fretless really isn't the beast I thought it would be - it's massively addictive and I can see myself spending the majority of my playing time on it (certainly at home).
Next task - start recording myself. And I need to tweak my lefthand position a bit for accuracy.
I dislike them too. I suspect that the construction of a 4001/4003 works against it for fretless. Too much top. Not enough midrange.
I find the same with Stingray basses. Just the change from an alder body to an ash one spoils things. Alder is fairly even across the frequencies. Ash is too scooped. The thing that is most essential to a pleasant fretless bass tone is lacking. There is only so much that pickup design and active EQ can do to correct for this.