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LaBella Flats for Hofner

#41
BILLBASS1 said:

Hmmmm, now this is interesting.
I bought a hofner club bass a few months ago.
The stock strings are Pyramids.
I thought the E string was DOA .
I did a little research and found out that it was
suppose to sound that way.
I was considering getting a set of Labella Beatle bass
strings.
Now I am wondering if they also are supposed to have
that dead tone in the E string ?........
------------------------------------------------------------

I also recently bought a hofner club bass. Beautiful.

Not sure whether the strings are Pyramids or Hofners (in the process of asking retailer and Hofner in Germany), but I also found that the E string sounded rather dead (could hardly hear a note).

With time, it is starting to sound much better, although it still has that pointy/thumpy early beatles sound, with little sustain. No problem with the other strings, which sound amazing.

In any case, I will definitely (inspired by this thread) go out and try some TIs and La Bellas just to compare.

Thanks for all your input!
 
#42
I'm excited about the prospect of purchasing a Hofner Icon Series bass guitar. After reading this forum, I've decided to go with the LaBella Beatle Bass strings .50 - .100. Thanks for all the great info. Here's my delima... I found an on-line store that was selling the Hofner Icon Series HBB Beatle Bass for $349, and it includes a Hofner hardshell case. Musician's Friend is selling a Hofner Icon Series Vintage Violin Bass for $349.99, but it doesn't include a the case. Are these the same guitars? I'm not sure what the HBB model refers to. Are there different models within the Icon Series? Thanks for your patience, I'm not very familiar with these guitars. Any info would be appreciated.
 
#43
JohnFitz said:
I'm excited about the prospect of purchasing a Hofner Icon Series bass guitar. After reading this forum, I've decided to go with the LaBella Beatle Bass strings .50 - .100. Thanks for all the great info. Here's my delima... I found an on-line store that was selling the Hofner Icon Series HBB Beatle Bass for $349, and it includes a Hofner hardshell case. Musician's Friend is selling a Hofner Icon Series Vintage Violin Bass for $349.99, but it doesn't include a the case. Are these the same guitars? I'm not sure what the HBB model refers to. Are there different models within the Icon Series? Thanks for your patience, I'm not very familiar with these guitars. Any info would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
I think those are the same. 'HBB' AFAIK stands for Hofner Beatle Bass. If you watch Music123, you can get a better deal with their rebates....I got mine for $275 when they had a '$75 off' deal.
 
#44
My new guitar arrived along with the Labella Beatle Bass strings I ordered. When I put the strings on the guitar they didn't seem to be quite long enough. The "core" of the string is the only thing that I am able to thread into the tuning peg. Is this normal? It looks weird to me.
 

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#46
When I bought my Brice violin bass, the rounds that caome on it were nasty sounding. I replaced them with D'Addario Chromes flats. They were not what I was looking for on that particular bass. The G and the D sounded like a banjo and the E and A sounded dead. So I decided to try SIT Power Flats 50-105. That evened everything out for me. Not too bright and not too dead. They are very consistant sounding string to string. They really make this bass shine. I can go from a nice McCartney thump to a subtle round growl with a little midrange tweak. I'm playing this little bass quite a lot now along side my Rickenbackers.
 
#47
rickfan63 said:
When I bought my Brice violin bass, the rounds that caome on it were nasty sounding. I replaced them with D'Addario Chromes flats. They were not what I was looking for on that particular bass. The G and the D sounded like a banjo and the E and A sounded dead. So I decided to try SIT Power Flats 50-105. That evened everything out for me. Not too bright and not too dead. They are very consistant sounding string to string. They really make this bass shine. I can go from a nice McCartney thump to a subtle round growl with a little midrange tweak. I'm playing this little bass quite a lot now along side my Rickenbackers.
Click to expand...
Interesting.....I've heard big strings can pull on the neck a little too much.
 
#48
ME TOO!!
i just buy hofner violin to the contemporary series
Image145.gif

but i cant find any flatwound in my city well my city is kind village than city dammn im so desperate here and yes i dont have CC:crying:
 
#49
rickfan63 said:
When I bought my Brice violin bass, the rounds that caome on it were nasty sounding. I replaced them with D'Addario Chromes flats. They were not what I was looking for on that particular bass. The G and the D sounded like a banjo and the E and A sounded dead. So I decided to try SIT Power Flats 50-105. That evened everything out for me. Not too bright and not too dead. They are very consistant sounding string to string. They really make this bass shine. I can go from a nice McCartney thump to a subtle round growl with a little midrange tweak. I'm playing this little bass quite a lot now along side my Rickenbackers.
Click to expand...
That is why I went the heaver La Bella set. The sound is nice even and full. The basses are made well enough and the scale is so short the heavier strings work well.
 
#51
I have the Labella deep talkin flats on a couple basses and they sound fine but they are all 34" scale. I have an Epi viola bass which is short (30") scale as is the Hoffner and I have it strung with TI jazz flats and it sounds great. The strings all sound strong and uniform. I know some times a string will sound good on a certain type of bass and not so good on others. I've put the TI flats on some basses and did'nt like the way they sounded at all but I think they're perfect on the Epi. and would be surprised if they didn't work well on your Hoffner.
 
#53
I put the heavier guage ones on my Brice Beatle bass and noticed the same thing!
Go with D'Addario Chromes in 45-100's Medium scale.
go to [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] . They have all the bass strings you can find anywhere.
 
#54
mr sprocket said:
That is why I went the heaver La Bella set. The sound is nice even and full. The basses are made well enough and the scale is so short the heavier strings work well.
Click to expand...

Exactly, the neck on the Brice handles the .105 E with no problem. It's a pretty sturdy bass. When I had my early '80's Hofner, I used a .105 E on it too. I want to get a Hofner CT Beatle bass at some time. If I do, I'll see if I can get SIT to make me a short scale version of the Power Flats strings. The reissue staple pickups appear to be much better than the bar magnets that were on my old Hofner.
 
#55
The Ibanez EB-3 that I gave a Höfner 513 bridge pickup and an Italian
neck humbucker had thinnish roundwounds. They sounded a bit clanky
with those pickups. I replaced them with Thomastik-Infeld Jazz flat wounds (106/070/056/043). Deep full booming sound with great dynamics, also very subtle with a light touch.
 
#56
I have a set of D'Addario Chromes 40-95 on my mid-60's Hofner Senator Bass and all sounds good from the strings. The only odd volume issue comes from the pickup - the G string can overpower the others due to the pickup not having enough flexibility to be raised or lowered. No big deal tho, as I always found the bass not something one wants to blatter away at, so it's easy to adjust your playing sensitivity to accommodate.
 
#57
For those of you that are used to and have never really experienced flatwounds.....STOP! It's kinda' like your a Ford or Chevy person.

An honest review or help from a flatwound user is what you need...I'm not claiming to be an ACE but I'll give you what I know. I WILL NOT touch a bass with Roundwounds! That's a guitar!

You need to know the "flats" tone and how to use them, either pick or fingers. Half the tone is in the player!

I would purposely use larger flatwounds that put ALOT of stress on the neck (I won't put them on Hoffy though) just for tone! More string = More tone.

As for La Bellas, Pyramids, Hofner strings....they're all VERY close. You've got to acquire the flatwound taste. Haven't tried Thomastik's yet but have heard all good things!

I'm telling ya', gear geeks get to technical and over analyze things. It's simple. Put flats on Hoffy and break em' in for a couple of weeks. I can get a killer tone through a Line 6 pod or Bassman. Don't over analyze!
 
#58
I know this is an old as the hills thread...lol! But since I last post on this subject....many moons ago I have since switched over to Labella Hofner flats and never looked back. They do the job on both my Brice copy and Hofner HCT quite nicely. Would sometime like to experiment with the Labella tapewounds sometime too; just to see what the differences would be.
 
#59
philmh26 said:
BILLBASS1 said:

Hmmmm, now this is interesting.
I bought a hofner club bass a few months ago.
The stock strings are Pyramids.
I thought the E string was DOA .
I did a little research and found out that it was
suppose to sound that way.
I was considering getting a set of Labella Beatle bass
strings.
Now I am wondering if they also are supposed to have
that dead tone in the E string ?........
------------------------------------------------------------

I also recently bought a hofner club bass. Beautiful.

Not sure whether the strings are Pyramids or Hofners (in the process of asking retailer and Hofner in Germany), but I also found that the E string sounded rather dead (could hardly hear a note).

With time, it is starting to sound much better, although it still has that pointy/thumpy early beatles sound, with little sustain. No problem with the other strings, which sound amazing.

In any case, I will definitely (inspired by this thread) go out and try some TIs and La Bellas just to compare.

Thanks for all your input!
Click to expand...
Pyramid makes OEM strings for Hofner. These are the strings installed at the factory, and also the same ones sold under the Hofner brand.
 

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