Birthday was about a week ago and had enough cash bunged my way for something cheap and fun, so snagged one of these. This is the "Cavern Club" edition of the Hofner Ignition Violin Beatle bass...
Have been weighing up my options for a cheap short scale bass for a few weeks, saw a few demos of these, and decided to give one a go sight unseen. I was looking for something lightweight and fun for playing around the house...and it's absolutely perfect for that. Fully hollow so weighs next to nothing. This "Cavern" version has the rear pickup in a more advanced mid position, rather than nearer the bridge, like Macca's early one. It's not super versatile soundwise, but it does a great thumpy '60s R&B thing which is really really addictive. Pondering flatwounds (rounds come stock) but it sounds pretty good as is. I'm no Beatles obsessive, so can't comment on how authentic it sounds, but so far, just playing it through a few guitar amps at bedroom volumes, I like it plenty.
Cons? Fit and finish are generally fine, but there's what sounds like a stray ball of solder rattling around inside somewhere, and one of the pickup sliders needs a bit of wiggling/pressure to switch properly. I'm going to open up the control plate over the next day or two and get both issues sorted, 'cos I can't face returning it to Germany (musik-produktiv) for what should be an easy fix.
New fangled trading feedback link right
here!
Comments
Take great care when removing the control plate. It may be worth lubricating the screws. Anything to avoid splitting the ply or chipping the finish.
There's a surprising difference in tone from even fairly small pickup position changes - if you ever get the chance to play a Gibson Grabber - which has a sliding pickup - it's amazing you much tonal variety there is just by moving the pickup a tiny bit.
You could improve that by fitting a cap in line with the 'bridge' pickup, like a vintage Rickenbacker 4001 - it does cut a bit of bass, but more importantly it introduces a phase shift which makes the middle position much more characterful.
If you wanted to keep all the options open you could get the same thing on the Hofner if you rewired the switches so the 'treble on' switch only applied to the bridge pickup and didn't turn the neck pickup off at the same time. (I would also do the 'bass on' switch so it only applied to the neck pickup and didn't turn the bridge off - given that there are the volume controls anyway, the stock system seems unnecessarily complicated and restrictive.)
Or you could rewire the rhythm/solo switch to do something similar, or even as a phase switch if the pickups don't have single-core shielded cable… having a rhythm/solo switch on a bass has always seemed a bit pointless to me!
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I had thought about rewiring the rhythm/solo switch to a fixed low- or high-pass filter, as I agree that the "just a bit quieter" rhythm setting is pretty pointless.
It would be worth taking a look at the underside of the control plate to discover what components are attached to the Rhythm/Solo switch. I cannot recall whether it is a simple preset volume drop or a filter network similar to the Fender Jaguar and Bass VI bass cut slider switch. (One by-product of such a filter will be a reduction in overall volume.)
If you do not use the individual volume pots to blend the two pickups, there is no reason why you should not re-jig the controls to a Master Volume, Master Tone arrangement.