Fretless electro

[dave moffat]

Following my experience with my fretless Uke bass ,I know my next bass will be fretless, for practicality I'm thinking along the lines of a shortscale, fretless electro, played through a cube street when not playing acoustically. I think Ibanez do one.

Does anyone have experience of such unicorns, suggestions as to what to look at, any to avoid and any pitfalls/ things to consider?

[Lfalex v1.1]

A generic observations from electro-acoustic (fretted) ownership;

They only produce limited volume when played acoustically. They'll not keep up with an acoustic guitar being played hard. Fretless may prove worse still.

They do sound nice through amplification, however, the large top can make them prone to feedback in louder environments. A soundhole bung/plug may help in this regard.

[dave moffat]

Thanks, very interesting points you make.

I have an acoustic fretted bass guitar as well as the unfretted Uke. With the uke, acoustic is fine for practice/noodling but it does have to be put through an amp to really come to life. The guitar is definitely louder but I had put that down to the difference in strings and size and had pondered putting a pup in the guitar but I really like playing the unfretted uke so thought I'd be as well adding an unfretted guitar to the collection might have to skip the idea and just get a fretless electric for about the same price as I'm looking at for an electro.

Have already experienced earsplitting feedback putting things through the cube moving things about a bit solves the problem but will give the soundhole plug a go as well. Oddly I haven't had such a feedback issue with the older amps.