Why The Hair Tie on The Neck?

**jbassmaniac** · #1 03-20-2012, 08:56 PM

Why do I see some bassists using a hair tie or a small cloth band on the narrow of the neck above the nut? What does it do?

spaz21387 · #2 03-20-2012, 09:09 PM

you can slide it down and it mutes acidental string hits and also can get that foam mute like sound.

curbowkid · #3 03-20-2012, 09:10 PM

It's also used to quiet the string spanning from nut too tuner for recordings.

funk generator · #4 03-20-2012, 09:14 PM

it makes you play like victor wooten. True story

but all that ^ would be my real answer

waleross · #5 03-20-2012, 09:23 PM

Fretwraps....

punkjazzben · #6 03-20-2012, 09:44 PM

Back in the day on Musician Forums/MX (now Sputnik or something), the cool thing to do was to put a big scrunchy/hair tie around the nut. Even cooler if you did it on a six or seven string bass - a Conklin GT-7, to be specific.

The claim was that it stopped sympathetic string vibrations. It probably does, but you can also remedy that by good technique.

6jase5 · #7 03-20-2012, 09:49 PM

Two words.....fretless mwah. Two more words Bull ...., wait, can't type the second one.

**jbassmaniac** · #8 03-21-2012, 12:28 AM

Thanks evryone.

sonic assassin · #9 03-21-2012, 03:24 AM

with guitars, it is used to mute open strings for tapping. nothing like that sympathetic hum of open strings that arent in key ruining a part. or barely touching the wrong string and making dumb noise. bass.. i dont see it so much.

One Bad Monkey · #10 03-21-2012, 04:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spaz21387

...and also can get that foam mute like sound.

Not so much. As soon as you fret anything in front of that hair tie, any muting it provided is gone. Foam mutes work at the bridge, not the neck.

I do a lot of theatre work (where I'm run direct all the time), and I keep Gruv Gear FretWraps on my basses for those times. It does what it's supposed to; mute sympathetic vibrations from other strings. I certainly do not have sloppy technique, but I find that this still helps. Especially with slapping and tapping techniques, it proves more useful.

jordy_on_bass · #11 03-21-2012, 07:47 AM

I thought it was so their bass would pass the dress code at the gig they are playing??

FunkMetalBass · #12 03-21-2012, 07:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben Wilkie

Back in the day on Musician Forums/MX (now Sputnik or something), the cool thing to do was to put a big scrunchy/hair tie around the nut. Even cooler if you did it on a six or seven string bass - a Conklin GT-7, to be specific.

The claim was that it stopped sympathetic string vibrations. It probably does, but you can also remedy that by good technique.

Hey look, a fellow MXican/MXer that switched over!

Anyway, I keep one of my 8-string. I wouldn't consider my technique sloppy by any means, but it's hard to perfectly mute 7 of the 8 strings all the time, especially in a recording situation.