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Fretless Ukulele Basses?


meterman
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1 hour ago, Owen said:

Tauzero, are you Rachel?

 

Not unless I've changed gender and nationality without noticing. I suppose I should have mentioned that it was somebody else's review.

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I played the HB one at Thomann (the store itself in Bavaria). It had bronze wound strings on it instead of the rubbery ones, which was great. Can't seem to find that as an option on the website though. Should have bought it there and then.

I also played the Ibanez AVNB1FE some years ago when it was in production. I've been lusting after one of those ever since, great little bass it was. They were gone almost as soon as they'd arrived though and not a lot of them have come up second hand. Let's hope Ibanez Will will do another run sooner or later. 

Edited by lksmks792
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Okay, quick update on the Harley Benton fretless ukulele bass.

 

It arrived this afternoon and once I'd got it in tune, it stayed there. So far, so good. The rubber strings actually didn't take much getting used to and the weeny scale length is pretty easy to adjust to, although I do have a 25" scale Precision copy so the uke bass isn't too far off that.

 

The good - it's a lot of fun to play, and acoustically it sounds bigger than it really should. It's been a while since I've owned a fretless and I'd forgotten how they make you focus differently (in a good way) while playing. Mic-ed up rather than plugged in is where it really gets good. Even a half decent condenser makes it sound like more than a €144 bass. It sounds massive mic-ed up with a touch of compression, even with me playing it.

 

The bad - the E string has fret buzz from 1 to 8 and then 10. I'm hoping this might disappear after a day or two. When the parcel was delivered it was quite warm (it was 39 degrees here today) and when I opened the box, the bass was warm. So maybe it'll settle. The other thing is a black mark in the natural finish on the front. Had it been on the back it wouldn't have bothered me, but on the front it does. 
 

Will I keep it or exchange it? Don't know yet. But it is a funky little thing to have 👍

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9 minutes ago, zonular said:

any misstep in fretting was causing buzz for me

Ouch … never experienced that on a ubass (I am only a 4/10 level bass player); not an issue on a fretless IME (Unless it has a really misaligned neck) tho of course fretless has other … challenges! lol

Sam x

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