Grimalkin

Uprights are a different ball game in equivalence to electric bass.

Upright players don't use fingerboard references as such, their positioning is cued by the physicality of the instrument, the scroll, the upper shoulders, thumb position. Of course if you are bowing with an orchestra at slower tempos you can finger roll to adjust a little flat or sharp, if you have time. You'll note that upright jazz players have quite a bit of leeway with intonation, a bit of gratis. I intonate all my fretless basses for the positioning I want in regard to the lines. Which is just behind, almost the same as a fretted. Both by eye and ear.

I use everything I can to improve intonation, I listen to the guys who have that together.

Pino, miming, not even plugged in and he's still instinctively checking his positioning quite a fair bit:

Looking almost all of the time, Pino the same:

Playing a bass guitar is a very different thing to playing an upright bass, different positioning techniques. And uprights, have a certain amount of leeway with intonation, let's put it that way. Birelli is looking at his fingers almost all of the time...

Change your pitch sighting and bring the saddles forward mate. All bunched up.

You have to be playing at a slow tempo to pitch correct on the fly, anything higher and you can forget about it. Then it's positioning and muscle memory, no chance of individual note pitch correction. From 0.30:

It has side markers?

Explain please, Jaco?

Having the silks sitting in the grooves ain't great, it's out of adjustment on three strings and screwed right back on the springs. To set it like that, your intonation would have to be constantly pitched sharp. Not only that, at that angle the strings ride up more, causing the action to be a little higher.

Ok.

"Pino used to use another fellow to adjust the intonation of his basses, so that the basses were intonated to where he visualised the pitch to be on the board." I should explain that a little more, Pino would play the bass, while another fellow would make the adjustment that he wanted. So it could be done in situ, and intonated to him. To where he visualised the pitches to be, unlined after all.

You only need to look at the bridge setting to see it's not right. It's all too far back, the silks are running over the saddles.

Pino used to use another fellow to adjust the intonation of his basses, so that the basses were intonated to where he visualised the pitch to be on the board. I use that method, other guys capo off the twelfth fret and go from there. Intonating a lined fretless, dictates where the pitch will be in relation to the line. You can intonate behind the line, as you would play a fretted, or directly on top of the line, which according to Gary Willis, would be the better method. Splitting the fingertip along the line. I do realise it's a fretless, I've been playing about 35 years in all.

Click the pic and magnify the bridge, the saddles are pretty much pulled all the way back to the back-plate with the silks of the strings (D/A/E) running into the string slots. It's all pulled too far back, pretty much to its limits. I'm wondering how the intonation has been set up.

You shouldn't always assume technology is a friend, look at what auto-tune has done... That'll be my product, an auto-tune for ropey fretless bass playing.

Those saddles man, shouldn't look like that. How are you intonating it?

I never really got the guff about Sinatra, he's no Tony Bennett.

Office Worker : So what about you Frank? Did you see that freak on "American Superstars" last night? Frank : What? Office Worker : Last night; that freak on "American Superstarz." Frank : No... I mean yes, I saw that accidentally. I don't watch "American Superstarz" Office Worker : You don't watch it, but you saw him. What are you too good for the show? Frank : Yeah, I'm too good for a karaoke contest that makes stars out of people with no talent. Office Worker : You can't say that dude, some of those kids have real talent. Frank : No they don't. They have good pitch... they're relatively clean, they're non-threatening to little girls and old ladies, they have the ability to stand in line with a stadium full of other desperate and confused people, but I assure you they are talent-free. God Bless America.

No need to move the fret markers, not with our big brains... We can adjust.

I've had a few defrets done on different basses over the years, there was no drama I can assure you.

Unlined fretless? I'd want lines on it anyway. I'll bet the board is pretty clean above the twelfth if it is unlined...

It wasn't that the Luddites disliked technology, they disliked the fact that it would be used to replace them...