martyy

Some really helpful comments here which sent me in the direction of some basic technique videos.... Turns out I've been doing all the wrong things when it comes to left hand. I have a lot to unlearn. I have been putting my palm on the neck and squeezing/clamping the strings down all this time. Apparently that is a no-no 😃. I've spent a little time trying to get it right, so far it feels even more exhausting but hopefully something will click. Thanks for all the pointers folks.

It's all the left hand.

I have seen this sentiment often! I have played many gigs with my torture device, I'm in my 40s now, I just find it hard to believe it'll be possible in 20 or 30 years..

I should say as well that I was originally playing bluegrass/country. I remember buying the bass from Thomann and telling them that at the time. Probably why they set the string height high. These days I'm more interested in soul verging on jazz I suppose.

I'm based in the Belfast area. A fiddle player friend of mine took the bass to a fiddle maker about 10 years ago and he took down the bridge for me which helped a little bit, but I get the impression that bass is a bit of a specialism and it would take an actual player to understand the work that would need to be done.? I have always had spirocore mediums on which I understand is quite high tension. I have lights ordered but I suspect that will only have a moderate impact. I think the fingerboard has too much relief but can't be sure. Maybe I just need to man up!

I've played upright bass on and off for 12 years now, both gigging and in the studio. I've picked it up again recently after some years of exclusively playing electric bass, and as a result I've remembered how physically exhausting the instrument is. Now for the question... I don't know any other double bass players and I've never played a bass other than the one I own. It occurred to me that maybe basses aren't supposed to be this torturous and I just have a badly set up one. The question is how can I even tell!? Electric basses have precise details about ideal setup (string height, relief etc) but not so much with uprights.

I received a new Hofner Club from Thomann this week. Thought I would share some thoughts. First up, having read some other reviews I was expecting to have to do some work on the bass. However I wasn't expecting to have to fish out 3 screws that were rolling about inside the cavity! Also had to clear the burrs off the scratchplate and bridge. Really basic QA being neglected there. Once I did that I replaced the (bad) stock strings with Labella flats. First time using this brand, very impressed. Intonation was surprisingly easy to do, and pretty accurate considering the limitations of the bridge. Lovely bass to play. Makes the sounds you expect a Hofner to make. Brought it to rehearsal and it held its own and more, though it is obviously not an all-rounder. It definitely encourages pick playing. The control panel is definitely a weird one. I found that "bass on" was great for picking, and "bass off" more suited to fingers, with some tweaking of bass volume to get some brightness back. Although the hardware is a little cheap I don't think that matters to me too much and it's all replaceable anyway. I would love to try a Contemporary to compare but overall I'm very happy with the budget model. Looking forward to doing some recording with it now.

Bit of an update. Ultimately there was too much mud for a band setting so I gave the bass a makeover. Routed the edges and added contours, added a regular p bass pickup, painted it halford matt black and added a pickguard to hide the old cavity.

Any recommendations for places to buy electronic components? Never mind, spotted the hificollective suggestion above.

I have the VT bass 500 head on the way for £174 inc vat. Crazy that it was about £50 cheaper than the pre amp DI. I was sure it was a pricing error and would be cancelled. Must be the end of the line.

I got this sorted in the end - I'll give a quick description of how I fixed it in case it can help anyone else. The bridge ground wire comes out against the side of the bridge post insert nearest the G string, and the wire is simply held in place by the friction of being sandwiched between insert and wood. My wire had come away for whatever reason. The fix was like this: Pull the ground wire out completely through the f hole (you can just about see the hole through which it gets to the bridge post). Remove the insert - I just put half a wooden dowel in the hole and screwed in the post, and it came out easily. Feed a stiff wire through the insert hole and on through the small ground wire hole, hook it out through the f hole and use it to pull the ground wire back through. Press the insert back into the hole, making sure that the ground wire makes contact properly. Job done!

I have a Jack Casady bass that has developed a ground issue - the bridge/strings are no longer grounded. I took off the bridge to investigate. I couldn't see the ground wire under any of the inserts. Presumably the wire has pulled away. How is the ground wire meant to be connected with this style of bridge? Is it just a friction fit under one of the inserts? Is one of the posts meant to screw down onto the wire? Struggling to see how to fix this one!

The Weems design has two external ports (one from each chamber) and one internal port, whereas the barefaced (I think) has one internal and one external. There is info out there on how to tune the Weems design, but I couldn't find anything on calculating the alternative double chamber designs.

Thanks Phil. I actually do have A level physics and maths funny enough, so maybe I will see if I can actually remember any of it and seek out those books. I have tinkered with winISD but I don't understand a lot of it, I think I need to get some more of the theory first.

Based on an old post here, an internal slot port can be spotted by looking through the external round port. So maybe not a passive radiator.