What do you use...

[Sean S]

Ah, sorry guys, I meant an old-school mute at the bridge. I don't need the 1st fret hair-tie mute

I'm not that great at the side-of-the-hand muting, and it's not ideal for me especially because my lines are more...busy? than say, Jamerson. Think Flea/Bootsy-ish fingerstyle lines. I'm almost going for an upright-ish level of sustain/decay.

 

[DrGroovenstein]

And you all thought this was going to be a newb "what do you play" thread

I was wondering what you guys use for impromptu string mutes?

I have some studio time coming up and some of our songs could use that funky old-school mute sound...so...yeah...nothing permanent.

Nice name! Oh yeah, and I use whatever medium weight foam I can find. I cut it to be just taller than the string to body distance. I think the hunk I have right now came from something someone put in a package I received, you know packing materials.

 

[lunarpollen]

Trust me, the easiest, quickest, most versatile thing you can use is Blu-Tack (or any other brand of the same substance). You just roll a little piece of it into the right shape and size and then press it onto your strings right in front of the bridge. You can even just mute some strings and not the others. It takes about 2 seconds to apply and a half-second to pull off. And it's indefinitely reusable.

 

[Sean S]

Blu-tack won't gum up rounds, will it?