Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

It's a hassle, but you should take the mute out and trim the foam pad a bit from both sides and both ends. They are just a bit too big to fit loosely in the cage and they hang up on the edges, making it difficult to raise or employ evenly. I was told that the foam mute is actually the center cutout for a foam mounting pad used on some of the guitar pickups, 03802 in this diagram:

http://www.rickenbacker.com/pdfs/gpickups.pdf

Hmm.

Used the mute just about all night last night. Working on Dear Prudence rolled on the mute just enough and wow. It worked very well.

Short answer: No. Long answer: Noooooooooooooooooooooooo.

I use my mutepad every once in a while in my 4003.
I don't have foam on my 4001, which reminds me - what kind of foam can I use there and I do I connect it to the metal bar??

gibsonlp wrote:what kind of foam can I use there and I do I connect it to the metal bar??

A piece of mouse pad should work well, with rubber cement to glue it to the metal bar.

Thanks.

I'd be inclined to go with a softer foam, like weatherstripping material.

I guess it depends on the particular mouse pad; I have seem them with various densities. What ever you use Gil, keep the cross section to the strings fairly narrow, in the range of ¼" and mount it as close to the saddles as possible as the mute does affect intonation since it effectively moves the witness point of the bridge closer to the nut making the strings go sharp.

No I don't use it and wow Jeff you are one sharp dude. Mark

I mainly use it to show off the features of the bass to my friends, but I recently made a song with my band that actually will call for using the mute. Mid song, during a drum break, I will disengage the mute and go back to traditional tone.

T

I just tried using the mute because of this thread. It was such rubbish I couldn't even finish the tune. I stopped playing and the band look at me while I quickly turned the screws to get the mute down. If it works for you, then more power to ya. I'll just keep everything at 11.

In 11 years of owning a Ric, ive never used it. But it probably wouldnt have set well in the mix for the Deep Purple-y type of band I was in, haha!

I might have to try it on the 4003, perhaps with flats.

I've found that if you raise the mute until it just kisses the strings, you can get a passable fretless sound. Also, when you dig in, it'll give you a sitar-like kind of buzz that I think sounds pretty cool.

I play in an Elvis tribute band. For the early Elvis tunes. Awesome to have. Genious idea to add to a bass. Cool for recording too.

I've used it here and there, I've always replaced them with new pads though, old 4001's are usually dried out and new ones are too wide. I buy a new mute and cut it in half and put it as close to the bridge as possible, that way you aren't out of tune and it has a little less decay. I've found with careful placement it sounds great. Like a few others I wish it had a quick apply and release feature though, the knobs are a pain to screw up and down but look cool.