damping sympathetic vibrations?

[Matthew Tucker]

I'm finding that as I play my bass, the part of the string past the stopped length (ie, above my left hand) is vibrating quite vigorously in sympathy with the main notes. I've never really noticed it before on other basses. In fact, on this bass it can be so loud (right next to my ear) when playing unamplified that it's really starting to annoy me.

I can't seem to vary my technique to get rid of this sound, in fact it seems the more precise and strong my fingering is, the worse it gets.

Its worst up in thumb position. The sympathetic notes are strong and quite disturbing.

Is there a setup trick to minimise this vibration?

[forester]

wow...it would seem to me it would take buku amount of sustain to transmit all that energy back to the dead end of the string. Is it possible the path is from the body northward up the backside of the neck to the pegbox and back down the string...hence the (accompaniment. Can you choke it off at the nut? ofcourse i could be dead wrong altogether. just my 2sense

[Matthew Tucker]

the note sounds when I press the string to the FB, not whem the string is plucked.

[forester]

wish you hadn't said that...now mines doing it. i am most likely wrong on this but wouldn't this be unavoidable. two stops bridge/nut...like the pebble (your finger) in the pond thing...energizing both directions. Strange note intervals untill you get to the harmonic locations...maybe try some less excitable srings?

[arnoldschnitzer]

Increasing the fingerboard's camber will help with the problem, but make the bass harder to play.