neck muting question

[mixingwithtom]

Hi all

I found the bassist Bill Clements on youtube after following a link from a different thread...

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3h7fH592u8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3h7fH592u8[/url]

Firstly, nice playing huh?

I really like the tone on this clip, presumably partly Bill and partly the innovative instrument he's using (so a thumbs up to him, and the luthoer, who I found here: www.fretgroove.com).

But, my question isn't really related (!) ... can someone tell me about the muting he's using on the neck... ?

I've seen plenty of other players that use this too (eg Victor Wooten). It seems particularly common with bassists who slap, and in fact I think I've seen footage where Victor moves the damping from the bottom of the neck a bit further up for slapping/soloing...

I presume it helps mute the strings on fast playing where it wouldn't be possible to mute everything with fingers/hand?

However, on the clip of Bill there seems to be plenty of sustain (his vibrato helps of course) and he has what looks like quite a lot of material muting the strings (over the first fret?) even though he isn't playing a very percussive style...

I'd like to experiment with this, what should I use to do it??

And secondly, I don't slap that much (one of many things I need to learn properly) so is this irrelevant, or is it useful anyway?!

Any more thoughts or advice on this appreciated, I've wondered about it for a while!

Aplogies if this is a much debated topic, I couldn't find other threads on it but wasn't really sure what to search for.

Many thanks,

Tom

[Paul_C]

[quote name='wwcringe' post='162489' date='Mar 24 2008, 02:24 AM']Hi all

I found the bassist Bill Clements on youtube after following a link from a different thread...

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3h7fH592u8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3h7fH592u8[/url]

Firstly, nice playing huh?

I really like the tone on this clip, presumably partly Bill and partly the innovative instrument he's using (so a thumbs up to him, and the luthoer, who I found here: www.fretgroove.com).

But, my question isn't really related (!) ... can someone tell me about the muting he's using on the neck... ?

I've seen plenty of other players that use this too (eg Victor Wooten). It seems particularly common with bassists who slap, and in fact I think I've seen footage where Victor moves the damping from the bottom of the neck a bit further up for slapping/soloing...

I presume it helps mute the strings on fast playing where it wouldn't be possible to mute everything with fingers/hand?

However, on the clip of Bill there seems to be plenty of sustain (his vibrato helps of course) and he has what looks like quite a lot of material muting the strings (over the first fret?) even though he isn't playing a very percussive style...

I'd like to experiment with this, what should I use to do it??

And secondly, I don't slap that much (one of many things I need to learn properly) so is this irrelevant, or is it useful anyway?!

Any more thoughts or advice on this appreciated, I've wondered about it for a while!

Aplogies if this is a much debated topic, I couldn't find other threads on it but wasn't really sure what to search for.

Many thanks,

Tom[/quote]

it's usually a hair scrunchy, available wherever ladies buy such things

[mixingwithtom]

Cheers, that's what it looked like for me (or wristbands?)

Anyone else?!

[d-basser]

I use sweat bands, find it really helps for tapping, damps string between fret and nut so when you tap you just get the note fret to bridge. try damping with one hand near the nut then tapping with the other higher up the neck you'll get the idea

Edited March 24, 2008 by d-basser

[mixingwithtom]

Please!! Surely loads of you guys know about this, can't somebody give me some info???

If there's already stuff on the forum or elsewhere on the web I'm happy to read up, just need to know where to look...

Thanks