String resonation problem

[Woodell]

I noticed that while playing a bass run on the G string, from A to G I got a slight warble sound. It turns out that when I hit the A note, my A string fires off and is still sounding when I go to G. Mind you, I'm playing silently at night through my headphones, so this seems to be mechanical coupling through the body rather than from standing too closely to the speaker. So far I haven't noticed this elsewhere. It's slight but it's enough to make the nots come out a little dirty. Anyone else experience this?

FWIW, I'm playing a Fender Jazz 24 with Ernie Ball Super Slinky 45/100's.

[megadan]

This is more so a technique issue; playing any note the same as an open note will cause that string to resonate. Be sure to mute the other strings that you are not playing.

edit: floating thumb can help with this, check the stickies. Basically you want your hand or thumb to be resting on the lower strings, keeping them silent as you play the high strings.

[fretlessman71]

+1. It's known as "sympathetic vibration". Ever play your bass in the same room as an acoustic guitar and set off an open string before? Same thing. You'll have to learn how to deal with it via technique and muting.

[Woodell]

Yeah, I knew what caused it but I didn't expect it to be so pronounced on a solid body bass. I'm used to setting off the strings on my acoustic, hanging on the wall, when I'm cranking on my bass. I can't hear it but the strings look rather fuzzy.

I'm usually pretty good about muting unplayed strings pretty much unconsciously but I obviously on this particular sequence I was not doing so.

Thanks for the wakeup call.

[Ben Wilkie]

Aside from muting the strings yourself, some people wrap a hair-tie (one of those really thick ones.. scrunchys??) around the nut so it's JUST touching the strings.

This works well usually but it kills your tone a fair bit since its knocking out various harmonics within the note that really give your tone its balls. That bit of info in mind, alot of the time sympathetic vibrations aren't bad ...but they sounds like crap if your bass isn't in tune.

So after that, my bit of advice is to be completely aware of what your bass is doing... you don't need to mute everything all the time, nor do you need to let everything ring forever - control what's going on and do what sounds best to you. In this case, you probably want to mute the ringing A, but there might be other cases where you can just let the instrument sing.

/end ramble/