Review: NordyMute

Hit It, Now Hold It: A Great Idea, Well Executed

E. E. Bradman / Jul 6, 2026

Review: NordyMute

Hit It, Now Hold It: A Great Idea, Well Executed

E. E. Bradman / Jul 6, 2026

As far back as the 1960s, electric bassists have used fretting- and plucking-hand muting techniques, built-in string mutes, and DIY solutions like foam and sponges to deliver staccato sounds and tame errant strings. Getting fat tone with controlled decay — a crucial element of upright and Ampeg Baby Bass tone — has inspired badasses like Anthony Jackson to employ nuanced, precise thumb-and-palm muting techniques, and in the past few years, fret wraps have become a popular method of getting a thud without sacrificing plucking-hand speed.

When I recently joined a band playing Latin music and needed that Baby Bass sound, I knew exactly what I was missing because I’ve owned an Ampeg Baby Bass and its smaller sibling, an AMUB-1 fretless. Although it was easy to coax a decently old-school sound from my fretted 1991 F Bass Studio 5-string with La Bella black nylon tapewounds, I got tired of palm muting and I wasn’t crazy about the way a fret wrap looked on my fretboard. I reached out to Carey Nordstrand about his NordyMute, and he generously agreed to send one over.

How It Sounds

The NordyMute is basically a cool piece of wood with nice foam notches for each string, so I had to be specific about string spacing: Nordstrand offers 16.5mm, 17.5mm, 18mm, 18.2mm, and 19mm options. A few days later, I received a classy, handmade 19mm NordyMute made of East Indian rosewood. Using it is simple and straightforward: Push it down on the strings and marvel at the instant tonal change.

The day I got it, I rehearsed with a celebrated Colombian pianist at a tiny rehearsal room with a Fender Rumble 40 1×10. The NordyMute passed with flying colors, and later, I experimented with subtleties. Not pushing it all the way down on the strings and moving closer and farther from the bridge gave me different results: Hugging the back pickup and only pressing it halfway down delivered upright tone with very little sustain, but pressing it all the way down gave me thumpasaurus tone; closer to the bridge, I got no string noise but plenty of sustain. The Baby Bass sound was convincing enough, and the next day, I played through a few standards and used the NordyMute to get a thick, upright-ish sound. I loved the way it freed me up to play faster passages, and I also dug the big, fat tones I got by muting with my palm while using the NordyMute.

What’s Hot

The NordyMute is small and good-looking, and it does its job well. I tried it on a Fender Modern Player Jazz V with bright Elixirs and a Yamaha BBP35 with broken-in D’Addarios, and it was cool to hear roundwounds instantly thump sound like flatwounds. Most importantly, the NordyMute didn’t mess with my intonation the way foam and sponges did.

What’s Not

It takes a moment to get the NordyMute onto your strings — you’ll have to be prepared if you need to quickly put it on between song sections. A couple weeks after I got it, it still has a slight odor of rubber, but if you’re busy sniffing the NordyMute, you must not be playing.

How It Compares

There are several bridge dampeners for bass that are nearly identical to the NordyMute, including Felton USA’s Bass Mute ($29.99) and the NinoMute ($40), which is available in light thump, hybrid (more muting on lower strings), and heavy thump variations. Grosmann The Mute ($16.35 to $32.70) does the same thing, but freight, import, and handling fees from Spain to the U.S. could be considerable. Gruv Gear’s Fump Bridge-Side Dampener ($19.99) works best when string fingerboard setup has little to no radius. The company’s colorful, flexible FretWrap ($12.99) model is wildly popular; they also offer the FretWrap Pro ($17.99) and the FretWrap Pro with a Twistune clip-on tuner ($44.99). Ernie Ball’s Mute Noodle for bass ($4.99) is an inexpensive alternative, as are the many DIY solutions bassists have used for decades.