Bodywood for fretless

A

Aslan

Warwick Endorser
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Hi!
I am looking for a new fretless 5-string.
I am playing mainly rock and metal. Right now I have a Corvette Std5 Ash but I think the tone is too mellow for the style. And I am thinking that a harder bodywood would be the trick...

So which bodywood do you prefer for a fretless bass? I need growling mids and deep lows...

My own ideas is maybe a Corvette Bubinga or a Streamer LX5 maple ( I just love the streamer body shape).
Or maybe a Streamer LX5 Bubinga CS
:D

btw I hate the Thumb bodyshape... :wink:

What's your thoughts?
 
Bubinga will do it, i hear walnut bodies are also good for fretless.

The ideal choice imo would be a fretless bubinga $$ NT. it has everything to make one growly fretless.
 
Definitely bubinga, or go fancy with bubinga pommele. That said, I have a bubinga Corvette fretless and I like the fretless tone of my de-fretted Dirty Blonde Thumb better - and it is an ash body with birdseye poplar top and a maple neck...
 
maddrakkett said:
Definitely bubinga, or go fancy with bubinga pommele. That said, I have a bubinga Corvette fretless and I like the fretless tone of my de-fretted Dirty Blonde Thumb better - and it is an ash body with birdseye poplar top and a maple neck...
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I love the sound of my Ash $$ its got a more double bassy tone to it.

If found that the fretless tone seems to be more in the neck and maple is probably the sweetest sounding neck for a fretless it brings out the mwaah really nicely.
 
Callum said:
Bubinga will do it, i hear walnut bodies are also good for fretless.

The ideal choice imo would be a fretless bubinga $$ NT. it has everything to make one growly fretless.
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`

Yeah, bubba binga. Maple is growly but no magic for deep lows. Bubinga with the $$ PU's would go waaaaayyy low and the 3-way switches will find you just the kinda growl you want.

But I wouldn't flat out say to go for NT. You really gotta compare. The body wings are mostly for ergonomics, while the wood near the centerline really handles most of the tone. The body centerline would be all bubinga with a bolt-on, and it would be all neck wood with a NT. You gotta hear both to know what you want.

It's tough to choose wood without knowing the electronics. Two of the deepest sounding basses I've got have an all-maple body and a 1/2maple body. If your tronix are percussive, deep and dubby, a body wood known for deep lows might just go muddy, so you use a brighter body wood to fix the mix. A deep low sound doesn't come from the lowest possible frequencies. It comes from the right mix of harmonics. And I do wanna re-emphasise what Callum said: With FL, the neck and FB woods pretty much control the tone.

`
 
golem said:
A deep low sound doesn't come from the lowest possible frequencies. It comes from the right mix of harmonics. And I do wanna re-emphasise what Callum said: With FL, the neck and FB woods pretty much control the tone.
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I'm so glad you said that.
 
The streamer Stage II would be the MWAAAH-iest of them all!
 
I was just playing my bubinga Corvette Std. fretless through my SWR Mo' Bass with the built-in analog chorus and some Maxon analog delay filtered through the preamp and power amp tubes (12AX7/EL-84) of an SWR Interstellar Overdrive feeding the top cab and a clean signal feeding the bottom cab.

With the lush chorus and the warm post-effects tube breakup, and my 'Vette on the bridge pickup, I was in Jaco heaven!

So my bubinga fretless 'Vette sounds more like Jaco (Corvettes are known for this due to their pickup configuration) and my de-fretted Thumb Dirty Blonde sounds more like Bakithi Kumalo on Paul Simon's Graceland album, if that helps you get an idea.
 
maple!!!

most of the best fretless I've heard were full maple:
SS1, pedulla buzz, kubicki, etc...
 
Florin said:
The streamer Stage II would be the MWAAAH-iest of them all!
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I would love to hear an example if you have one Florin, or anyone else for that matter.
 
flipper_gv said:
maple!!!

most of the best fretless I've heard were full maple:
SS1, pedulla buzz, kubicki, etc...
Click to expand...
`

This is not shocking to me. When I needed a 19mm spacing 5-string, I went for the Ibnez BTB. I found that for fretted, the double maple caps on mahogany core were waaaayy too bright, so I got the Ovangcal top over 'hog. But when I got an FL BTB, the same double maple caps that were too bright for frets was perfect for FL !!! I play the same strings on both [Roto 88] so the only difference is the wood.

I've also got a solid maple bodied fretted Guild Pilot and a poplar bodied Pilot FL, and I getting serious about swapping the necks, to get more mellowed with the frets, and more talkative with the FL neck.

Much as I see your point about maple for FL, my personal one-word answer for solid body FL happens to be two words: Swamp Ash.

`
 
So for the last few nights I've been in a studio messing with every bass and every piece of gear I own to find the tone I want, and I have found a somewhat surprising result when it comes to my Warwicks.

I bought the $$ NT Bubinga expecting it to have more clarity and presence than the $$ BO, which it does. But I also expected it to have way less growl due to the maple (instead of ovangkol) neck. I almost scared off a forum member about his $$ NT Ash order based on that thinking.

Boy was I wrong. The $$ NT and its maple neck growl plenty. As much, if not more, than the $$ BO. But without the muddy lows. So yeah, I agree with everyone in this thread that says maple growls. Either that, or a wenge fingerboard is where the real magic is at.
 
EVOLVEBASS said:
So for the last few nights I've been in a studio messing with every bass and every piece of gear I own to find the tone I want, and I have found a somewhat surprising result when it comes to my Warwicks.

I bought the $$ NT Bubinga expecting it to have more clarity and presence than the $$ BO, which it does. But I also expected it to have way less growl due to the maple (instead of ovangkol) neck. I almost scared off a forum member about his $$ NT Ash order based on that thinking.

Boy was I wrong. The $$ NT and its maple neck growl plenty. As much, if not more, than the $$ BO. But without the muddy lows. So yeah, I agree with everyone in this thread that says maple growls. Either that, or a wenge fingerboard is where the real magic is at.
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I think the bubinga body has a lot to do in the growl too.
 
Perhaps you should consider the Vampyre Dark Lord combo of French Ash on top and Bubinga in back. It makes for a very growly metal tone, distinct (mellower growl maybe) from the Thumbs. I can only imagine how good a 5 string fretless Dark Lord CS would sound for a metal band.
 
Echo said:
Perhaps you should consider the Vampyre Dark Lord combo of French Ash on top and Bubinga in back. It makes for a very growly metal tone, distinct (mellower growl maybe) from the Thumbs. I can only imagine how good a 5 string fretless Dark Lord CS would sound for a metal band.
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The DL has an ovangkol back dude. :wink:
 
Echo said:
Perhaps you should consider the Vampyre Dark Lord combo of French Ash on top and Bubinga in back. It makes for a very growly metal tone, distinct (mellower growl maybe) from the Thumbs. I can only imagine how good a 5 string fretless Dark Lord CS would sound for a metal band.
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Yeah, except for the fact than they don't make the Dark Lord in 5 string for now... Even through the Custom shop...

If ou can live with a downtuned four strings, then yeah, by all means, go with the dark lord! :)
 
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