After a ton of loosening the truss rod, I got the fingerboard to be flat enough to be able to play without the strings slapping the fingerboard.
The guitar is disappointing. I knew this was the most likely outcome.
Some of it is the low output pickups. I can’t go back to starter guitar pickups at this point.
But mostly, it turns out I can’t think of any interesting microtonal things to do with a fretless guitar. I did a bunch of sliding. I played what sounded like a warped record version of Electric Funeral.
I’m out of ideas. I thought they’d just come to me once I had a weird guitar.