In the real sense of the term, fretless bass guitars are electric bass guitars with no frets. Unlike the guitars with frets, the fretless bass guitars operate in such a way that the vibrating string length runs from the bridge to the point where the strings on the fingerboard are pressed by the fingers.
One thing that is advantageous for fretless bass guitars is that these guitars are not limited to certain temperaments or tuning systems. For this reason, fretless bass guitars can play music that is not only in 12-tone scales, which are very typical of experimental music. Moreover, fretless bass guitars are capable of absorbing energy from the vibrating strings much faster, thus producing a distinctive sound. This causes the pizzicato of fretless bass guitars to sound more damped than the other guitars.
According to most musicians, the fretless bass guitars sound similarly to the double bass guitar which are more popularly used in Jazz, R&B, and Funk music genres. This is probably the reason why there has been a great demand for these types of guitars leading to its widespread popularity.
Most fretless bass guitars have fingerboards that are made of hardwood. Epoxy coating is applied to these fingerboards to lessen the wear caused by the round-wound strings. On the other hand, other strings can also be used to lessen the wear, such as the ground wound, nylon tape-wound and flat-wound strings.
Although it is quite difficult to use fretless bass guitars which require more training for the exact positioning and shifts of the fingers, a lot of famous guitarists prefer to use these guitars. Some of these important guitarists are Juan Alderete who is the bassist for the Mars Volta, Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones, and Jaco Pastorius who is considered as the most influential fretless bassist of all time.
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