Paul McCartney's modified Hofner control panel?

[mikecd1]

There's a guy named Kusleder Albert who posted this pic in the Hofner forum on facebook saying that he modified Paul's control panel on his bass and that is the "secret" of his sound. He stated that the mojo came from a PIO tone cap and resistor that normally gets grounded to the back of the neck volume control, but he detached the end of it instead of grounding to the volume pot. My Hofner does not have a tone cap attached to a resistor, but instead just a resistor going from the solo switch grounded to back of volume pot (see diagram). Hoping the experts here can explain what that mod might do. I'm thinking hum, but not based on any specific electronics knowledge except seeing an incomplete circuit. Here are the photos from the one said to be McCartney's and a diagram with stock Hofner photos. A .1uf PIO cap would darken the sound, but its well known Macca usually plays with the solo switch on and the bass pup only which is pretty dark already. The rest of his sound is his hands, the amp and Geoff Emerick in the studio I suppose.

 

[byacey]

Any capacitor with or without a series resistor is meant to tame some high frequency. This probably was meant to roll off some highs when the solo / rhythm switch was in one position or the other.
Personally, I wouldn't want so many switch contacts in such a low level signal path.

 

[digmeout]

I've never seen any reliable info saying that Paul had the control panel on his 63 Hofner modified, except for the little bits of rubber inserted behind the switches because the switches would no long reliably stay in place due to the age and use the bass has seen. Googling/searching Kusleder Albert brings up nothing.

 

[fig]

I found a gentleman named Kasleder Albert whose facebook page talks about Hofner guitars. Is that him?

Kasléder Albert

 

[mikecd1]

I found a gentleman named Kasleder Albert whose facebook page talks about Hofner guitars. Is that him?

Kasléder Albert

thats the name and it was on their site so I’d assume it’s him but never associated him with Höfner or McCartney before.

 

[terr0rgasm]

I have always found the hofner switching so frustrating that I decided last night to rip out the wiring and wire it like my Bass VI, so that there is 1 Vol, 1 Tone, and the switches are Neck on/off. Bridge on/off, and bass cut switch for a thinner tone.

The wiring is MUCH simpler than the stock hofner wiring and I think everything sounds great now, Seems to be less muddy overall, and now the knobs and switches are intuitive.

 

[mikecd1]

I have always found the hofner switching so frustrating that I decided last night to rip out the wiring and wire it like my Bass VI, so that there is 1 Vol, 1 Tone, and the switches are Neck on/off. Bridge on/off, and bass cut switch for a thinner tone.

The wiring is MUCH simpler than the stock hofner wiring and I think everything sounds great now, Seems to be less muddy overall, and now the knobs and switches are intuitive.

Whatever sounds best for you is best. I just changed my pots to 250k in my Contemporary and love the tone. Always liked the way the pickups sounded together and the "bass on" switch always kicked the pants off that bassy McCartney sound for me. YMMV Would love to hear a sound clip if you care to put one up

 

[terr0rgasm]

My pots were already 250k. What did yours come as?

 

[TN WOODMAN]

Paul’s mind, musicality and hands are the key to his sound. The rest is secondary.

 

[terr0rgasm]

My mods were not to sound like Paul, but just to make my Hof sound better, and to make the controls more intuitive. If I want a different sound on stage, I know how to get it quick now.

I can get a Paul sound with many different basses, as long as its got flatwounds.. I just modify my playing to play like him.

And there is no ONE paul sound...

In the early days, his playing was so buried in the 2 track mix, he was little more than reinforcing low end, without definition. On the White Album, on Dear Prudence, for example, its clicky and overdriven.



My favorite Paul tone has got to be on Sgt Pepper, on With a Little Help, Lovely Rita, and Mr Kite... Its plucky and defined, but still heavy in the lows... such a great sound.







In modern news, King Gizzard's bassist has gotten a pretty similar sound with a Mustang bass with flats. (about the 1:08 mark)

 

[terr0rgasm]

And although most of the Paul tracks I referenced (except DP which was a Jazz bass) were on his Rick, and not the Hof, I can still come pretty close to THAT sound on mine.

I will see if I can post a short tone demo later.

 

[mikecd1]

My pots were already 250k. What did yours come as?

I had no idea until I checked the pots on my CT Club that it was 500k. Found Alpha b250k linear taper pots in exactly the same size and recently swapped and tidied up the wiring in the process) Sounds greater than its greatness before) Warm, woody and wonderful.

 

[terr0rgasm]

Would love to hear a sound clip if you care to put one up

Just finally got around to posting a video demo!

 

[rockinrayduke]

Why would anyone believe that a guy who uses “long, shiny” bass strings has some kind of secret wiring on his bass? His bass sound can be duplicated by anyone with a Hofner or Rickenbacker bass, Pyramid strings and the same pickup setting. This so called theory is complete BS.

 

[HF1600ie]

I have always found the hofner switching so frustrating that I decided last night to rip out the wiring and wire it like my Bass VI, so that there is 1 Vol, 1 Tone, and the switches are Neck on/off. Bridge on/off, and bass cut switch for a thinner tone.

The wiring is MUCH simpler than the stock hofner wiring and I think everything sounds great now, Seems to be less muddy overall, and now the knobs and switches are intuitive.

That seems like a reasonable approach. Do you have any schematics from this ?

 

[sunbeast]

That seems like a reasonable approach. Do you have any schematics from this ?

I assume just as simple as this (obviously ignore the 3rd pickup, and the value of the Bass-cut cap is up to taste):
https://jbepickups.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Bass-VI-3.pdf

 

[HF1600ie]

I assume just as simple as this (obviously ignore the 3rd pickup, and the value of the Bass-cut cap is up to taste):
https://jbepickups.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Bass-VI-3.pdf

thanks!

 

[Samatza]

As far as I understand the solo switch reduces the volume of the neck pickup so as to reduce the boominess of both pickups on.

The other switches of course solo each pickup.

 

[HF1600ie]

Well, I can be wrong, but the solo switch seems to be a "voltage divider" formed by the 100K + 270K network where it send a part of the signal to ground or just let´s it fully go into the jack.

In reality, this seems to reduce the "boominess" of the tone making it less sharp and somehow less low-middy. I´d say ot becomes more acoustic and less powerful. That´s why I always use the Rhythm position in my orchestra.

But I need to work on the logic of the original schematic and the tone of the neck and bridge pickups.
In the end we know that the neck pickup is plenty of bass and some residual treble content. Cutting bass at the neck pickup will mostly mean less volume, because that´s all there is in there. But I still need to shape it by removing a bit of the very very deep lows.
And, at the bridge, I need to make is less bright essentially. I think it could be improved by letting all the bass in the bridge go unnafected and just removing a bit of the high frequencies.

 

[Stempelloos]

There's a guy named Kusleder Albert who posted this pic in the Hofner forum on facebook saying that he modified Paul's control panel on his bass and that is the "secret" of his sound. He stated that the mojo came from a PIO tone cap and resistor that normally gets grounded to the back of the neck volume control, but he detached the end of it instead of grounding to the volume pot. My Hofner does not have a tone cap attached to a resistor, but instead just a resistor going from the solo switch grounded to back of volume pot (see diagram). Hoping the experts here can explain what that mod might do. I'm thinking hum, but not based on any specific electronics knowledge except seeing an incomplete circuit. Here are the photos from the one said to be McCartney's and a diagram with stock Hofner photos. A .1uf PIO cap would darken the sound, but its well known Macca usually plays with the solo switch on and the bass pup only which is pretty dark already. The rest of his sound is his hands, the amp and Geoff Emerick in the studio I suppose.

View attachment 3662451 View attachment 3662452
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I've made this picture to show that there's a difference in tone caps on Höfner control panels. (Then it started to pop up in all kind of mumbo jumbo talk) It's not about modifications. I don't think mr McCartney plays on modified electronics either. And someone that doesn't want the control panel is better off getting an Epiphone viola bass or another violin type bass that is wired different, like an Eko for example. That saves you the hassle of modification.
(But I guess that's an American thing, if you compare it with cars, Europeans tend to keep them stock while Americans often start to change all kinds of things on them. it's a way to spend money, but you can wonder if there's serious improvement, or that that only happens between your ears, to justify the spending.)