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foam mute or not??

#44
Happened to come across these last night on youtube and had never seen foam on a bass. And to my surprise saw your thread today. In case you wanted to see a few good videos showing the foam with good sound and video quality.

From Blind Faith in Hyde Park in '69.

Best view starts about 2:34 mark.
In the presence of the Lord
 
#45
Stilettoprefer said:
Use a sock!

d13c1108.gif


Its easily removable!!!!:D
Also makes your bass smell like teen spirit!
Click to expand...

I hope that wasn't a 'happy' sock :D
 
#46
I used to mess around with sticking different materials at different points under my bass (and guitar) strings in high school, to get different sounds/degrees of muting/percussive effects. However, I never knew it was a standard practice among certain bass players -- and certainly never knew, until now, that those ashtrays came w/foam installed or were for much more than cosmetic purposes. Learned something new!

Cool Blind Faith vid (Had to Cry Today), btw!
 
#48
IME neoprene weather stripping type foam works best between the ashtray and the strings, and regular style sponge foam works better under the strings.

In particular, to my ears Js benefit from the foam under and Ps from the neoprene over the strings. YMMV.

Palm muting is great but it will simply not give you the tones of a felt or foam mute.

Finally, all these foam mutes work beautifully with flats but are useless to me with rounds.
 
#50
I find that I have songs that require different tones in a given set. For those that require muted notes I place the palm of my hand on the back of the strings by the bridge and use my thumb and figures, or pick if necessary. Then when the next song comes up that doesn't have muted notes, I don't have to fuss with pulling out the foam.

Then again, if you have the $$$ you could have two basses set up, one with foam and one without that you could switch out when necessary. It's cool watching a show where there's lot's of cool gear making an appearance.
 
#51
I posted this on a similar thread some time ago

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?p=9722597&highlight=#post9722597

The biggest change for me on my CV 60s P was changing out the stock strings to GHS Precision Flats, rolling the tone knob all of the was off and working to get the EQ on my amp set to where it sounded "right".

The foam also helped a lot and I did experiment with different foam before I settled on the foam under the bridge cover.

BTW, I like having both the bridge and PU covers for the look. They don't bother me at all as I play above the PU cover toward the fingerboard (above the tug bar).
 
#52
bearpaw said:
hey guys,

i am right now in the process of converting my 62 p-bass into a funk machine such as jamerson's. i will replace my fender flats with la bella 760Ms and have already set my action sky-high to kill the sustain.
now i have come across the information that jamerson had a foam mute installed in his bridge cover. i have tried that, but a) it didn't do that much and b) in close ups that i have found of jamerson, it didnt actually look like there was foam in his 'ashtray'.
could it be that the foam mute sat in his pickup cover? that would obviously do a lot more muting than it would in the bridge cover.

thanks for help,
peter
Click to expand...

Take off the covers and learn to palm mute.
 
#53
Ric5 said:
Take off the covers and learn to palm mute.
Click to expand...

Contrary as usual, I'm going backwards then by installing the covers and won't palm mute any more on this particular VM-J bass.

I have enough basses to set each one up for a specialty or genre and I'll just take two or three basses with me for every gig unless I know it's gonna be a certain type of music all that session.

I'm finding the neoprene mute works great for Motown, a lot of surf and a lot of jazz with vocals too.
 
#56
sneha1965 said:
Then again, if you have the $$$ you could have two basses set up, one with foam and one without that you could switch out when necessary. It's cool watching a show where there's lot's of cool gear making an appearance.
Click to expand...

This is what I'm thinking of doing this year. Plugging my Fender Roscoe Beck w/roundwounds into channel 1 of my Ampeg SVT-VR for pop/rock stuff and my Gibson EB3 w/flats into channel 2 for old-school country/bluegrass stuff (our band is quite versatile!). That way there is no volume difference between basses as the Gibson has a lot more output with the mudbucker neck pickup.
 
#58
Gomeztool said:
I prefer the sound from palm muting.
Click to expand...

Not that I do or don't 'prefer' palm muting, it's just another tool - although I too think it's very expressive to be able to modulate the amount of muting or clarity on a string-to-string quality.

I'm going to go for the bling in this case - and a certain amount of creative license and control - I think the forced change in technique when I put on the covers and the adaptation to a new style of playing will broaden my musical experience.

Admittedly bling is pretty shallow as a musical motivation and it's pandering by me to eye candy - but I have been playing in the positions and with the technique I think I'll be able to use.

When the conversion is complete and so far I like the sound and voice of the bass played that way, I think it's all for the good. .
 
#59
After experimenting with all kinds of options, including taping foam under bridge cover, here's the best solution I've found

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Scroll to bottom of page. Set of 2 mutes plus bag is $20. Easy to slide in and out under bridge. 2 different thicknesses so you can adjust to taste.
 

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