F Bass has been around since the late 70s by luthier George Furlanetto and his team making fine instruments in Hamilton Ontario .. BN5 was my first ever high-end hand made instrument . And here’s comes their most famous , the “King of Fretless” Alain Caron Signature Fretless bass .
Specs:
- Figured maple body with spruce top
- 3pc Maple neck with Ebony fingerboard (unline, only dot marks above 12th fret)
- 34.5” scale length and goes to 28th fret position on the fingerboard
- Single Fbass pickup / operates in Single coil (default) and humbucker with the vol pot push up
- Ebony bridge with piezo saddles
- Ebony thumb rest
- Proprietary Fbass Preamp with 3-band, boost only EQ
- Controls are: Magnetic PU Volume (Push/Pull for single coil / hum bucker), Piezo PU Volume (Push/Pull for PU on/off, off in default position), pass tone control (Push/Pull for active/passive control), 3 band EQ, boost only
Sound / Playability:
This bass is known as the king of fretless .. Very resonant/responsive sounding instrument that plays and feel like no others. The Ebony bridge gives more of woody-ness and a more mellow attach than the metal bridge. The 6 handmade wooden knobs are also a bonus as they no longer offer that anymore .. There’s a learning curve to understand the on board electronic and it can cover a wide range of styles.
Thought:
This is actually the 2nd AC5 I’ve owned …. The first one was sold in about 18month after I realized it’ll take me easily another 200 hours to practice in order to play properly then I gave up .. I fully realized having fret line doesn’t really help with the intonation. I’ve been spending more time on upright bass in the past few years which really helped with intonation .. I see it as an artistic tool as it really takes time to dial in the right sound , and of course it requires full focus when playing .. I think my ear prefer the Rob Allen fretless basses, those are strung with nylon taper wound strings and has the character of an upright bass which I prefer nowadays.
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