pick up covers and ash trays?

[bassguitarded]

do these do anything besides "look cool"?

[Lesfunk]

Well They do get in the way of your picking hand (A lot). They don't allow you play over the pickup or near the bridge. (My two favorite place to pluck)

[WalterBush]

They're a nice place to rest your thumb, and force you to play in places where the bass sounds better, as opposed to being more comfortable. In my experience, at least.

They're also a darned nuisance if you like to slap.

[ytsebri]

Here's a little something that I noticed when I added the covers to an old jazz bass a long time ago. They actually change the tone of the bass. I a/b'ed them when I discovered it by placing the bridge cover in the appropriate area, and it made the tone a little mellower. My theory is the effect of a metal item in a magnetic field. A piece of metal would alter the magnetic field and that, in turn could alter the sound being recieved from the pickup.

[Jazzdogg]

There was a piece of foam glued to the underside of the bridge cover when I bought my P-bass in '73; IIRC, it reduced string vibration to some extent, changing the sound in the process. It's been decades, so my memory could be faulty.

[JTE]

The original bridge covers on Fenders had a small strip of foam in them to mute the strings slightly (no, Jazzdogg, your memory isn't faulty). The PUP covers were there originally (on the single-coil bass) both to help protect the PUP and to give the player a place to rest the plucking-hand palm. The PUP was kind of fragile and had no covers over the coils like all following Fender PUPs had. And Leo envisioned guitarists playing the bass by plucking it with the side of their thumb. If you put palm on the PUP cover and wrap your fingers around the finger-rest under the strings, your thumb is in the perfect location for playing. Will Lee likes having the PUP cover on as a place to rest his hand for different techniques.

Do they affect the sound? I dunno (other than the mute). I've taken them off a ton of basses as I was a Fender dealer from 1977-1988. We'd generally take them off because most people wanted to try the basses that way. I never noticed any difference acoustically nor amplified on the store's basses nor my own.

jte

[Jazzdogg]

Originally Posted by JTE

The original bridge covers on Fenders had a small strip of foam in them to mute the strings slightly (no, Jazzdogg, your memory isn't faulty). The PUP covers were there originally (on the single-coil bass) both to help protect the PUP and to give the player a place to rest the plucking-hand palm. The PUP was kind of fragile and had no covers over the coils like all following Fender PUPs had. And Leo envisioned guitarists playing the bass by plucking it with the side of their thumb. If you put palm on the PUP cover and wrap your fingers around the finger-rest under the strings, your thumb is in the perfect location for playing. Will Lee likes having the PUP cover on as a place to rest his hand for different techniques.

Do they affect the sound? I dunno (other than the mute). I've taken them off a ton of basses as I was a Fender dealer from 1977-1988. We'd generally take them off because most people wanted to try the basses that way. I never noticed any difference acoustically nor amplified on the store's basses nor my own.

jte

That's good to hear. Now, what were we talking about?

[Stumbo]

Originally Posted by bassguitarded

do these do anything besides "look cool"?

Use'm as an ashtray.

[newbold]

How difficult would it to be to countersink holes for rubber plugs that would allow for dropping in and pulling off the ashtray for easy muting?

[62bass]

Originally Posted by WalterBush

They're a nice place to rest your thumb, and force you to play in places where the bass sounds better, as opposed to being more comfortable. In my experience, at least.

They're also a darned nuisance if you like to slap.

Leo Fender was known to have great foresight and envisioned that one day someone would try slapping the bass, so he put those covers there to discourage the practice.

[JacobE]

no never

freakin hideous

[SGD Lutherie]

The Fender bass was designed for use by guitar players, so it was made to be played with a pick, like a guitar. So you rested your hand on the pickup cover when you played! You see some old Gibson basses with a cover somewhere in the middle that didn't cover any of the pickups, and that was really a hand rest.

This is why you see the finger rests under the strings... it wasn't a thumb rest! You could also use it to anchor you fingers if you played with your thumb, which was also common. When I started playing in 1969, the bass instruction books at the time showed to play with a felt pick or your thumb! Then of course real upright bass players starting playing the electric bass and using their fingers.

The bridge cover held the foam mute on the P bass, which was part of the tone at the time... sort of emulating the quick decay of an upright bass. Plus the early bridges were UGLY.

The covers look cool, but as you notice they stopped putting them on the basses a while ago because everyone took them off! I can never understand how Will Lee plays with that pickup cover on.

Even Strats and Teles (and many others) came with bridge covers. I guess many people didn't palm mute back then... except Les Paul.

You could use a couple of small neo magnets to hold the cover on, so you can remove it without tools.

[robgo]

Originally Posted by 62bass

Leo Fender was known to have great foresight and envisioned that one day someone would try slapping the bass, so he put those covers there to discourage the practice.