Using Fingers on your Plucking Hand to Mute Bass Stings

[JTUK]

[quote name='dakanoosh' timestamp='1341092565' post='1713864']


muting is so important, record yourself playing without trying to mute in anyway and listen to it back... what you will hear is all your stings ringing behind what your playing, now imagine if you where recording a song in the key of C# Major for example... your basically then playing a huge clashing chord behind every note you play... never overlook the importance of muting, perfecting it will make you a much better sounding bass player.
[/quote]

[JTUK]

Why would I need to do that? My technique is clean and precise and I don't have any muting problems. I have put my time in and can mute lh or rh .. My point is the op needs to do the same. I am not convinced floating thumb is useful or any better than any other method but if you have ringing strings you really have to clean up your playing. I favour lh mute over plucking mute but the end goal is to best fast fluid and more importantly, precise. For those that can't do this, you are going to have to put the hard yards in. No quick fix.

[Coilte]

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1341153689' post='1714364']
Why would I need to do that? My technique is clean and precise and I don't have any muting problems. I have put my time in and can mute lh or rh .. My point is the op needs to do the same. I am not convinced floating thumb is useful or any better than any other method but if you have ringing strings you really have to clean up your playing. I favour lh mute over plucking mute but the end goal is to best fast fluid and more importantly, precise. For those that can't do this, you are going to have to put the hard yards in. No quick fix.
[/quote]

I think the main point is that it's important to be able to mute the strings. The FT is just one way of doing this. It is up to each person to find a technique that suits them.

Another advantage of the floating thumb however, is that besides muting, with this technique, the wrist is straight, thus avoiding possible injury due to a bent wrist. Granted, a lot of players use a bent wrist with no problems, but it is generally accepted that this can cause problems over time.

[dakanoosh]

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1341153689' post='1714364']
Why would I need to do that? My technique is clean and precise and I don't have any muting problems. I have put my time in and can mute lh or rh .. My point is the op needs to do the same. I am not convinced floating thumb is useful or any better than any other method but if you have ringing strings you really have to clean up your playing. I favour lh mute over plucking mute but the end goal is to best fast fluid and more importantly, precise. For those that can't do this, you are going to have to put the hard yards in. No quick fix.
[/quote]

you didn't say anything about muting in your original comment... I assumed you where completely discarding muting strings saying it was useless.

[JTUK]

I did mention cleaning up the technique though and any ringing strings is poor technique..not so much that they ring in the first place but that they aren't damped down straight away.

[dakanoosh]

My technique is fine then... as I don't have any ringing strings because I always have at least one finger on all the stings at anyone time...