Hello. Neat trick for Classic Series players and vintage SRs

[HZdonut]

Greetings. I dunno if anyone else has tried this, but its a pretty cool thing you can do with any Musicman basses with the built in mutes. If you activate the mutes, and then just back them off a bit until they just barely catch the vibration of the strings you can achieve a slight growl similar to a fretless instrument. Might have to mess with them a bit to find the sweet spot, but once you're there it's pretty cool.. Works best with the tone controls fairly flat.

 

[Golem]

Greetings. I dunno if anyone else has tried this, but its a
pretty cool thing you can do with any Musicman basses
with the built in mutes. If you activate the mutes, and
then just back them off a bit until they just barely catch
the vibration of the strings you can achieve a slight growl
similar to a fretless instrument. Might have to mess with
them a bit to find the sweet spot, but once you're there
it's pretty cool.. Works best with the tone controls fairly
flat.

Hhhmnnn ..... I've always bleebed thaz their intended use,
since they are dense enuf to render your intonation quite
hopeless if applied as actual mutes. The presence of the
adjuster screws really confirmed this in my mind.

I had an olde arche topp basse with a spring loaded mute,
of similar material/density to the EBMM mutes. The inability
to adjust that mute for extremely slight application made
it next to useless.

I'm a sorta mute freak, and generally use much less dense
material than rubber pads, which allows me to mute fretted
basses with little to no effect on intonation ... at least if I
play only in the Money Zone ... and acoarst with FL there's
almost no constraints on the muting game.

 

[drTStingray]

Thanks for the tip HZdonut - I'll give it a try.

Golem I've never come across the issue of intonation before - I do use the mutes on my Classic and fretless SR from time to time and it creates a different sound palate.

I did try them wound on a long way (see pic below) - a set I played with the bass like this was recorded and there were no problems. I have noticed a lot of people use mutes to get thump (Bob Babbitt and George Porter Jr are recent examples I seen/heard about)

 

[weemac]

I've done this on my Rickenbackers for years. The Musicman design mute is slightly more adjustable than the Rick one. It's a shame that it is not standard on all Rays (and Subs)

emac.

 

[Golem]

Thanks for the tip HZdonut - I'll give it a try.

Golem I've never come across the issue of intonation before - I do use the mutes on my Classic and fretless SR from time to time and it creates a different sound palate.

I did try them wound on a long way (see pic below) - a set I played with the bass like this was recorded and there were no problems. I have noticed a lot of people use mutes to get thump (Bob Babbitt and George Porter Jr are recent examples I seen/heard about)

I watched Babbitt's mute at about 15 ft away for over an hour.
He never used it while I was watching. IIRC, that type of mute
has soft foam pads, and an adjustable degree of engagement.

Re: your style with the MM mutes ... do you ever engage them
quite firmly, such that they replace the saddles as a location
defining the end of the speaking length of the string ? My only
MM with those mutes is an FL, so I just play what sounds right,
but I do feel that i'm playing at different ["flatter"] positions.

OTOH my Univox had a firm-ish rubber mute material the same
as [or reeeeally similar to] the MM mutes. It was fretted and
had definite intonation issues when muted. Acoarst, there was
no way to get the mute to barely kiss the strings, as it was a
one-piece 4-strings-wide piece of rubber on a spring loaded
on-or-off mechanical system.

 

[drTStingray]

Re: your style with the MM mutes ... do you ever engage them
quite firmly, such that they replace the saddles as a location
defining the end of the speaking length of the string ? My only
MM with those mutes is an FL, so I just play what sounds right,
but I do feel that i'm playing at different ["flatter"] positions.

I normally use them so they're just touching. I've never managed to affect the intonation on the fretted SR4 even when winding them on as tight as possible - this was an experiment to see if I could get a heavily muted sound higher up the fretboard - which I did. Playing the fretless I have to try very hard to think about intonation all the time anyway so I don't know how much/little intonation is affected - I don't notice a difference.

I'm playing in a swing quartet and am experimenting to get a slightly different sound with the SR4 fretless - it has superb tone but the E and A can be a little too fat sounding in the mix with just piano, drums and vocals - I'm trying the E and A string mutes wound on a little to shorten note lengths and attack, whilst leaving the D and G unmuted, to create mwah. I haven't played a gig like this but will be interesting to see - the good thing is you can adjust the mutes individually v quickly, even between songs.

 

[slickbass3]

I completely agree with HZdonut. I was toying with the mutes on my 89 and it was amazing the fretless sound you could achieve!

Great stuff!