markdavid

I had a music master many years ago that I no longer own, am kicking myself now that they are going for the prices they currently are, seen them on eBay for 800-900 , mine was tbh not very good would never have seen those prices coming 

Sorry,not too rain on anyone's parade, mine was probably a Monday morning special

Hi all

Despite having played bass for a while now i would not really describe myself as technically savvy when it comes to setups, I can adjust intonation, action, the easy stuff basically , truss rod has always been a bit of a mystery to me. 

With that out of the way I have a couple questions, firstly what is the usual range of truss adjustment available, I have a Squier I have been using as my setup guinea pig and I get probably 95% of a complete turn of adjustment in total , I am using standard Allen key to adjust so possibly that may restrict access a little bit vs a specialist truss rod adjustment key

Secondly is there an easy way to measure relief, try as I might my eyes are not the best and I struggle a little to read thousandths of an inch 

Many thanks

Am selling my Hofner CT (Contemporary) series club bass, is in the more unusual red colour,  Hofner CT club basses are usually around £600, this club bass has some fret wear and so could benefit from a fret dress if you are into super low action  and for that reason I am offering this bass for the price of £250 which is a bargain especially with the case, there are also some scratches on the finish near the bridge which are covered by the bridge where I stupidly moved the bridge  without fully loosening the strings, I will also consider trades for other  basses

The bass plays pretty effortlessly, the action is not super low but i have it around 2.5mm E and 2.00mm G at the 17th fret and sounds fine, with the short scale it is plenty playable and the tone is really nice, full but clear, does the warm, thumpy tone really well and excels as McCartney style thump but can also get surprisingly bright and articulate also,  I have used it for everything from Beatles tunes to Metal(with rounds obviously), is a great sounding bass but I am playing more aggressive styles of music so I am not using it as often now.

It is currently sporting a set of TI Jazz flats although I think I might have some other flats kicking around if the buyer wants something with a bit more tension. I have swapped out the junky stock tuners for some Hofner rugby ball style tuners usually found on some of the more expensive German Hofners.

Will also consider trades for the following: Classic vibe or Vintage modified basses, Mustang bass, 5 string bass, open to other interesting types of basses 

Am able to meet in the London area , feel free to pm me if any questions

Thanks for the replies, I have had a look at a few YouTube videos to see what is involved and fairly sure it is well outside of my skills so I'm going to let a pro do the work 

I have a bass that needs a fret dressing and was wondering how difficult this is to do, is this something that can easily be done with the right tools or is it best left to a luthier to do ?

Damn thats a shame, back to the drawing board

Considering this bass as an inexpensive way to try out a 5 string Gear4Music 5 String LA Bass , I would like a 5 string and really don't have a lot of money to spend and this is under £90, my wife has very kindly said she will put in half which brings this to £45 of my cash, wondering if anyone here has tried out this bass

On 06/01/2020 at 10:56, Jakester said:

My confession is I like dead strings. Properly played in nickels really float my boat, both in terms of sound and feel. 
 

That said, I just acquired a bass which has very played in strings, perhaps too much even for me. 
 

So I’m after recommendations for strings that don’t sound too bright from new. My go-to strings are Lo-Rider nickels, but having just put a set on another bass even those sounded too bright. Would Sunbeams be better?
 

I don’t really like flats - the feel and tension are too much for me. 
 

Any recommendations?

Have you tried Fender pure nickels? They stay out sounding bright-ish but they get that dead sound really quick , when I used rounds they were too dead sounding for me 

17 hours ago, mr4stringz said:

The Electro-Harmonix Mole is an option that you may want to have a look at.

I had this and ended up selling it, it applies a low pass filter so everything above 200hz is pretty much eliminated, also seems to boost the lows , great for that thunderous low end boom but not much in the way of articulation

14 hours ago, Sparky Mark said:

What a great video. Changing the strings and controls at the same time made it impossible to hear which made the biggest difference; I suspect it's the strings. It'd be interesting to do a similar comparison of the Contemporary and Ignition. 

Yes I thought the same thing, i enjoy this guys youtube channel but I think he should have had flats on both to start with to make the comparison a fair one

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

A brief bit of thought will make it clear that if the strings don't actually buzz on the frets, the height of the action won't affect the sound directly, just your playing.

I'm going to respectfully disagree, of course there are hundreds of possible variables involved so it is quite possible that you do not hear a difference and ime things that shouldn't make any difference often do

55 minutes ago, Sparky Mark said:

I wonder how that affects the sound? Seems like an odd thing to do if the pickups are identical. They are only being used as volume controls aren't they?

It is supposed to have an impact on the brightness of the tone, the German Hofners are usually a little darker sounding which I believe is partially down to this, yes only used as volume controls.  It does seem like an odd thing to do  but the control panels for the CT are Chinese made so they are probably made as cheaply as possible with whatever components they are able to get cheaply, to use a common phrase "built to a price"

3 hours ago, ikay said:

Do you know what pot values are in the HCT vs the German made models?

500k on HCT, 250k on the German made Hofners

4 hours ago, Sparky Mark said:

Agreed. If there were any German made parts you can be sure they'd be highlighted a lot more than on just a throw away finger print barrier sticker.

Sorry I didn't explain what I meant very well,my fault, I will explain a bit better.

As a Hofner owner I follow Hofner on their Facebook page and a couple of other pages, my understanding is as follows:

Designed in Germany is what they have on their Contemporary series basses meaning the basses were designed in Germany and manufactured in China were they are produced on a factory line rather than being hand built like the German basses are.

Tuners, nut and control panel are all chinese made parts, however the pickups are actually the same as the German made pickups but the contemporary basses sound a little different due to the Chinese control panel using different value pots and also the centre block in the body of the contemporary basses

On 26/01/2020 at 09:56, Sparky Mark said:

Resurrection of an old thread because I'm not convinced the HCT pickups are German. The transit/storage stickers on HCT pickups merely state they are "Designed in Germany" which as we all know means they are made in China with local materials. I doubt there is any significant difference if any at all between HCT and Ignition pickups.

I think the "Designed  in Germany is referring to the bass itself although admittedly it is confusing when they put that on the sticker on the pickups, it is also on the back of the headstock, I guess they are trying to ensure that people do not try and pass off the HCT basses as German made, the control panel that houses the electrics however is chinese made

On 22/01/2020 at 11:36, chris_b said:

There is a saying, buy your second bass first. Many people get a cheaper bass as a starter, and upgrade to a better bass quite quickly. If you jump straight to that second bass you'll probably find it's easier to play and will sound better, which should inspire you to improve as a player. Well that's the theory!

Then again, you will definitely find better deals in the classifieds.

I completely agree with this , if you are sure you are going to stick with bass (which it sounds like that is the case) then get the bass that you really like, if you take the cheaper option just to save cash then you may end up buying another bass to scratch that itch further down the road

For a long, long time I had as low an action as possible on my basses and hated high action and at one point I had a bass where the action was about 1mm at the 12 fret, there are postives to a low action such as less force required to fret notes, economy of motion. 

Recently I have found my action gradually rising and at the moment it is 3mm at the 17th fret,  I can see that if I was going for a clanky bright tone as with my previous band I might want the action lower to get that clank but I am using flatwounds and the higher action really emphasizes the thump and the attack of the flatwounds as well as the notes coming through cleaner and clearer,  I tend to play towards the end of the fingerboard and this is made much easier with the higher action.

Possibly worth pointing out is that my main bass is a Hofner club bass so the bass is 30" scale and very narrow string spacing so high action is not at all uncomfortable, I can imagine if I was playing a 35" scale 6 string bass with a neck like a tree trunk my preference may well be different

Anyone else here really like the tone from high action?

14mm spacing for me

23 hours ago, TheGreek said:

I use the Status ones. They don't have the long scale in stock but the medium scale are ideal for 2+2 headstocked (is that even a word??) basses - OK,  Basses with 2+2 headstocks.

Available in 40 and 45 gauge - I have a couple of sets ready to be used.

Ring Dawn at Status with any enquiries.

Are they still available? I know they had an issue with getting some of their strings 

1 hour ago, hooky_lowdown said:

Which pickups distort when they get too close to the strings?

You don't want the strings hitting the pickups, but close should be ok.

Tends to be hotter pickups that do this but it is much more common to get that warbling kind of sound if the pickups are too high, with my Hofner I just got the warbling when the pickups were too high

23 minutes ago, Paul S said:

I'd always thought there came a point when they are too close and everything kind of distorts - I just wondered if this is what was already the case or whether there was room to move them up a bit.  I'll give it a go, ta.  

While we are about it - anyone moved the strap pin onto the upper bout  or shall I stick to the neck?

Yes there will be a point if you raise the pickups too high that you will start to get warbley tones or distortion, i usually raise pickups to the point where that starts happening and then once I start hearing that I lower them a little until it goes and then lower them a tiny bit more

15 minutes ago, Paul S said:

Yes, pushes it all up nicely!

Does pickup height make much difference to this fella?  They seem quite low.  Worth an experiment, maybe.

My Hofner is a contemporary so I can only comment on the pickup height on the contemporary and German Hofners (they both use the same pickups) but I have found that pickup height makes a big difference with my bass, the pickups were quite low on my bass and I raised them a bit and it sounded much better, I imagine it is probably a similar thing with the Ignition

Oh mt god ,  the way that the camera pans to the female bass player on that 1st chorus is just so cringe inducing

Thanks for the suggestions, good point about the pickup heights, I usually have them as high as I can without introducing chorus tone etc , maybe that is adding to the issue

19 minutes ago, musicbassman said:

Which hand are you muting with? Left?  Right?  Both/either?.

If you are left hand muting you could try lifting off the fret a millisecond sooner. This creates an absolutely momentary slight fret buzz and can change your sound substantially in the mids. Then maybe go on to think about your RH hand position or exact amp EQ afterwards.

Just another opinion.

Right hand, I play a lot of ghost notes so makes sense to use the right hand