Re: Fretless Jazz bass....GAS

"Benj" <bjacoby@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:5a740d81-abca-4db8-b9be-68cf2145dd02@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Jun 28, 5:24 pm, "RichL" <rpleav...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

So now I've got to wait 2 weeks before I can bring it home. I really like
the sound and feel of the bass. I think I can take the action down a bit
(it's pretty good even the way it is) to get a little more of that
characteristic fretless "mwaaa" sound. The tone of the Jazz bass is quite a
bit different from what I get with my Ric and Ibanez basses, so it rounds
out the herd pretty nicely.

You ought to be in for some fun now! And Yes, the Fender is "old
school"; the Ibanez is of course "modern" and the Ric, naturally is in
a class by itself. So yep you have the herd nicely rounded!

Thanks, yeah, I thought so myself :-) Up until now, I always asked myself, "What does anyone need more than two basses for?

I was aware of the recent discussion about hum from Jazz basses when the
pickups aren't balanced, but I gotta say I was pleasantly surprised. The
hum I heard when I was auditioning it wasn't much louder with one pickup on
than with both (and it was pretty low level overall). I played it for a
while in the shop's "quiet room" so I could accurately characterize the hum
and also probe the neck carefully for defects.

Total: $350 out the door, which isn't too bad considering new ones are $600.

I presume from the price this is a MIM bass. Those have "noiseless"
pickups. I don't like the tone of mine much, but I LOVE the fact that
you don't get hum when singled. The American basses have different
pickups that sound better (also noiseless) And there are a number of
after-market pickup makers that make dynomite replacement pickups if
you have some spare dough and get the urge sometime.

Thanks for the heads-up on the pickups, I didn't realize that those were the "noiseless" variety. Makes sense though, in terms of what I heard.

I presume it's passive. It was a good idea to probe the neck for dead
spots as that is a bad feature of many Fender basses. (Mine MIM has
none, just a couple of spots where the tone changes ever so slightly.
You'd never find it if you weren't really looking for it.)

Actually Jim Carr [of all people ;-)] gave me a heads-up on this before I went to the store the second time, so I worked the neck over pretty thoroughly.

A word to the wise on fretless. Round wound strings have great tone
but will chew your fingerboard. If that bothers you (it bothers me!)
switch to ground-wounds (half-rounds), flats or nylon wrapped. They
won't chew at all. If you must have the tone, then just resign
yourself to the fact you'll need fingerboard planed periodically. I'm
told it takes quite a lot of playing to reach that stage. And it's not
a huge repair. GHS pressure-wounds only chew a little bit, but are
brighter than ground-wounds, but not quite as bright as rounds. (they
run rounds through rollers to smash them).

As it turns out, the bass already has flat-wounds. I think I'll keep it that way for a while unless it sounds too dead to me once I get it home and run it through my Ampeg rig.

My other basses have ground wounds, which are nice for me because I still get a sound I like out of them but they don't mangle my fingertips. I'm mainly a wussy guitar player, after all :-)

Good luck. Fretless is much fun!

Thanks! I'm looking forward to it!

.

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