Playing *quieter*

[btrag]

The issue is that I get a lot of extraneous noises when I play. I know, I know, mute with the left hand. But even when I do that, I get high squeaking noises when my muting hand leaves the top of the strings. And, I've tried rolling off the extreme highs, and, that does help a lot, but not enough. Maybe the issue is that the action is really low?
Flatwounds maybe? I'm really frustrated here. I mean, my left hand has to leave the fingerboard sometimes, and, whenever it does, no matter how diligently I try to mute, I get *some* noise.

[JMX]

Try playing with a lighter touch. I find it greatly reduces noise and improves the sound. Let the amp do the work.

[brianrost]

Also take a look at your RIGHT hand. I found that a lot of the noises I used to get were due to sloppy right hand technique, not the left hand at all.

Ditto JMX's advice to play lightly and crank the amp.

[NJL]

+11 on the light touch and cranking the amp....

[lemur821]

The only way to stop squeaks is not to brush your fingers over the strings. Really. You have to train yourself to lift them when you shift. It may help to cut the highs when you perform, but you should practice with them normal, or even boosted. Then you really have to mind the squeaks and clean up your technique.

[lowphatbass]

Muting and playing cleanly take practice. Turning you amp up and playing lightly is just going to make your string noise louder. That technique can help players that have problems with fret noise and noises associated with "attack" but not string noise. I would practice the shifts that are noisy for you, just that same shift over and over as slowly as you need to in order to keep it clean. Slowly increase speed, it just takes time. A trick I use to reduce noise when I have to use spanking new strings live(I usually try to break em in for a day) is to roll the treble freq. down on the Bass and compensate for it on the amp..