touch bass??

[soontobedead]

ok... so i want to start to play "touch bass", which follows the vein of trey gunn's (king crimson, robert fripp's string quintet, eric johnson, among others) touch guitar or a chapman stick (both of which i can't afford)... this is mainly done with tapping (which i'm learning) but it's focused exclusively on it.
i was thinking about buying a 6-string (to have a wider range of sound) to explore deeper into this technique, so i wanted you people to tell me if you find this "exclusively tapping" thing easier on a wide or narrow string-spaced bass.

also i visited some forum and in their tapping tips they put that one should use really low action and put a muffler of some sort (i recall reading about a small piece of styrofoam next to the nut in the first fret) to dampen the sound... is this muffler really necessary?

if there are any chapman stick/warr guitar players outthere, please, could you give me some pointers?

Thanks a lot

(excuse the english)

[lemur821]

I don't find that spacing makes much difference. Just go with what you prefer.

You may not need a muffler, depending on the bass you get, but many basses do need one. A thin piece of felt, folded over to make a double layer and slid under the strings at the nut is my favorite mute. Mine reaches from the nut nearly to the first fret, but your mileage may vary.

Low action and very little relief are both helpful, as are light strings, although not really necessary on a bass. Basses are a little easier to tap than guitars.

You might post your question in the Tappistry.org forums; I'm sure they could offer some helpful advice there.

(Your English is fine, although we traditionally capitalize the first letter of a sentence.)

[soontobedead]

great, man... your post helped a lot...
and the caps thing... i'm just too lazy