Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I am interested on how others are using the mute pad on their basses. Do you set it and forget it? Vary it depending on what sound you are looking for? Do you crank it all the way up, or totally down out of the way? Did you take it off the bass entirely? Set it higher on the G or E string side? Just interested- didn't see anything about this via a search. Oh.. I currently crank mine down.

Welcome, Chris!


I like to use it for songs like 'Stand by Me', where the original was an upright acoustic, but I don't always get time to mess with it between songs.
Most of the time the mute is lowered out of the way.

it takes like 5 minutes to get that thing adjusted right ... if you are going to use it then have 2 basses ... one muted and one not muted ... then switch basses between songs ... that would be faster then trying to adjust that mute onstage ...

I prefer palm muting

I would say most of us crank it all the way down. But lately I've been flirting with it, and I'm convinced McCartney used it quite a bit, back in the day. I can get the "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" feel with just a touch of mute.

I used it once in my life and it was pretty easy to deal with. I was playing something that required to be almost drum-like in tone. Not quite staccato, but no real sustain either. And definitely no attack, just all warm tone.

I found the place where the pad worked best for that tone, then found how many turns of the knobs it took to get the pad out of the way and left it set there. When I needed it, a simple 4 turns of each knob, then the reverse to get back out of the song.

I used to adjust mine so it would barely touch the strings, to get a cool sitar effect ala the Coral Sitar guitar used by Steve Howe, etc. I could only get it to work on the A and D strings, though. It would be interesting to replace the foam with a hard pad to see if that gave the effect more readily...the coral sitar has a large hard surface just ahead of the bridge for the strings to rattle against for that droning sound.

Not so, Jeff - the screws on mine used to be very difficult to turn, but some cork grease did the trick. Now I can get the mute up much quicker and I do use it quite a bit for some great "thump".

I find palm muting very difficult on the 4001/4003 - the 4004 and 4005 are both much easier to palm mute on - obviously a result of the bridge designs.

my 4003 basses are very easy to pam mute ...

I never use it.

D Silbag!

There's a section of our 2nd set that has the Ric "mute" tunes all together and for this I switch to a different Ric which has the mute on.

I only use the mute on my 4001 for ground shielding, as the soldering is there, but that job is done well by it!

I can't use it anymore cause I replaced my bridge for a Hipshot. Now I use palm mutes instead if I need to

Hope you grounded your hip shot(although, due to its weight it tends to drop to the ground anyway)?

Well Peter I don't feel the extra weight that much. What I did notice is the longer sustain and clearer notes - more defined. I have it for one week now and shure like it. It gives some extra mids and more bang in the bassregions.

If you have tail lift, or just want to enhance your ric; give it a shot - a hipshot LOL.

PS the good news is you don't have to drill or route into your ric- it will fit right away!