D’Addario Spector Violin Mute - Reduces Volume While Playing - Great for Practicing Quietly - Copper

Got tired of the traditional tourte mute rattling and got this to replace it. It does the job, but is not as powerful as a traditional mute—maybe a 50-66% mute by comparison. It was easy to install and is even easier to use. To be clear, this is a performance mute for playing "con sordino" passages, not a practice mute.

This is my favorite performance mute. Easy to install, easy to slide up onto bridge, soft enough not to damage strings between bridge and tailpiece, can be rejuvenated with rubbing alcohol if rubber gets hard. Mutes the volume just enough. NOTE: This is not a practice mute! See the heavier, larger, rubber-covered, 4-prong (or the smaller 3-prong) mutes that fit over the bridge.

I like it

Really easy to use performance mute. ***Not to be confused with a practice mute which will deaden the sound a lot more.*** This just takes off the nasally high edge of the violin and makes sound richer in my opinion. When you're not playing in a big concert hall, this is the way to go.

The reviewer S. Jacobs says that this mute did not have a big effect on his violin's volume. That's because this is a performance mute, designed to be used in a concert when the composer marks "con sordino" on your part. The intent of a performance mute is not to drastically decrease the volume, but to effect a small volume decrease while simultaneously adding a different texture to the instrument's sound. If you're looking for a mute that will keep your neighbors from calling the police when you practice the Shostakovich violin concerto at 2am, I suggest you purchase a big fat Glaesel practice mute instead: Glaesel Violin Ultra Practice Mute.I play mostly in orchestras and chamber groups these days, and I can honestly say that as a performance mute, this item works wonderfully. I spent a lot of time trying out various mutes, but I was never happy with them. The rubber Tourte mutes that are so ubiquitous would rattle when sitting on my strings, and they were always getting ripped off when I placed my violin in its silk bag so I was always removing them after a performance and occasionally forgetting to put them on before the next performance...oops! The metal & plastic tubing Glaesel mute could stay on my strings permanently, but I found that with heavy use the metal gripping mechanism ended up wearing down the strings...really, you should never have metal squeezing your strings, it can wear out the windings.This mute sits on my violin at all times, and the rubber is soft enough not to deform the A and D strings with the constant pressure it puts on them in order to stay in place. Best of all, it is easy to slide on and slide off even when you have only a few beats rest!I knocked my rating down to 4 stars only because the color is not copper, it's brown...ugly rubber brown. I am used to my mutes being black, and I really don't know why Super Sensitive decided to make their mute brown. Super-Sensitive finally came out with a black version, but it's only available through their website (as of now) and I'm not paying $9 + S/H for a tiny piece of rubber just because it's black!

Not the most convenient design — it’s unclear when fixing whether it sits properly on the bridge or not. With strong pressure it can even knock over the bridge (which happened to me, resulting in damage to the top plate from the fine tuner hitting under the fingerboard). I returned it. Definitely not recommended — I prefer the classic vertical style mute instead.

Just takes that harsh edge off. I use either rubber or big metal mute when practicing and not wanting to bother neighbors; this is perfect for practicing and not sacrificing tone but just takes down that shrill component. It’s not designed to make it significantly more quiet. There’s nice on line comparisons of different mutes. This is just part of a spectrum

I have a cheap Cecilio electric violin that can sound rather shrill acoustically and amplified without some kind of mute. The larger boot-style mutes help mellow the sound and lower the volume, but can make the G and D strings sound rather muddy. I use two of these D'Addario mutes to dampen all the strings and they retain a little more volume and tonal character while lessening the shrillness. They also attach more securely than the other kinds of mutes that can also shift a bit when moving around.Because a lot of electric violins aren't hollow with a chamber for resonance, they can tend to need something to mellow out their tone. I keep these mutes on all the time and use acoustic simulator pedals and get a pretty decent sound out of my setup without being so loud that I annoy the neighbors.