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Fretless is way harder than fretted, in my
opinion. Been hacking away at fretless bass on a daily basis for the last
six years, and I still feel like I suck. You actually have to use your ear
for intonation. A big drain on CPU cycles. Not like these fucking
guitarist and keyboardist "button pushers." ;)
I look at my hands. My bass doesn't have
lines, but it has dots on the side of the neck (thank god). But, like I
wrote to Mr. Lawson in a private mail regarding the Eberhard thread, I
think when the roundwounds chew through this fingerboard I'm going to send it
back to Joe Zon and have him put a lined neck on it. Hey, if Gary Willis,
and Jaco use(d) lined necks, why the hell am I so worried about no lines as
some kind of legitimacy issue?
'Course Manring ain't go no lines and his
intonation is pretty good, considering the game of Twister his fingers play to
make some of those chords. Oh, wait, and Alain Caron doesn't have
lines either.
All fretless instrument players play out of tune to
a degree. It's all about how fast you can correct it. I feel like
it's easier to hear out-of-tune-ness on an electric bass because of roundwound
strings and their very strong/full harmonic content. Especially when
strings are new.
-J
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