Interesting dream last night...

[rizzo9247]

I woke up this morning after an interesting dream about a new bass; but not one that already exists. In this dream, I was playing my 5 string Fender Jazz, but the interesting thing was, it was both fretted and fretless. The frets only went up to the 9th, and after that, (10-20) were fretless. It seems like an interesting idea, what do you guys think?

 

I tried searching for some instrument like this, but only found this one,

where the guy pulls a switch to lower the frets into the neck making it a fretless.

 

Another part of my dream, was the creation of an apple turnover in cupcake form, a discussion for a later time

 

 

-Anthony

[ABGBrian]

http://www.unfretted.com/loader.php?LINK=/gallery/ten_conv

 

Go to the pic at the bottom of the page.

[rizzo9247]

That's interesting, but mine didn't have half-frets. I had whole frets (from the B to the G string) all the way up to the 9th position where it then became all fretless.

 

Maybe it was a sign from above to remove those frets, I might begin a project...

[jcadmus]

I dreamed once that I invented a game called Puckey.

 

You play it with something called a "hock."

[Juancarlin]

I have thought of a half-fretless neck several times... at the 10th fret... never seen one anyway (And the youtube link didn´t got me anywhere, by the way)...

 

anybody else? Thought about it/ played one/ had one? Would be interesting to find how useful it would really be.

[slap-pop-karl]

I had an intersting dream once about a bass with a loose string that you had to pul to make sound, Im sure its inpossible to do unmuted though, but in my dream it sounded the biz.

 

[Paul K]

I've seen one, played it, and am totally convinced that it's (B)ass-backwards. The fretted part should be the higher frets 10-20, the fretless part should be 0-9. Intonation gets harder as the notes get closer together, and a bunch of frets at the high end would make slapping a little groovier than on a fretless.

[The Geoff]

It's an interesting proposition and a seducing one, BUT.........

 

the lower fretted area is OK, but, because of the frets, it leaves the action too high for the unfretted area to play comfortably.

 

G.

[Paul K]

Easy. Just plane down the wood of the fretted part by the thickness of the height of the frets to be installed.

[Rocky McDougall]

OK Anthony, let's talk about the apple turnover cupcake. Forget about the half fretted bass, someone is already doing it.

Rocky

[Scott W]

I'm gonna steal that apple turnover cupcake idea. It'll make me rich, rich I tells ya.

[rdepelteau]

I've seen one, played it, and am totally convinced that it's (B)ass-backwards. The fretted part should be the higher frets 10-20, the fretless part should be 0-9. Intonation gets harder as the notes get closer together, and a bunch of frets at the high end would make slapping a little groovier than on a fretless.

 

I beg to differ, violinists don't have any problems hitting the high notes, and a violin is much smaller than a bass. And speaking of personal experience, I'm not that particular with exactness since I mostly play hilbilly music, but I can tell you I can be right on in any range. It's just getting there that's a little tricky sometimes.

[carpedebass]

Apple turnover cupcake...yummmmmy!

 

BTW...it takes YEARS to learn violin. I mean to learn just to get a decent tone from it. Violin is not a good example here. Maybe a bass violin...

[b5pilot]

Sounds like a kind of cool thing to do. If one had smallish hands like me one could keep the pitch of the longer spacing and get that Jaco sound for soloing. Neat! But I'd try it on a project bass first in case you don't like it.

[Gruuve]

There was a bass advertised in BPMag for a while a couple years back that had frets up to the 12th mark, then fretless from 13th - 22nd, then two final frets at the 23rd and 24th positions. It looked like a great idea to me, but I can't remember the name of it.

 

Dave

 

[slap-pop-karl]

Apple turnover cupcake...yummmmmy!

 

BTW...it takes YEARS to learn violin. I mean to learn just to get a decent tone from it. Violin is not a good example here. Maybe a bass violin...

MY friend, a guitarist picked up my friend Zoe's violin. He got quite a decent sound from it straight away. Maybe he is just a natural or lucky.

[ABGBrian]

BTW...it takes YEARS to learn violin. I mean to learn just to get a decent tone from it. Violin is not a good example here. Maybe a bass violin...

 

That isn't saying much considering the same could be said about virtually any instrument.

[A Head with Wings]

I mentioned it before, in some other thread long ago. Ibanez made a Musician (I think MC 924 EQ), first 12 frets fretted, from then on fretless (up to the 24th "fret"). I bought one in 1981, and I was stupid enough te sell it when I retired for a while.

I didn't buy it for this special feature, but because it was the only Musician left in the store; they sold them for low prices. The Musician was then known as the Sting-bass.

It's hard to imagine the need to switch instantly between fretted and fretless coinciding with the split between the two being excactly at the 12the fret.

But apart from the special feature, it was a great sounding bass (I played it through a Kustom III with a 2x15 cab).