Newbie needs help with raking/damping

A good rule of thumb (at least at the beginning) is this:
Higher strings (than the actual plucked string) are dampened with the left-hand fingers, the lower ones with the right hand (e.g. the thumb with the floating technique).

 

That's what I do, except my thumb isn't very buoyant, so I use my ring and little finger to mute. When you're playing down on the E or A string you can basically mute the higher strings with the palm of your left hand.

 

You could always do what I did and forget about raking and then it's problem solved.

 

I don't see how alternating solves that problem. You've still got to shut the higher strings up.

 

Yep.


When I play slab, I keep my fingers flat across the board and play with the pads of my fingers. Not only does this this achieve the tone I want on my fretless, but it also lets me dampen any higher string with the rest of my fingers -- so if I'm playing my E string, everything higher is muted.
With my right hand, I keep my ring finger anchored on the string below the one I'm playing, and the pinky finger either hangs off in space or hangs on the next string down. Advantages here -- if you're descending REALLY fast, instead of simply raking, you can just sweep your hand "down" (physically up, I suppose) to the next string and let your ring finger pluck that lower string. Also, the lower strings are muted. On 4's and 5's, I've never had problems with muting with this technique. I haven't played ERBs enough to properly validate the technique for that as well, but seeing as you're new to bass, that doesn't matter.