What is the purpose of the U shaped sheet metal over the strings near near the bridge of the old Ampeg basses? Like the bass Roger Waters used on “Live at Pompeii”?
Hum reduction? A convenient place to rest your plucking hand?
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Marketing?
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Post a picture please.
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these?
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exactly!
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The original Fender covers had foam mutes glued to underside of them. So they were a means of muting the string to get a certain sound (I think I’m right?).
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Cosmetics
Early basses didn’t have covers on the pickups the windings were visible. The covers were to dress them up. Now it’s a vintage thing.
People mostly take them off
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They did because it was convenient, but Fender added them to hide the uncovered pickups before foam was a thing.
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I think we’re at cross purposes here. I’m probably wrong.
I thought the pickup cover hid the pickups and the bridge cover hid the bridge and that’s where the foam went?
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You’re right. I am off tonight.
But I think the hiding came before the foam, and Jameson added the foam under the strings. Would like to know if that’s before Fender glued it to the ash tray
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I read something like that on TalkBass. I also read a claim of a protector for fragile pickup’s people were using as thumb rests. And also a way to try and silence “shitty 50s-70s electronics” XD
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After reading a few history run downs on the Fender bridge cover its seems to be purely aesthetic. First used on the Tele and Strat to cover up what was seen to be ugly hardware (the bridge) and give the guitar a nicer chrome like finish like a caddy. It was removed by players as it got in the way of techniques such as palm muting. I’m guessing the foam was an after thought for bassist.
The rumour continues by stating it would fall off easily as it was held on by compression originally. That coupled with its undesirable interference to players made it repurposed as an ashtray.
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You are saying you dislike hearing ear-splitting hum and buzz while you are playing your bass?
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I am pretty skeptical of any shielding benefits as the big open sides will let EM interference in just fine. Half a faraday cage is not really doing much here.
Pretty sure these are just for looks. They look incredibly irritating for picking to me, I’d definitely immediately remove them from any bass I owned. Plus - they look goofy IMO, especially the ashtrays.
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Ashtrays?
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Common nickname for the big chrome monstrosity over the bridge.
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actually it’s a part of the old Rick pickup, it as an impact on the magnetic field. it’s not the case of Fender covers, which are just metallic covers. and it’s not a proper Faraday cage even if it can help a little bit about shielding.
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The first P basses shipped with foam under the astrays.
It was to better help mimic the upright sound, as the original intent of the electric bass was to make the upright bass player’s live easy by not having to cart around a giant instrument, so Leo tried to make it sound as close as possible. An intentional design since day 1.
So Jamerson’s 61 or 62 P (can’t remember the exact year) came to him with the foam already there. People started ripping them out to get a different, new sound. Jamerson’s super dead sound came from not only the foam but from the fact that his strings were heavier gauge and old as dirt (and mostly dirt) which added to the muted thump that is his signature.
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I find the pickup cover over the P pickup on mine adds some resonating tones that I really don’t like one bit (so it is off).
And yes, for picking, palm muting etc these were all in the way.