I am an older player used to guitar fingering where you arch the fingers to avoid muting strings. I get the idea from watching my first modules in the course (excellent so far, thanks Josh) that most fingering is not done with the tips of the finders but with the pads of the fingers under the tips. This makes sense to me as most bass is single note work. Am I correct in this conclusion?
Thanks, Ed
You do need to mute the strings, your muting technique is what works best for you. You are correct many bass players use the pads and their other fingers to mute, but some play chords and there’s other muting methods.
No one true way.
Muting was not my issue, it is playing the notes. But I understand about the muting, Josh is teaching that at this point in my journey. Thank you for your response.
Ed
Nothing wrong with guitar-style fingering on bass either - though some of the stretchy reaches might be difficult that way.
Yes 
Unlike Guitars “most” notes play on the bass are one at a time. The opposite rules apply here. You need to mute the last note before the next one “most” of the time.
Playing finger style guitar is very difficult for me the first few months, the chords are just too crazy for my fingers and the sustain between notes takes some getting used to too, 
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Fingerstyle guitar requires palm muting, although left hand muting does evolve naturally with time and practice.
I learned guitar as a rhythm player, so chords were the name of the game. Strumming and picking chord tones was the other half of the equation.
Knowing chords and their construction came in very helpful when I set out to learn fingerstyle guitar. Essentially, my right hand had to do the intricate picking patterns while my fretting hand had to shift between chords. The result sounded busier and harder than it seemed, but only with a lot of practice.
Learning proper bass finger plucking was an entirely different experience for me as the plucking hand/finger positions and thumb anchoring(!) were totally foreign to fingerstyle guitar playing. But it was a blast to learn it.
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