I am thinking of getting me another Stick and was wondering if it would be feasible to have a dampener on the bridge side of the instrument, perhaps made of felt or something similar. It should have some sort of lever-system to engage and disengage it and I only need it for the bass side.

The reason I wont it is that I really love that old-fashioned, short "thud" sound for certain kinds of music, like dub and reggae, but I hate to have to mute the strings with my hands all the time.

And as I am musing, I wonder whether I could have something like that fitted onto my polycarbonate Stick.

Has anyone ever tried something like that?

The only string damper that I know of is the Batten String Damper:

http://www.batten.com/Biography/Gear.html

There's also some history links which may be of interest.

Nice, but I doubt they would fit well on a Stick

Yeah, there is that problem. I doubt you'll find one purpose built for the Stick.

Early Sticks had a thin channel routed in front of the bridge screws so that you could slide a pipe cleaner under the strings for that effect. Maybe something like that is an option with a newer one as well.
Also check with Emmet if it is feasible to fit the retractable damper that they use on an NS stick to the bridge end of a standard stick. Space would most likely be an issue there though.

I saw someone recently that had a strip of loop velcro that he would place over the strings. There were two small pieces of hook velcro on the sides and he could use that to anchor the loop portion of velcro over the strings and then he could quickly remove it. Not sure it that would work or not, but it would be cheap and easy to try.

Perhaps you can use a BassMute : http://bassmute.com/



I don't know where and how to attach it to the Stick, but it could be what you need.

My favorite damper is electrical tape. I usually have a few pieces stuck to my rack which I can pull off and press quickly down over the bridge. The more of the strings you cover up, the more muting happens. It's easy to take off and won't gunk up your hands or the strings.



And you can get colors to match your mood.