Carol Kaye's method of muting open strings with felt

[calebbarton]

+1 for this.

The avantage of controlling with your palm is that YOU decide the duration of the notes. If a note needs to be longer, you release the pressure on the string which is not possible with a muting device. I should confess that on sessions with really fast lines I do use my cloth for cleaning the bass as a muting device and place it for an even mute sound under the strings.

Yeah I spent a few days working on it when I first started playing. Now none of my notes ring when I dont want them to. It was actually a lot cheaper than buying foam, tape or pieces of equipment made for muting.

You dont have to mute with the palm of your left hand either.

 

[Billnc]

No one has mentioned this. Carol advocates using just enough foam under the strings to get rid of overtones. The mute, if cut this way does not affect the sustain too much and one must still mute open strings when needed. If you desire the heavily muted sound have another piece cut for that.

 

[badstonebass]

Ok...why is Palm Muting BAD for your hands on BASS...but not guitar?? As a guitarist I have Palm Muted for 30 years...I do the same with BASS. Why is it bad.

 

[JTE]

No one has mentioned this. Carol advocates using just enough foam under the strings to get rid of overtones. The mute, if cut this way does not affect the sustain too much and one must still mute open strings when needed. If you desire the heavily muted sound have another piece cut for that.

This is critical. Carol's muting is neither the kind of muting one uses for Rocco-style things, nor the very damped effect of the foam weatherstripping on original Fender bridge covers. It's a very light muting to control overtones (or as she calls them "undertones"- I'd never use Carol as a resource for a lot of technical terminology).

John

 

[PDGood]

If you use foam, be aware that it deteriorates with time and becomes a sticky glue like substance. That's why studios use that gray foam on their walls - it doesn't deteriorate (and looks nice too). Get some of that stuff if you can. If you have to use the yellow foam, just change it out when it starts to go. (It turns dark in color on the edges - that's a sign it's aging).

I've palm muted for 35 years with no health problem. I find it quite comfortable when picking or playing with thumb and first two fingers in a guitar style.

 

[Billnc]

This is critical. Carol's muting is neither the kind of muting one uses for Rocco-style things, nor the very damped effect of the foam weatherstripping on original Fender bridge covers. It's a very light muting to control overtones (or as she calls them "undertones"- I'd never use Carol as a resource for a lot of technical terminology).

John

I use drum mute foam, looks like a large ring, Cut too thin, it vibrates against the string, buzzy, too much and it becomes Rocco like, which can be very cool. Just right and the bass sits very well in the mix. I can still here how overtones mix, since we play bass we have the most overtones (audible ones anyway). I feel a mute cleans things up in the guitar/cymbal range, the very high end.

 

[gndboy]

My muting technique (developed accidentally) is to use my pinky finger which can move to any plucked string. I've tried the closed-cell foam thing hard against the bridge, and that works pretty well too. The advantage of using a finger is that you can still pluck close to the bridge and get a nice attack while muting as required with the fourth finger atop whichever string is being plucked, and there is no need to hang stuff on the instrument.

 

[seekir]

Ok...why is Palm Muting BAD for your hands on BASS...but not guitar?? As a guitarist I have Palm Muted for 30 years...I do the same with BASS. Why is it bad.

I'm also a guitarist that palm-mutes on guitar using a hybrid pick and fingers style. I find it very difficult to palm-mute when playing fingerstyle bass, not sure how it would be properly done, especially since I don't usually pluck the bass near the bridge. I can palm-mute the bass when using a pick though I don't normally play bass with a pick. I'm guessing the position of the bass bridge further aft on the body requires an unnatural bending of the wrist during palm-muting that may result in harm?

 

[Lownote38]

As seen in the attached image from this website: http://carolkaye.com/www/education/tips101.htm (it's tip 113)

I have recently started playing with a pick (because it sounds awesome). I've been having a lot of trouble with the muting, or lack there of, of the strings I am not playing. I am curious about this method.

Could anyone give me more detail on this? What kind of felt is she using (I'm assuming that all felt is not created equal)? How is it attached to the bass? How far from the bridge?

Less technically, what do you think of this muting method?

Thanks.

You could always mute the way Fender intended which is to put a piece of 3M weather stripping on the under side of an ashtray bridge cover. I use that method on one bass (which has flats on it), but use palm muting on every other bass.

 

[4andnomore]

Actually, according to Carol Kaye. the purpose of the felt is to suppress the overtones of all the unplayed strings. This is especially important if one picks with lots of power which Ms Kaye is known to have done.

 

[Flad]

I palm mute when I pluck with my thumb when playing regular finger style or with a pick the fret hand has to mute the strings not being played.

 

[JimmyM]

Ok...why is Palm Muting BAD for your hands on BASS...but not guitar?? As a guitarist I have Palm Muted for 30 years...I do the same with BASS. Why is it bad.

Never saw this before, so apologies for the late reply.

When you use a pick and mute by the bridge with your palm, two things that aren't good for you happen:

1. You bend your wrist, which can cause injury.

2. You use the pick at the very most tense part of the string, which causes a lot more resistance, which causes your hand to work harder, which causes pain.

That said, we do a song where I could really use palm muting, so I will. But it's not a hard song, and I get time to rest my hand so it's not so painful. I do that with a song that moves more and it'll start hurting bad within 30 seconds.

 

[zontar]

When I use palm muting, I'm actually using the heel of my hand, and it's in a a very natural position to do so.

 

[JimmyM]

We'll see what happens in 10 years. Never had a day's pain in my hands till I turned 40.

 

[Jbassrockboy]

Interesting thread ... I believe anything of good technique should not contribute to injury and this includes being patient with learning technique

Palm muting should not be excluded on the basis 'it causes injury'.

if it is contributing to injury then obviously it is not a desirable technique

It has taken me a lot of trial and error and watching and learning from other players to find out how I can palm mute

With this I now have more choices between muting with left or right hands (using a pick)

Things I experienced in trial and error include strap length, design of the guitar, angle of arms and hand position

Changing any one thing impacts on all the others so it can be frustrating to establish a technique that can be readily called upon

Lack of patience can result in abandoning the effort

Say if someone says, this is how you must do it, it might work for that person but say if your guitar is different and your arms are longer or shorter then the 'must do it this way' might not work well

In offering this reply I don't mean it that certain things should not be musts but we need to ultimately find what does or doesn't work as individuals

Rossa

 

[mellowinman]

We'll see what happens in 10 years. Never had a day's pain in my hands till I turned 40.

So you've been feeling that pain for a VERY long time...?

 

[JimmyM]

Why you...



Actually, no I'm not because I made adjustments based on what Carol says that stopped the pain.

 

[rtav]

I mute with both hands, depending on what I'm doing and which hand is the freest. However, there are those odd times when I am playing something like hitting a D string instead of fretting the note because I have to do some insane acrobatic jump and to sound the note would take too much time, or I'm tapping out something and there's some open string hum ringing through - so I use Gruvgear's fretwraps, Cheap. No mods to bass. Slide it in position to use it, slide it around the nut when not in use - it's become such a part of my playing so I don't even think about using it and it really does help to mute unwanted tones from open strings:

http://www.gruvgear.com/fretwraps

 

[hewstigator]

just by way of bringing up some more options, on my casady and coronado, i use slide on mutes, whose end effect is about the same as just wedging foam under the strings but perhaps slightly more consistent if you're concerned with making sure your bass sounds the same when recording across different takes across different days, etc...

the casady mute is a 3d printed piece that slides onto the sides of the bridge, since the bridge sides have rails that almost seem made for something to slide over them... in between the plastic and the strings is some bike helmet foam (a block with adhesive on one side and cloth on the side contacting the strings):

on my coronado i was too lazy to design and paint an entire thing so i just fabbed up an adaptor to use a jazz bass pickup shield, so i can slide some felt in between the shield and the strings:

 

[mellowinman]

http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/Forgotten_Heroes_Carol_Kaye

“Guitar players would use a piece of felt intertwined between the strings and behind the bridge to get a nice sound,” she recalls. “So I noticed right away that I had to do the same thing for electric bass, because the thicker basses had a terrible time with overtones and undertones, which killed the sound. The minute I put the mute on the top of the strings, in front of the bridge— there was no way to get a mute behind the bridge because that was the end of the strings—I noticed the tone immediately. I mean, for 25 cents, you could get the best sound in town [laughs].”