Hey All,
Just an FYI....I finally got to play my fretless in public! I played on our worship team on Sunday. Left the fretted home and went with the fretless. The guitarists were all playing acoustic, and the fretless sounded sweet with them.
I had a hot monitor to ensure I could hear myself. Intonation was spot on and I had a lot of fun sliding around! There were a couple of tunes where the mwah really shined!
Do you remember what your first fretless gig was like? If you'd like, I'd love to hear you share about it! (Even if it was in 68!)
First Fretless gig
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fretlessguy
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2012 2:40 pm
- Location: Marion, AR.
Glad you enjoyed it. My first fretless was a Fender 96 P Bass. I bought it on a Monday night and played it for the first time the following Tuesday night. It fit the country gospel group's sound well since I put GHS Precision flats on it that afternoon. I really didn't have to many problems staying in tune either.
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FretLessSince68
- Posts: 307
- Joined: Tue Dec 19, 2006 2:29 am
- Location: On an Island, WA, USA
Yes, it was 1968 and I remember it as if it were last week.
I had been in L.A. and stopped by the Ampeg Corporate display store in Hollywood. Anyone else remember that store? They didn't sell much, it was really to showcase their products. On that day I saw the bass I would later buy, an Ampeg AMUB-1. More info here ht[url]tp://xstrange.com/amb1.html[/url] It was immediate love. What a great and extremely cool bass! I would consider the instrument clunky by today's standards and the electronics were mediocre but it was, and remains, one of the great fretless basses of all time if only because it was also one of the first if not THE first production fretless.
A few months later I went to Kern's Music store in Burien, Washington to buy my new Ampeg fretless bass. I could not afford to own two basses at the time so I traded in my old bass in order to afford the AMUB-1. Since I was a poor working musician I did my best to negotiate the price. Well, Mr. (Johnny) Kern's right eye was a glass prosthetic, and when ever I tried to get the price down he would tap his pencil on it, clickity, clickity, click, unnerving my attempt to bet a better deal. I got my bass but I had to pay retail, got screwed on my trade-in, and was weirded out to boot.
I was gigging six nights a week with a R&B band so the gig that evening was my inauguration to fretless by fire. The first set was stressful, in the second set I was obsessed with avoiding mistakes and forgot all about the bullet holes behind the stage, by the third set I was starting to get the hang of it but it was tense. The forth set was better and I managed to have some fun but still was working hard to sound decent.
All in all, I would have to say that only having the fretless and no fretted bass as a back-up was a good thing. It forced me to accomplish the goal and no looking back.
I had been in L.A. and stopped by the Ampeg Corporate display store in Hollywood. Anyone else remember that store? They didn't sell much, it was really to showcase their products. On that day I saw the bass I would later buy, an Ampeg AMUB-1. More info here ht[url]tp://xstrange.com/amb1.html[/url] It was immediate love. What a great and extremely cool bass! I would consider the instrument clunky by today's standards and the electronics were mediocre but it was, and remains, one of the great fretless basses of all time if only because it was also one of the first if not THE first production fretless.
A few months later I went to Kern's Music store in Burien, Washington to buy my new Ampeg fretless bass. I could not afford to own two basses at the time so I traded in my old bass in order to afford the AMUB-1. Since I was a poor working musician I did my best to negotiate the price. Well, Mr. (Johnny) Kern's right eye was a glass prosthetic, and when ever I tried to get the price down he would tap his pencil on it, clickity, clickity, click, unnerving my attempt to bet a better deal. I got my bass but I had to pay retail, got screwed on my trade-in, and was weirded out to boot.
I was gigging six nights a week with a R&B band so the gig that evening was my inauguration to fretless by fire. The first set was stressful, in the second set I was obsessed with avoiding mistakes and forgot all about the bullet holes behind the stage, by the third set I was starting to get the hang of it but it was tense. The forth set was better and I managed to have some fun but still was working hard to sound decent.
All in all, I would have to say that only having the fretless and no fretted bass as a back-up was a good thing. It forced me to accomplish the goal and no looking back.
One good note makes my day.
My first fretless gig was recorded on a demo. I'd already been playing exclusively without frets for about 3 years and spent the majority of my practices plugged into an electronic tuner (my ears are good, but they aren't Mozart's) so I didn't fear intonation issues. Went well. Never even had to do a second take.
b'GAH!
ahh my fretless Corvette. How I lurve thee.
ahh my fretless Corvette. How I lurve thee.
not a gig but..
I was one of a few people at school (7th/8th class) and just for the reason to be the last one to get an electric guitar.....I ended up to have the oppotunity to either join the band as a bass player or leave it. (Must have been somewhat in the early 80s and it was like in every rocknroll film:
Each member had totally different thoughts about the coolest thing to do.
Drummer was jazzer, guitar 1 tried mike oldfield, guitar 2 was more on judas priest and we even had a keyboarder, who (no wonder) favoured something like roxy music.
Well, at that time, "brand" (not even good) guitars in germany costed a fortune for nothing. Either did Basses. I decided to build one on myself, because my father had some antique maple blocks for violins and a whole carpentry arrangement in the lying around in the "second living room"
Did my best, painted the body with sticky, transluscent red, put sone Schaller tuners/Bridge (in gold!) on it (neck was pure wood without anything in or on it *g*), added a couple of best fatter magnet Duncans to it with no pots or anything to switch and went straight into a cheap amp-top/2x12" combination and it was...fine. Better, than imagined. Band members loughed at first, but simple 145 progressions and else at that time i didnt even needed any marks, frets...it was like feeling the tone under the fingers even before they came out of the speakerbox.
On our first gig I just switched to the rickenbacker-copy of that school, simply because my "self tackered and ridiculously xxx-long scale" bass looked somewhat from outer space;)
Unfortunately, the band was only second to school, so I lost contact and as I found out, the majority had split up and rest was only having fun by rehearsing in that cellar.
I went back to guitar..riffing...solo-speeding (s. vai, s.morse, p. gilbert)
with no results to mention, simply because there were too many of the same kind with more or less ability and connections...
Back to bass: I found myself liking many film melodies, not shure, why.
Jazz? Yes sometimes but no Dixie..Rocknrolla? maybe, but only B. Setzer and some elder BigBand things, ....long talk..I left my last guitar a few years ago, deleted most of my old hm-favs, started listening only bass related stuff to get a serious opinion, got some cheap dirt at the bay (one of them was only 50€ and sounded better than most I tried in music stores, so I kept it and while listening to any new hot tip, I could get, I remembered these deep digging sounds, singing, vibrating mids, slightly dampened, but still singing highs and the percussive background by plucking, tapping, finger-muting on high vol., plucking-staccato..
I always played bass fingerstyle, but it was that moment in our old rehearsal, where i felt it first...and fortunately I remembered as I often remember sounds which touch your very inner..soulthrough the fingertips? Someone with a plek won't be able to follow in mind...and pure volumepower is just a topping, once there is a nice cake underneath.
Each member had totally different thoughts about the coolest thing to do.
Drummer was jazzer, guitar 1 tried mike oldfield, guitar 2 was more on judas priest and we even had a keyboarder, who (no wonder) favoured something like roxy music.
Well, at that time, "brand" (not even good) guitars in germany costed a fortune for nothing. Either did Basses. I decided to build one on myself, because my father had some antique maple blocks for violins and a whole carpentry arrangement in the lying around in the "second living room"
Did my best, painted the body with sticky, transluscent red, put sone Schaller tuners/Bridge (in gold!) on it (neck was pure wood without anything in or on it *g*), added a couple of best fatter magnet Duncans to it with no pots or anything to switch and went straight into a cheap amp-top/2x12" combination and it was...fine. Better, than imagined. Band members loughed at first, but simple 145 progressions and else at that time i didnt even needed any marks, frets...it was like feeling the tone under the fingers even before they came out of the speakerbox.
On our first gig I just switched to the rickenbacker-copy of that school, simply because my "self tackered and ridiculously xxx-long scale" bass looked somewhat from outer space;)
Unfortunately, the band was only second to school, so I lost contact and as I found out, the majority had split up and rest was only having fun by rehearsing in that cellar.
I went back to guitar..riffing...solo-speeding (s. vai, s.morse, p. gilbert)
with no results to mention, simply because there were too many of the same kind with more or less ability and connections...
Back to bass: I found myself liking many film melodies, not shure, why.
Jazz? Yes sometimes but no Dixie..Rocknrolla? maybe, but only B. Setzer and some elder BigBand things, ....long talk..I left my last guitar a few years ago, deleted most of my old hm-favs, started listening only bass related stuff to get a serious opinion, got some cheap dirt at the bay (one of them was only 50€ and sounded better than most I tried in music stores, so I kept it and while listening to any new hot tip, I could get, I remembered these deep digging sounds, singing, vibrating mids, slightly dampened, but still singing highs and the percussive background by plucking, tapping, finger-muting on high vol., plucking-staccato..
I always played bass fingerstyle, but it was that moment in our old rehearsal, where i felt it first...and fortunately I remembered as I often remember sounds which touch your very inner..soulthrough the fingertips? Someone with a plek won't be able to follow in mind...and pure volumepower is just a topping, once there is a nice cake underneath.