5 reasons why FRETLESS BASS SUCKS (and how to fix it)

Ok, I'll admit it... I've got a fretless obsession going on right now.

Pino Palladino, Jaco Pastorius, Gary Willis, Richard Bona...

Listening to those guys play fretless bass is... So. Good.

But, I'll be honest - there are certain things about fretless basses that I think totally suck!

So, in this lesson I'm going to show you the 5 reasons why I hate fretless bass...

As always, see you in the shed...

Scott 🙂

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[MartinJG]

For me, vibrato on a fretless means you are in tune at least some of the time.

[fudgesauce]

Keep in mind that no upright basses, cellos, violas, or violins have fret lines and people learn to play them with good intonation.

[icantgetridofthisusernamehelp]

As a cello player...playing the fretless bass rather than a fretted one was the best decision I could have made.

[Andy-lmzp]

Bass player magazine had an article on how to convert your bass to frettless, the next month they had a feature how to convert a frettless to a fretted

[vanderpoolfarmsl.l.c.]

"A bass is a bass".
My mentor, Kenneth Mace was very generous in loaning me his double bass and electric fretted bass as I began learning.
Finally, in 1977, I bought a Fender precision fret-less bass.
One evening, I had a knock at the door and there stood my mentor!
"I need to borrow your bass. I'm playing tonight at the coast."
I handed him my new fret-less bass, in the case, without mentioning anything about it.
After a day or two, he returned my bass. I asked him how he liked it.
His reply, "A bass is a bass".
Finest bassist I have ever known.

[jaredhoeft]

This channel consistently has good content hidden beneath terrible clickbaity video titles/thumbnails

[pillmuncher]

My first bass was an unlined fretless bass. I played in a Country Folk / Westcoast band. Whenever we played a ballad or Country Roads or such, the stage lights were turned off and the audience got their lighters out, making it impossible to see where I was on the fret board. Not funny, yet... funny.

[Ejteener]

After 30 years on a fretted 4-string, i just bought a fretlless 5-string. Imagine that i was happy with this video. Thanks Scott. And for one problem i found a special solution. My bass has fretlines but they are hard to see on stage. My guitar repair man put small lines on the side of the neck (the side i look on when playing), with a special marker pen. This of course was only possible because the neck is light maple. But now i have much less problems to see where i should place my fingers. Keep u the good work with all your video's. I love them. Greetings from The Netherlands.

[__Jensen_Walker__]

As an experienced cellist who has of course always played fretless as that is the nature of the instrument, it’s not impossible. You can do it! It just takes a lot of time and practice to get that muscle memory. That’s all it is.

[LittleGenevieve]

what's the best way to get better at fretless?




practice

[orcrist]

My cello teacher told me never to vibrato flat, but only sharp. It helps the music not sound warbly. That means you are only ever pulling the string and relaxing, never pushing on it. I think the flat part of the vibrato is what you call the 'fretless sound.'

[joethebar]

The key is to play it exclusively; everyone wants the fretless in the studio. You gotta devote serious time to it

[Mirza_Tanovic]

"Here's why fretless basses suck. I recommend you get one."

[phinregan]

That tip with the positioning of bass in front of a lead sheet is priceless. Thanks again for your wonderful lessons, Scott.

[coleemmersonhallman]

No one ever mentions Les Claypool when talking about fretless? Why?

[novabroke]

For everyone on the fence: I worked for my parents for months, I had been playing a 60 dollar p bass for a few months and wanted to try something new and wanted to get myself something nice. I bit the bullet and bought a fretless squire j bass and have absolutely no regrets. Haven’t even had second thoughts about it since. I almost immediately noticed improvements in my playing. I can’t speak higher about it.

[joninawhitecoat]

Live playing fretless bass tip:

I have a splitter (a pedal with one input, two outputs) that takes my tuner out of my signal chain so I can leave it on all of the time without it muting my signal (I have a volume pedal for that) so it means that I have a visual indicator of how in-tune I am and can adjust accordingly - my fretless basses are both unlined so I can't see if my finger is positioned sharp or flat.

This is cheating but sometimes on a loud stage with a bad monitor mix there's no way I can hear myself to know if I'm in tune and it's got me through a lot of gigs.

My tuner is a TC Polytune, I think some Boss tuners can be set so they stay on without muting the signal.

Also, if you've never gigged a fretless and want to try but worried about intonation, try this.

[joachimvanzoelen]

I got rid of my last fretted bass more than 20 years ago... (I'm not sure I wanted to say that...). I only use 4, 5 and 6 string fretlesses. The level of expression you get from a fretless is incomparable.

[tonyl.]

Hey Scott, I love that idea of turning and face the chart...I'm here laughing because I have been trying to find a solution and you just gave it to me...Thanks...Tony L.

[irmagerd]

Never thought about chart reading like that. So simply brilliant. I practice with a tuner in my line of sight