@howard I seen you make that statement in other threads. Why are frets “your friend”? I’m just curious.
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They give you a nice, clean, ringing tone with lots of sustain, that will always be on-pitch provided the guitar is tuned and intonated correctly.
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Yeah true in part, except I disagree about the sustain part. I get plenty of sustain on my fretless. Nevertheless, I think that falls under the heading of “Pros and Cons” as discussed above.
Either someone is willing to do the practice it takes to get the intonation correct on a fretless, or they’re not. If they choose the latter, then yes, frets are their friend.
I practice/play on both my fretted and my fretless. The fretted is easier because of the large target between the frets, but the fretless allows me to do some things I can’t do on the fretted, plus gives me a different sound. It just requires a different skill set.
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Yes - @howard made a good point above.
Fretted basses give one clear unchanging pitch when you play 'em. The string is being held between a metal wire (the fret) and the point of contact at the bridge.
The metal to metal connection makes the sound brighter - more attack.
The fact that the fret is a precise point of exact contact makes the note accurate and in tune (provided the bass is in tune).
In general, everything is brighter and more… regulated to the exact 1/2 step increments of the frets… no in-between notes.
The fretless has the danger of playing out of tune, because there is a lot of space in between the frets where a fretless bass can make a sound, but it won’t be at the exact right location to be in tune.
The softer and less precise contact of the left hand fingers also affect the sound - it’s not as bright or as precise.
You can get slides and vibratos for DAYS on a fretless… which is fun.
You can slap on fretless (Les Claypool from Primus is the most famous example) but it has a different sound. The slap is the sound of the string on the wooden fretboard rather than the metal frets. Again, less bright.
It would sound like rock and roll. It would just sound… different. There are lots of examples of rock or metal bands where fretless shows up (some prog metal bands LOVE the fretless). The context of the music makes it sound like their genre… but the flavor of the bass if very different. … Like hip fusion restaurants. Same dishes, but there’s a different flavor in there.
Hope that helps.
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My little baby bear ubass is fretless (which I did not know when I bought it) and I find it really fun to play, although my accuracy needs a lot of work. I’ve always kicked around the idea of getting a fretless, maybe even 5 string, just to have something different.
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