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→Technique In-Depth
* Don't use a different picking stroke when muting. Your normal stroke should work - you are just resting your palm on the strings while making normal picking strokes. You should be able to make down strokes and up strokes without any more or less effort than normal.
* Don't slam your palm into the strings right before playing palm muted notes. You will hear the noise associated with doing so. Your right hand should already be close to the strings - simply move it closer so it touches the strings.
Notice moving your palm further and further away from the point where the strings meet the bridge saddles increases the strength of the mute. Older advice was to keep the palm right on top of the bridge saddles, so that almost all of the low frequency resonance still "got through". Modern players, particularly in djent, are finding that using a mute a bit off the saddles can get a tighter mute, which is important for down-tuned, 7/8-string, or other extended-range guitars.
The palm is ideal for muting because it is soft, fleshy tissue. If for some reason your palm is made of metal, or is extremely bony, or some other rare situation, you may need to wear a glove or figure some other way out to get the right tone. But those are extreme situations. I will say that I've had some weird stuff happen to me in this regard though. When palm muting my extended scale 8-string, I would sometimes notice a ringing sound. Turns out the string I was muting was transferring its energy and frequency to the next string, inducing a harmonic that was also a harmonic of the muted open string. So it is possible for your flesh to transfer energy rather than dissipate it. I adjusted my technique a tad, but mainly I have to focus on muting all open strings I don't want to sound.
== Moving Strings while Muting ==