How does victor wooten get the muted notes to come out so fast ive been on his wedsite and there is an example he gives somethin to do with a flam but i have not idea how he does that with the realy fast muted pops it makes no sence i can do the other examples and im workin on his technique but this is part i dont get how he does the muted notes so fast i hope this makes sence if anyone can do this can u give a tip on how to do this
thx lewis

You want to be able to play muted notes fast?

well, can you play them slowly?

Once you can play them slowly, speeding up won't be an issue.

yea i can do them but for example in songs like u cant hold no groove i dont understand how he does the muted notes soo fast does he do the thumb down thumb up then pop on one muted string or does he just use his index finger and pops it realy fast can anybody suggest a technique to be able to do this

Punctuation. It's your friend.

Keep in mind that Vic uses a hair tie or "scruntchie" to mute the notes for him.

Originally posted by Phil Smith
Keep in mind that Vic uses a hair tie or "scruntchie" to mute the notes for him.


no, that aides in dampening the strings, not muting them.

I've seen him play without it and it sounds almost exactly the same as with it.

Originally posted by Wrong Robot
no, that aides in dampening the strings, not muting them.

I've seen him play without it and it sounds almost exactly the same as with it.

Six of one half a dozen of the other. FYI: mute is synomous with dampen.

CLICK HERE (http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=110327)

Originally posted by Agent Smith
Six of one half a dozen of the other. FYI: mute is synomous with dampen.

eh? I wouldn't say so, to me, MUTE would be to cut out the note entirely and replace it with a click or dead note. whereas DAMPEN would be to let the note still sound out, but it wouldn't have the same resonance or release.

I can see your point WR, but I don't agree. All over the world and on this site, everyone talks about "palm-muting", not "palm-dampening", or "string-mute(s)", on old Stingrays, and there's a company that makes a device simply called the Stringmute, that I'm sure you've heard of. Your description of DAMPEN fits perfectly with what you do when palm-muting or using a stringmute.

However, on a sidenote, i thought Vic's hair-tie was mainly supposed to dampen the overtones that can happen while tapping...

Yeah, people talk about palm-muting because that's what you do, you block out the note(almost entirely) when you palm-mute.

But, with something like a hair tie at the nut or a sponge at the bridge, you aren't blocking out the note, so I'd call that dampening.

if you are going to call both things muting, when they create totally different sounds, it doesn't really make much sense. to me at least.

victor does his MUTING with his hands, however, additionally he uses a hair scrunchie to help rub out excess clatter a little(overtones included)

I dunno, it makes sense to me :hmm:

Originally posted by Wrong Robot
eh? I wouldn't say so, to me, MUTE would be to cut out the note entirely and replace it with a click or dead note. whereas DAMPEN would be to let the note still sound out, but it wouldn't have the same resonance or release.

you is correct meng!!!!
mute mute mute mute mute mute mute

i say it's all in the lft hand:o

Anyone who wants to learn anything about how victor plays should definitely pick up his live at bass day 98 video. he gives an awesome description of both his right and left hand technique. also on the dvd he gives an amazingly informative lesson that's like an hour in and of itself. that being said, the hair tie doesn't mute the strings, it stops sympathetic vibrations when tapping, as mr. wrong robot had said. i use one myself when i'm tapping in the upper registers because it does make everything just a tiny bit cleaner sounding. finally, to play like victor you're going to have to do a hell of a lot of practicing, so get to it.

(yes, i'm sitting here with my bass in my lap as i type this, as should all of you)

The scrunchy thing is indeed in order to help dampen the notes while tapping, something I've found EXTREMELY helpful when I'm doing a tapped solo piece. It's basically an improvised version of what's on the Chapman Stick, a small cloth designed to be placed underneath the strings a fret before the first fret in order to clean up the sound a bit.