"Old" Rockbass Fretless fingerboards

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Jokh00

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Hi everybody!

I´ve been playing bass for approx. 17 years, but never dared to make the transition from fretted to fretless bass. However, there is no time like the present, so I´ve decided to make the plunge. I play 5-string basses, so my first criteria is that a fretless bass has to have 5 strings. Secondly I seem to have a problem playing fretless basses with visible fretlines, I borrowed a friend´s Squier VM Fretless, and all I did was play it as I would play a fretted bass. This brings me to why I´ve posted here in the first place, namely I´ve got my eyes set on Warwicks Corvette Basic Fretless 5-string (pre-"W"logo Rockbass). No fretlines, 5 strings, but a rosewood fingerboard...that comes with stock roundwound strings. I really like the roundwound sound, but I dread that the rosewood fingerboard will be but splinters in short time. Virtually all the competition (Cort Curbow, Squire VM) use synthetic Ebonol fingerboards. What´s your take on this matter?
 
The Rockbass Fretless should have ebony fb. Perhaps the seller copied the specs of the fretted version :-)

Ask him to take pics.

Welcome to the forum bro!
 
Thanx for the welcome!

Well, the seller is Thomann and having tried a fretless Streamer Rockbass I´m pretty convinced that the old Rockbass series used rosewood for fretless fingerboards as well as fretted. But I´m no expert when it comes to differentiating types of wood. If you say the board is ebony, then ebony it is.
 
Hi Jokh00,

Welcome!

:d

I can assure you all rockbass fretless models used tiger stripe ebony as the fingerboard wood. I've had a couple of older ones that were lighter and had quite visible stripes, but they were certainly ebony.

;)
 
Thanks a bunch! I never realized Ebony and Rosewood look so much alike, I always thought Ebony is much darker, almost black. Now, if I can only find that darned credit card number;)
 
Jokh00 said:
Thanx for the welcome!

Well, the seller is Thomann and having tried a fretless Streamer Rockbass I´m pretty convinced that the old Rockbass series used rosewood for fretless fingerboards as well as fretted. But I´m no expert when it comes to differentiating types of wood. If you say the board is ebony, then ebony it is.
Click to expand...

You're right that Thomann seem to think all their Rockbass Fretlesses have rosewood fingerboards. They're wrong! Thomann are pretty good, but they do make mistakes: they list the pro series fretlesses as having wenge fingerboards:

My 2008 RB certainly had tigerstripe ebony: look at for some pics. And I remember seeing an old Warwick Streamer Std, and that had an ebony board too.

Just check the web for lots of pics of fretless RBs, and you'll see a lot of stripy ebony. Yes, it's not perfect plain black ebony, but it's ebony all the same - just as hard, and just as good.
 
Credit card number has been found, and bass has been ordered! I would´nt have ordered this bass without the info supplied by the kind members of this forum.
 
Congratulations!

Please let us know and post pics when it arrives ;)
 
My bass has arrived! I must say that paying 299 Euros for a bass of this standard makes me feel like I´ve practically stolen it. I´m especially surprised at the high grade woods used, the maple in the neck is quite beuatiful, and the alder body is striking. My only complaint is, that there seems to be a problem in the neck joint, as a "pop" can be heard from time to time.
 
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