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In the Loopers' archive I found a series of one-year old messages by a number of fretless guitar players, started by one named Leander - any of these still around? If so: It's nice to see that there are some people experimenting with fretless guitar and it surprises me it took so long (fretless bass has been around for ages).. I have been playing fretless guitar for a couple of years too. I tried many variations; starting from an old Strat copy I removed the frets and levelled the fretboard nicely. Then I started trying different kinds of strings and tuning, using middle-eastern and oriental scales as a base. At the moment I am using the guitar with much thicker than normal, all metal bound strings tuned in various ways, such as G D G C D G or C G C E G C. When I use the guitar "clean" I get a warm, "wooden" sound, a way in between a oud and a sitar, otherwise I use it with an e-bow and a Zoom 40-40 set of effects, obtaining very interesting, cello-like sounds. Sometimes I still use a Montarbo Sinfotone, an ancient fuzz/sustain pedal I had since the seventies that produces a sound reminding a lot of the early Fripp's sound. I am considering buying a Fernandes Monterey fretless/sustainer, although I have never had a chance to put my hands on one to try it as they seem to be very difficult to find in Europe (I have only seen them in the fretless.com web site). Do you know anything first-hand about these guitars? I am also trying to convince a local luthier (I am in London, UK) to build a fretless guitar I have designed, with moveable individual strings bridges (like a Japanese Kodo) that would allow for dramatic tuning changes while playing and a small harp-like extension. If you want to hear some sound samples from two CDs I have produced partially with the fretless you can visit the Rusty Robot web site at http://www.rustyrobot.com go to the catalogue page and look for the "robat" cds (The site is being redesigned and a new version will be up shortly) Any other fretless looper out there? cheers Roberto ______________________________________________ Roberto Battista http://www.robat.scl.net http://www.robat.scl.net/lectures/index.shtm Tel. 0044 020 8449 1995 Mobile 0775 960 4344 ______________________________________________ http://www.rustyrobot.com independent on-line music distribution, the music you can't find elsewhere, contemporary classical, eclectic, world... ______________________________________________ http://www.robat.scl.net/html/tibet/tibet.shtm an exciting project on technology applied to mobile education for developing countries and remote locations... ______________________________________________