Muting....so confused

[DVJENS]

I have so many questions about muting...where to start. Well, I played bass when I was a young adult, totally self-taught, took about 20 years off and now wanting to get serious about learning it the correct way. When I played years ago, I lived in a small apartment and would play unamplified or amplified very low so as not to cause my neighbors to kill me. Muting was never an issue, never even thought about it. But now I'm older, have a house where no one but my family will care about what I am doing and as I started to play things for the first time amplified pretty loud, I was appalled. I could hear all the unused strings ringing out and then I knew I had to start searching as to how to mute these strings.

But how to do it. I learned as "free stroker". I guess sort've a hybrid technique for some reason. With a thumb anchored on the E string or a pickup, I could pluck the string and then bring the finger directly into my thumb on the E and A strings which I guess are rest strokes by definition. But on the D and G, with the thumb resting on the E string, I developed the technique of free stroke on those two strings. I suppose an investment in lessons in those early years would have been money well spent, but it is what it is. My technique allowed me to play fast as I was learning Zepellin and Iron Maiden bass parts back then and just made sense. It was an instinctive way to play when I picked up the instrument. I know a lot use rest strokes to mute the string below it. I have tried so hard to become a rest-stroker but it feels awful, I can only play a fraction as fast and I just cannot get used to it. I keep thinking just stick with it, I'll get it and the speed and precision will start to come, but it feels so awkward and it just isn't getting better. Funny though....for some reason I could never play with a pick either but have quickly grown to enjoy the pick and have become very comfortable with it and can feel myself getting faster and more efficient with it each day...but that is another topic.

I just cannot figure out this muting thing. I try the floating thumb but find that moving the thumb around introduces its own noise sometimes and it is hard to get used to after so many years of anchoring the thumb on a pickup or the E string. I find that easier than learning to rest stroke but still very hard to adapt to.

I have become obsessed with this...but do I need to be? Let's say someday I am no longer in my spare bedroom by myself but on stage playing an Aerosmith or Priest cover very loudly in front of 100's of hopefully screaming fans. Will anyone notice that I am not muting anything? Does the fact that the unused strings are ringing out in some cases, matter to anyone or will anyone even notice? I have never been in that situation so don't know. I have no illusions of becoming a studio musician and recording and all that. Not at my age...I have another career...I am just doing this because I love it and where it goes is not a priority of mine right now. But for once and for all....how the heck do I effectively do this muting thing? I am so confused now. Everyone is saying something different. Most people say to use rest stokes and problem solved. Do I just give up and spend the days and months it will take to completely learn to do exactly that? Or do I just switch over completely and get really good with the pick now and use my palm of the picking hand to mute the strings which actually seems fairly intuitive to me for some reason (I'm really starting to like using the pick and finding a lot of inspiration in bassists who use a pick besides just the speed metal guys). I'm trying to learn how to play, to be an actual musician, but this thing has gotten me baffled. Any resources to learn how to mute properly? Any on-line or DVD lessons of people that know what they are talking about? Any magic techniques that I am just not understanding? Does it just click at some point after lots of practice? Or maybe if I stop obsessing over it I can just let it come naturally as I play more with loud amplification.

Thanks for the help and advice. I am just obsessed by this and it is killing the fun I am having learning to play this instrument.

 

[MalcolmAmos]

First, our beast rumbles. And therefore needs muting. Fact of life. How to go about it? I think everyone finds what works for them. I came over from rhythm guitar and started out with a pick so palm muting was what I tried first. Did not like it. Here is Scott Devine's video on Palm muting.

To make a long story short - I ended up using flatwound strings and foam rubber under the strings at the bridge. Not only did it eliminate my problem it also gives me a sound I like. Flats and foam rubber will get you as close as anything I have come up on to sounding like a stand up bass.

I like this sound and am happy with the flats. Your beast will need to be muted, how you do it, I have to leave to you. We all went through this, it's just something you will have to face. You will find what works for you, just keep trying.

Here is a Google on foam rubber. https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=bass guitar, foam rubber and flats

Here is what the guys on TB have to say. http://www.talkbass.com/threads/foam-rubber-mutes.398011/

Good luck.

EDIT - I use Fender Medium Stainless Steel Flatwound .055 - .105 strings. The volume button to where needed and every thing else on dead zero. If you want that stand up double bass sound.

 

[mpdd]

i can't explain it, i didn't mute before because i played in hardcore bands and the primary goal was speed, therefore i just ignored a lot of the sympathetic vibrations, but i took ten years off and had a little muting epiphany myself, switching up my thumb from string to string rather than just using the pickup just took a little while to get used to, but instinctively i stopped using my ring finger for high speed plucking and i began to use that as a mute when required as well as my thumb

 

[2cooltoolz]

God, I could have been the O.P. on this one. My muting sucks also, and I am starting to become obsessed with the superfluous noise. I am planning on going with an under string mute, starting this weekend at Home Depot, but I also want to improve my technique. I'm pretty good with a pick, from my earlier years, and palm muting that way comes easy to me, but I have been working really hard at mastering fingerstyle and the muting has me befuddled.

 

[Jeff Bonny]

You mute with BOTH hands. Unless you're talking about right hand palm muting which is a very specific technique and sound (and for most people has limited uses) you need to be thinking about muting with your left (fretting) hand in conjunction with your right. Its a major factor in dampening unwanted ringing notes.

This isn't exactly how I approach it but I don't have a vid either and it's a starting point for developing awareness of the concept. Basically any part of your ten fingers you're not using for something else can be put into play to mute. He's talking about slapping but the concept is fundamentally the same for pick and finger techniques too. It's a pretty personal thing you kinda have to develop on your own as you go.

 

[veebass]

Interesting thread. The pointers above about the fretting hand above are important.
I have an unusual plucking hand technique and I am not suggesting you play like this, but I'll mention it in the muting context.
I had to pick up a bass and actually watch how I play it as it is all second nature now after 35 plus years.
I usually strike the strings with my index finger similar to JJ (that's where the similarity ends BTW). I can play two finger and sometimes do without realising, but I am more comfortable, faster and more even with one.
I mute with my thumb and the outside three fingers- also helps with single coil hum.

 

[DVJENS]

Thanks everyone. That Stu Hamm video was really cool. I think what I was looking for was some sort of confirmation that this wasn't some sort of uniform thing that everyone is supposed to do the same way. It seems like this is a personal thing that it is okay to do differently for all of us. I kept bashing my head against the wall the past few weeks, thinking I needed to completely change the way I played. I was convinced that I had to be a "rest stroker" and that was the way the rest of the civilized world was muting their bass. I just can't do that for whatever reason. And the only reason I felt I had to change my plucking style was because I had myself convinced it was the only way to mute. But I have watched so many videos of bass players who were clearly not using rest strokes and yet didn't have the string passive resonance problems I am having. So many ways to do this it seems.

Been running through a bunch of Boston songs. So many cool little triplet riffs in the basslines of classic Boston songs - I love the Boston basslines....Scholtz played them I believe. Don't look back has this little passage where he plays ascending triplets on open strings. This was an example of my muting woes at their worst. Running up from the E to the G string quickly, which left the lower, open strings ringing out like crazy and couldn't find a way to mute quickly. Just playing around with wrapping the thumb of my fretting hand around like in the video. I'm not saying that is going to work or that I want to do that. But nice to know that everyone approaches this issue by trying things and finding out what is best for them.

Okay...feel better now. It will come. Thanks all.

 

[Mr. Sound]

As already stated, your left hand is your friend (take that however you want!)
I have brgidge covers, and play about half of the repit..repo..repert..er...song list!..with a pilectrum (a pick is for digging)....so limited muting with the right hand.

 

[hhirbe]

For me, its a combination of floating thumb, floating anchor (the gateway to floating thumb), and a lot of left hand (fingerboard) work. I started on the upright, so I figured out the left hand muting first, and started introducing right hand muting when I learned to slap.
I guess there are "right ways" and "wrong ways" to play, but whatever gets the job done and doesn't physically make you suffer is a step in the right direction.
There will always be overtones in a long piece of wood with metal strings stretched over it, to a point. Don't beat yourself up too much.

 

[DBFIU]

combo of floating thumb and left hand, sometimes I get creative and wrap my thumb around the neck to touch my low B string, I learned how to play bass on a 5 string and thats the only bass I have so I naturally had no choice but to learn how to mute strings especially the low B. I dont always wrap my left thumb around there, but if I feel comfortable during certain licks I will do that. I also really implement the floating thumb because if I dont I get lots of false notes that sound bad during the bass line. I dunno, it works for me.

 

[lz4005]

Any finger that isn't playing a note can and should be used for muting if needed. There's no right way to mute, as long as it's effective and doesn't hurt it's good.

For me muting really clicked when I figured out that the left hand mutes the higher pitched strings than the one you're playing, right hand mutes the lower pitched strings.

I mostly play 4 string without a pick, so:
If I'm playing on E, my left hand fingers touch the ADG to mute them.
If I'm playing A, my left hand mutes D and G, the follow through from my right hand plucking fingers mutes the E.
If I'm playing D my left hand mutes G, follow through mutes A, right hand ring finger goes between the E and A to mute both.
If I'm playing G, follow through mutes D, right hand ring finger mutes A and E.

On 5 string when I'm playing the G I'll stick my right hand pinky between the B and E to mute both.

Back when I had a 6 string I would move all the above over one string and mute the B with my right thumb while I was playing the C string.

 

[basskal77]

I think I read on Enrico Galetta news that he's going to release soon a big book to learn or refine several techniques and I think muting will be one of them..