ezbass

I’m looking forward to pictures of your creations.

Yikes!

On a small a small stage they’re a no no and for just 9 songs, that’s ridiculous. The ‘joy’ of all tube amps, temperamental at the most inconvenient of times.

Magic Man - Heart

Flexible neck, just what you want in a bass .

I’m a lover of tort, but that anodised gold looks fab! 😍

And streets don’t need nourishment, so feeding them is pointless. However, I have seen some awful things growing on some streets, definitely a culture of some description 🤢 .

It Wasn’t Me - Shaggy

I think it’s probably 5+ However, I could be wrong

I keep forgetting how much I like Skunk Anansie, Cass Lewis is a monster.

Missing - Everything But The Girl

Sadowsky SBP2 into an MXR M87 comp, into a VTDI, works a treat with rockier tunes.

Three and a half years break from playing it for me (other than the odd noodle at home). It really has made me appreciate it more. Spurred on by my use of the fretless at the last rehearsal and gig, I carried out a comparison experiment that you can’t achieve under normal gig/rehearsal conditions, just to check if it wasn’t just the different feel and tone of the instrument that was making me feel so good about it (emperor’s new clothes and all that). I copied an old live recording I had from about 10 years ago into GarageBand, sucked out all the bass frequencies and recorded 4 new bass lines, using different basses, both clean and driven. I was surprised by the results. Not only did the fretless sound better in the mix than the fretted bass, both clean and driven, but the driven, fretless tone was the out and out winner.

Outstanding!

Diamonds & Rust - Joan Baez

Edison’s Medicine - Tesla (double whammy)

Can’t help you with your tone question, unfortunately, but

I prefer the feel of my fretless and it has a different pickup config to my fretted, so I can play it to sound as close as poss to a fretted version of that bass, but still add the occasional fretless flourish if the mood takes me/is appropriate.

Ride On Pony - Free

If played avoiding overuse of vibrato and not sliding into every note, most people won’t notice. Listen to Boz Burrell on the first 2 Bad Co albums, there are clues to the use of fretless, but they are very, very subtle and if you don’t know what to listen for, they’re easy missed.

Really good and not just for the money. The bridge pickup is underpowered compared to the P pickup, but that’s not unusual. I’ve been considering putting an EMG GZR set in it and selling the JMJ.

JMJ and Harley Benton wannabe.

Yes, it is. It’s actually a clear one, with a celluloid, tort sheet under it (it’s the same thing stuff they stick on acoustic guitars). The whole thing is a custom build, ordered way before they introduced their configurator. 33” scale, chambered, drop D tuner, 41mm nut width, passive (control 3 is a series/single/parallel rotary). In addition to the scratchplate, I’ve upgraded the pickup to a Delano and added the Sadowsky type knobs. Weighs in at 3.2kg (in true UK style, I’ve mixed my weights and measures between metric and imperial, what other country does that? Fuel bought in litres, but economy measured in mpg is another example). Ta, it really is. Ordered back when Maruszczyk were just starting to get some traction here.

No, it’s an Elwood L that I’ve had for over 9 years.

🧟‍♂️ Resurrection time. 3 years have passed, but now I’m well and truly back in the fretless fold. I recently took my custom Maruszczyk fretless to a rehearsal (Stingray-alike), just to show it some love and it sounded great. I avoided slides and vibrato where possible as the genre doesn’t call for that style/tone and it just roared, there was a definite Ric vibe to the tone, especially with a bit of grit from my VTDI. I was so impressed (as were my band mates) that I used it for a gig the following Saturday, both sets. The fretted spare (my usual go to bass) stayed in its gigbag all night. Since then it is the bass that I pick up first and I’m loving it all over again. Good to be back.