Rick Grech Blind Faith

Rockmusician · #1 02-27-2011, 07:01 AM

I'm watching a Blind Faith concert that was filmed in 1969 at Hyde Park in London. I noticed that Rick Grech has a piece of foam rubber wedged under his strings between the bridge and the pickup. Obviously, a technique he used for muting. He also claimed that it kept the other strings from vibrating when he played aggressively. His bass sounded great. It made me wonder why more players haven't tried this or why manufacturers haven't incorporated something similar in their designs to achieve the same effect.

http://www.angelfire.com/wi/blindfai...togallery.html

Meddle · #2 02-27-2011, 07:09 AM

Mutes have been used before, they were typically hidden under ashtray bridge covers, or in the case of Ric and early Stingrays, a more complex device you wheeled up and down.

I guess the initial idea was to make the bass sound more like an upright. However if you are schooled in bass being about aggressive roundwound zing it is a shock to play a bass that has the pillowy attack of flats + mutes. It almost feels broken!

**ShoeManiac** · #3 02-27-2011, 08:08 AM

A good number of bass players still do this. Check out Bob Babbitt in Standing in the shadows of Motown. He's got foam under the strings of his P-Bass for that show. And I've done this sometimes myself.

As for manufacturer's offering mutes? Fender did it when they had the pickup and bridge covers as standard equipment (and you can still get them on the American Vintage reissues). Rickenbacker 4003's have mutes built into the bridge. And Musicman did it on older model Stingrays along with their new Classic series basses.

RickC · #4 02-27-2011, 12:07 PM

Seeing a Rich Grech thread today was a nice bit of serendipity. I've recently been listening to Traffic's "Low Spark" and re-discovering how much I like (and was influenced by) his playing. Solid, economical, but with a loose, jammy quality at the same time. And yeah, great tone too.

chuck3 · #5 02-27-2011, 12:17 PM

I started a thread about foam muting on P basses here:

P bass owners - question about foam muting

I have gotten some foam rubber of different types and next week will be experimenting with what works on my '78 fretless P. I appreciate the "zing" but it's not what I'm looking for on this bass. (I have my Jazz for that.)

To get back to Grech - I love "Low Spark" and Traffic, one of my favorite tunes and groups, respectively.