Funky Fretless Thumb & Fingerstyle Bass Grooves

Here are some funky fretless grooves with thumb & fingerstyle plucking, slides, double stops, staccato ghost notes, vibrato and more fretless fun! Recorded in one take on a pre-recorded drum track, I first write the grooves and song structure just on bass, then record the drums in Cubase with Addictive Drums and jam with it for a while. From writing process to shooting the final take it usually takes around 3 weeks, the challenge of a single take performance is where it’s at for me, no edits. I’m playing my custom fretless Cortex bass with a Nordstrand Dual Coil pickup and 2-band Glockenklang preamp, strung up with Ernie Ball Cobalt Slinkys. The bass has a walnut body, spalted maple top, flamed maple fingerboard and a chocolate maple neck. I added a spalted maple finger ramp temporarily for some sessions. Tuners are Gotoh, single string bridges and a compound radius give great action across the epoxied fingerboard. The signal was recorded with my Eich T-1000 amp’s DI, straight into a Focusrite S