Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I was trying not to post ... but sometimes people here get so retro I can't stop myself from trying to shock them into the 21st century ...

Dane, I'm not sure it was puff puff when Paul did up the bass. He may have been licking a few stamps.

Name one better thing better about guitars or music or in the 21th century --- That's right, there isn't!

Brian, ahh...nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more,say no more....

I'm with Jeff one hundred percent---I am retro---and beyond!

Here is my two cents, and then some reality notes;

In the early days, I believe that the manufacturers, (Ric, Fender, and others) wanted to emulate the double bass. Realizing that the double bass didn't have very much sustain, they wanted to simulate the double bass with their bass guitars by encorporating mutes. In terms of authenticity, this never really worked. Here is why. (in my opinion mind you).

The problem with ALL mutes is that they are not linear. As you move up the neck, the mute becomes WAY more active and obvious, which is exactly the opposite of what you want. Look at it this way; When you fret a note in the first position, the angle of attack on the mute is very shallow AND you have WAY more string mass vibrating, thus the effect of the mute less effective, thus not as noticable. As you move up the neck, the angle of attack on the mute becomes steeper, or more acute, and you have less string mass vibrating, thus the higher notes are muted MORE noticable. In other words, less mute on the low notes---more mute on the high notes. If that is what you are going for, fine. I personally find the best mute in the world is the heel of my right hand---AND lots of practice---until it becomes natural. Give this more than a few hours work. It will become intuitive. There is nothing better than an active TUNABLE mute---your hand.

Once accomplished, and with practice, the low notes can be muted the same as the high notes. Try that with a fixed mute---impossible.

BTW, on Rics, this can present problems if you insist on pickup covers, etc., as the best postition for muting with your hand is dictated by the notes your are playing and the heel of your hand---further back, less muting---further forward, more muting.

On another subject---but related... a mute absolutely kills your overtones (harmonics).
NOT so apparent when playing live, but recording? Beware...

I hope this makes sense. Please let me know if not.

Marty

Ilan, a man of few words!

Martin ... you are so eloquent in your explanation ... and my main complaint against the mechanical mute is it gets in the way of palm muting ... I can palm mute for pick of fingers ... it is a totally adjustable feature that is built into your own body ... and it can be immediately on or off ... for instance when I play "all right now" by Free I palm mute to simulate the flat wound string sound of the original recording ... also "brown eyed girl" ... and with a 5 string bass with round wound strings I can play retro music or stuff like Alice in Chains, or Green Day all on the same bass ... that is part of what I like about the 2000 series and the 4004 basses ... a modern bridge ...

Brian, yes that bass is mine, and I did the paintjob. I substituted teal for silver just to be a bit different.

Yeah, I was muted.

No, seriously, I deleted my post after reading it again and realizing I really had nothing interesting to say.

Ilan!
What do you mean you had nothing interesting to say? Carol Kaye is an EXTREMELY interesting study!

I was fortunate enough to get a chance to work with Carol back in the 70's, and for fun used to go hear her trio on Tuesday nights at "The Baked Potato" in Studio City, CA. (Joe Sample, John Guerin, and Carol). She played everything with a pick---that used to bug me. Funny...she was always going for that "Joe Osborne" sound! ...which became Carol's sound!

Anyway... to mute or not to mute, and how, is up to each his or her own. In my case, like Jeff has said, we have a very nice mute built right in to our hand.

Marty

LOL... you've read it... I know that bringing up Carol's name in forums other than her own, can sometimes lead to fire and brimstone, and I didn't want that to happen here.

What I wrote was that Carol insists that you have to kill some of the overtones in order to cut through the mix, and that with her recording history, I find it hard to argue with her. I do love her early sound (Beach Boys era).

I still think it's not really that interesting in a discussion of the "Good Morning, Good Morning" bass sound She once deleted a thread from her forum after I said nice things about McCartney's sound. But I like her anyway.

Being a BB fan, Carol is one of my all time faves. I use the picks she sells.

and we'll have fun fun fun now that we took the mechanical mute away ... and we can have good vibrations!!!

Ronn,

Very cool! I tried to email you. Did you change your address? Is that a V63 or a C64?

Nice work. I enjiyed seeing that picture