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Marleaux fretted basses are excellent instruments, but their fretless are simply the best, period. Of course they are biult with great cere and attention, using only the best tonewoods available and twin Bartolini pickups, but I was intrigued to learn why they still sounded better than similar basses. Further inspection revealed a clever system to join the neck in a way that no sustain is lost and all the vibrations transmition is kept intact (see ASF picture bellow). Some special routing at the end of the neck seems to further increase the fretless' trademark growl and "mwah".
This bass has a mahogany body and flamed pearwood top. The three piece maple neck sports an impressive Macassar ebony plain fingerboard with some striking red lines.
Marleaux's own 3 band active/passive circuit allows you to musically boost or cut specific well chosen frequencies (40Hz, 500Hz, 8kHz). You can boost the Highs full up and get 0 noise, which is just amazing...and musical (great to get the string "noise" a la Michael Manring).
In this case, we asked Gerald Marleaux to install a Passive Tone control, and we must say it was a good idea, as it allows you to "tame down the beast" and get some classic vintage sounds.
To sum up: you've got to hear this bass if you want to know how a fretless bass should sound. Sweet deep tones, strong attack and jumping armonics, mouth watering double stops...it's all here. What are you waiting for?
This bass is #1 in a series of 3 identical instruments that arrived in Doctorbass.net at the same time. and they sounded 99% the same. This proves Marleaux's consistecy in the building process, quite amazing for a handmade bass.
