HILS headless basses

[markbunney]

1 hour ago, Greg Edwards69 said:

Yeah, I saw those, but I'm still wary about investing that sort of money into this bass if I'm still not going to love it. Not to mention, I downloaded the schematics, and it left me very confused. Wiring basses goes over my head. I could handle soldering a couple of wires to an existing pot, but EMG's solderless kit looks overwhelming, and I have no idea how to integrate with the existing preamp.

Even if I could figure out how to intergrate them into the existing preamp, it looks like the EMG's are active only. I want to retain the passive option.

 

Nice, but more money than I want to spend. The Hils ticks the right box in terms of value for money.

Not sure where you live, but last time I was in Andertons they had some HILS in the store to try out

[edstraker123]

Hils have let me down with my pickguard order. Nearly a 3 month wait and it wasn't included in the Anderton's shipment.☹️

Anderton's are trying to make up for it by sending me one off a bass they have in for refurb but it may not be perfect. I suppose if not I can use it as a template and get one made. Disappointing.

[Greg Edwards69]

I've ordered the sunburst NEXT HNB5 (wife helped choose the colour) from Andertons in their January sale, should be with me tomorrow. Fingers crossed it'll tick the boxes my EHB doesn't.

 

The sale offer includes a set of Positive Grid Neo Core headphones. Might prove useful, or might end up on eBay if they're not as good as my Katana Go / ATH-M50x combo.

[Greg Edwards69]

Bass arrived yesterday. I didn't have much time to play with it last night (early night in preparation for today's early radiotherapy appointment), but first impressions are good. Straight out of the box, it seemed to be set up well, perhaps too well, very little relief in the neck - almost dead flat, and pretty low action, and almost in tune!

 

I immediately noticed the tightness and tone of the B string, even before plugging it in - this boded well. Plugged it into my little Blackstar practice amp, switched the bass to passive mode and heard a nice full range tone without any of the mud of my EHB's Bartolini's, and more top end. Switching to active mode sounded pretty much the same, with everything set flat. The EQ centres seem well chosen - the bass knob in particular adds girth without adding subby boom.

 

I noticed a little buzz at the third fret and grabbed a fret rocker. There are indeed a couple of high frets low down, but I'm not totally surprised at this price point - my more expensive EHB has high frets too. But I'm hoping I can mitigate this by introducing a little more relief and setting the action to my preferences before I think about a fret level. The neck pickup looks a little low, too and needs balancing, but I also need to match the volume to my G&L JB2, my main gigging bass.  But I'm going to wait until the weekend before addressing any of this, to give the bass time to acclimatise.

 

I haven't tried it on a strap yet, but it appears to balance well when I held it by the top strap button.

 

I'm not sure about the fret markers. Whilst they aren't as bad as the EHB markers, they are a little difficult to see, but that could just be my preferences.

 

Oh, one last thing. The tuners are a bit stiff and sticky, but I see there's a solution available by adding some small bearings

 

But I have to say, so far, so good. The small issues I have found so far are not surprising at this price point and straightforward enough to remedy.

Edited 26 minutes ago by Greg Edwards69