NS Design CR6 Radius Fretless Bass Guitar - Amber Satin Reviews
The CR6 Radius Fretless Bass from NS Designs offers advanced design elements that technical players will surely appreciate. This bass features a convex-backed maple body and gentle contours for an incredibly comfortable playing experience. The maple neck sits securely in your hand, and the 15-inch-radius ebony fingerboard encourages lightning-fast playing. The CR6 Fretless Bass is powered by a pair of EMG humbucking pickups with a bridge piezo system and active circuitry for extra tonal versatility. Bassists at Sweetwater highly recommend you try the NS Designs CR6 Radius Fretless Bass. Once you experience the supreme balance of the headless design, you won't want to go back to your old bass!
Earn $204 back in Bonus Bucks† OR pay $170/month with 24 month financing*
$204 Earn $204.00 back in Bonus Bucks† on this purchase when you use your Sweetwater Credit Card without financing. Select your offer in checkout. Terms
As low as $170/month
with 24 month financing*
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While this isn't an item we normally stock, we can still get it to you as fast as possible due to our great relationship with NS Design. Go ahead and place your order and we'’ll follow up shortly to let you know when to expect it.
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Highest Rated Reviews
Best bass I've ever owned
I have owned a number of basses both fretted and fretless including a couple of upright double basses over the years. This bass by far has the best fretless growl of any of the basses I've owned including the uprights. NS had it set up perfectly out of the box. I didn't have to adjust the truss rod or action and it has a really deep/beautiful growl evenly across all strings even the low B string which was really surprising to me.
The other 6 string fretless I owned the B string was largely vestigial because it had no growl at all even though the other strings sounded nice. The low B sounded like it was from another bass so I'd only use it if I needed to hit a note below the low E for some reason. With the CR-6 Radius, since it has such a nice growl on the B string which is very evenly matched with the E string, I find I use it all the time and tend to play in the 5th to 12th fret range using the low B liberally where previously I would stick to the E string for notes E through A. Maybe this isn't such a good thing because it lets me be lazy and play vertically across the fingerboard instead of horizontally moving from the nut toward the bridge and back constantly.
Between the EMG and piezo pickup blending and the on-board treble/bass boost you can achieve a pretty huge variety of tones from the bass itself. The setting I landed on has a very woody acoustic tone that sounds like a Fender Jazz bass and an upright had a baby. It would be great for jazz/big band/ballads/motown style funk (maybe not slap so much) probably country and a myriad of other styles. Granted, I am primarily a fretless player so I am a bit biased in the tones I want to hear out of my bass. The electronics are very clean and crisp with zero hiss, hum, or distortion even at full volume.
Another thing that surprised me about this bass is even with the thick, punchy, growly tone I like, without changing a single setting the harmonics ring out clear as a bell on all strings. If you wanted to bust out a quick rendition of Portrait of Tracy in the middle of your bass solo you wouldn't need to mess with any of the bass settings or hit a foot pedal or something. I credit the piezo pickups for this. My other basses I would have to adjust the pickups maximize the bridge pickup and dial in some treble boost to get the same effect.
I do still pull out the fretted bass for slap. I don't want to put that kind of wear and tear on my fretless fingerboard if nothing else, and I want that more metallic pop/slap you get from frets if that's what the piece requires which this bass is simply not going to do. Other than that this is a really flexible, dynamic, extremely well constructed instrument capable of being a pro-level bassist's go-to fretless. I absolutely love it and play it every day. It's my therapy.
