I am selling this fretless because...

ICBM

The best put-down of fretless bass snobbery I've ever heard was from the great Jack Bruce - he said that when he was playing fretted and played a bum note, it was glaringly obvious... but when he was playing fretless and played a bum note, he would just immediately slide to the right one and everyone thought he sounded expressive, so he found it was a great way of covering his mistakes.

Sporky

If anyone's going to be snobby about fretless vs fretted bass they should be handed an untuned cello and an unrosined bow. Let's see how far they get with that - you can't even look at some of the neck, there are no side dots, and even tuning the bastard is difficult. 

Schnozz

Sporky said:

If anyone's going to be snobby about fretless vs fretted bass they should be handed an untuned cello and an unrosined bow. Let's see how far they get with that - you can't even look at some of the neck, there are no side dots, and even tuning the bastard is difficult. 

  

Sporky

I should probably point out at this stage that I had a fretless bass and didn't get very far with it.  

bassbora

ICBM said:

The best put-down of fretless bass snobbery I've ever heard was from the great Jack Bruce - he said that when he was playing fretted and played a bum note, it was glaringly obvious... but when he was playing fretless and played a bum note, he would just immediately slide to the right one and everyone thought he sounded expressive, so he found it was a great way of covering his mistakes.

And his Thumb sounded amazing. I loved his fretless playing. 

fretmeister

Jaco’s bass had lines on it. He wasn’t cheating.

he was overrated and dull, but he wasn’t cheating.

dazzajl

fretmeister said:

Jaco’s bass had lines on it. He wasn’t cheating.

he was overrated and dull, but he wasn’t cheating.

I think if Jaco had only done the work he did with Joni Mitchell, that alone would make him a top 5 of all time player. 

I could happily live without Weather Report though. 

p90fool

My only bass was a fretless Wal Custom for years, but slowly I realised that almost none of my favourite music is played on a fretless, in fact the sound of them now gets on my tits if I'm honest. 

Of course you don't have to be the bass playing equivalent of Mariah Carey on them, but there can be an element of "bassplayer's bassplayer" about them and I just want to tell them to shut up.

EricTheWeary

(oops!)