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Which bass is the winner? Hofner Club vs Danelectro 56 single cut


Paul S
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I've got a couple of basses which I expect to be in the "thuddy" domain once they're brought back to life.

One is a Vox Clubman.

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And the other is a Shaftesbury Ric(-ish) semi copy.

r90qVGm.jpg

Both need extensive work; the Vox is nearest, as I've nearly sanded the body down.

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4 hours ago, hooky_lowdown said:

It's a scandal what someone did to that Vox. 😥

Yep - the gold paint "Fender" logo was a special touch.

I'm looking to get it back to as near to original as I can.

On the plus side, I bought it at a car boot for a fiver!

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There's a Shaftsbury 12 string in the same colour as the bass above. 

Obviously I can't link to it but the listing title might be something like 'Vintage Copy (some numbers a tiny bit higher than 329-11)12-string Electric Guitar? Project Japan Copy', or similar. It's in America though. 

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Well, lightning quick service from BAX, my Hofner Ignition Club has arrived.  Straight out of the box it was covered in dust and bits of expanded polystyrene, the rosewood fretboard looked dry as anything but the set up was OK - I might even drop the action a little.  I changed the stock strings to TI Flats and had the Devils own job fitting the E string into the tiny tuners, gave the board a wipe of lemon oil. 

First impressions are that it feels like a toy and sounds pretty thin but that's just after an initial noodle and very low volume.  However it is ridiculously lightweight (just 2.4kg!) and it probably worth keeping for those bad back sessions.  If so I might change the tuners and move the front strap button to somewhere sensible.

So overall not my best impulse buy but certainly not my worst.

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18 minutes ago, hooky_lowdown said:

Ooooooh, what was your worst?

Probably the expensive basses I bought without thinking it through properly.  The worst of which was most likely an NS Design Bolin 5 string that had been de-fretted.  Absolutely fantastic bass that I had absolutely no need for but bought it in a rush of blood and lost a huge sum over.

At least this was only £250, a decent chunk of which I would get back if I decide to move it on.

Edited by Paul S
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And an hour later.... Mrs S popped out so I had another little noodle but this time with more volume.  And that is all it needed, more volume - it does not sound thin at all!  The hollow, woody tone is very nice - very similar to the Danelectro Longhorn I had.  Not keen on the bridge pup isolated but the neck alone is a lovely rounded tone and the two together have some extra bite.  Hmm.

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2 hours ago, Paul S said:

And an hour later.... Mrs S popped out so I had another little noodle but this time with more volume.  And that is all it needed, more volume - it does not sound thin at all!  The hollow, woody tone is very nice - very similar to the Danelectro Longhorn I had.  Not keen on the bridge pup isolated but the neck alone is a lovely rounded tone and the two together have some extra bite.  Hmm.

I only ever use the neck pickup. I despise the word, but I can only describe it as 'lush'.

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4 hours ago, Paul S said:

And an hour later.... Mrs S popped out so I had another little noodle but this time with more volume.  And that is all it needed, more volume - it does not sound thin at all!  The hollow, woody tone is very nice - very similar to the Danelectro Longhorn I had.  Not keen on the bridge pup isolated but the neck alone is a lovely rounded tone and the two together have some extra bite.  Hmm.

If you haven't already try using the bass slider in the On position, pure gut rumbling fat bass tone 

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10 hours ago, shoulderpet said:

If you haven't already try using the bass slider in the On position, pure gut rumbling fat bass tone 

Yes, pushes it all up nicely!

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

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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

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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?

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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

Edited by markdavid
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1 hour ago, markdavid said:

Yes there will be a point if you raise the pickups too high that you will start to get warbley tones or distortion

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.

Edited by hooky_lowdown
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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

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Well, I moved the pickups up a bit and it has got louder, so that is good. 

I then removed the scratch plate - the finish was really rough on the straight cut sections and looked cheap (on a £250 bass?  I know...)  and I kind of prefer it without anyway.

I discovered it is an exact fit for the Les Paul hard case that also fits my Gibson LP Jnr DC bass and my Frankenstein Honcore. 

I then took the plunge and moved the strap pin onto the upper bout as per this pic:

262xf0w.jpg

 

As it is the hollow bodied version I carried out some scientific test to see if there was sufficient depth of wood to take the pin screw (tapped it to see if it sounded hollow or not :scratch_one-s_head: :swoon:) but was still a little nervous when I drilled the pilot hole.  However it was apparent I was drilling into wood the whole time and it is now securely screwed in place.  Hangs much better.

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