NBD: It's very thin.

grayn · December 23, 2022

I wanted to add another retro styled, short scale bass, to my collection. I already have a Sandberg Lionel and a Guild Starfire 1. I toyed with the idea of a Warwick Rockbass Star bass but decided I wanted to stick to a 30 inch, or there abouts, scale length. I went to try out a DeArmond Starfire 2, that was quite a beauty but needed a lot of fettling and was surprisingly heavy. Next on my radar was a Hofner Verythin bass. Although I have played quite a few Hofners in shops, I don't think I have ever owned one. This Verythin is from the Contemporary series, made in China. I'd really loved the looks of this semi and noticed in videos that it didn't seem to sound as dead and thunky as it's brother violin and club basses. Part of this may be in that it comes strung with roundwounds, not flats. Anyway, yesterday afternoon I finally got one in my hands. And I was quite pleased that a few of my negative preconceptions were incorrect. One was that I'd probably want to remove the scratchplate. Well actually, it looks a lot nicer in person, with a lovely dark creamy hue, that blends very well, with the bass's vintage brown sunburst finish. Secondly, it hung perfectly on a strap, with not the tiniest hint of neck dive. And lastly, despite it's antiquated bridge, the intonation was pretty good. I used my tuner to compare open strings, harmonics and fretted notes, on the 5th, 12th and 17th frets. Much better than I would have thought likely.
The finish on this bass is pretty damn good, with no obvious flaws, that I could see, the fretting is smooth, with the neck and body having some nice, creamy binding. Now there are things that the average bass player may not like. The string spacing is a quite narrow and the pickups kind of have their own flavour. They don't have the clarity and punch of the single coils, on my other basses. They are fairly low output. But I did find, that with some experimentation, with the 2 vol and 2 tone controls on this bass and some judicious use of the amp's EQ, some very nice tones can be achieved. This is no rock machine, or slappers delight but it is cool for 60s pop, soul and RnB stuff. I am a finger player but this bass does play and sound very nicely using a plectrum, also. It's not going to be my main bass but really adds something I don't have in my other basses. It comes with, I guess, Hofner roundwound strings and TBH they are very low quality. I'll be replacing them with Elixirs, or maybe go mad and get some flats, ASAP.

As this and my Guild Starfire 1 are both modern interpretations of vintage instruments, with semi-hollow bodies, I thought a comparison may be of interest. Both have similar sized bodies and weigh pretty much the same, although the Verythin's body is around a centimetre thinner than the Starfire's 1 1/2 inch depth. The Verythin's headstock is smaller, as are it's vintage tuners. Which obviously helps with the total absence of neck dive. The Verythin's neck is slimmer and appears to be the same width, across the fingerboard, at the nut as it is at the 22nd fret. And access to those higher frets is easier on the Hofner. The down side to this is the narrow string spacing, which many players may not like. The neck profile on the Guild is a fairly flattish, what Fender might call a flat C, whereas the Verythin has a deeper profile, that gives the narrow neck a very nice feel. Both have attractive tailpeices and separate bridges. The Guild's Tune-O-Matic, nickel bridge, is far the better, of the two and is bolted to the body. The Hofner's bridge is mainly of wood and seems to be floating, except that there is a metal rod that connects the bridge to the bass's raised scratchplate. Which seems like a good idea to me, seeing as they have got the intonation sorted so well.
On the pickup front, the Guild has a P-bass style, single split-coil pickup. The Verythin has 2 Höfner Staple Top humbucker pickups, situated pretty much as far apart as the bass allows. Obviously the 2 pickups gives far more variety in sounds but the Starfire's pickup is an awesome peice of kit and really you don't need to do much to get a clear, full sound from it. Cosmetically both basses have a well finished, retro look. But the Hofner is far the prettier, with it's flamed maple top, gorgeous scratchplate, stylish headstock and rather different, pearl and red fret markers. But, it is all that 60s styling, design and hardware that make the Verythin a bit of a niche bass. The Starfire 1 has taken a few steps to move into the modern world and would be far more useful as a general purpose bass. It's strong pickup and more contemporary neck and string spacing would make it playable to most modern players. I have rather fallen for the more niche, Hofner Verythin though. It may not make it to a lot of band practices but it will get a lot of home use and be very useful for recording too. Who knows, I might just get those flats and start playing it with a pick.

Wylie · December 23, 2022

That is a gorgeous bass, congrats!

malbass · December 23, 2022

I play one of these as my main bass at the moment, love it! Great fit for the blues/country band.

Flats and a pick are essential for these!!

p4ul · December 23, 2022

Noice Flame! have a battered old 63 VT & they are a joy to play. Enjoy. +1 for flats for "that" 60's thomp, and given the right, or wrong situation depending, you can achieve some wild feedback with these things 🙂

Edited December 23, 2022 by p4ul
remembered the wild feedback!