Ebony Performance Mute for Upright Bass

The new piece you're playing has a direction for con sordino? Sounds like you need a mute!

Made of ebony, this bass mute is the classic three prong style. It's designed for performance muting; by attaching it to the bridge, it dampens the instrument's vibrations and results in a "softer" sound. It does not notably decrease the volume of the instrument. (For that, you need a "practice mute," which is usually a big, heavy rubber contraption that more fully deadens the sound.)

It is temporarily attached to the top of the bridge, by friction with one "finger" between each pair of strings. It can be easily placed and removed with one hand, as needed, to suit the requirements of the piece you're playing.

Very nice quality, real ebony!

A note about fitment: It is expected that this mute may not fit your bridge right out of the package. Various luthiers (people who work on/set up stringed instruments) may have different interpretations or philosophies about how thick a bass bridge should be at the top. Your bridge might have a bridge top that has been sanded thinner, or your setup person may have left it thicker for their own reasons. With these differences, there's no way for the mute-maker to predict the thickness of every bridge top, so it would be impossible to make a "one-size-fits-all" mute out of a hard, inflexible material like ebony wood.

So you can plan ahead: the opening on the mute is about ¼ inch, which gradually narrows over the 1½ inch slot. If your bridge is particularly thick, and the mute does not fit "as-is," you can easily use sandpaper or a flat file to widen the inner surfaces of the mute to better accommodate your bridge. Having the opening too small is clearly better than the alternative, which would mean that the opening would be too wide for some bridges, and would not work at all for a large number of customers. After all, you can take wood away (with sanding/filing) but you can't really put it back! ;-)

Click the second TAB, above, to access a downloadable/printable PDF sheet with more information on fitting this mute.