Leo And The Fretless

[sblueplanet]

When Leo Fender introduced his electric bass in 1951it must have been obvious that a large potential market for his instrument were the many double bass players out there and the opportunity to downsize and be heard. So why did it take until 1970 for Fender to produce a fretless model?

Surely many more existing upright players would have been attracted to the electric bass had fretless versions been available from the outset? Given that the fingerboard starts its life without frets in the factory, it would have been cheaper to promote the P bass as fretless with fretted as an option.

So was it because Leo had the mindset of a guitarist or just had poor marketing advisors?
For instance, when Jaco Pastorius made playing fretless bass popular around 1975 using a de-fretted Fender Jazz bass, Fender still didn't seize the opportunity and offer a similar model fretless till the mid-80's.

I'm not knocking the introduction of the fretted electric bass but had it started as a portable fretless alternative to upright, maybe the evolution of bass-playing would have taken a different journey.

[BetaFunk]

[quote name='sblueplanet' timestamp='1392665893' post='2371388']
So was it because Leo had the mindset of a guitarist or just had poor marketing advisors?
[/quote]
Most buyers were guitarists not double bass players.[quote name='sblueplanet' timestamp='1392665893' post='2371388']
For instance, when Jaco Pastorius made playing fretless bass popular around 1975 using a de-fretted Fender Jazz bass, Fender still didn't seize the opportunity and offer a similar model fretless till the mid-80's.
[/quote]
I don't think that Jaco actually 'made playing fretless bass popular around 1975'. I first heard of Jaco in 1975 (although i had 'heard' him the year before on the Little Beaver LP) as a sideman on an Ira Sullivan LP (credited as Jocko) and on Pat Metheny's Bright Size Life LP. He then gained fame with Weather Report but although he had his followers (including many bass players) i doubt if the majority of casual listeners even realised he played a fretless bass back then. The days when everyone wanted to play like Jaco were a long way off in 1975.

Edited February 17, 2014 by BetaFunk

[EssentialTension]

Surely they are still a long way off today too.

[BetaFunk]

I'm not sure what that's got to do with what i said.

[skankdelvar]

[quote name='sblueplanet' timestamp='1392665893' post='2371388']
So was it because Leo had the mindset of a guitarist or just had poor marketing advisors? [/quote]

Well, Leo didn't play guitar [i]or[/i] bass. But as m'learned friend Betafunk points out, the instrument was targeted not at bassists but at guitarists, Possibly because they were (and are) greater in number and also presumably because they were considered to be less 'stick in the mud' than their low-end chums. The fact that bass players have stuck religiously to his product for 60 glorious years would seem to bear that out

Mr Fender was a man who relied extensively on customer feedback and rarely passed up a new opportunity. If there had been a demand for fretless basses, he would assuredly have exploited it.

As for his marketing advisor at the time of the launch, this would have been Mr Don Randall whose job (in addition to selling) was to write the ads, man the show stands and come up with the product names. His input into product development would have been much attenuated by comparison to modern marketing people.

[chris_b]

.... so you think Leo Fender had poor marketing advisors?

That's a good one.

[SlapbassSteve]

Bottom line here is that at the precision was aimed at guitarists so that they could lay down the bass as another feather in their cap, so to speak- the design was based on the Fender Telecaster; it was a [i]bass [b]guitar[/b][/i]. As we all know, it was called the Fender Precision bass because the frets allowed guitarists to play basslines without having to learn upright bass technique or finger positions. Handily, players found it could make a pretty good impersonation of a double bass too, so perhaps nobody saw the need to make it sound further like one by removing the frets.

[the boy]

[quote name='SlapbassSteve' timestamp='1392688379' post='2371703']
Bottom line here is that at the precision was aimed at guitarists so that they could lay down the bass as another feather in their cap, so to speak- the design was based on the Fender Telecaster; it was a [i]bass [b]guitar[/b][/i]. As we all know, it was called the Fender Precision bass because the frets allowed guitarists to play basslines without having to learn upright bass technique or finger positions. Handily, players found it could make a pretty good impersonation of a double bass too, so perhaps nobody saw the need to make it sound further like one by removing the frets.
[/quote]
This..... Also frets on a bass were new technology. It was the most modern concept to play a fretted bass guitar. It wouldn't have been cool to play a fretless bass guitar. That would basically be a shrunken bass on its side.

Edited February 18, 2014 by the boy

[lojo]

Wasn't the precision fretting part of the appeal to he marketed ?

They may have thought many upright players would not embrace a smaller upright , but the fretted bass was at least a completely different idea ?

I read recently that they also made a 5 string in the early 60s , so they where inventive back then , and fretless was what they where trying to improve on

Apart from the 5 string bit, I'm just guessing though.

Edited February 18, 2014 by lojo

[BassBod]

The answer is in the name Precision bass. Jaco wasn't the first electric fretless player, but probably the first you'd want to listen to! As previously said, Leo was marketing bass to guitarists who could double up, so adding frets and easy intonation made sense. Taking the frets out again appealed to far less players and took much longer to catch on. By the time Jaco was well known Fender was a very big operation and far less in touch, so I guess they just didn't see it as a valuable market.

Out of interest - I've not seen many fretless Alembics from the mid-late 70's - and they were a small (rich) customer focussed bass company.

[sblueplanet]

So no one thinks it strange that a fretless model was never available from the beginning for existing upright players to switch to?
This was my main point of discussion, not the concept of putting frets on as frets had been around for hundreds of years.
The instrument may have evolved differently had fretless been available as an option from the start and I wonder if many people ripped the frets out even in the early days?

[BassBod]

I think a missing part of the discussion is amplification and its early limitations. Early EUB's existed in the big band days before the second world war, but the low power amps and speakers didn't cope with the low frequencies. Jaco wouldn't have been Jaco without the two very new Acoustic 360 stacks (and the bright Rotosound strings). The clarity/intonation thing is very significant for a successful fretless sound to work.

I remember reading years ago that Bill Wyman was using a de-fretted bass in the mid 60's - but I've never heard a Stones track from that time when you'd notice, it could be double bass, could be a hollow body?

[tinyd]

[quote name='sblueplanet' timestamp='1392715146' post='2371809']
So no one thinks it strange that a fretless model was never available from the beginning for existing upright players to switch to?
This was my main point of discussion, not the concept of putting frets on as frets had been around for hundreds of years.
The instrument may have evolved differently had fretless been available as an option from the start and I wonder if many people ripped the frets out even in the early days?
[/quote]

I think that you're thinking about this in a modern context - at the time, double bass was the way of fulfilling that role in a band, and Fender came along with a sonically equivalent instrument that could be played by guitarists or upright players. I don't think that the fretted nature of a BG makes it harder for upright players to switch. If anything, it helps with intonation issues when switching to a BG's shorter scale length.

[BetaFunk]

[quote name='tinyd' timestamp='1392717838' post='2371839']
I don't think that the fretted nature of a BG makes it harder for upright players to switch.
[/quote]
It doesn't. Back in the early 50s Double Bass players could have easily switched to a Precision. The fact is they didn't want to. To most Double Bass players this was a new instrument that they wanted no part of.

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='BassBod' timestamp='1392713204' post='2371788']
The answer is in the name Precision bass. Jaco wasn't the first electric fretless player, but probably the first you'd want to listen to!
[/quote]

Freebo, Jack Bruce, Rod Clements and Rick Danko disagree.

[BetaFunk]

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1392719761' post='2371874']
Freebo, Jack Bruce, Rod Clements and Rick Danko disagree.
[/quote]
+1

[BassBod]

Fair 'nuff....but not Jack Bruce. I've heard some howlers from him, up front and personal. He's still one if my all time favourite musicians, and a real inspiration..but not for his fretless intonation. I always thought he started playing fretless with the Dan Armstrong in the mid 70's?

First one I heard was Alphonso Johnson in pre-jack Weather Report. He had sound all of his own.

[sblueplanet]

I remember my older brothers listening to records in the early 70's that featured fretless playing and I used to ask what instrument was making that 'mwah' sound. Certainly wasn't Jaco.

[Beer of the Bass]

[quote name='sblueplanet' timestamp='1392715146' post='2371809']
So no one thinks it strange that a fretless model was never available from the beginning for existing upright players to switch to?
This was my main point of discussion, not the concept of putting frets on as frets had been around for hundreds of years.
The instrument may have evolved differently had fretless been available as an option from the start and I wonder if many people ripped the frets out even in the early days?
[/quote]

What's interesting is that the first electric upright basses were developed in the 1930s, independently by Regal, Vega and Rickenbacker and weren't much of a commercial success. Surely those would be a more attractive option to double bassists going electric than a fretless Fender would be? I suspect that Leo Fender was aware of these and quite conciously went for a different approach.

Edited February 18, 2014 by Beer of the Bass

[sblueplanet]

Interesting comments by BassBod and Beer of the Bass about amplification being a factor. Hadn't considered that.

[BetaFunk]

[quote name='BassBod' timestamp='1392717018' post='2371828']
Jaco wouldn't have been Jaco without the two very new Acoustic 360 stacks (and the bright Rotosound strings). The clarity/intonation thing is very significant for a successful fretless sound to work.
[/quote]
Jaco also used equipment made by Larry Hartke. These were AMP (Amplified Music Products) amplifiers with cabs made by Hartke.

He was still very much Jaco whatever he played through.

Edited February 19, 2014 by BetaFunk

[Telebass]

The part you're all missing here is that by 1970, Leo was completely out of the picture, and Don Randall was no longer the hands-on guy he'd been before, purely due to the way CBS ran their organisation.
I doubt Leo would ever have sanctioned a fretless Precision - it would have made no sense.

[Dr.Dave]

[quote name='Telebass' timestamp='1392800369' post='2372789']
The part you're all missing here is that by 1970, Leo was completely out of the picture, and Don Randall was no longer the hands-on guy he'd been before, purely due to the way CBS ran their organisation.
I doubt Leo would ever have sanctioned a fretless Precision - it would have made no sense.
[/quote]
I get your thinking but I'm less sure he would feel that way. Much of what I've read of him tells me his priority was to build useful instruments for working musicians in a changing - esp re. broadcasting - world and thinking of the US market in particular where you may be gigging/touring hundreds of miles from home and need to be able to call in a music shop one afternoon and buy replacement parts to fix your instrument yourself and be playing again that night. Someone already mentioned the great idea of an instrument that guitar players could play to get more jobs. I doubt , though , he was immune to seeing how the use of his products evolved - and Fender's re-design of the original Precision and introduction of the Jazz reflects the desire to feed that evolution with more versatile instruments. A guy like that would likely latch on to folk ripping the frets from their instruments in a desire to get a very different sound and wish to be a part of that movement , in my opinion anyway.

[UglyDog]

[quote name='Dr.Dave' timestamp='1392812385' post='2372954']
I doubt , though , he {Leo F} was immune to seeing how the use of his products evolved - and Fender's re-design of the original Precision and introduction of the Jazz reflects the desire to feed that evolution with more versatile instruments.
[/quote]
Absolutely. If Leo hadn't been particularly interested in the evolution and advancement of the instrument and its use, I doubt he'd have bothered setting up either Musicman or G&L.

[neepheid]

Fretless Fender Precision == Fender Imprecision?