I'm ready to talk about my piezo

[Golem]

OK this may be ignorant, but can you get a piezo installed (is that what we are talking about?) on a piezo-less bass, oh lets say a Buttercream HS sterling? just curious.

Also on a semi unrelated note I think I'm gonna get a bridge mute installed. Anybody have experience with these. I like what I've played so far.

EB will not do that, and will not sell you the parts.

My 91 SR4FL has mutes and I do use them. The design looks like it would seriously mess up the intonation on a fretted bass. With FL, I can do that without mutes

I set the mutes til they just barely grasp a thin slip of paper between the pad and the string. I'm playing nylon wound flats and sometimes they are just too crispy on the pau ferro board. The mutes are rather tedious to engage, less tedious to disengage. I painted little dots on the knobs so I can back them down a 1/2 turn [fully disengages] and then bring them back without having to measure with the slip of paper every time.

The tone with the mutes is, not surprisingly, sorta muted. That's the SR4FL. The mutes on the Sabre don't do much. It's like nothing can get a Sabre to pipe down or shut up. On the Sabre mostly they just limit sustain and fu*kup the intonation. I can see why EB dropped them. Maybe on a piezo FL, since it's a special bridge anyway, and since it's fretless, they should be offered. But the villagers are not marching in SLO with torches and pitchforks demanding the restoration, so......

There is a 3rd party mute. Quick to use, easy to instal, but:
A. Many folks resist drilling holes in their basses.
B. The contact point is even further from the saddles.
C. Kinda pricey.
D. I watched Bob Babbit with the Funk Bros for about
an hour and his hand never went near the thing.
Actually, his hand hardly moves at all, very cool player.

 

[basserfire17]

At my local shop (new jersey guitar and bass center) I tried a bass with a mute installed. I liked it. It had a 3 way switch right on the mute, 1=off, 2=a bit muted 3= more muted. The pads came in from the side, and you could switch it in a second, no turning of knobs or anything. I don't know the brand, but it was pretty cool. I also have no idea how it's installed, but if it means cutting another hole in the bass, I would really have to think about it.