A cool muted slap technique

[Lovebown]

Today I sat down listening to some Marcus Miller, the stuff from Sun don't lie album...
I noticed something odd in his songs when he slapped, sometimes he added a really soft heartbeat 'dum-dum'
I picked up my ibanez ATK and thought about how he got this nice sound.. after a while I figured something out. I layed my fretting hand softly on the strings to keep them quiet. Then I slapped the E string, like I would when doing a muted slap but instead of slamming it to achieve that "chunk" I softly striked it with my thumb just enough to get a sound.. not percussive at all, just kinda really soft nice sound.

This sounds kinda cool mixed in with regularly slapped notes and muted slaps and stuff...don't know if its the technique Marcus miller uses though...

[gruffpuppy]

yea i did that by mistake once with my forearm,
i sounds cool not quite totaly muted but yet make the notes chunky.

if we a re talking about the same thing

[rickbass]

Love- A Stu Hamm video taught me another trick with the fretting hand - you slap all the strings with all your fretting fingers lightning fast.

When you're doing some serious speed slapping, you can use it as a fill when your fretting hand is going to make a major postion change or drop down/go up, say, an octave for instance. It not only buys you a little time, but it kind of keeps the groove/the solo/the licks tied together. If you do it too slow, it sounds crappy, like "whump." but with practice you can do it lickedty split and it goes, "POP." When he uses it at full speed, I would never have guessed it was in there, even on video/live.

Thanks for the tip on MM. I'm a sucker for anything connected to his sound. (Like the "Marcus" Fat Beams I got a while back).

[Lovebown]

Rick, do you mean like a left-hand slap? Do you strike the strings and lift off immediately or?
I've been doing something lately which is to mute the strings with my left index finger, and slap the strings with my other fingers (I think this is a left-hand slap?!).
Sounds cool, maybe I should check some videos out...

[rickbass]

You got itexcept he slaps with all his fretting fingers. Pop! I'm trying to learn how to do it at 300mph like he does and go right into the next part of the lick.

Hamm seems to have his action so high though, and I can't handle that. But then again, the name "Hamm" pretty much describes his jackhammer-operator hands. I'm 6'3" and 220lbs but my hands, fingers, and wrists look like Celine Dion's.

[Wxp4759cb]

Whats the name of that stu hamm video?

[JMX]

It's either "Slap, Pop and Tap for the Bass" or "Deeper inside the Bass" (both on Hot Licks), I'm not sure 'cos I haven't watched them for a while.

I think Alexis Sklarevski's Video on slapping also covers left-hand slapping.