Any Hondo Alien experts out there?

[bonz - darrell]

Hi all,

On a whim I picked up a Hondo Alien bass (clone of the Kramer "The Duke"). Bought it for a song. Owner claimed to be the original owner, that it had the original strings on it, and that he bought the bass in 1986. It was dirty, and missing two strings.
Got it home, put new strings on it, re-installed the nut (it was on upside down), and adjusted the bridge. It feels ok to play now. At least the strings are lined up over the fretboard...

But how it sounds! Tinny, thin, sh*****.
The e string is nice and loud and fuller toned, but the rest of the strings are much quieter and very tinny sounding.
Now, I know it's a cheap bass, but I kind of like the style and the functionality. I even kind of like the short scale with frets (normally I'm a fretless, long scale kinda guy)
So does anyone have suggestions to make this thing sound better? Pickups? And if so, which ones? It's a funny double jazz type of pickup.
The volume and tone pots are noisy and cut out completely. Can these be cleaned? If so, how?

Thanks for any advice...

darrell

 

[midian jones]

Hi Darrell,
I got mine last year from a gentleman who used it in a wedding band 30 years ago, and it spent the last 20 in his closet. The pickup is actually a quad humbucker. I replaced the pots rather than cleaning them. I found the wiring diagram here: http://www.vintagekramer.com/Electric/wiring-dukedeluxe.jpeg.

It still sounded quieter than I thought it should. It looked like the Schaller bridge had been taken off, and put back on a little crooked. There was also damage to the roller for the G string, so no matter what I did, I could not get the string to sit between the posts on the pick up. I decided to go with a Lace Alumitone Bass Bar (it doesn't matter where the string crosses the pickup). I also replaced the Schaller bridge with the Babicz Full Contact Hardware bridge. I wired the switch so i could split the Alumitone and I couldn't be happier. It's as loud as the active EMGs on my other bass, and I've never known a tone knob to have such an impact. And between the aluminum neck and the FCH bridge, I've got sustain into next week.
I wanted to try a set of Sadowsky black label flats on it, but the E won't fit through the hole on the tuner, so I'm debating replacing the tuners with real bass tuners, but not so sure I want to do that kind of wood work.
It is a fun bass to play, and I remember someone commenting on their Alien - "you can wack all the thugs in the alley with it and then go play your gig".
Best of luck

 

[grisezd]

Do give it a going over before you give up on the pickup. Could be as simple (and likely) as a bad solder, badly done repair/mod work, etc. If you feel confident about it (and you should be, since you got it cheap) get some electronics cleaner and clean out the pots, reflow the solder joints, and if none of that helps try wiring the pickup straight to the output jack. Would be a shame to spend a couple of hundred on a cheap bass if you don't have to.

 

[bonz - darrell]

Thanks for the input guys -- somehow even though I created the thread
I'm not suscribed(?), so i didn't see the replies.
So here's what I've done so far: put on flat wounds, and replaced both pots with 200k pots. I dunno what the pots were, but they both clicked to shut off - like an active setup. I removed about 4 miles of hacked and spliced wiring as well. For simplicity I didn't wire back in the switch.
It sounds better, but not great.
One reply mentioned an alternate pick-up and bridge, so I'm going to look into that as well.
Maybe I'm trying to 'put lipstick on a pig', but what the heck, its only money, right?

 

[bonz - darrell]

I decided to go with a Lace Alumitone Bass Bar...

Hi,
How well did it fit? It seems like the route-out might be a little bigger than 3.5" on mine...
Thanks!

 

[midian jones]

Hi Darrell. Sorry for the late reply. Haven't logged in for a while.
The Alumitone bass bar fits perfect. There is a small gap all the way around - no need for more routing.
I was a little worried about being able to adjust the height. The body of the pickup is a piece of aluminum shaped like a U with a little bend toward the middle at the end of either foot. It comes with neoprene about as thick as a mouse pad for the feet to rest on. Pickup height is set by how much you compress the neoprene. I believe mine would have been fine without it - I'm pretty sure it's fully compressed, but I haven't pulled the pickup to take it out yet.

 

[bonz - darrell]

Thanks. I went ahead and got the lace pickup. It fits just fine. The one I got is 'splittable' which I wasn't expecting, so I wired up a mini toggle as well.
It's quite an improvement in tone -- although still a little 'thin' sounding.
My othere main players are an Ibby Sr800, and a Yamaha Rbx260 fretless. Both have very slim necks. So now I'm considering options for a neck swap. Being kind of an obscure instrument makes it a bit tough. I'm thinking about buying an unfinished neck, cutting off the headstock and creating a replacement. Not sure, though.
If any one has a suggestion for a bolt-on replacement, I would appreciate the insight.