H22 Sound, without the H22?

Maybe an Epiphone Rivoli?

 

What does an H22 sound like?

 

I've never heard another bass sound quite like my old H22, especially with old flats and the "toilet handle" engaged. However it was a sound I didn't need to use often and my Hofner Ignition Club with nylon tapewound strings gets close enough.

 

I'm unfamiliar with the H22 and will have to rectify that as soon as I'm able. I think I should add, though (and I'm NOT a P fanatic), that you should certainly have a P-bass-style instrument at hand, probably above all else, in a studio situation.

 

Epi Viola should get you close already.

 

Looks like Harmony has reissued them, they appear to go for 6-800 on Reverb. I would assume they'd be pretty similar? The new ones have a set neck instead of the old bolt-on, but that might not matter much (aside from making them harder to work on).

 

Supposedly the reissues didn't really sound like the originals (totally different pickup innards, only cosmetically similar)... But I think any short-scale with a powerful neck pickup, strung with Pyramid flatwounds, would get you close enough. Especially if it's a hollowbody.

 

Epiphone Allen Woody?

 

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The Keep On Running bass line is iconic. Also, H22 on the Spencer Davis Group's I'm A Man. Woody, fat, somewhat compressed and dark. Sounds so good to me for that style of music. The anti-Stingray single pickup bass.

 

I've never paid a lot of attention to them, since they were "just another company that doesn't make lefties". But, I know one when I see (and hear) one. They sound like they do because of that primitive wooden bridge; where the pick up is mounted on the comparatively small, thin hollow body; and, because the pick up is a Dearmond "gold foil" pickup - an idiosyncratically constructed, relatively low output pick up (compared to the ones today), that I think is a humbucker (but I could be wrong). If it is, IMO it's pretty similar to the '90s ceramic magnet Filtertrons in my Gretsch Broadkaster, which are about the most single coil-y humbuckers I've ever heard. Would a re-issue sound like a vintage one? I couldn't say; like I said - they still don't make leftys…

 

they make a H22 double cutaway that you could string lefty. It’s Tough to find though

 

It sounds a lot like an upright.

 

Don't bassists have their own basses?

 

Just caught Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters at Infinity Hall a few weeks back. His bassist Paul Kochanski (superb player btw!) was rocking an H22 most of the night. Huge deep sound. Don’t know if his was a 60s vintage or a modern. But based on the condition I’m guessing he had one of the new ones.

You could probably get very close with a violin or other semihollow short-scale and nickel flats. But I have to admit I haven’t heard anything that exactly matches that sound. As someone previously said, the wood bridge and tailpiece plus the DeArmond designed Gold Tone pickup will have a lot of influence on the tone you’re hearing.

 

I've been on the watch for one of those , for years ...

 

I don't know what the actual output figures are, but I do know that my H22 is louder and fuller sounding than any other bass I've owned, aside from my Yamaha BB1200S when it's in active mode and the EQ knobs are turned up... I don't think it's a humbucker, it's more of a beefy full-range single coil.