Yes that is at least how I do it. When I want to play e.g. a series of staccato notes or only every other eighth note on the same string. I'm thinking of stuff like the beginning of "Another on bites the dust" by Queen, where the muting is important to create the correct "groove".Thanks, yes, he's looking for info on standard finger style bass techniques.I'm hoping to find some written material that I can copy for him. If I remember what he's doing now, his thumb is always anchored on the pickup and he plucks with the index and middle finger. It seems to me its not the surrounding strings he's having trouble with, it's the string he is playing. So i'm just guessing in thinking the middle finger should be doing the muting on the string that was just struck by the index?
The other old Motown trick was to place a small block of high density foam
right at the bridge with just enough pressure to dampen the strings.
Here are some more ideas (some of them quite obvious of course). You have to judge if they are relevant or notOK, that makes sense....thanks.
Here's an example of something that's giving him trouble. It's an original song and the bass line is just one pretty fast single note pumping line in the verses.
It's reminiscent of ZZ Topp's "Just got Paid, at a section of the bass line is. He's doing a double pluck and the timing is right but he's getting all kinds of harmonics and extraneous noise. So i'm not sure if a right hand muting thing even applies with a fast line like this. Maybe this is a job for the left hand? Does Dusty Hill use a bridge mute or maybe roll his tone knob way low?