fretless intonation.... drawing the line!?

#8
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#9
reddog said:
any recommendations for an inline tuner?
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Never mind constantly playing with a tuner — play with your ears, not your eyes. (Besides, any tuner will do with a Y-cord to split the signal — provided it has a fast enough response.)

Does the Wish have any side dots (I know — playing with your eyes when I said not to)? Dots at the 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 12 should be all you need. You say you already have a lined fretless, not that much difference.

(Look, if I can play an unlined fretless in public, how hard can it be?) ;)

Good luck moving on.

Edit: But what DrewinHouston above said... a TurboTuner is an excellent choice, only tuner I own now. (But I never play with it on all the time, not sure I can do that with the earlier ST-200 model.)
 
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#11
Your ear is the best tool, imho, if you want to play fretless. I could never stand staring at a tuner to check my intonation.

Playing along with music was what worked for me. At first I tried learning some old Blue Murder songs that were played on a fretless, and I had a really hard time. All the glissandos and fancy fretless tricks are too much to start. Then I just decided to learn to play songs I could already play on a fretted bass, on the fretless. That worked really well for me.

My fretless is unlined, but I don't think a lined would have made the transition any easier. For me most of the difficulty was in my head. Once I just tried to play without worrying about it, it wasn't that difficult. Everyone is different, and learns differently of course.
 
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#12
I just got my first unlined fretless (a Carvin LB-76f) and the first few times I played it I had the worst time with intonation (especially above the 12th fret).

What I found is that my ear DID get much better... roll my finger ever so slightly up or down, or when chording be VERY aware of adjusting finger spacing (when doing a 5th holding down the root), etc.

Then one day while playing... it was correct.

Who would have thought that practicing and really listening by ear and almost subconsciously making CORRECT micro adjustments in the fly would pan out.

The people above are correct.

When practicing take some time to play your fretless along with something you already know on fretted. It's a great way to get used to true finger positions on the fingerboard, not just the fretted positions, which can be all over the place between the correct frets and generally sound ok. You will want to hear every note for its pitch compared to the recording, and figure out where your pitch is off and in what way (flat/sharp). This is what I did with one particularly long song and in a few weeks I started to get the "hang" of it. I've a long way to go but I am enjoying every minute of it.

My .02.
 
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#14
reddog said:
any recommendations for an inline tuner?
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#16
SteveCS said:
...
And the best to develop them - your ears, that is - is to learn to sing in tune.
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Or whistle.

Something about the purity of tone makes whistling in tune more difficult than singing (at least for me) but oh so rewarding to get it right.

When I am driving you will often find me singing or whistling major scales, minor scales, arpeggios, movie theme songs, etc.
 
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#17
You shouldn't be looking at your fretboard, no matter if you have frets or not! I don't have a single bass with position markers on the fretboard/fingerboard. If you want position markers on a fretless, put 'em on the side of the neck, where (assuming you're not bent over like a pretzel), you'll see them just fine.
 
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#19
micguy said:
You shouldn't be looking at your fretboard, no matter if you have frets or not! I don't have a single bass with position markers on the fretboard/fingerboard. If you want position markers on a fretless, put 'em on the side of the neck, where (assuming you're not bent over like a pretzel), you'll see them just fine.
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Quoted for emphasis. :thumbsup:

Also worth noting that side dots on a lined fretless are often between the frets (like on a fretted), while side dots on an unlined fretless are usually on the (places where the) frets (would be). Makes a difference.
 
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