Transition light sliding sounds

[MerutoBass]

sometimes when i transition from a note on the bass to another one that is a significant distance away from the previous one my fingers slide over the strings slightly not putting any pressure but its still amplified and heard in my recordings. Is there any exercises or something I can do to make myself not do this ?

[Nick Kay]

When you switch positions, you need to lift your fingers off of the strings far enough that there's no contact, but not so far as to make getting back into playing position difficult. Mute with your right hand (floating thumb or palm-muting with a pick are great for this), and position changes should become completely silent with some practice.

Alternatively, you can take the easy way out and use flatwound strings. They tend to have severely reduced string noise, if any at all, because of the smooth surface.

[Kevinmach]

Nick nailed it- great advice.

I am just over a year into the instrument after playing guitar/keys for many years, and I am really now just getting into going from being able to play the music (which originally took the bulk of my focus), and now transitioning into making it sound good with clear and consistent tone.. Which has so much to do with controlling the unwanted sounds coming from your instrument. Clacking, string noise, fret buzz, ringing open strings, etc- all technique that needs to be practiced to eliminate

Nick mentioned one really good technique for control- the floating thumb (though a lot of the books I have read don't advise floating past the E, not sure why- probably economy of motion, but I still do it sometimes). But basically your anchoring your thumb on the strings directly above (or a few strings above) the string your playing with your right hand. You are not only putting your fingers in a better position to play certain notes, but your muting the instrument as an added bonus.

I throw another one in here. A great technique that I wasn't using and was a huge help was following through when playing a note until my finger is "stopped" by the string beneath it. The concept is touted as providing "consistency" in your bass tone, since your fingers will always be traveling the same distance and will it will be assisted in this by the string beneath it, in what is referred to as the "rest stroke". It does help with consistency with your tone, with two little nice side effects that surprised me:

1- By constantly having your fingers on various strings on these rest strokes, your continually muting the instrument. So it's like your muting it while your playing and you're not even consciously doing it.

2- The sound of your finger being stopped by the string beneath it is slightly audible through the pickup, a makes a kind of dull little thud that blends in with the note you just played. It gives your notes a nice, full sounding little punch that has been missing from my playing- that you can control to varying degrees, by doing it harder or softer.

It was a little weird trying to implement this at first, since I originally was just trying to play and was less concerned about technique. So it set me back a bit initially. But it was the single biggest thing I've done to improve my sound quality and my playing.

I guarantee if you try those two techniques alone, you will cut out 80% of the unwanted noise your getting right now. And they have the added bonus of making your playing better as well.

[MerutoBass]

do you have any videos or anything that can provide me with a visual aid of following through while playing a note

[Kevinmach]

As a matter of fact I do!

I just did a search on youtube for "Rest stroke bass" and it exactly what we're describing to you in this thread came up. In fact, it covers everything we've discussed here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV3kLxih90Y

The rest stroke is demonstrated around 2:30, but watch the whole 5 minute video, it's actually quite good.

Just those two little concepts- anchoring the thumb, and the rest stoke, provided me with huge gains in getting an even tone and preventing my bass from making any noise it felt like.

It was a bit awkward at first- some the slightly more challenging things I could play became a little more a difficult for maybe two weeks. But the improvement in the sound quality itself became noticeable almost immediately.