If you own an offset like a Jazzmaster of Jaguar, then you might dislike the microphonic noise created by heavy strumming. I enjoy banging on my axe pretty hard, and sometimes (like when I’m playing funk!) I don’t want to hear that noise build-up from the excess string length between the bridge and tremolo. I used to stuff a piece of foam or cloth there, but how unsexy is this? Am I right? I found a better way: using the chrome bridge cover included with my AVRI. Since this chrome cover is useless anyway, I had no problem gluing magnets to it, and it’s slightly less janky than a sock. Slightly.
What you’ll need
You’ll need the bridge cover from Fender that came with your guitar. If you don’t have one, you can buy one here. You’ll also need your glue of choice, a box cutter and Sharpie (not shown), a foam block cut to fit underneath the cover, and some small circular magnets like these.
The process
The idea here is to get this little foam mute to be held on the underside of the strings by putting magnets inside and magnets on the chrome cover’s underside. Together these magnets grab the DIY mute and hug it tightly against the strings.
Cut the foam block in advance to be smaller than the chrome cover. Then cut along the side of it (like opening a piece of pita bread) and place two small magnets inside. Make sure the magnets face the correct direction! I found marking the outside with a Sharpie before gluing them in made this easier. Put a drop of glue in-between the magnets, then glue the seam shut so they can’t skid anywhere. Hopefully, yours will look better than mine!
Next, glue the opposing magnets to the chrome cover. Make sure they are small enough to fit between the spacing of the strings and that they don’t rub directly on them. I bought a variety pack of magnets so I’d have at least a couple just the right size.
Now we need to create some smooth edges on the cover so it doesn’t scratch your guitar’s finish in the event it gets moved too far back towards the tremolo during play. This is where the Gorilla Glue is a bit better than Crazy Glue. I toyed with using plastic dip, but it was expensive and came in gross colors. Since I don’t plan placing this mute too far back onto the finish, this level of protection will suffice. Create a blob of Gorilla Glue and dip the edges of the chrome cover in it. Set it to dry facing down, so the drips create a thicker edge:
It should look like this, only yours will be better:
Fin!
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