Author Topic: Fretless tone (Read 2815 times)

bigbass · « **Reply #15 on:** January 12, 2004, 09:28:42 PM »

My experience with Chromes are that the G sounds great and as you go to the lower pitch strings the notes lack clarity, definition and sustain: Thud(!) the lower you get. I've tried them on all my fretted & fretless basses with the same results. The half round sound much better through out the entire string spectrum. I use them for tone variety. Round wound strings sound the best on my fretless basses. All strings will eat up the fingerboard depending on how hard you play'm. Round wound will do this at a faster rate. That shouldn't stop you from using them. Alembic Basses have enough meat on the boards so that when you get valleys and it starts to mess up your playing, you can have them dressed.

On my shorter scale basses I use smaller gage strings. I have no problems with E or B strings not having that nice growl, sustain and singing qualities. I'm using .100 or .095 on E and .120 or .115 on B, assuming a short 30 inch scale. With my 36 inch scale basses, the string thickness doesn't matter as much and thus I'm using heavy artillary. DR's, Snake Skins and Ken Smith are my current faves.

Remember: It is easy to make a bright sounding string sound darker but hard if not impossible to make a dark sounding string sound brighter (They usually just sound awful!).

Don't forget to let your amp do some of the work. There are plently of different kinds of amps out there. Very few sound alike....and thank goodness for that!

wideload · « **Reply #16 on:** January 12, 2004, 10:38:07 PM »

I have a Yamaha bass that I put a fretless neck on, just because there isn't enough stress in my life. I strung it with Tomastik Infeld flats, and I must say that they sound wonderful for the application. I just can't understand why the piano in the group always goes out of tune when I play fretless??!
Larry

stevec77 · « **Reply #17 on:** January 13, 2004, 06:11:43 AM »

Good morning all, Hey guys....upon closer examination of the pickup holes on my fretless Elan, they all have screws in them (hex head - not phillips) so I'm a little unclear about putting the screwdriver in the hole to get to the screw but I haven't gotten to the pickup height adjustment, or bridge adjustment yet. I am still adjusting the intonation. All is well on the G, D, and A but the E is a problem. It's a little sharp at the 12th fret position as opposed to open E. I have tried unsuccessfully to adjust the intonation regardless of the amount of turns on the screw with an allen wrench (not even sure if I should turn it clockwise or counter) correct me if I'm wrong but I think when intonating, you increase the distance between the nut and bridge saddle to FLAT the pitch. Likewise you decrese the distance between the nut and saddle to SHARP the pitch. Based on this can you guys help me with which way to turn the intonation adjustment screw? Bob - I didn't mean to come across as defensive 'bout the chromes....lolol...I'm new to the fretless world (thank goodness for sideline markers!!!) and someone recommended flats, and since I like Michael Manring's fretless sound on his Zon hyperbass and I know he uses DD's I thought I try them. I'm sure I'll be trying othere strings too. trying to add a pic and I get One or more of the images or attachments you uploaded exceeded the maximum allowable upload size (which is 150 kilobytes). These images or attachments have been removed from your post. If you would like to include images or attachments, upload new files after you make sure that the size is not greater than 150 kilobytes. the jpeg is 650KB help! sorry I'm so green here! lol

Thanks,

Steve

palembic · « **Reply #18 on:** January 13, 2004, 07:31:01 AM »

Po-po-po-pooooooom ....po-po pooooooooom (Indiana Jones theme humming).

A-TEAM help wanted

Paul the bad one

Me ...no ...I'm from the P-team ...Im a thechnical moron.
This is for the A-team ... what

oh ...huh ...Alembic team of course!!!

mica · « **Reply #19 on:** January 13, 2004, 08:16:06 AM »

Steve, if your bass has the P or J shaped pickups, these mount in the traditional way with a spring below. It's not our traditional way, and it's a tad unusual for an Alembic. Models that got these pickups were Persuaders and Elans (and of course on custom request).

Intonation nuts spinning when you try to adjust the screw? ou'll have to tighten them by holding a driver over the nut and tightening the screw, taking care not to go crazy with the torque. Once you hit some resistance, check and see if you're able to adjust the intonation for that string.

If you've got any picture editing program, try changing the image size so that the longest edge is about 500 pixels. You can also save with more compression. One of those methods should get you to a postable size. Today's digital cameras can make some huge files (my camera makes 2.2Meg files at the max resolution).

stevec77 · « **Reply #20 on:** January 13, 2004, 08:52:50 AM »

Thanks Mica, mine is in fact an Elan, so it's got the springs below the pickups. I think you nailed my intonation issue on the proverbial head...I'll try holding the nut w/a driver and then tightening it. As I mentioned, the intonation on the E string is sharp at the 12th fret location so I want to increase the distance between the nut and the saddle so will I be turning clockwise or counter? I'll try to edit the size of my Elan jpegs as well.

Thanks,

Steve

bob · « **Reply #21 on:** January 13, 2004, 12:34:17 PM »

Clockwise, assuming the wrench goes in from the end of the instrument. It will be like tightening a screw, and pulling the saddle closer to the tailpiece. You are correct, if the note plays sharp compared to the harmonic, then you want to make the string longer.

It's worth getting close, but I wouldn't go nuts trying to get it perfect if you still intend to adjust the bridge height and maybe relief - because it will change a little.

By the way, what controls do you have? If you have a filter, you should probably turn it off when working on your setup, because it can have an effect on mwah which will not necessarily be even across all the strings/notes.

stevec77 · « **Reply #22 on:** January 13, 2004, 09:43:35 PM »

Thanks Mica you were right. the tiny nut on the intonation screw needed to be held tight with a needle nose plier. I accomplished this with the hands of a surgeon as to not touch the finish of the bass and end up on the local news here in NYC. I had my cousin come over with an electronic micrometer to make sure I held a parallel line - just kidding! Bob, you were right clockwise was the way, thanks. The controls on the bass are an upgraded version with a Q switch similar (I'm told buy the seller) to the current Rogue/Europa line. The range on the tone control is nothing short of amazing!. I can only imagine what a series 1 will sound like one day when I break the piggie bank. The intonation is now just about dead on, the nut, and bridge are good (for now - lol) I'll be experimenting pick the pickups now....tilting them sounds intriguing. bigbass was right earlier about the g sounding great on the daddario chromes with the other stirngs lacking sustain and especially clarity. I wish I could get the A and E to sing like the G! I'll definitely be trying some other strings on the fretless. As I mentioned I'm new to fretless. I have a fretted Warwick thumb neck through with a set of Rotosound Swing Bass roundwounds that sound great but I'm reluctant (I'll get over it bigbass lol)to put rounds on the fretless just yet. The fingerboard, the whole bass is really in incredible shape for a 15 year old guitar. Just an FYI for any Wooten fans out there, I recently saw him at Iridium jazz club with Jaco Pastorius big band....small room, got there early and I sat about 10 feet from Victor he was playing a fretless Fodera Monarch and after seeing him live a few times with his brothers when he plays fretted...well it was quite a sight to see! One of the tightest sets I've seen in a long time. What was even better was meeting him afterwards. He's an incredibly humble and nice guy.

stevec77 · « **Reply #23 on:** January 14, 2004, 02:58:06 PM »

here's a pic of my
1989 4 string fretless Elan bass
5A quilted maple top
maple body
maple neck
Ebony fretboard
P/J pickups

stevec77 · « **Reply #24 on:** January 14, 2004, 03:05:20 PM »

gbarchus · « **Reply #25 on:** January 16, 2004, 04:15:10 PM »

Bob,

Maybe I missed it, but I'm curious. What strings ARE you using? I fancy the TI Flats on my fretless. Actually on my fretted ones, too!

Gale

bob · « **Reply #26 on:** January 16, 2004, 08:36:22 PM »

You didn't miss it Gale, I just didn't want to be blamed for encouraging yet another chorus of My Favorite Strings (with apologies to JC)... but I can't avoid a direct question, now can I? :-)

TI Jazz Flats. Nothing else will do. Jazz Rounds are close; I used those for a few months first, was so knocked out compared to anything else I'd played that I was willing to believe their claims that the flats really didn't sound dull in comparison - and they were right.

These guys advertise things like pitch accuracy, and though I tend to be skeptical of such stuff, my notes from the night I put on my first set say this is like putting frets on a fretless!. And curiously, whenever I intonate a set of these (both round and flat, two different scale lengths), the saddles end up much closer to a straight line than anything else I've seen. Given all that, I'm happy to let them decide what the gauges should be.

Now that they have finally come out with a 5 string set for 36 scales (just in the last month or two), I'm tempted to buy enough to stock up for life. Only problem is, the damn things last so long, I can't figure out how many that would be...

Just for grins, though, another member made this great crack in a recent email:

'flatwound tone' - isn't that an oxymoron?

Well no, of course not - especially on Alembics, which started out that way. Unless you need reeaalllly bright, you can make these things do just about whatever you like.

But like you, this is just what I fancy - to each their own.
-Bob

stevec77 · « **Reply #27 on:** January 17, 2004, 02:18:28 AM »

Bob, Are those the Thomastik Infeld strings with silk inlays I've been hearing so much about? Thanks,

Steve

0vid · « **Reply #28 on:** January 24, 2004, 11:15:24 AM »

mwah' or buzz has less to do with brands of strings, or pickup heights...

'mwah' or buzz' (term preferred by pedulla) or fretless buzz (term used in the 70's) has more to do with angle of the string in relation to the fingerboard. You may need to adjust your nut and the saddle heights, and may have to adjust the relief on your neck.. the shallower the angle the greater the buzz or 'mwah'.....