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Need Info On Jazz String Mutes

#8
P and J basses originally had a piece of thick rubber glued to the inside of the bridge covers, It hit just in front of the saddles and the more you screwed down the cover, the more muting you got. I know people who have used foam weather stripping with an adhesive back to do the same thing -- if you have the cover. I never screwed mine down fully on my '59 P, but it did hit the strings and, along with flats, was a big part of "The Sound" in the '60s. When roundwounds came along, everystarted to ditch the covers. If you don't have a cover, experiment with various thicknesses of foam available at most craft stores -- just slide it under the strings near the bridge till you get the plunk you want. I did this last year to approximate an upright bass on my Lakland 55-94.

The original String Ray basses had individually adjustable miutes that can be screwed UP against the strings. That went away for a while, but the new reissue Classic SRs have the mutes.

This company: http://www.bassmute.com/bassmute/bm_mainframe.html
has an aftermarket mute system that can be installed via two-sided tape on any bass. Bob Babbitt was using something like this on some of his basses, but he also sometimes just stick foam under the strings.
 
#10
Wow - I never knew the Fender system was so sophisticated.

I had tried some electronic sponge-y packing foam on my P for a while, just under the strings and liked the effect.

Where this is going to go is on the VM-Jazz that I'm dressing up to be a big question mark when people who know better see it.

I want to cause them to stop - look - and wonder what Squier is making now!

I hope it's the ultimate fake-out!
 
#12
There were two types of mutes installed on the Jazz:

The most common, is what was installed after '63, was simply a strip of foam-rubber (like weatherstripping) glued to the underside of the chrome cover. Same as what the P was using.

The 60-63 J's used metal spring plates with felt pads. These had to be screwed into place and are not adjustable.
DSC00430.jpg
 
#15
That's just fantastic information! Thanks for that - a lot!

It looks as though I'll use some stuffed foam strip in there as I really don't want the extra holes.

What I figger is that if I cannot palm mute, I can at least kill and hanging-on notes that I can't normally mute manually with the cover in place.

My next biggie is if I DO or DON'T want to install the upper cover too.

I'm looking at the official upper cover and it appears to be somewhat non-elliptical in shape and one side is more 'curved' than the other.

It there an UP and DOWN/ LEFT or RIGHT side to it or is what I see just an optical illusion from the sites on the internet?
 
#18
ThaLowEndTheory said:
Much better than the foam or rubber mutes used under the cover. Hard to describe for me, but they seem to capture that double bass quality a bit better. IMHO.
Click to expand...

I just listened to that YT site - I like it.

OK - then here's a paradox, at least to me.

The Jazz (and maybe the Precision too) had tug-bars in those days and with the p'up cover and the bridge cover, how was it 'thumbed' by what was the style of the day?

I too play either 'the hook' or 'thumb' and I was a little uncomfortable playing with the Marcus Miller version - so what's the true way to play by thumb or hook when both guards are on the bass?

And - part two: I see why the mutes are kinda important now too.
 

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