Muting Devices?

[Vilesilencer]

I am currently working on putting the finishing touches on Eric Johnson's "Cliffs of Dover", and can execute all of it cleanly except the pedal-point lick he uses near the end of the opening cadenza and again near the end of the solo. My problem is that between the string skipping and the hybrid picking, I cant come close to controlling the sympathetic ringing that comes from the other strings.

Also, I'm beginning work on Greg Howe's style of tapping appregios, which also requires an adept touch at muting. So my question is, has anyone ever been able to use anything (I'm thinking a hair tie) to dampen the strings, the same way a capo would be used to bar them?

Any info/ideas will be appreciated...

[phantom]

i use all kinds of stuff. socks (washed ones ;-)), little towels, paper tissues.. all that.
but i always know when i see the sock on my guitar that i am kind of faking and that i have to practice harder.

so the sock on the neck is the practice reminder for me :D .

[ashc]

I read that Andy Summers did the socks thing on some of the Police recordings. I guess when you're recording in Monserrat it's warm enough to go without the socks. . . .

[Buebo]

For the hybrid picking part in Cliffs... use your index finger to fret the pedal note on the high E, and make a barre kind of mute with your index finger on the other strings.
Like this:

e-15
B-x
G-x
D-x
A-x
E-x

This way you mute all the little noises that are produced while doing the hybrid picking passage.

[Vilesilencer]

Thats a pretty good idea, and you really would only need to bar the top four strings. However, from video we can observe EJ dosent do it this way, that sucka! Let me try that here a sec... (grabs guitar) Sounds like it'll work for me! I'm having one of those "why didnt you think of that four years ago!" moments.