New book about Höfner violin basses

[Chris P.]

http://www.amazon.com/Hofner-Complete-Violin-Bass-Story/dp/1574242911/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1367865614&sr=8-4&keywords=Hofner+book

[uwe]

Do the finally own up to stealing the EB shape?

[Chris P.]

Haven't read it yet... I'll come back to you!

[Dave W]

Do the finally own up to stealing the EB shape?

Have they ever denied it?

[patman]

Hasn't that general design been in use for a few hundred years? Hofners always remind me of student violins

[Dave W]

Sure the shape is hundreds of years old, but Uwe's talking about the fact that Gibson made a violin-bodied bass three years before Höfner.

[Pilgrim]

Sure the shape is hundreds of years old, but Uwe's talking about the fact that Gibson made a violin-bodied bass three years before Höfner.

I'm shocked, shocked that such a thing could occur in the music industry!

[Dave W]

57 years ago, that's not too long ago for Henry J to sue Höfner.

[ilan]

It's not the same shape. Gibson did a violin-ish shape. Höfner refined the idea, and did a scaled-down gamba shape, with the drop shoulders as they should be, very accurate in its proportions. The earliest ones were flatbacks. Calling the 500/1 a "violin bass" is very inaccurate, as the upright bass and viola da gamba are viol family, not violin.

So Gibson's design of a solid violin-like body and painted f-hole was original, but Höfner took a 400 years old hollow body design and scaled it down. With the mortise-and-tenon hide glue neck joint, and even a bass bar running the length of the top, similar to uprights. No soundpost as it's only useful for arco.

If anything, Gibson stole the 500/1 shape... When Epi did the EB1 it was Höfner-shaped. They could replicate the old EB1 shape (and should have), but they chose to do a gamba silhouette and still call it EB1.

[Thornton Davis]

I ordered a copy of the book last week from Amazon. It's apparently 320 pages, so I expect lots of photos and text to read. Should be interesting to see what they've come up with on the history side.

TD

[Dave W]

It's not the same shape. Gibson did a violin-ish shape. Höfner refined the idea, and did a scaled-down gamba shape, with the drop shoulders as they should be, very accurate in its proportions. The earliest ones were flatbacks. Calling the 500/1 a "violin bass" is very inaccurate, as the upright bass and viola da gamba are viol family, not violin.

So Gibson's design of a solid violin-like body and painted f-hole was original, but Höfner took a 400 years old hollow body design and scaled it down. With the mortise-and-tenon hide glue neck joint, and even a bass bar running the length of the top, similar to uprights. No soundpost as it's only useful for arco.

If anything, Gibson stole the 500/1 shape... When Epi did the EB1 it was Höfner-shaped. They could replicate the old EB1 shape (and should have), but they chose to do a gamba silhouette and still call it EB1.

I knew they weren't identical. The concept of a violin-like electric bass was Gibson's first.

OTOH I wasn't aware that the 90s Epi EB1 was Höfner-shaped rather than Gibson EB-shaped.

[ilan]

[ilan]

Do they finally own up to stealing the EB shape?

Got the book today. Yes, they do.

[Pilgrim]

Well, once the Japanese got into the act, their basses were shaped like everyone's basses!

[Thornton Davis]

I found it very interesting that Mr. Benker didn't realize that there was a huge demand for early 63 reissue of the 500/1 especially as sales of the modern version of the bass had almost ceased. I guess we have both Richard Harrison and the Japanese who pushed the envelope and opened his eyes to thank for the current reissue of the 500/1 Series basses. I also find it interesting that the "modern 1990's version" of the 500/1 quickly disappeared once the 500/1v63 and 500/1v61 Cavern came back into production as no one was really interested in that version of the bass.

The book is a good read with lots of great photos.

TD