SORTED Fretless Bass

robwright

I fancy giving it a go - anything out there? 

Someone will tell me this is the wrong section but i’m figuring that a 6-stringer may have one lying around?!?!? 

Cheaper the better!!!

spark240

@HarrySeven ;

Funkfingers

I have a defretted Korean Höhner Professional Bitsa.

PJ body, "JJ" neck. (Their Nineties P, PJ and JJ necks with the small headstock were all identical.) Passive Wilkinson closed cover pickups. Vol., vol., tone controls. High mass bridge à la Squier VM. Flatwound strings with blue cotton end wraps so, probably, Fender.

Overall, the sort of instrument that appears on eBay for around £150. 

proggy

I've got a MIJ Fender Jazz Special, unlined in burgundy mist. It's listed on here.

robwright

Thanks guys - nice basses but not quite what i’m
after. 

dazzajl

I have this woody fella that doesn’t get a lot of play time. (Sorry about the rest of the trash, cant find a link to it or a pic)



Ridiculously cheap but very nice to play. Borrow it for a week, month or whatever it takes to know if you want one or not.

Funkfingers

robwright said:

Thanks guys - nice basses but not quite what i’m after. 

I interpret this to mean not cheap enough.

Sporky

I have a Dean Edge 4 fretless. Very nice, but I'm pretty much just playing cello now. The last one listed here went for £275, so that.

Pics here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/NXrBF66MWWpYNvA57

DLM

Funkfingers said:

robwright said:

Thanks guys - nice basses but not quite what i’m after. 

I interpret this to mean not cheap enough.

@funkfingers Are you actually selling your Höhner for £150? Or just saying that is what they usually go for on eBay as a basis for offers?

@Sporky That looks killer!

dazzajl said:

Borrow it for a week, month or whatever it takes to know if you want one or not.

@dazzajl One really can't say fairer than that, what a ledge! More Wows for Dazzajl, please, peeps!

Sporky

DLM said:

@Sporky That looks killer!

Nice, innit?

Funkfingers

DLM said:
Are you actually selling your Höhner for £150? Or just saying that is what they usually go for on eBay as a basis for offers?

Yes and yes.

Go right ahead. Make my day.

robwright

Love the Dean @Sporky but @funkfingers is right - cheap is where I’m at! 

@DLM is right - you are a legend @dazzajl - all I can say is yes please and thank you very much! Will PM to arrange. 

DLM

@Sporky If you really want to sell that, you'll have no difficulty finding someone in the technical death metal scene who wants it.

@funkfingers I just didn't understand that immediately from your initial post. I initially took it to mean that the OP ought to be able to find a similar bass for about that much cash, not that you were actually looking for a buyer for yours.

As for me, I'm finding learning to play my fretless a pretty mind-altering experience, though I'm not putting much time into it. It certainly improves the ear and one's general musical knowledge!

Funkfingers

DLM said:
I just didn't understand that immediately from your initial post. I initially took it to mean that the OP ought to be able to find a similar bass for about that much cash, not that you were actually looking for a buyer for yours.

No worries.

I have traded with the OP before. I was just testing the waters in the unlikely event that he did not mean exactly what he said about cheapness. (Hopefully, he can snag a pre-owned Yamaha or Cort instrument at an agreeable price.) For fretless, with most of the super budget stuff, the worry is that the neck is unlikely to be stable enough to obtain a comfortable action all the way along.

Sporky

DLM said:

@Sporky If you really want to sell that, you'll have no difficulty finding someone in the technical death metal scene who wants it.

That is one of the strangest sentences I have ever read.

I would like to generate space and cash, but am unsure where to find this technical death metal scene. 

JezWynd

Sporky said:

DLM said:

@Sporky If you really want to sell that, you'll have no difficulty finding someone in the technical death metal scene who wants it.

That is one of the strangest sentences I have ever read.

I would like to generate space and cash, but am unsure where to find this technical death metal scene. 

First rule of technical death metal scene, you do not talk of...

DLM

@Funkfingers Right. One needs to get something good enough that the quality of the individual instrument doesn't colour one's impression of the difference between playing that type of instrument (moving to fretless from fretted, say).

I was just reading an interview with Linus Klausenitzer. When he was invited to audition for Obscura he didn't even own a fretless, so he bought the cheapest six-string he could get and practiced like crazy. He said the board was so nasty he tore his fingers up. Of course, the clout of the band in the scene meant that as soon as he had the gig in his pocket, Ibanez sorted him out with a custom BTB as part of an endorsement.

It was then Klausenitzer who got Steve Di Giorgio to play BTBs. I think he'd prefer to use his luthier-built custom stuff, but bands at this level need replaceable instruments for the road nowadays, sadly.

All that said, the fretless sound doesn't really work in metal for my tastes, though others seem to dig it.

DLM

@Sporky Try listing it on Sevenstring.org for starters. Dunno if you do TheFaceBook, but there must be metal-specific UK gear groups on there for spamming it.

Basically, it looks metal 'cause it's black, and fretless bass has become popular in extreme metal thanks to Cynic, Necrophagist, Obscura, anything Steve Di Giorgio plays in (which these days includes Testament), etc.

The Fretboard is likely totally the wrong demographic, but maybe the tech-metal crowd also look at the classifieds, I dunno.

Sporky

Ta!  

robwright

Picked up a Sire V7 Fretless on Basschat - very happy man!