Bought the Hofner Prez/Stu whatshisname bass

[ilan]

I think that the afterlength issue applies only when playing arco.

[drbassman]

Here she is.  I only had time to put on the Chromes, didn't have tie to clean up all of the dust and finger prints from the store.  Wow, does she sound good with flats.  I thought I might have a mud issue with the flats and the box body and neck oriented pups, but not so.  The pups are great, strong, bassy but still possessing clarity in the mid and high ranges.  Sounds nothing like my old Gretsch 6072, a totally different animal.  I like the sound through my Fender TV amp.  We'll see how she does with the Mesa rig tonight and competing noise from the band.







As Scott said, really nice build quality, excellent finish.  Good electronics too right out of the box.  A definite competitor with the new lower end Gretsch basses.  Very different and in a class by itself, but a good alternative if you're looking for more of the big box sound and tone from your hollow acoustic bass.

[Highlander]

She's a nice looker, Bill... hopefully she'll work out...

[nofi]

very nice, but i can tell the finger spacings would be too tight for me.

[Thornton Davis]

Here is an interesting point regarding that long run of string. The reissues have a shorter tailpiece compared to the ones on 60's full-body Höfner basses. At first I thought that they just wanted to use the same part as the 500/1 "Beatle" basses, or to enable the owners to use long scale strings, or both. But then a luthier that specializes in upright basses told me that the length of string between the bridge and tailpiece affects the sound and eliminates "wolf tones", and in general longer is better. In bowed instruments that distance should be at least 1/6 of the scale length. That's 5" in a Höfner, So maybe they use the short tailpiece for that purpose.

Hofner are using the short tailpiece on their Verythin CT Bass as well. I had one of the Verythin prototypes in my hands last week and noticed it then. I didn't plug the bass in so I could tell exactly what effect it had on the basses (semi-acoustic) tone.

TD

[Dave W]

That's beautiful!

[PhilT]

Very nice.

[drbassman]

Thanks guys, she is purity.  I played her for 2.5 hours last night with the band and she sounds great.  Unlike my Gretsch 5123, she didn't feedback and her resonate frequency is around a C, so she didn't vibrate a bunch while playing.  The bass drum would send my Gretsch into vibrating feedback fits if I were playing an open E or fretted B.  The Hofner would only resonate a bit when playing a sustained C, so she did much better than the Gretsch in this regard.  The Gretsch would be fine if our club wasn't so small and our layout so tight.  A bigger venue would help in that regard.

She doesn't sound like the Club.  The big box really lends itself to a more retro upright sound.  With the Chromes, she still had a well defined tone and clarity I really didn't expect, cut through the mix just fine with the right settings on the Mesa rig.  Everyone liked the sound out of her.  So, I might be playing Hofners almost exclusively with the band in the future.  I will continue to work the Thunder Jet in, I just need to exchange out that crappy bridge for a more adjustable one that I have in a drawer in the shop.  The intonation with the original bridge sucks.  It's the one with the 4 wheels in a straight line.  I'm blanking on the name for it at the moment.  I hate it!

I love the short scales and they just really work best for me in extended playing situations.  34" scale basses have been giving me hand cramps (left) after 45 minutes or so and practicing more with them doesn't seem to help.  Life is tough when you're 62!  But with these basses, I can adjust.