| Author | Message | ||
| poor_nigel
Intermediate Member Username: poor_nigel Post Number: 158 Registered: 7-2003 |
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4713&item=3746318293&rd=1 The seller of this Tobias claims this bass has fretless sound with fretted tonal accuracy. Hey Fretless members, what say you all on this? I have never heard of this. I have always wanted a fretless, but I figured I would just sound awful, since I slid alot and would be too sloppy to stop at exactly the right places to stay 'in key.' Perhaps it is just a compromise between fretted and fretless sound, and possibly worse accuracy in the end. Educate me, please . . . Forgot to bring up a point - A point of confusion arises in me from fretless members always talking about using a fretboard free of inlays, as it changes the tone when you go 'over' them. This seems along the same lines, but even more so. Plus, since they are 'unraised frets,' I do not see how this imporves accuracy. (Message edited by poor_nigel on September 07, 2004) | ||
| poor_nigel
Intermediate Member Username: poor_nigel Post Number: 159 Registered: 7-2003 |
I think I get it. They are just fret markers, so they improve tonal accuracy by seeing if your fingers are placed at the right spot. Silly me. OK, delete this thread before others see how little sleep I got last night. Still, the way it was worded . . . . | ||
| bassman10096
Senior Member Username: bassman10096 Post Number: 624 Registered: 7-2003 |
I have a fretless that is unlined (has a full complement of "unraised frets"). I can state with full confidence that the lines don't keep my fingers where they should be - they just provide a visual aid to explain why I sound SOOO bad! Nonetheless, as I will soon break down and sell my fretless (in hopes of investing in something that makes me sound better), I'll be sorely tempted to use this brilliant advertising ploy! "Hmmm...unraised frets? What a GREAT feature! Even better than lined fretless, huh? Foolproof? Even I can play it! Now, where's that Buy-it-Now button?" Bill (wanna buy a used bass?) | ||
| davehouck
Senior Member Username: davehouck Post Number: 827 Registered: 5-2002 |
Now there's an idea. When playing fretless style, the frets are unraised. But if you want to switch to fretted style, there's a button you can push that automatically raises the frets to the correct height. | ||
| dnburgess
Advanced Member Username: dnburgess Post Number: 311 Registered: 1-2003 |
How about a detachable fingerboard that is fretted on one side and fretless on the other? | ||
| bigredbass
Advanced Member Username: bigredbass Post Number: 276 Registered: 9-2002 |
I think the preference for lined or unlined fretless fingerboards goes down to one's DNA, almost. One of my hometown heroes was a FABULOUS fretless player, could quote Jaco lines all day long. Played a lined Spector, said he wasn't smart enough (!?!?) to play a 'blank' fingerboard. I find other people, particularly upright or violin players, who think the lines are a useless crutch. So I s'pose it has a lot to do with your previous experience and training. I'd love to play fretless one day, but never having played viol, I'm REAL sure I'm not smart enough either! Bob, whaddya think? J o e y | ||
| bob
Advanced Member Username: bob Post Number: 310 Registered: 11-2002 |
Joey, It's not about being smart enough, just a matter of listening and feeling. Yeah, it takes a while - quite a few years for me, having come from a guitar background - and about all I'll say about my current ability is that a very small number of people have heard me play and don't get too irritated by it :-) As to the lines, I commented a while ago (some oher thread, but it could be found...) that I personally find lines to be distracting. I think that to play fretless well (or upright, whatever), you have to position your fingers by ear, rather than sight. I don't mean that to sound snobbish, and I do sometimes look at my side dots, and if I usually played fretted then I might really appreciate the lines. But I also just love the look of a 'blank' fingerboard, and wouldn't have it any other way. Maybe you're right about the DNA... I have a really hard time playing a fretted instrument these days, and a big part of that is just visual, seeing all these pieces of metal where I think my fingers should be. It's a personal choice, and that's just mine. I think you should go for it, Joey - find a used one, don't spend a ton of money, don't judge yourself, and just have some fun for a while. (Maybe that's not exactly what you were asking, but it's a good answer.) -Bob | ||
| bigredbass
Advanced Member Username: bigredbass Post Number: 277 Registered: 9-2002 |
Bob: You might answer something I've wondered about: Although I'm a fanatic about tuning/in tune, I've often thought that for most music, I could be 'off' pitch a little, and no one would be the wiser. Wouldn't this apply to fretless? I've often wondered if that slight off-pitch would almost introduce that 12-string effect in a way, you know, that slight off-pitch that thickens things? J o e y | ||
| 811952
Advanced Member Username: 811952 Post Number: 248 Registered: 10-2003 |
Joey, Give "Band on the Run" a listen. You could be *off* by nearly a quarter-tone and still have a hit record! Seriously, if you've got a decent vibrato going on a fretless you *are* slightly off-pitch and yes, it thickens things nicely. It's static off-pitch that makes me wince.. John | ||
| davehouck
Senior Member Username: davehouck Post Number: 836 Registered: 5-2002 |
I'm guessing it's different for each person. I don't have perfect pitch, but I've heard that people with perfect pitch can quite readily tell when someone's out of tune. I am able to tell quite often though. There is a promo on the local PBS station where the background music is some very nice accoustic finger picking. Every time that promo comes on I'm thinking the open A string is a bit flat. | ||
| adriaan
Advanced Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 304 Registered: 6-2002 |
At the risk of sounding pedantic, I can't imagine someone having had a healthy exposure to tonal music NOT being able to tell that someone's out of tune. Any decent pair of ears will do: having PP myself, I know my wife (non-PP, untrained) cringes as soon as I do when it happens. Perfect pitch is not any better than 'musical pitch' - not in any way. It is no more than the ability to know which note is played, without need for a reference pitch. Funny thing, PP: my fingers get lost on a keyboard that is too far off standard pitch. There is a range of tolerance, and also a point where the pitch is definitely off. However, on guitar or bass, I have no problem with detuning strings. | ||
| son_of_magni
Intermediate Member Username: son_of_magni Post Number: 101 Registered: 1-2004 |
It's importent to realise, that with an even tempered instrument (ie. fretted or piano for instance) you cannot play exactly in tune. The first keyboard instruments were tuned to play only in certain keys. This natural tempered tuning sounds much more pleasing but is very restrictive for a keyboard. Fretless instruments like the violin family can make the proper distinction between an F# and a Gb and do it without being restricted to playing in only a few keys. Regarding vibrato and being in tune, I was taught (correctly) that when playing exercises you never use vibrato. You need to learn to play in tune first, and use vibrato as an enhancement, not a crutch to cover up for poor intonation. SoM (the snob one) (Message edited by son_of_magni on September 09, 2004) | ||
| davehouck
Senior Member Username: davehouck Post Number: 838 Registered: 5-2002 |
Unless the point of the particular exercise is to improve your vibrato technique <g>. | ||
| bob
Advanced Member Username: bob Post Number: 311 Registered: 11-2002 |
Thanks, snobby SoM, I was 'tempted' to get into the temperment stuff, but couldn't face writing about it. Fact is, with frets you reallly can't play in tune - but the converse is not a given... and vibrato is not the answer. Adriaan, I can't help feeling that you're downplaying the curse of PP (which I do not have). It seems to me that your wife could listen to someone playing a bass/guitar/violin that was perfectly tuned to an incorrect reference, and while she would not wince if it was played well, you couldn't listen to it at all. So as long as we're expanding the discussion, what thoughts do you guys have on setting intonation on a fretless? I find that I'm even more obsessive about it than I used to be on fretted (guitar). It's harder, takes more time and patience, but it seems that when you finally get it right, the thing just sings. I feel like some of it has to do with sympathetic vibrations across strings, and it certainly makes it easier to play chords or doublestops, but also think it may matter that you're playing a note on some particlar string at the right point on that string (hard to explain). Somehow or other, the harmonics just work out better, and this seems to help your ear determine pitch more accurately, and so forth. Any thoughts? | ||
| adriaan
Advanced Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 305 Registered: 6-2002 |
Bob, Luckily PP does not mean that I can't listen to anything tuned to a reference pitch other than A=440 Hz. I have a range of tolerance where I can say: this is still an A, and going down there is a point where I perceive A flat, etc. And that's still okay: people can tune up/down to any reference pitch, and I can listen to that without cringing, as long as they play in tune with themselves. Hey, I can even play along on fretless! But if I'm playing from a score, and I'm tuned "one step down", I do have to transpose mentally - so you see how it can get annoying. (Ah, choir practice! The horror! - Think sliding scales ...) I've played a good number of pianos at theatres and impromptu stages in my time. Maybe twice the piano was at the absolute lowest extreme of what I can handle. Just once there was a piano that was tuned to A flat, and my fingers just could not hit the right keys. No use depending on "motoric memory": on keyboards, my fingers seem to respond to reflexes from my hearing and vice versa, so if my ears hear a different pitch to what they expect from what keys were struck, then there's a reflex going out to the fingers to strike other keys - and I get utterly lost. Then the fretted/tempered discussion. Tempered is when you have separate (sets of) strings to produce the discreet steps in the tonal range of the instrument. Piano tuners do a mix-and-match in selecting pitches that allow the player to use as many tonalities without getting too far off-pitch in any of those tonalities. On a fretted instrument the placement of the frets provides the dicreet steps in the tonal range of each string. The placement follows the rules that old Pythagoras found (halve the length and you double the pitch). Now if you would tune a piano that way then you'd be stuck in C major without incidentals, or people would get annoyed. Somehow people do accept the dirty tuning on fretted instruments, and also the impure tuning on tempered instruments. And then there is the Buzz Feiten system, which is kind of a tempered approach to get the lowest three frets more in tune with the rest. Not forgetting the "crinkly" fret that (I think) Yamaha developed for the lower frets. If you play a fretted instrument in a band along with unfretted string instruments, woodwind or brass - or tempered instruments for that matter - you will be slightly off key most of the time. It is noticeable mostly on the lower frets, hence the Feiten system. I do find that I can compensate fairly naturally on fretless. And then you have the trombone, which poses similar challenges to players. In jazz you do get to hit a lot of the same notes at the same time on bass and trombone, and it gets real tricky when the score has unisono chromatic progressions to thicken things up. | ||
| adriaan
Advanced Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 306 Registered: 6-2002 |
By the way, I remember there was a Roland electronic keyboard specifically to mimick baroque keyboard instruments, and it had preset keys for the different tuning systems that were developed before tempered tuning became the rule. I remember there were tonalities that got very ugly in specific tuning systems, while sounding great in others. This seems like a good reference: http://www2.sfu.ca/sonic-studio/handbook/Equal_Temperament.html Ah, and the Roland is still on the market: http://www.rolandus.com/products/ck_details.asp?CatID=8&SubCatID=41&ProdID=C-80&PageMode=1&Page=1&ReviewID= (Message edited by adriaan on September 10, 2004) | ||
| poor_nigel
Intermediate Member Username: poor_nigel Post Number: 163 Registered: 7-2003 |
Speaking of the Buzz Feiten system, this looks like fun! http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2384&item=3731357108&rd=1 Get a drum machine going and you be there dewd! Off topic? Tangent? Hmmm . . . | ||
| 811952
Advanced Member Username: 811952 Post Number: 250 Registered: 10-2003 |
Vibrato IS playing out of tune, but artfully. You need to know where the pitch center is to pull it off well, or it simply sounds as out of tune as it is. As for setting intonation on a fretless, 99.9 percent of the fretless basses I've seen have not been setup correctly. The string at the nut *must* rest at fingerboard level or pitch is going to be a crap-shoot in the lower registers. The major issue with fretted instruments is the curve the string has to make as it passes over the nut, which takes more pressure (and creates more tension) to fret, which raises the pitch slightly. Further up the neck the string is already straight and pushing it down on the fret nets less of an increase in tension. Adjusting the bridge deals with the latter kind of tension but not the former. A zero fret would purport to solve the problem, but only if there were something pressing down on an otherwise straight string to hold it down against the zero fret. Add to the equation that with more distance between the frets, it's really difficult to not pull the string down closer to the fingerboard, which also makes it go sharp. That's why people who are used to scalloped fingerboards usually play really well in tune all over the instrument. When I was studying upright bass waaaaay back in the day, there were two approaches my instructors had me work on. First I had to play pieces in tune with a piano. Then I had to work out solo material using non-equal-tempered tuning (make that minor scale *sound* like a minor scale!). Never the twain shall meet (at least not in tune with each other), but they both have their places. I don't have perfect pitch and am thankful for that most of the time... John | ||
| valvil
Moderator Username: valvil Post Number: 528 Registered: 7-2002 |
One of my ex co-workers has perfect pitch; most unusually his brother also has perfect pitch. Some years back the 2 of them were part of a study about perfect pitch; one of the things they found out is that as you get older and your ears get some wear on them (so to speak), your perception of the notes changes ever so slighly, so that you do not really have perfect pitch anymore, but ALMOST perfect pitch. My friend told me (at the time of the study him and his brother were in their early twenties, now in their mid to late forties) that he found that to be true. He says that now he is just a bit flat (or sharp, I can't remember) and that his brother (a few years older) had that happen to him as well but a few years before it happened to him. So I guess even if you have perfect pitch you don't get to keep it forever. Valentino | ||
| son_of_magni
Intermediate Member Username: son_of_magni Post Number: 102 Registered: 1-2004 |
A couple things... First, Bob, I forgot to mention that I also love the look of the blank fretless fingerboard. That huge expanse of blackness. And when the guitar player looks at your left hand to try to see what you're doing, heh... Yeah, vibrato. I'd really like to hear what other people feel about two things regarding vibrato technique. First, pitch. My feeling is that the vibrato should be below the note. At the highest point of the vibrato it should reach the correct pitch but not go above. My explanation for this is that flat notes create tension, but sharp notes are annoying. So good vibrato modulates tension without being annoying. Second, rate. The speed of the vibrato should be a subdivision of the beat. A good sounding violin section has everyone vibrating roughly in unison. About playing fretless in general though, if you can play in tune, fretless is much easier to play. Imagine laying a ladder on the ground and then trying to run along it placing your feet between the rungs without tripping. That's how I feel when I play a fretted bass. Adriaan, that Roland sounds really cool, I'd never heard of that product. SoM (the fretless one) (Message edited by son_of_magni on September 11, 2004) | ||
| keavin
Senior Member Username: keavin Post Number: 451 Registered: 12-2002 |
Who is magni? | ||
| adriaan
Advanced Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 313 Registered: 6-2002 |
Ah, vibrato! My simple-minded objection to all opera singers is that they start any vibrato at the wrong note: mostly a secund under the intended note, going up. That's just ridiculous, and to me it's definitely out of tune. Or in poor taste, whichever you prefer - that may depend on whether you've learnt (rudimentary) classic piano technique at some point. Valentino, To me PP doesn't seem to change much in itself over the years - more that I've learned how to live with it. Perhaps for others with the same affliction it's more that they come to realise that PP is NOT the ability to identify A=440 Hz, which isn't a big deal as long as you know that it's not a big deal (and some may take longer to realize that). And I will reiterate that PP is not any more useful than "musical pitch". Not most, but all people who have taught me anything important about music have done so in practical settings, and most definitely none of them had PP. | ||
| son_of_magni
Intermediate Member Username: son_of_magni Post Number: 103 Registered: 1-2004 |
Magni is a son of my grandfather, the Norse god Thor... | ||
| adriaan
Advanced Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 316 Registered: 6-2002 |
John, When I had my Epic defretted, the first thing I noticed was that I couldn't intone properly and predictably at all. This was with the nut lowered so that the strings were touching the fingerboard going over the nut, which the luthier thought was the correct set-up. So I must disagree with you: I soon raised the nut so the strings would be up in the air again. But what you're describing is what I've seen on the double-basses that I've been close enough to to tell - so isn't it more a question of what you're used to? | ||
| son_of_magni
Intermediate Member Username: son_of_magni Post Number: 104 Registered: 1-2004 |
I like to have my nut adjusted to hold the strings about .015 inches off the fingerboard, about the thickness of a business card. This applies to both by uprights and electrics. SoM (the well adjusted one) |
