hofner/dusenberg

[roger]

hi all, im intrigued by these type of basses, semi hollow, short scale, anyone had any experience of them? are the chinese made hofner's any good?

(not the violin)

 

rog

[ikay]

I love my Hofner HCT Club bass. No complaints at all, it's very well put together and sounds great. The staple pickups are amazingly punchy and with Pyramid flats it has 'that' hofner sound. I use it in a little jazz trio and it has just the right tone and vibe for what I need. It won't necessarily work for every band situation though so depends what sort of thing you're after.

[roger]

hey thanks, how many variations are there? chinese, chinese with german pick ups, hand made in germany???

cheers

[Wylie]

14 minutes ago, ikay said:

I love my Hofner HCT Club bass. No complaints at all, it's very well put together and sounds great. The staple pickups are amazingly punchy and with Pyramid flats it has 'that' hofner sound. I use it in a little jazz trio and it has just the right tone and vibe for what I need. It won't necessarily work for every band situation though so depends what sort of thing you're after.

I also liked my Contemporary Club bass, though ultimately I passed it on. The action was super high when I got it and needed a good deal of work to bring it down (far too high for a simple truss rod adjustment). It's a singular bass with a very definite feel and sound, and the floating bridge won't take a lot of rough playing without moving a bit. But for jazz, as ikay said, or similar musical genre, it can be great.

[roger]

oh now i am confused, Contemporary Club, HCT, ignition

[roger]

got it all now i think, cheers again

[Maude]

I have an Ignition Club bass. 

The Ignition is the cheapest, then the Contemporary (which is also known as the HTC, I think) then the full fat real deal. (There may well be others). 

The Ignition is fully hollow with Chinese 'Vintage' pickups, cheaper versions of original ones. 

The Contemporary has a solid centre block and modern sounding pickups, hence the name. 

The real deal is out of my league. 

I went with the Ignition as it's closer to the original in sound and construction and is half the price of the Contemporary. 

For the money it's amazing. I put LaBella flats on it and it sounds perfect. Finish is good but not exceptional, but I am mega fussy about that sort of thing because of my job. Perfect size for picking up and noodling at home and being hollow doesn't need plugging in if you need to be quiet. Plugged in it sounds like it shouldn't be able to produce such a big sound. 

Edited December 19, 2018 by Maude

[MrCrane]

The Harley Benton Beatbass from Thomann is another decent, cheap version. (Need to budget for a decent set of flats for it though)

https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_beatbass.htm

 

[shoulderpet]

The Contemporary (the mid priced version) is good, it has a bound fingerboard and the same pickups as the full price german version but is semi hollow vs fully hollow (the german version) so although it sounds really good it is not quite as woody sounding as the german version, sound is nice and warm and thumpy.