The Last Bass Outpost
Main Forums => The Bass Zone => Topic started by: ilan on March 11, 2023, 02:45:18 PM
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https://guitarflatter.com/products/bass-flatter
Looks like a clever idea. Fits J-width necks only. For $49.90 I might give it a try.
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My first response was "what for"? Then I checked the site and saw that it's a fretless "conversion." I think you'd have to have pretty high action for it to work. Might be worth it for those who are willing to do the repeated setups.
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Interesting idea, but the website doesn't give enough information.
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You would certainly need to raise the saddles by whatever the thickness of this thing is. There is also he question of what a plastic board will sound like. But being clear you can see the frets.
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How is it fixated to the neck, other than the strings pushing it down at the nut?
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I just relized that I recognize the inventor - Gershon Weissfuhrer, an excellent tuba and bass trumpet player.
How is it fixated to the neck, other than the strings pushing it down at the nut?
I think that the plastic nut is not right above the original nut but slightly more towards the bridge, so the pressure of the strings on it pushes the whole board to the frets.
Found a video. It looks like the plastic board makes the neck feel wider and the edges are sharp.
https://youtu.be/mO4zTMzmg0Y
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From their site:
Used by some of the biggest names in the bass world, such as Bill Wyman (Rolling Stones) and Jeff Ament (Pearl Jam), fretless basses have received growing popularity and interest over the years, and for good reasons.
Really? Bill Wyman and Jeff Ament? ;D
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Lieber Rob, not everything you haven't heard of yet, doesn't exist!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vg5WTQZqwI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeXWzJrPcRQ
Wyman did play fretless too quite a bit, remember he was a double bass player at heart, but could never ever really play one because he found his hands too small. Hence his preference for short and medium scale basses and his penchant for playing his bass runs from the G string to the E string as opposed to the other way around like most electric bassists naturally do. He was always trying to emulate a double bass vibe. But he didn't do a lot of trademark slides - that is something only Jaco made de rigueur in modern fretless electric playing (a lot of Bad Company material was played with a fretless, yet you hardly ever hear a sliding note in Boz Burrell's playing on those recordings, there was a time when that was even regarded as a sloppy playing technique).
(https://www.fretlessbass.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wyman-bill-01.jpg)
(https://www.talkbass.com/attachments/img_2986_zpsqdlye4us-jpg.2621734/)
You've probably heard it more often on Stones songs than you think.
https://billwyman.com/2020/02/guitar-world-charts-history-of-fretless-bass-cites-bill-as-inventor/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_NIaX15vDs
*******
As regards this breakthrough product itself, while there are certain aspects of rubber and plastic I like in an adult context, dental guards have mysteriously never been among them.
(https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/b688c8f0-2dfd-43c7-a925-14ac267376f7.2763c646c6f4c8998d32553835caaadc.jpeg?odnHeight=612&odnWidth=612&odnBg=FFFFFF)
An unattractive contraption if I've ever seen one.
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Found a video. It looks like the plastic board makes the neck feel wider and the edges are sharp.
https://youtu.be/mO4zTMzmg0Y
Truly amazing. Sounds like a crappy, lifeless fretless with a slightly loose bolt-on neck, hence the dead sound. Make your bass sound worse and still not like the real thing for 50 bucks only, I'm a huge fan already.
PS: I have a well-sounding fretless P, I know what it can sound like. What you hear in that vid is a pale caricature of it.
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From the YT description: "Flatter can be installed by anyone and requires no special tools or technical knowledge. You can be a complete knuckle-dragging beast and still put it on in minutes." :mrgreen:
I'm not impressed by the tone at all.
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Lieber Rob, not everything you haven't heard of yet, doesn't exist!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeXWzJrPcRQ
A twelve string bass?! Get outta here! 8)
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From the YT description: "Flatter can be installed by anyone and requires no special tools or technical knowledge. You can be a complete knuckle-dragging beast and still put it on in minutes." :mrgreen:
I'm not impressed by the tone at all.
Note to self: Dave agreed with me. This is a strange day already ...
(https://media.tenor.com/Uvw01ptxcKgAAAAM/psycho-anthony-perkins.gif)
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Wyman did play fretless too quite a bit, remember he was a double bass player at heart, but could never ever really play one because he found his hands too small. Hence his preference for short and medium scale basses
Upright bass fingering (Simandl) enables people with tiny hands like my 5-foot teacher to play everything. With a 41" scale instrument there is no advantage for large hands – you can't play 1-2-3-4 guitar technique even if you're LeBron or Kareem.
Also, Stanley Clarke prefers 30" scale basses, and he has huge hands and plays an upright like a uke.
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I can't help it, but ole Bill always said in interviews that the size deterred him. Of course it could have worked, I guess the greater distances just weren't to his liking and the way he played (and what: he didn't venture into the lower octave very often) he probably preferred lower tension anyhow.
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Also, Stanley Clarke prefers 30" scale basses ...
That was like 50 years ago, Ilan, he hardly plays them live anymore. (Probably because of catching so much flak in the past for allegedly "cheating"!)
I love his playing, irrespective of what scale. He's a very "manly" player.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5Ukt9b8RPUg (A recent clip on a Strat-like shortie!)
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/38UAHGQoyU4
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His signature Alembics that he's played all his career since the 70's and as far as I know still does (he did when I met him) are 30.75".
(https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2018/07/30/stanley-clarke-2-credit-raj-naik_wide-8a17447e94e6322116b37fc245ea797175e225ef-s1200-c85.webp)
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Those are all 30"? I stand corrected. I always though they were long scales that just looked tiny on him because he is so huge.
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There was a more recent Strat style Stanley Clarke bass.
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That does look kind of cool, I'll admit it. My usual derision about Fender products never extended to the Strat shape.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ1PfB59zf8
It's just a little Ritchie lurking in me ...
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Also, Stanley Clarke prefers 30" scale basses ...
That was like 50 years ago, Ilan, he hardly plays them live anymore. (Probably because of catching so much flak in the past for allegedly "cheating"!)
I love his playing, irrespective of what scale. He's a very "manly" player.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5Ukt9b8RPUg (A recent clip on a Strat-like shortie!)
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/38UAHGQoyU4
All these years later and he still has that nasty twangy tone he had on the first Return to Forever albums. Cool for fast flurries of notes, but it doesn't really support the music. Chick Corea's left hand was the bassist in that band, and Stanley just did all the fast, clicky tuned percussion.
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Some truth to that, but Clarke is not just a slapping one-trick-pony. He has an exquisite choice of notes too. But, yes, the percussive effect of slapping tends to let melody take a back seat, also because it tends to be root note-, fifths-, ninths- and octave-centric which won't exactly take you into Swan Lake or Paul McCartney melody territory.
I've left that ultra-twangy tone behind too. I used to die for it - fresh roundwounds just out of the package, active EMG pups, treble and bass all the way up, mids subdued, picking close to the bridge, ultra-clean sound ... clickee-de-clack ... :mrgreen: One day I woke up and didn't want that anymore (though it was an attention-getter and bandmates liked it too because they could hear everything clearly), not much later I became interested in Gibson basses. But people from way back still sometimes say today: "Hey Uwe, play something with your old sound." - which always has me groaning!