'99 Orion 5 fretless

[FC Bass]

First time for the Fretless Orion in moving pictures on YouTube! (there is some audio of this bass on the tube)
Metallica Until It Sleeps Bass cover, incl comparison between Zon and Alembic!

[pauldo]

Appreciate the Zon comparison.    
Where’s the low B on each bass?

[FC Bass]

That's how Newsted recorded it, so I waited to install the B after my recording. (no worries, it's on there now) :-)

[edwardofhuncote]

Saw it on your YouTube channel... nice job. Must take a lot of concentration keeping all those ones and downstrokes consistent in tone and volume.

I didn't wanna' clutter up your comments section with geek-speak, but listening to the isolated bass section I was wondering about the Filter and Q-switch setting... (I had that super-secret piece of inside info on your modded Orion there...😄) Sounds like it was maybe... a bit less than halfway open? Sometimes it's harder to tell with a pick in use.

[FC Bass]

Thanx!
These are the settings on the Orion: Pan slightly towards the bridge pickup, filter at 3/4 with the Q boost on, slight bass boost, treble at center detent.

[gearhed289]

Great bass! Great playing!

[jazzyvee]

That sounds great Flip. How have you found the east meets west package. Does the setup act like a mixer with the signals split after the pickups with the unprocessed signal going separately to both the  the filtered and the Bass/Treble modules in parallel then blended afterwards, or does the signal go in series from one circuit to the other?

[FC Bass]

Thanx both! :-)

I'm pretty sure the controls are in-line, not sure about the order. (omg, time flies... did the mod almost ten years ago)

Would be interesting to see if/how the order or parallel/in series makes a difference, but it's so tight in there I'm not gonna take the risk to experiment. (works great now)

[edwardofhuncote]

It's interesting; the East-Meets-West controls and how they just seem to be a perfect fit for a fretless. If I really want to increase that fretless 'presence' on my Custom, I'll often use a very similar setting to FC's here... pan to favor the bridge pickup, filter closed about halfway or more, Q-switch engaged, bass boosted a bit and treble set at center detent. Which is almost opposite of my usual setting, of panning to favor the neck pickup, opening the filter to about 75-80%, Q-switch either off or middle position, bass flat at center detent, treble with a bit of boost. With the Persuader 5-string I never feel like I need the bass and treble controls. It's just there already. Can't explain it. Those two basses respond a lot alike though.

[jazzyvee]

The reason I was thinking it might be parallel then mixed later in the path is that if the bass/treble was before the filter the treble might have less effect depending on the where the filter is positioned. Whereas the other way round the if the filter was first, you could be trying to boost frequencies with the treble control that have already been filtered out. So my limited modern electronics experience i would have thought parallel so you are mixing together two different toned signals to make one new one.

But what do I know.🤔🧐😂

[FC Bass]

You know enough to ask the question :-) (that's a whole lot more than the average person)


Thanx Edward for the great explanation! Agreed completely.


When I was in a more traditional band with more traditional fretless sounds, I found the bass control extremely useful. 
From a previous post: I find the bass and treble control very useful for fretless, when soloing the bridge pickup you can add lots of bottom while retaining that awesome "mwwhaaa" tone.
With the filter further tone shaping is a bit more intuitive for me, great combination!


The bass control is very powerful, hence the crackle in the sound with the louder parts. (overdriven interface, you can see it going red below my left arm)
Got to work on my Bob Rock skills :-)
I'm pretty sure the Treble control is stuck in the center dent position, more than enough highs for me in these basses.


When I was deciding on my custom basses, I also considered getting a fretted and fretless Spoiler 5. (instead of the Newsted set)
For the fretless I would have added the bass control for the bridge pickup only, combined with Series II electronics. (more than enough lows for me on the neck pickup)
I don't remember if that inquiry made it to Susan's desk, but will definitely ask for it if the opportunity arises again some day. Still dreamin' about those Spoilers 


With the fretted basses I don't miss the controls at all, as Edward said:  "it's all there" 

[FC Bass]

Looked into it: The Spoiler set made it to Susans desk, but the bass control is not mentioned in the quote.  Would have been something to Iron out along the way I guess :-)

[jazzyvee]

I remember way back probably around the time I got my S2, I thought about having a bass boost switch added to the bass but with an internal pot so i could preset a particular frequency between about 80Hz to 120hz, then have a three position switch so I could select different boost options. I think I may have mentioned it to alembic way back then but I didn't follow it up so I guess it wasn't that important.