strange fretted but not fretted bass

[grosa]

right im sure ageeess ago on the telly i saw a mad nordic bloke doing some slap on his loveley bass,then twisting some key/knobthingy and it magically transforming to a fretless like some crazed funk juju bean fretboard of voodoo.
sure it was on tomorrows world or something to that effect.

does anyone have any clue of what im gabbling on about??
was it real?
was i just deprived of sleep that badly it didn't really happen?

Edited October 21, 2007 by grosa

[MB1]

MB1.

No ! you were not dreaming someone has made such a bass,think it was mentioned previously on bassworld,not cheap as i remember!

[The Funk]

[url="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6610558556587749772"]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6610558556587749772[/url]

Wow. Never heard of this before. Interesting.

Edited October 21, 2007 by The Funk

[bassmandan]

yeah, it was Tomorrow's World definately. I remember watching it at the time (quite probably about 15/20 years ago) and for some reason I've had it in my head ever since that the guy in question was Abe Laboriel (playing it, although I don't think he'd been involved in its production).... but I'm probably wrong on that front!

[BigRedX]

[url="http://www.mikeyguitar.com/index.asp"]Mikey Guitar[/url] is what you're looking for

[urb]

That groovy - and amazing - French bass don Dominique DiPiazza has developed his own special bridge system that can make a fretted sound like a fretless - I'm not sure he's using it here on this clip but I think he is -

[url="http://youtube.com/watch?v=y7wZZPYWQzQ"]http://youtube.com/watch?v=y7wZZPYWQzQ[/url]

but I think he definitely is here

[url="http://youtube.com/watch?v=V8Dw3PGDSLc&mode=related&search="]http://youtube.com/watch?v=V8Dw3PGDSLc&amp...ted&search=[/url]

Not sure I like the idea of having two basses in one - my fretless (see avatar) has the nicest board on it and as it gets older and more worn in it's definitely getting more character.

Anyway - interesting bass that - not sure about the slapping tho...

M

[grosa]

[quote name='bassmandan' post='77569' date='Oct 21 2007, 11:23 PM']yeah, it was Tomorrow's World definately. I remember watching it at the time (quite probably about 15/20 years ago) and for some reason I've had it in my head ever since that the guy in question was Abe Laboriel (playing it, although I don't think he'd been involved in its production).... but I'm probably wrong on that front![/quote]

thank f**k for that,it was driving me mental,i've tried explaining to people for years but they just reckon i dreamt it.
it was ages ago wasn't it?
strange thing to remember

[MB1]

MB1.

I remember Status being on Tomorrows World...... must have missed the fretted fretless.

[grosa]

i will not rest till i find the tomorrows world footage

them mikey basses are a bit mad

and i agree with you urb its nice to have a seperate one,specially that one

[SJA]

I've seen that clip on tomorrow's world- the daft thing was that he just kept slapping away on it just the same when it was in fretless mode- not really showing what the point was!
(pretty sure it wasn't Abe Laboriel, at least in that clip

Steinberger also made a convertible fretted/fretless bass- I think there's a page on it on the steinbergerworld site, see if I can find it...

Edited October 22, 2007 by SJA

[SJA]

here's the Steinberger-
[url="http://billrushing.org/20060302_steinberger_week_thursday_weirdest_steinberger.htm"]http://billrushing.org/20060302_steinberge...steinberger.htm[/url]

otherwise you could get a doubleneck, like Jonas Hellborg-
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7C8lDnThBs"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7C8lDnThBs[/url]