Gruv Gear Introduces Fump Bridge Muter/Dampener

Gruv Gear Fump Bridge Muter/Dampener

Music accessory company Gruv Gear has expanded their string dampening products with the Fump, a muting device that slides over the strings against the bridge of your bass. The Fump works with four- and five-string basses and can be applied or removed in seconds.

Check out the company’s demo:

The Gruv Gear Fump is available now direct for $19.99.

Gruv Gear Fump Bridge Muter/Dampener Details:

For use on 4 or 5-string basses
Requires 1″ between pickup and bridge
Muting materials are replaceable

For more information:
Gruv Gear

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Leave a Reply to John bodtker Cancel reply

  1. Charlie

    It’s a good idea, but doesn’t offer any degrees of muting like you can get with your hand.

  2. Not to poop all over someone’s neat idea, but, seriously: Do you NOT hear the strings go sharp when that thing is put on the bass? Nice idea, and the tone is cool, but having the notes sound out of tune makes it totally unusable, in my book.

    • I have found fretwraps sharpened notes, foam under the strings sharpened notes…I don’t see how this device will do the same, because it sits over the strings and not being force down like a fretwrap or pushed up like foam….I guess I will find my answer after it arrives.

      • Fretwraps would only sharpen the open string; once you play notes above the fretwrap, which is all of them, it’s out of the equation.

        As for finding your answer, just watch the video. Play the clip where he plays normally, and skip over the part where the tester plays palm muted to the part where the mute is applied. You can hear the difference — I hope.

        • Yep, I heard it go sharp too (before I even saw your comment). I even rewound it to see if he had shifted frets. Just speculating: if it clamps the strings on both sides, maybe it’s effectively shortening the scale length? That would throw your bass out of tune AND mess up the intonation. Yikes.

  3. Uhh, a kitchen sponge works just as well and costs about $0.10.

  4. Carol Kaye has the best method that totally works… a piece of duct tape over the strings on top of the bridge. See attached, fast forward to 1 minute, check it out… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9idtdWAAEA

    • Jakub

      Over the strings for pick players under the strings for finger players (or even for time to time pick playing). You just take a foam (like those when you buy new sofa – theres a lot of pieces of foam to cover fragile parts of furnitures) and cut about 3 cm width. Then measure the height from your lowest strings (from board to underneath the strings) and the same with your highest strings and mark it on the foam. Then you write the line of radius of your fingerboard from one point to another (you can find some popular radius gauges in the Internet – print, cut and done). In this case you can cut the ideal foam mute which barely touch the strings and let the strings ring like there’s no foam under them. You have immediately more focus tone with small amount of overtones and undertones but strings ring freely. I use it and it’s great solution. My StingRay with Thomastik Flatwounds on it and foam mute under the strings (cause I’m 90% finger player and 10 % pick/slap etc.) give great sound. Last weekend I played 2 gigs and on every gig soundguys commend my tone.

    • Not duct tape. Masking tape and felt. You can google “Carol Kaye” “masking tape” to see her explanation of how it works. I’m too lazy to even try it. :)

  5. Doc.Hoc.

    Nice muting device, I will purchase a Fump as soon as possible.
    Meanwhile I made my own muting thang by folding over a paper towel and tucking it under my bass strings by the bridge.
    Muting adjustments can be made by the thickness of the paper towel or simply pressing down on the paper towel under each string to get less mute. It doesn’t look very nice but no one is watching me play bass so Fump it will be soon.

  6. Doc.Hoc.

    Gregg I’m pretty sure that’s paper tape as duct tape would leave a sticky mess all over your nice bass and strings. I tried paper tape and could not find the correct tension, plus the paper tape left sticky strings I didn’t like much. So till I get my new Fump which I’m sure is adjustable or I can make my own adjustment by placing cotton in between the Fump , its a folded up paper towel to a nice little square for me.
    Till then happy bass thumping ,slapping and tapping to all.

  7. Andrew Blowers

    If you like zero sustain, get one. Too me, it affects intonation and kills the note totally. Seems the material for the mute is much too hard, and because it is muting from the top and bottom it applies too much pressure. The old Fender mutes were glued into the ashtrays and rested on the string just on top of or just in front the the saddle.

    Will be returning mine ASAP.

    Basses tested on are ’78 Jazz and ’79 Precision both with LaBella flats, and also ’86 MusicMan Stingray with Rotosound Swing Bass SS rounds.

    • peter beulke

      Totally agree with you .i was excited to get this .but as soon as i tried it out on.several basses i thought this just does’nt.work

  8. Well …I bought one…and unless your radius is zero or flat…you might get the tone like the above video. I put it on my 77 precision with a radius of 7.5, it totally muffled the sound, I mean the notes did not sound. And why would they when the Fump is totally flat. The Fump is a flump….this thing should not be on the market as I don’t know of many bass fingerboards being totally flat….

    • Doc.Hoc.

      The Fump is a flump ,ha , ha , I almost ordered one ,I’ll stick with my folded up paper towel , desired mute is cheap.

  9. Peter B

    The fump is dissapointing .Does not work in my view .Pete

  10. John bodtker

    I was quite excited to get my Fump, unfortunately I did not see these comments beforehand – I saw this article and… Yeah, I cannot recommend this product.
    EVERYTHING GOES QUITE SHARP. I have tried all sorts of things and it’s unavoidable.

    I am highly disappointed that Gruv Gear would market this product WITHOUT ADDRESSING THIS ISSUE.

    FUMP = FLOP