Any one have a good fretless guitar?

NevermindUs

NevermindUs

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i saw agile's fretless les paul, and im thinking about it. it would just be a toy, not my main instrument. but its something different. anyone know anything about it or any other fretless gutiars? and i want nothing to do with bumblefoot hahaha
 
Re: Any one have a good fretless guitar?

I don't like the sound of most of them, because I think they sound too dark. Of all the ones I have seen they are usually ebony or rosewood fretboards. I don't know why you couldn't have maple? With maple it should sound brighter.
 
Re: Any one have a good fretless guitar?

Ebony is pretty bright...brighter in its way than maple, though less punchy.
 
Re: Any one have a good fretless guitar?

Wouldn't it be pretty tough to do chords on a fretless, especially when you're using 4 fingers, each on a different "fret?" To get each finger in just the right spot would be a challenge for me (some chords are hard enough with frets). Are they mostly for simple chords & solos?

Makes sense that they'd be dark; you'd want to go with relatively bright PU's, like PAF's or P-90's.
 
Re: Any one have a good fretless guitar?

Years ago I did a fretless conversion on a Maton LP style guitar for Chris Bonacci (spelling?) who played with Mike Oldfield and Girlschool. We started off stringing it with flatwounds and the thing had zero presence,zero volume. So we went to regular strings and it really wasn't much better.
That guitar was mahogany body & neck with the most beautiful piece of black African ebony fingerboard,but it just wouldn't respond as a fretless.

It was my only experiment with full fretless guitars (I did a couple of fretted to 12 then fretless to 22, for people) and I wasn't at all impressed with the results.

Cheers,PJ
 
Re: Any one have a good fretless guitar?

A metal fingerboard yields better results.

A fretless bass works ok with wood (or composite) because bass strings are thicker and will vibrate more.
 
Re: Any one have a good fretless guitar?

A fair point. I've done chordal work on a fretless bass before, but the sorts of chords that tend to sound best on bass (imo) do tend to be pretty simple and almost never involve fretting multiple strings with one finger in the way that I would on a guitar.

blueman335 said:
Wouldn't it be pretty tough to do chords on a fretless, especially when you're using 4 fingers, each on a different "fret?" To get each finger in just the right spot would be a challenge for me (some chords are hard enough with frets). Are they mostly for simple chords & solos?

Makes sense that they'd be dark; you'd want to go with relatively bright PU's, like PAF's or P-90's.
Click to expand...
 
Re: Any one have a good fretless guitar?

blueman335 said:
Wouldn't it be pretty tough to do chords on a fretless, especially when you're using 4 fingers, each on a different "fret?" To get each finger in just the right spot would be a challenge for me (some chords are hard enough with frets). Are they mostly for simple chords & solos?
Click to expand...
You're thinking like aguitarist. The fretless is a completely different animal. When playing fretless guitar, you don't play all the notes in a chord the way you would in a guitar. You only play the notes that imply the voicing, i.e. root, 3rd, and 5th or 7th. Those are optional as well, especially if playing with a bass player, at that point, I only play the 3rd and 7th, 2nd, 9th, or 13th. You also have the option of a low or high string drone. :wall:
 
Re: Any one have a good fretless guitar?

The upright player closest to a guitarist I can think of is Charlie Haden. If you listen to his solos with Ornette back in the 60's, it's 3rds, 6ths, some fourths/fifths, but almost only double stops against an open string. You don't try Bb b5b913 on a fretless...but you can play the arpeggio.
 
Re: Any one have a good fretless guitar?

ES350 said:
The upright player closest to a guitarist I can think of is Charlie Haden. If you listen to his solos with Ornette back in the 60's, it's 3rds, 6ths, some fourths/fifths, but almost only double stops against an open string. You don't try Bb b5b913 on a fretless...but you can play the arpeggio.
Click to expand...

Ecksacktly
 
Re: Any one have a good fretless guitar?

Violins (and similarly constructed instruments) sound great when played well, so why does a fretless guitar pale in comparison? Is it the overall construction of a guitar vs. violin or cello or viola that makes the big difference? Or could it be how it's played (bow vs. fingers/plectrum)?
 
Re: Any one have a good fretless guitar?

I went through a fretless phase a few months back. There are some amazing fretless players, but to me the tendency seemed to be to either play shreddy stuff, which sounds exactly the same as on a fretted instrument (except with the added marvel of the guitarist's ears), to play "exotic" sounding stuff, or to play what basically amounts to slide guitar. The latter two genres don't really appeal to me, and in the first, the instrument actually seems almost to be an impedement to the artist, if that makes sense. Personally, I would love to play around on a fretless, but my ears aren't nearly good enough to have any real success creating music with it :(
 
Re: Any one have a good fretless guitar?

Fikealox said:
I went through a fretless phase a few months back. There are some amazing fretless players, but to me the tendency seemed to be to either play shreddy stuff, which sounds exactly the same as on a fretted instrument (except with the added marvel of the guitarist's ears), to play "exotic" sounding stuff, or to play what basically amounts to slide guitar. The latter two genres don't really appeal to me, and in the first, the instrument actually seems almost to be an impedement to the artist, if that makes sense. Personally, I would love to play around on a fretless, but my ears aren't nearly good enough to have any real success creating music with it :(
Click to expand...

Try a Godin Glissentar. It's fab.
 
Re: Any one have a good fretless guitar?

Wouldn't mind having one. I imagine it would be an excellent platform for developing one's sensitivity to pitch and intonation. After lots of practice a regular guitar would probably sound out of tune! Lots of musical possibilities.

As mentioned, Vigier makes a fretless called the Surfreter that's pretty good, if the rep is anything to go by. Metal fingerboard, DiMarzio pups (Tone Zone, FS 1, PAF Pro), tuned down to D, 11-52s.

There are a bunch of videos on YouTube.

2561.jpg
 
Re: Any one have a good fretless guitar?

i think im going to get one. i know some people are warning about it, but i spent a couple years playing fretless instruments such as upright bass, and i have spent the last 7 years taking jazz and blues lessons. i can deal with implyingchords, its what i do now anyway. and with slide, thats kinda exactly what i want. with a slide you can only play notes that are on the same fret or you have to move your hand all over. i rather riff and slide with the strings on the board. i think a fretless is exactly what i want
 
Re: Any one have a good fretless guitar?

check out The Fuze (David Fiuczynski). He plays a double neck fretted/fretless beast
 
Re: Any one have a good fretless guitar?

I saw Pat Metheny play one and it had this rubbery "doinky" tone to it. I figured that wasn't for me, but I gotta admit that Vigier looks pretty cool.
 
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