shoulderpet

Now £25 shipped 

Tried these on my Hofner club bass for all of 10 minutes and the tension was a little too low for me so moving these on, there are some kinks in the strings(see pics) that were there when I opened them but do not seem to affect the strings. £30 shipped to UK address 

3 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

 

Thank you.

 

I'll have to see if I've got an old set lying about somewhere that I can risk breaking if it goes wrong!

You will probably be fine as long as you are careful with them, I also had a set of Ernie Ball flats (100-45) on a short scale Mustang and they were fine on that

On 26/02/2023 at 12:15, fretmeister said:

I really like EB Group IV flats (not the Cobalts) and I have them on most things.

 

Unfortunately EB don't do them as a shortscale and I don't think the long ones would survive being wrapped around the tuning post very well. Does anyone know of any shortscale flats that have a similar feel and tone?

 

They are quite bright for a flat.

 

La Bellas are too thuddy, Dunlop prices have gone completely stupid (and for this they are a bit too dark). So far All I've found are GHS flats, Picato, and D'addario chromes. I think Fender use their long scale ones on the JMJ Mustang but they seem a bit thuddy on youtube as well.

 

I'm not mad on chromes but I haven't tried the GHS or the Picato.

 

Any ideas? They have to be steel and not monel / excessive nickels as I react a bit to that.

 

ta

 

I actually had the Ernie Ball 95-40s on a short scale Jaguar bass, they worked fine YMMV but worked fine for me

About to give the Labellas another try, my hands really do not like stuff strings and the Rotos and Daddario are both a little bit stiff for me which leaves the Labellas as the next obvious choice, fingers crossed I can make them work this time.

Just got my CT Hofner back from having the frets dressed, enjoying playing this bass again, these basses are so much fun to play

On 18/02/2023 at 01:31, Wonky2 said:

Yep the machine heads are particular crud.

i specifically paid more for the ct model than the basic ignition series but in all honesty the bass needed that much work and still require upgrades such as machine heads etc so I’m left wondering what the difference would have been if I’d have gone with the cheaper option….

dontbget me wrong, I’m happy with it but it does make you think….

 

I had to do a full fret levelling and recrown/polish before I could get it set up nice….

 

with all that in mind, I would wonder how much more refund a German model would be ? 

To be honest the machine heads are the only things that need to be upgraded, the other parts are good and the pickups are the same as is used in the German Hofners.

With regards to the fret levelling it's annoying to have to do it but I don't think I have ever had a bass that didn't need some kind of fretwork.

I haven't played an Ignition bass but the CT series feel like quality instruments when you play them, I would think that the ignition series is probably decent for the money but probably much cheaper feeling.

The German Hofners are really, really nice instruments, expensive but if you can afford them then they are worth the extra money.

Now £30 posted

15 minutes ago, luckman67 said:

The LaBella's & TI's are without question a better brand of flatwound strings. I must have found a decent pack of the Hofner HCT flatwounds as they don't sound to bad, on my 500/1 so I'm greatfull for that. Next May my bass is 60 years old so as a birthday present maybe a set of LaBella's would be in order 😃 

Yes you must have been lucky, I brought a set and the E string sounded like a bass drum, a dull thud with no discernible pitch, contacted the seller as I thought I must have got a duff E string, they sent me another and it was exactly the same.

On 12/02/2023 at 10:13, luckman67 said:

Good looking bass you have there I hope it gives you, many happy years of playing and ownership. I have a 1964 500/1 which like you my 34" scale basses were starting to hurt my left hand, so I brought out my old Hofner & it is easier to play and yes I to use a pick. I didn't want to waste money on an expensive set of flatwounds to begin with just in case, I ended up putting the Hofner back in it's case. So I bought the Hofner HCT flatwounds to see if I liked them & thee not bad I think I paid about £23 on eBay for them.

I probably will get a set of LaBella Beatle Bass strings but for now, these will do plus I like the green silk ends.

 

I tried these and they were probably the worst strings I have ever brought, Labella and TI's are leagues better imo

I will have to have a look and see if mine has designed in Germany on the headstock but looking at the pictures in your other thread it all looks spot on, right shape,control panel,truss rod cover, has the zero fret, the striped nut, binding,tuners look correct, even the strings look correct (the cheapo stock strings on Hofner hct basses have that same dark green silk so I don't think for a second that there is any question that this bass is an authentic Hofner contemporary bass and certainly not an ignition as they don't have the binding.

4 minutes ago, shoulderpet said:

Yep, there is something special about a Hofner with flats and once you get used to them they play effortlessly, you made the right decision with the lighter gauge as Labellas always feel a bit heavier than the numbers the gauge provides.

 

The German Hofners are pricey but they are lovely basses, if you can afford it then it is totally worth it imo, tonally they go slightly deeper than the contemporary models (but that might just be down to the Pyramid flats that they ship with)

Also, it is worth swapping out the tuners on the contemporary Hofners, projectguitarparts sells various Hofner tuners, I replaced mine with a set of the rugby ball shaped tuners

1 hour ago, Wonky2 said:

I went with the labella beatle bass .96-.38 guage in the end….

wheni opened the packet I immediately thought I crap , I’ve made a boob here because this g sting is bonkers thin….. 

but having spent two nights leveling frets , re crowning and polishing I was keen to get it string up and set up….

 

I did and it was great. Those labellas are absolutely gorgeous to play. (I’ve use eb cobalts exclusively for the last 12 years)….. I’m a definite convert.

 

took the bass and played it for the first time with the band last night….

 

the first 5-10 mins I thought hmmm this isn’t for me…..

but once I’d got used to it ….

MY GOD this bass is just fantastic in every way. 
i absolutley love it.

 

sommuch so , I may consider selling my 76 jazz and butting a proper German hofner.

 

 

Yep, there is something special about a Hofner with flats and once you get used to them they play effortlessly, you made the right decision with the lighter gauge as Labellas always feel a bit heavier than the numbers the gauge provides.

The German Hofners are pricey but they are lovely basses, if you can afford it then it is totally worth it imo, tonally they go slightly deeper than the contemporary models (but that might just be down to the Pyramid flats that they ship with)

Dimarzio Ultra jazz neck pickup for sale, £45 posted to UK address, not sure if I still have the original box but this has never been used and I believe these are around £80 for a single unit so I think £45 posted is fair, 4 wires means you can wire the 2 coils in series with each other for a beefy tone or in parallel for a brighter tone

On 12/02/2023 at 17:26, Ricky Rioli said:

Bass Direct have got both the 760FHB2 36-56-77-96 and the 760FHBB 50-65-80-100 sets of LaBella Beatle Bass Deep Talkin Flats for £40 each

 

LaBellas blurb reads "Fits Hofner Beatle basses and similar models that require 34" distance from ball-end to silk. Please do not substitute this set for a medium-scale set."

These are great strings, be careful fitting them though as they get very skinny at the tuner end so there is potential to stab yourself accidentally with them or to snap them if you are overzealous fitting them.

Daddario tapewounds also work well

Another thing to note is that you will need medium scale strings due to the tailpiece.

9 minutes ago, miles'tone said:

Fender Mexico:

 

Wtf is this? It's not even a proper Jazz. Sod it, the trainee kids can have a pop at it..

Wow, wtf, how long before Fender renames the American basses as the premium range or similar and prices them at 3k and prices the MIMs at 2k ? I wouldn't be surprised if it happened

Wow, that is pretty bad for that kind of money, glad he told it how it is on this.

The thing is in the bass community we often tolerate and excuse sloppy QC,I know it is not the case in this instance but people even make excuses for it based on price(oh it's only a Mexican Fender/only a Squier etc you have to expect some QC issues)or based on things that they can fix that they shouldn't have to (it plays well so I will fix the other flaws) and I would bet that Fender knowingly crank out some lemons knowing that probably only half of them will be returned to them.

1 hour ago, Wonky2 said:

Great thread guys…..

 also hankering for a hofner….

 

ptob can’t stretch to a German one at this point but interested to understand the difference between the hofner ignition and the epiphone  copy?

 

ivr not had chance to try an ignition but I have tried the epiphone and honesty, it played great and thumped just like that hofner sound ….

 

i was surprised at just how much mojo it had to be fair, I could easily have taken it away and used it but for what it cost I think I’d be left wanting hofner written on the headstock.

is there any notable improvement for the extra cash  or is it simply down to just that, the name on the headstock ? 

If you cannot stretch to buy the German Hofner then the contemporary is the next best thing imo, that being said the tuners on the contemporary are awful so I swapped the tuners on mine for some nicer ones I brought from projectguitarparts. 

The Hofner ignition gets closer to the sound of the real deal than the contemporary but feels much less nice imo.

The German made blows them all out of the water imo, I don't own one because they are way out of my price range but they feel like a work of art and the tone is just gorgeous.

Now £390 , collection from Croydon or can meet up if you are in the London area

And a picture of the bass before I added the bridge pickup so you can see what it looks like with the anodised gold pickguard.

Not sure if I still have the bridge cover or the thumbrest

1 hour ago, Russ said:

Yep. As someone from the Cronx, I know Jonathan pretty well and he's worked on my basses on multiple occasions. Lovely bloke and he really knows his $h!t.

 

His custom stuff is really nice. He mostly does guitars, but he has made the occasional bass. He made a couple of copies of the Alembic Spider (the Explorer-shaped one) for a guy who played Entwistle in a Who cover band and they were fantastic basses. 

 

This is their site: 

https://felineguitars.com/pages/feline-bass-guitar-models

I can agree with this, he has done some work for me and it has always been top notch

On 28/12/2022 at 23:15, Linus27 said:

I play fretless and I've been dabbling lightly with some different strings on my 4 fretless basses. My Precision with high gloss maple neck has a set of Rotosound flats which sound very nice and do sing quite nicely. I recorded an EP in the summer and used this bass mostly as it sounded the best recorded. My Jazz has an Ebony board and uses Rotosound rounds and it really sings, it's a beautiful sounding bass, the most mwah ever and very smooth.

 

My Stingray on the other hand has always been lovely to play but has never sung that much. I kind of put it down to the Pau Ferro board on it which is a hard wood. That was until I fitted a set of LaBella Black Nylon Tapewound strings I had knocking about. Oh my, it has absolutely transformed this bass. It truly sings and they are so lovely to play. Low tension, smooth and I am absolutely converted, or at least for the Stingray, I've never heard so much mwah and expression from this bass. I'm now going to get a set for my Jazz which I think would make an incredible sounding fretless sound out of this world.

 

How did I not know about Tapewound Nylon strings on a fretless but they are wonderful and highly recommended. Never tried LaBella strings before but they sound wonderful.

I liked the Rotosound tapes but hated the Labellas but glad they are working for you, they (the Labellas) are certainly low tension and when I autopsied a set it looked like 80-20 or similar under the tape.

For sale/trade is my Fender 50s P bass, collection from Croydon or if in the London area can arrange to meet. I swapped out the pickguard for a cheapy cream pickguard, I will include the original anodised gold pickguard also.

This bass has some cosmetic flaws hence the low price, I have seen the Fender Vintera which is the model that replaced this one but is basically the same thing going for close to a grand so I think this is a very fair price, also will trade for an Ibanez SR bass

I like this bass a lot and has served me well for many gigs but I really have gas for an Ibanez sr bass at the moment so this has to go

I have added a Dimarzio Ultra jazz bridge pickup, the P pickup has been replaced with a Warman p pickup and the person who owned the bass before me swapped the bridge for a Wilkinson bridge.

The controls are volume, volume and it is wired up with a solderless wiring harness.

In terms of the cosmetic flaws I mentioned earlier there is a finish crack from the neck pocket that extends to the bass horn, the guy who fitted the bridge pickup said he thought it was because the neck pocket was such a tight fit.

Action is slightly higher than I would like it but strangely enough when I had TI Jazz flats on this bass a while ago I was able to get the action quite low.

The bass sounds really good, the Warman pickup has a nice clarity to it and the Dimarzio Ultra jazz bridge pickup adds some high end snap.

On 10/12/2022 at 15:47, Mykesbass said:

Enjoying The Head on the Door. Disintegration sounds good, but wasn't what I was expecting, so will go back to it later. Thanks for the input so far.

The Cure are quite diverse, Disintegration and before is generally quite downbeat and morose, the albums after Disintegration are more upbeat and poppy, personally I like there earlier,gloomier stuff.

On 13/12/2022 at 12:19, sky said:

found this interview with the old deftones bass guitarist chi cheng, https://www.deftonesworld.com/bass-guitar-summer-2003-chi-interviewed/ in it says he uses 65-120 gauge strings, which seem really heavy being what tuning would be be using that in, 2003 would be self titled era but those songs are tuned G# which i think he generally used a 5 string fender roscoe beck with a swapped pickguard, so 65-120 for white pony songs in drop C, i wouldve thought a 65 gauge would snap tuned to F being that i had the lower strings of a 5 string set on an old beater bass that i think mightve been a 60 and it snapped when i tried to tune to C# standard. basically just wondering whats the heaviest and highest tunings you can take a string before it just snaps

thanks, leo

You would be surprised how much tension a bass string can take, when I was younger and more prone to abusing my body and my instruments I played a Fender musicmaster bass with a 130-65 set of Rotosounds tuned to standard EADG tuning, I wouldn't dare to use such heavy strings nowadays