Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

The first Hofner I ever saw in person was at Corner Music in Nashville. I'm a lefty, and the Hofner violin was a righty, but on sale for $300. I've always regretted not buying it, but that was a fortune to me then.

ilan wrote:Now I own this lovely 1964 Senator bass. To be honest, it sounds better than any 500/1 I've ever played... The f-holes add clarity and definition. Balances well on a strap. After a pro neck reset and fret dressing, it plays effortlessly. Any one who picks it up immediately falls in love with it.

Drool. Insanely jealous.

daveman wrote:

ilan wrote:Now I own this lovely 1964 Senator bass. To be honest, it sounds better than any 500/1 I've ever played... The f-holes add clarity and definition. Balances well on a strap. After a pro neck reset and fret dressing, it plays effortlessly. Any one who picks it up immediately falls in love with it.

Drool. Insanely jealous.

I'd love to have a Senator too, but I had to have a 500/1--my daughter has a Violin Bass controller for Rock Band or one of those games. I couldn't let that be the only Hofner in the house.

Got in a Hofner Contemporary Violin--500/1. I expected the Hofner to be a toy, but it is a serious, full and melodic sounding instrument. It's got a unique, legitimate set of bass tones. Love it. Now with my 4001 and Jazz Bass, I can at least get close in spirit to most of Paul's tones during the Beatles era.

The first Hofner violin bass I ever saw and played was in 1971 at a place called Strode Music in Peoria, Illinois. They had two storefronts; the one on the south side didn't get a lot of business, a classic case of having new instruments hanging around for like, 5 or 6 years. They also had a Hagstrom Viking guitar, an Epiphone Embassy Bass and a Baldwin Burns of London bass among other cool leftovers of the garage band era, all NOS. Many of these items were still there years afterwards.

Anyway, the Hofner was around $400.00; I had only been playing a short while and tried to get my dad interested in investing in my future with it. He didn't bite...but ordered a violin shaped Kimberly from the Lafayette Radio catalog instead. It had a ski jump neck and was unplayable past the eleventh fret...and was eventually traded it for a bag of cheap pot! (Truly the better end of the bargain.)

It was good to see Hagstrom being mentioned earlier; my first good bass was a Hagstrom 1 in black, just like Roger Filiberto's in the classic Mel Bay Electric Bass Book 1 tutorial.

I am a real stickler for being "in tune".
My Ric 4001c64s stays in tune up and down the neck.
My Hofner '62 re-issue sounds great, but does not stay in tune.
Many techs have been frustrated trying to get that elusive "in tune" setting...none have truly made it...
But I love playing the Hofner. It gets killer Thump!

I was having similar difficulties getting my Hofner arch top guitar perfectly in tune until I recently took it for some work on the bridge. It turned out that the "zero fret" needed to be leveled. I'll bet it had been that way since new! Now it is solidly in tune for the first time since I've owned it. The other obvious challenge is making sure that the floating bridge is properly placed. Good luck with your bass.

craig55 wrote:I am a real stickler for being "in tune".
My Ric 4001c64s stays in tune up and down the neck.
My Hofner '62 re-issue sounds great, but does not stay in tune.
Many techs have been frustrated trying to get that elusive "in tune" setting...none have truly made it...
But I love playing the Hofner. It gets killer Thump!

I've never had a problem with Jeff's old 500/1 V63, but that may be down to the meticulous way Jeff had set it up. It stays in tune brilliantly (played three 45-minute sets last Friday and only had to tune it up at the start of the night) and has perfect intonation all the way up the neck. Sadly, given that the combination of floating bridge and zero fret is not that common any more, the correct set-up for a Hofner may be beyond a lot of techs....

...if I recall, I didn't have to do any fiddling with the zero fret, just getting the bridge located properly which in itself does take some time since the strings need to be loosened and retuned each time the bridge gets moved.

I didn't experience intonation issues with my Hofner bass. For years I figured that the intonation issues on my arch top were user errors related to that major third between the g and b string. Nice to have the problem corrected, and a seemingly simple fix at that. It's also nice to have a terrific luthier living around the corner!

craig55 wrote:I am a real stickler for being "in tune".
My Ric 4001c64s stays in tune up and down the neck.
My Hofner '62 re-issue sounds great, but does not stay in tune.
Many techs have been frustrated trying to get that elusive "in tune" setting...none have truly made it...
But I love playing the Hofner. It gets killer Thump!

The above post illustrates my MAJOR gripe with said basses. ANY guitar/bass should NOT require such contortions to get it in tune!!!!!

Every guitar and bass I've owned has required minor adjustments at one time or anther.

I never had any sort of intonation problems on my fretted or fretless V63s.

teb wrote:I never had any sort of intonation problems on my fretted or fretless V63s.

Well, if you have intonation problems on the fretless we certainly can't blame the bass!

jps wrote:

teb wrote:I never had any sort of intonation problems on my fretted or fretless V63s.

Well, if you have intonation problems on the fretless we certainly can't blame the bass!