MusicRadar

As part of Bass Week on MusicRadar, we kicked off a series of profiles of some of the most iconic instruments ever to grace stages and recording studios across the globe. And what better bass to begin with than the four-string that a certain moptopped Liverpudlian used to take the world by storm in the early 1960s...

Hofner 500/1 Violin Bass

PRODUCED: 1956 – current

ORIGIN: Germany

TYPE: Hollow violin-shaped body, 4-string

BODY: Spruce top, flamed maple back & sides, fully bound

NECK: Maple, glued-in neck, 22 fine frets plus zero fret

SCALE LENGTH: 762mm (30-inch)

FINGERBOARD: Rosewood, white dot inlays

HARDWARE: Chrome trapeze tailpiece, rectangular pearloid control plate and matching scratchplate (often removed), rosewood bridge has slots in the top to take four small lengths of fret wire to act as crude string saddles, small guitar-sized open gear tuners

PICKUPS: Two Hofner ‘staple’ units on this 1962 version

CONTROLS: Two volume controls and three slide switches

FEATURES: The rosewood bridge has slots in the top to take four small lengths of fretwire to act as crude string saddles, although the body and headstock are bound the fingerboard is not

FINISHES: Brown Sunburst

COMMENTS: By the time that Paul McCartney popularised the Violin Bass it had already undergone several changes. By 1961 most notably the oval control plate was replaced by a rectangular one, extra switches were added and the smooth black single coil pickups were replaced by the staple ones we see here.

Initially these two new pickups were placed close together towards the neck but by spreading them apart as here. At the outset there were 20 frets, then 21, but when it reached 22 the bass finally came of age and has remained in production ever since. Along the way it’s been called the Beatle Bass and the Cavern Bass, had gold fittings, ebony fingerboard and even active circuitry but that’s just gilding the lily in our opinion. Classic is best.

Hear it here: The Beatles - I Saw Her Standing There