New Bass Day

[WRGKMC]

I been wanting to get a Hoffner for years and decided to spring for a Club Bass. I actually found a vintage Hoffner in the trash as a kid and even with the neck twisted up like a pretzel you could tell it produces some great tones. I plan on using this one for recording mostly but they are light enough on the shoulder to make gigging comfortable. The one mod I'll likely do is install a fixed TOM bridge. My buddy did that to his Hoffner back in the 70's and it really made the guitar sound great, plus you can get the intonation set up accurately.

 

I believe this is an ignition version and given the price I'm paying, being the only bidder, I'd say $180 is a steal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DeepEnd]

Congratulations. Happy New Bass Day. Another mod I'd probably do is to replace the tuners. The ones Hofner uses seem like they belong on a toy.

[WRGKMC]

Yea I thought about that, but people actually look for the originals to put on copies like the rogue. I may try and find the control plate and knobs thay use on the high end models, but that's pretty much superficial stuff that doesn't matter to me much.

[isaac42]

I have always thought that the Hofner control plate looks really ugly.

[WRGKMC]

Yea its pretty retro, When you consider what high tech looked like back in the 50's, its actually pretty contemporary for its time.

This is what you'd see in most German Living rooms (if they could even afford them).

 

 

 

Then you'd hop in the Family car and you'd be lucky to have one of these.

 

 

 

In fact most radios made then looked the same. A knob on each end and buttons or switches in between.

 

 

 

 

 

The control plate on the Hofner's have that distinct retro AM radio dial look.

 

 

[isaac42]

I don't think that's it, though. It's no older than Fenders, Gibsons or Rickenbackers from the same era, but it looks so much worse to me. It's the completely rectangular plate on a very curvy instrument that puts me off.

[WRGKMC]

Looks never mattered to me. Its all in the tone and convenience of getting to the knobs and switches. Bass is usually set it and forget it, at least for that one song so its no biggie. I'm not real hep on the slider switches. Many fenders used those same switches and toggles are so much easier. I'm still not sure why more guitars don't have push buttons. Even when you have them built into volume pots, push/push switches are much better then push pull pots. They do the same thing its just the push/push work like a ball point pen

[mildbill]

What's up with that pickguard mount thing? I was looking at a similar model locally and it looks like a real afterthought.

Like someone put it together in their garage or something.

I'm sure it doesn't affect the sound negatively, but it sure looks weird.

 

That said - when I picked it up and hit a few strings, it felt like real quality.

It was an HCT5001 Violin model.

[WRGKMC]

What's up with that pickguard mount thing? I was looking at a similar model locally and it looks like a real afterthought.

Like someone put it together in their garage or something.

I'm sure it doesn't affect the sound negatively, but it sure looks weird.

 

That said - when I picked it up and hit a few strings, it felt like real quality.

It was an HCT5001 Violin model.

 

That's the whole thing about a Hofner. Its hard to get over the sound quality and touch of the strings when you play one. My first instrument was Violin back when I was 7 years old. I played it in school orchestra for 4 years and got quite good before switching to guitar at about 12 years old. I was about 15 when I first played a Hofner and its impression has stuck with me for the past 42 years. Those mid tones and how articulate the notes were reminded me of playing a fiddle.

 

I may wind up removing the pick guard. Anyone who plays bass with their fingers has no need of it because you are pulling up on the strings, not strumming it like a guitar. Even if I strummed the thing like a guitar I don't need it on an arch top because my strumming wouldn't come near the body. I developed a controlled technique long ago using a pick that allows me to suspend my right hand on an arch top body without a pick guard using my pinky on the body that puts my pick the right distance from the strings. I often use my Les Paul and Dot without a pick guard as well.

[WRGKMC]

The bass finally arrived Thursday in new mint condition with all its wrappings. The finish was A1 as is the binding and fretboard quality. Body tone is very good and the neck fits my hand like a glove. I think I'll have to relearn ho to play bass again. The finger touch is very light and getting my right hand fingers working in these strings is so easy. Its likely because the strings are much higher then a flat top solid body bass. With my thumb tip planted I can get to all the strings easily without stumbling over them.

 

I got a little string buzz when first tuning it to pitch. The neck was dead flat and no relief on the G string. This may be from shipping the bass with slackened strings and seeing its brand new the wood is likely still green. I checked the truss and it had practically no tension so I'll leave it that way.

 

After about an hours playing the neck was responding to the string pull.

 

The strings on the other hand are awful. I read they use pyramid strings on stock guitars. Don't know if that's true but the wraps are not even and I believe that's the cause of some of the string buzz. I ordered a set of Labella flats designed for a Hoffner so they fit through the pegs. Hofner's are an oddball size. The neck scale is 30" but its got a tail piece that extends the string length, This would cause a normal set of short scale strings which have a taper and/or felt wrappings at the end to extend beyond the nut deadening the strings. 32" would be just right but so few are made. Medium scale may work but the gauges must be small enough to put through the smaller tuning pegs.

 

In any case I read a bunch of reviews on these particular flats and people rave about the tones they give the bass so they will be my first choice.

 

I did adjust the bridge and intonation. The factory setting is 2mm high side and 3mm low side above the 12th. I usually set my basses to 4/64ths high side and 7/64th low side. Both are very close to each other. The string spacing was a tad off. I am by no means a fan of a typical Hofner bridge using fret wire as saddles pressed into a rosewood bridge. I can see I'll need to modify this a bit. The bridge is dead flat and the neck does have some relief so the end strings don't feel quite right. These are the kinds of details lacking when you buy budget models.

 

It will be an easy fix using under and over radius gauges. I need to take a little off the top of the high side anyway because theres not much space left under the thumb screw on that side adjusted to specs.

 

I did a fret rocker and found some high frets up where the neck meets the body. I went and leveled the ones that were high then crowned and polished them. This seems to have fixed the string buzz issue.

 

The switches fooled me at first. I pushed both down and got no sound. The darn things work in reverse. When you pull up on them it turns the pups on. The switches are also backwards. The treble is the neck pup and the bass in the bridge. Some jackass flipped them 180 degrees around. After lifting the assembly out, I saw it used a circuit board to mount the switches between the two pots. What I did was swap the two pickup wires around.

 

This fixed the switches to work right but it also flipped the pots around. So I flipped the unit over 180 degrees and installed it with the lettering upside down. This put the pots on the right side and worked the switches right. I may revisit this issue and rework the PCB. I don't think a Hofner is supposed to have the Bridge pot on the left and neck on the right. In any case I normally leave the switches on and adjust the volumes for tone.

 

The solo switch just uses a resistor to cut the volume. I will likely modify that to a band pass cap which passes the treble. The bass player from Yes does that to his Rick and it can add a new dimension to the sound. If it doesn't sound good I'll try a mild tone cap. I may wind up making my own switch plate with a 3 way switch.

 

The finish and build are perfect. I couldn't see any visual flaws other then the bridge pup being slightly off center. Again its a simple fix. It only needs to be moved by 1/2 of a pickup pole distance so removing the mounting screws and drilling new ones is kids stuff.

 

I tried a few recordings with it after the fret work and it sounded really good. Again, the stock strings have low output and they have thick winds which hang up on the nut and saddles so getting them tuned and intonated correctly with a strobe tuner is difficult. If I tweak the bridge towards the neck its at the point of being either one string wrap sharp or flat. I need nearly perfect intonation for recording. I do have D'Addario strings which have much finer wraps and this binding on the nut and saddles probably wouldn't be an issue, but winding them on the pegs probably wont work.

 

I'll just wait for the flats I ordered to show up and neither the binding or the winding will be an issue. They should give me a little more beef tone and I'll post some recordings so you can gear what it sounds like.

[WRGKMC]

Got the strings in from Sam Ash. They wound up sending me some long scale Labella Flats which aren't what I ordered. They weren't even the right gauges. These were 55~110 which are way too heavy. Without round winds, flats wind up feeling much thicker

 

I went for price and free shipping an got burned. They probably didn't have the ones I needed and just shipped me what they had to fill the order.

 

I placed another order with Strings and Beyond. They had them for $32 but I had to buy a set of guitar strings to qualify for free shipping. Guess I should have just stuck with Just Strings, even though the price was $8 more. I've used them for nearly 6 years and anytime I have an issue they make good on it immediately. I didn't even get a email back from Sam Ash which again makes me suspicious of the deal.

 

Maybe I'll try them on my Precision but 110's are really chubby for may hands. I'm mainly a guitarist and I know my hands will ache the next day after playing heavy gauged strings like that. It should give me a good Motown Sound seeing that's what Jamerson used all those years.