NGD: a fretless Koll Tornado for brother Jon

[kingsleyd]

My brother Jon (who avoids this place like the plague...) played my fretless Scott Walker about a year ago and freaked out. He eventually got talking to Saul Koll and worked out a plan that resulted in this:

Here's a recording Jon did this morning. Me likey!

 

[Bassomatic]

Sounds killer!

 

[Carltone]

damn!

 

[shallbe]

That was fantastic. The Sustainer is a great idea, because the legato vs plucked stuff sounds very different from each other.

Great build, great playing.

 

[Baemer]

Love it! Congrats Jon on that marvel!

 

[weevilcaster]

Very cool build and great playing! I've got a tele with a fretless solid rosewood neck that I now need to go play! Thanks for the inspiration!

 

[Saul Koll]

Thanks Kingsley!
Very fun build. The platform is very simple: a minimal number of quality wood pieces nicely fitted together, a thin finish, some great hardware (including my friends Jason Schroeder's fantastic bridge and Jason Lollar's imperial humbucker), and the rest if up to your bro-

Within an hour of picking it up, he had already started recording and posting stuff.
I'm thrilled-

 

[GuitarsFromMars]

Nice touch with the design and color. Sounds nice. Reminds of Ed DeGennaro.

 

[ib2010]

Enjoyed the fine music !

 

[Berlin Chris]

super! Want a fretless with Sustainiac now.

 

[kingsleyd]

Thanks Kingsley!
Very fun build. The platform is very simple: a minimal number of quality wood pieces nicely fitted together, a thin finish, some great hardware (including my friends Jason Schroeder's fantastic bridge and Jason Lollar's imperial humbucker), and the rest if up to your bro-

I love Jason's bridge -- have it on a couple of my Artingers. Speaking of that platform, I'll be in touch. I still want to do the mods we talked about to my own Tornado, and the time has come.

Within an hour of picking it up, he had already started recording and posting stuff.
I'm thrilled-

Jon has a nice, small-time setup in the PDX condo so he can knock stuff out anytime he's feeling inspired. Has a lot to do with the increased output of the project with Colin Edwin. [Burnt Belief] He seems to do a lot of writing when he's out there.

He's been wanting a fretless with infinite sustain since the early '80s when he was studying with and we were hanging out with Randy Roos. So I can't really claim responsibility, although it is true that 5 minutes with my fretless brought that longstanding dream to the fore.

 

[s2y]

How necessary is the sustainer for the unwound strings? I have played fretless bass for about 10 years. Something about the shorter scale length of guitar intimidates me more than a little.

 

[veinbuster]

Very cool.

 

[Headshok]

That sounds heavenly. Like angels strumming on high

 

[kingsleyd]

How necessary is the sustainer for the unwound strings? I have played fretless bass for about 10 years. Something about the shorter scale length of guitar intimidates me more than a little.

It depends on what you want to do. I don't have a sustainer on mine. I definitely can't do what Jon is doing on this clip. I can get a cool trombone kind of effect with some fuzz, especially if I add wah or mu-tron III, but the singing sustain you get on fretless bass isn't quite there. I suppose I could dig out one of my old comp/sustain pedals but I've gotten used to things the way they are on mine.

 

[kev]

whoa! Thanks for sharing that kd! Congratulations to your brother and Saul on a killer idea brought to reality.

 

[GMGM]

This is pretty awesome. I seem to recall that Dweezil Zappa was working with Gibson on a new SG model. Fretless with sustainer AND an "autotune" option. The autotune would work like Peavey's autotune guitar allowing him to to play chords that were in tune, but then turn it off during solos. I hope this is still in development and not just a one-off guitar for Dweezil.

 

[Furilla]

Here's a recording Jon did this morning. Me likey!

Me likey too-ey. Really lovely.

 

[Teleplayer]

He's been wanting a fretless with infinite sustain since the early '80s when he was studying with and we were hanging out with Randy Roos. So I can't really claim responsibility, although it is true that 5 minutes with my fretless brought that longstanding dream to the fore.

 

[Jaya]

Beautiful guitar, congrats to your brother.
Kudos to Saul!