Hair Tie Users(whats the point)

It's to mute and control open strings while employing various techniques that would cause alot of vibration. As to why alot of people do it, alot of people copy whatever Vic does. That being said, there are also alot of guys that use them for the reasons mentioned above. Some may say it's cheating but if it works then don't knock it.

 

Only use it if it really helps you play and makes a difference. I wouldn't put the hair scrunchie just to look like Vic. Personally, it makes my tapping a lot cleaner, and when I'm doing double-thumbing and all that it helps out, too.

 

i have had students come in with them and i tell them to take them off,if your playing bass's with five or less strings there not really needed IMO.if you spend time cleaning up your technique, both right and left hand,you will have control over ringing strings.now 6 strings +? there is a case to be made

 

I've never seen this, anyone have a pic of this?

 

fastplant, just picture a hair tie stretched over the headstock and onto the strings, just past the nut in the playing area.

Helps just enough, as someone has said, with ringing strings / not so stellar technique.

Never done it, but I've seen it.

Here's Woot, with the hairtie out of position...



and in position:

 

ugh, I just lost a little respect for vic, you'd think he had better control than to need that.

 

The funny part must be to pull the hair tie in place while playing.

 

I use them all the time...to pull my hair back.

 

Yeah i as well use tons of them for my hair! LOL Makes my wife really mad when i still hers! So she started with the nasty fluffy pink ones!

 

No one has mentioned this yet:

Put the hairtie over a good harmonic spot (12th fret, 7th fret, etc) and hit an open string. You get the open note with overtones from the harmonic.

 

I keep one or two of the bigger ones on mine. I use one right up by the nut almost all the time, unless I need a ringy open string. If I'm trying to go over-the-top with compressed and heavily-distorted cheesy-stuff, I'll slide TWO of'em down (to avoid the harmonic-thing that Only mentioned).

When I do personal practice, though, I usually take it away so I work on my muting control. Maybe I'll hardly ever need them someday - but for now, when I'm playing out I need to sound as good as I can, so I use'em!

Joe

 

I use them for this sometimes. I only use them when playing 6 strings and tapping.

When I see somebody playing a 4 string with a pick, banging out quarter notes, with a hair tie at the nut, I laugh my a$$ off. I have seen several local punk players doing exactly this.

 

Man thats too funny! Do you think maybe ya could take a cell phone with ya or somthing and get some footage of that? I could watch that every day and just make my life a little better!

 

To the "clean up your technique" crowd --

Double thumbing does NOT lend it self to muting strings, sorry guys. When playing, people generally mute the higher strings with their left, and the lower with their right. Works well fingerstyle, and even regular slap. But when you double thumb, it just doesn't work like that -- the lower strings aren't muted. As such, you get sympathetic vibrations.

The same goes for tapping. Things get a lot easier, and you can focus a lot more on what you're actually playing when you don't have your low B rumbling about 'cause it feels left out -- and a lot of chordal positions use up all of your fingers. People definitely shouldn't use the tie as a crutch, but discounting it entirely is about the same mentality that compressors are the worst thing to happen to those poor, uneducated, cro-magnan bass players who just can't conceive of good technique.

 

i actually agree with that but when i see guy's playing "regular bass"(what's that?)with hair ties not doing double thumps or tapping just playing, i IMHO don't see why

 

Not a problem for Vic. I believe his hair ties are specially designed by the wonderful people at "Hipshot".

 

Yeah, I know there are gizmos especially designed to do this (although from the pictures Vic looks like he's using a regular hair tie ), but you have to reach for it anyway. Must not be always easy.

 

Look again... all he has to do is flip the lever at the back of it. Within .5 of a second, a little robot appears from the truss-rod cavity, grabs the hair tie, scampers down the neck, and places it in position.......

I was only joking. My sense of humour it too silly for TB sometimes............