OK, here's the plan: a single pickup, fretless 5-string bass with a 32" scale, designed to be strung with a high C instead of a low B. Although, with that scale you might even manage F# B E A D low to high. I'd use the Warmoth G5 body:
http://www.warmoth.com/bass/bodies/gbass.cfm?fuseaction=g5
Consider that on a standard Precision bass, the pickup is 30" from the nut, then envision a bridge placed 32" away - it'd be in about the usual position of a six-string guitar bridge. I'd have Warmoth route it for a single EMG 5-string pickup at the neck position, and beg them/pay them to leave off the side position dots on the neck. I'd have to widget some accurate dots in there somehow later, that's minor. Hopefully I can con Warmoth into leaving out the bridge grounding wire route too? :help: I have to find the narrowest possible 5-string bridge too, cause they spread down there - being a fretless, I could even just make a radiused chunk of brass if I have to, and shim it to height if I can't find a suitably narrow storebought one.
The biggest problem I actually see is ensuring a consistent supply of single high-C flatwound strings, cause all the five-string sets are for low B tuning and I'd hate to have to buy six-string sets and have to use the excess low B strings for robot tentacles or garrotting crocodiles or something. In a brief search the only single, flatwound C strings I found were Rotosounds at MF:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Rotosound-JBL30-Jazz-Bass-Single-String?sku=102885
I don't even care that much which brand of string, just that I can get a match for all five strings - twiddle the tone knob a bit, they all sound the same....*
The point of all this is that I love my new fretless bass, but I want to get higher and I know from bitter experience that fretless guitars really, really just don't work well. People keep trying over and over and over, glass fretboards and whatnot, but they just sound sucky, which is kind of a bad characteristic for a so-called "musical" instrument. In my opinion.
*(foosh, foosh, the sound of flames) :cool01:
http://www.warmoth.com/bass/bodies/gbass.cfm?fuseaction=g5
Consider that on a standard Precision bass, the pickup is 30" from the nut, then envision a bridge placed 32" away - it'd be in about the usual position of a six-string guitar bridge. I'd have Warmoth route it for a single EMG 5-string pickup at the neck position, and beg them/pay them to leave off the side position dots on the neck. I'd have to widget some accurate dots in there somehow later, that's minor. Hopefully I can con Warmoth into leaving out the bridge grounding wire route too? :help: I have to find the narrowest possible 5-string bridge too, cause they spread down there - being a fretless, I could even just make a radiused chunk of brass if I have to, and shim it to height if I can't find a suitably narrow storebought one.
The biggest problem I actually see is ensuring a consistent supply of single high-C flatwound strings, cause all the five-string sets are for low B tuning and I'd hate to have to buy six-string sets and have to use the excess low B strings for robot tentacles or garrotting crocodiles or something. In a brief search the only single, flatwound C strings I found were Rotosounds at MF:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Rotosound-JBL30-Jazz-Bass-Single-String?sku=102885
I don't even care that much which brand of string, just that I can get a match for all five strings - twiddle the tone knob a bit, they all sound the same....*
The point of all this is that I love my new fretless bass, but I want to get higher and I know from bitter experience that fretless guitars really, really just don't work well. People keep trying over and over and over, glass fretboards and whatnot, but they just sound sucky, which is kind of a bad characteristic for a so-called "musical" instrument. In my opinion.
*(foosh, foosh, the sound of flames) :cool01:
