Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I thought he used the Hofner mainly as part of the "back to where we started" concept of Let It Be. This would not rule out him using it on Abbey Road, of course, but then again, we also see him using the Rick on certain Let It Be segments. As for not using the Hofner for high up the neck work, Something would have to be included in that. I always thought the sound on Silver Hammer and O's Garden was classic 4001 with flats. But then again the fabs were alway messing with tons of compression and a host of other tricks...

Yeah, its really hard to tell sometimes what was used in studio recordings due to all the tricks that can be done to color the sound.

Wolfgang, I know about the bridge being moveable, and if that was the problem with the bass, then its obvious no one around the Beatles knew a thing about instrument setup. I had heard that the actually problem with the Hofner and intonation was incorrect fret locations, in which case the fingerboard woul dhave either had to be replaced, or filled and resoltted. I don't know if that story was true or not however.

I'm sure bass players know that Hofner bridges are "adjustable" in the manor of any guitar with a trapeze style tailpiece, and bridges of that style were quite common on archtop guitars. They are made of ebony, with slots into which are inserted metal bars that the strings rest on. The bars can be moved forward and backward, thus changing the break angle slightly and intonation, by switching the inserts in the slots, or side to side by sliding them. The bridge can also be raised or lowered and slanted on the body (away from parallel to the end of the neck) to allow for string length variation and thus adjust intonation so the 12th fret harmonic and fretted note are the same. The problem with Paul's bass was that the neck needed to be reset, or so I have read. Maybe the bridge was in the wrong place as well. And maybe by the time he realized this, he had moved to the Ric and just didn't care.

Now, The Fabs may have been in the Stone Age technicallly, but I can't believe that if a correctly set up Hofner is so horribly out of tune that it can't be played above the fifth fret, anyone would buy one or that they wouldn't change the way the bridge is made. I briefly owned a '67 Beatle bass before it was stolen and had no problems with intonation. Also, the second bass I owned was a 32"-scale Gagliano that had a Fender style body and peghead but otherwise had Hofner pickups (they even had "Hofner" on the chrome pickup cover) and the same control plate that appears on the Beatle bass. It did NOT have the same bridge however, but a knockoff of the Fender style bridge with adjustable individual saddles. It had no intonation problems and was a great step up from the 30" Kay Les Paul-style I started with (which had the same wooden bridge style as the Beatle bass. Maybe we've all become spoiled by technology.

Elvis Costello adjusted the bridge on one of Paul's Hofners during the Spike sessions. He said it played fine up the neck after that.

I still think the Hofner sounds fine, misaligned bridge or not, on the early records. There's something to be said for going for immediacy rather than perfection.

I just can't picture the Hofner on IWY. Just sounds like something different. One of my favorite songs featuring the bass guitar -- I think it's safe to say that it influenced later hits by other bands...I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but every now and then I think -- "they" got that bass riff from the Beatles and I Want You/She's So Heavy.

I think the Hofner sounds great, although I prefer his second one (and the one he continues to use today) rather than the first one that he used on the first album. I think it just sounds better.

He used the first in the Revolution video. Do you think that means he used it when recording the single?

I think the Abbey Road Sessions book chronicles umpteen overdubbing sessions for that lp. The bass on Something seems to have been played to perfection.