Pickup Alignment on Hofner

not_jason · #1 03-08-2010, 10:26 PM

Here is a picture of my Hofner Icon B-Bass.

As you can see from that shot, the poles aren't in very close alignment with the strings. They are reasonably close on the neck pickup, but on the bridge, they are pretty far off. When I first noticed this, my initial thought was that maybe the bridge/tailpiece were in the wrong position, but given how well the strings are centered over the fretboard, I would not want to tamper with that.

So two questions, really:

1. Is it possible to fix this? I have never had this thing apart yet, so I don't really know what's going on underneath these things, and whether it's feasible to slide it down a touch.

2. Is it even worth it? Would the difference in performance be tangible enough to warrant any sort of effort?

JLS · #2 03-09-2010, 09:14 AM

" Would the difference in performance be tangible enough to warrant any sort of effort?"

No. Overfussing a cosmetic non-issue.

Pilgrim · #3 03-09-2010, 10:55 AM

Shove the bridge over. It's not fixed in place.

And close is good enough. Exact alignment isn't needed.

not_jason · #4 03-09-2010, 04:27 PM

Right on. I've been playing it for about a year like this, with no real complaints, so I'm not sure why last night I all of the sudden got the itch to repair it. I guess it's more a cosmetic flaw than an actual problem, and since that seems to be the consensus, I figure it's fine. Thanks.

Pilgrim · #5 03-09-2010, 05:42 PM

With that bass you probably have to shove the bridge around to get the intonation right, and most likely angle it a bit across the body of the bass. Moving it left or right at the same time is no problem.