My Harmony H22

[Mus]

Hi guys,

I'm not primarily a bassist but I've had this instrument for about 30 years and would like to start using it on recordings. I'm thinking it's from about '66 and obviously has been resprayed black (photos attached).

I'm hoping a few people here might be able to recommend the best strings and suggest any general improvements such as tuners etc.

Thanks for any advice!

Cheers!
M

 

[jakyllo@charter]

Those tuners are not original to the bass. The Harmony
H22s had tenor guitar tuners that were terrible. In most cases, they were changed out as yours have been.
The pickp looks legit but the knobs are not original.

I put Gotoh black finish tuners on my H22.

 

[ejaggers]

I'd use either GHS Bright Flats, Chromes, or LaBella flats if it were me.

057912

 

[countrybass007]

My first bass, I used LaBella flats on it.

 

[GlennW]

That bass looks real good in black. I usually don't go for black basses/guitars, but your H22 looks real nice.

It looks like it has van Ghent (or Egmund? sp) tuners, like Hagstrom used in that era.

I'd also recommend LaBella DT760 flats. In case you don't know, it takes 34" scale strings, the same size for a Fender Precision or Jazz.

 

[Mus]

Appreciate the replies everyone.

It currently has 30-year old roundwounds on it, something like 35 60 75 90. The neck seems OK, but there is a bit of string rattle on the lower frets of the E.

Would I be right that the DT760FX would be slightly heavier but would not overly stress the neck and need the truss rod adjusting?

Would the extra light strings still sound full? As a guitarist lighter strings might suit me better than a guage higher. They're about £36/$52 in the UK.

The tuners are not great lookers but seem stable enough when fully tuned. They get quite loose and rattle when the strings are detuned.

Many thanks for any further advice

M

 

[Drop C]

Yes. The thomastik TI flatwounds sound amazing , are deep, full and are very light.

 

[Drop C]

However, the TI flats cost $75 US a set.

 

[Mus]

Thanks Drop C, I fitted the LaBella 760FX last week and it's made a huge difference to the sound and feel - less wearing on my guitar players' fingers than the ancient roundwounds. You get a real sense of that mid-60s sound.

The machine heads are just about OK and it holds its tuning fine so I'll delay any replacement expenditure for the moment.

Next trick is to get as good a recorded sound as possible. The options I have include going through a Line6 PodXTLive - I have some bass patches for it. I don't have a real bass amp...

Any recording tips gratefully received...

M