Not to slight your comment but I would not go so far as to say there were 'plenty of Beatle tunes with Fender bass'. Very few in fact and the ones that were played on that VI were pretty lackluster in feeling and not played by the Hofner guy. I cannot speak for Uwe at all as his collection is probably the most comprehensive in existence when it comes to Gibson (esq). It would be interesting to hear if he does have a 'go to' bass. I suspect so but you never know. I have about 36 basses covering the range of Guild, Fender, Hofner, Ampeg & some Gibsons and Epi's (and yes a certain "collectionitis' consciousness entered in there but I view the instruments as facets of sound, and tools really and also each instrument elicits a certain approach and stlye. Through it all at this point I suppose my style has developed to the degree that no matter what bass I pick up they might all sound the same with ofcourse differences in tone and definitly the Thunderbird brings out something different then the Starfire or the Ampeg Scrolltop. However I always find myself going back around to the semi hollowbodied basses that I started out with. Though I admit I still like my very 1st Hofner I got back in '62 for a combination of sentiment and the hell I put it through and as you say when plugged into my modern Mark Bass system you would never know it was the same bass I plugged into an Echolette 43+ years ago. Overall point: We are so fortunate now to have amazing amplification systems to really explore the bass universe and keep those guitar players on notice.