Hofner 500/1 Ignition Bass Upgraded. German Hofner Parts.  

@Gennady Golovkin That says a lot about Bob Ross. Quite an impact he's had.

@@johnstephen7610 very true

I must say, this was quite soothing

I like the Chinese bass because it will be a novelty for me and I don't need another expensive bass. It's nice that there is a cheaper one available to experiment with.

@@charlie2namon I have the red Club Ignition Bass arriving from Reverb . Are the electronics that bad that I need to replace pots ! Thanks

@@kazmaitalia8796 I'm still waiting for delivery, next Wed. 4-21-21. If it ain't broke don't fix it comes to mind. I have seen a video on RU-vid where a tech changes the pots on a Hofner to 500 ohms, I think. Not sure I heard a difference.

@@kazmaitalia8796 Yes I agree-I cant see how changing the pots would change the sound!

Thanks Pat. Its interesting to me because I have to edit the lengthy hours down to about 40 or so minutes which is long for youtube. Nice to know they are informative after all the editing. Hang in there and stay safe. Thanks again. EJ

Let me know what you need. When Mexicans have the materials- they make very high quality guitars. I have a Fender 1950's Road Worn 2010 Precision bass made in Mexico. The best bass I every owned!

Cool man try NZ where shipping is $50 and it takes 4 months :P

Does Mexico have an equivalent of Alibaba? You guys must have lots of manufacturing surplus.

Thanks Louis. Stay well! EJ

So how did you get on a year ago?

Always change the strings on a just bought instrument!

Good point. Thx! Ej

Came here to ask the same question, yes please!

There's a few good videos on that topic on YT, just look for 'wax potting pickups'. It is usually done on guitar pickups, and mostly for use on hi-gain / vastly overdriven tube amps, but it does have an effect in every case: it slightly warms up the pickup by taking out some harsher frequencies. It all depends on your amp too. The combination of good flatwounds (or even tapewounds) and a warm amp will nicely do the trick without potting.

@Arzola Sorry, cant tell you as the only flatwounds I'm familiar with are the LaBellas. E.J. could probably tell you as he has much more experience.

Why don’t they call them Beatles basses? It feels like everyone isn’t saying the obvious in calling them “Mersey basses”

Hey if you could’ve one tip to a young bassist, what would it be? You seem like an expert in the field so...

@@Bobobox95 If you want to make money playing bass, only learn enough slap to do an impressive solo.. Learn other types of music the way others do it these days. By tuning into recordings and playing along with it. Pay attention to getting the intonation right and the bass set up properly. When the bass is right in tune with the band the sound will get really strong. Play a little bit treble when learning and getting in tune, then fatten it up when doing gigs. Thrash it out with with some friends of your own skill level till you get the feel of the bass players role in the band. After you get past the novice stage play with some good musicians, they will make you a good bass player by giving you the chance to play some really smart stuff.

Charles Rablin Thank you so much I’ll use this sage advice 🙏

Changed to the German that is

Haha yes👍

Where did you get the bridge, as it's not supposed to fit an ignition?

Hi Pete, i usually order from north coast music for hofner parts. Google them. Regarding the zero fret I had to find a supplier on line but nobody I use regularly. Starting with the ignition you will learn alot. Have fun!

not much if any difference at all. Don't bother.

They make a world of difference and are more quicker on the sliding fret to fret.

Brian .C hi, wire the pickups just like the german pickups are wired. The control unit should have come with the input jack installed. Use the white ground wire from the ignition bass and solder it to the input jack ground. This white ground should be coming from the tail block inside the bass. Note....very carefully and slowly you may have to slightly reshape the unit to lay down properly. You are actually reshaping the metal plate behind the plastic control plate. Reshaping is very minor and you dont want to injure the electronics etc. Good luck...

Thanks so much for the reply. I should be getting the german reissued control panel in the mail in a few days. I’ll leave another reply to let you know how it went. Thanks again!!!

Update: so I got the control panel and got it all installed properly the first time... pretty easy to do. Prior to switching it I did multiple direct input recordings into my DAW (Logic pro X) in order to do an A/B comparison on tonal difference from the ignition control panel versus the german reissued control panel. Drum roll... to my ears they sound exactly the same. No difference in tone... but the german panel looks way better. I think perhaps the greatest tonal upgrade for the ignition bass is putting the beatle bass flat wound strings on it. Flat wound strings completely change the tone versus the stock round wound strings which to my ears sounds horrible.

Hi, imwould leave it off but….regarding improving the tone I suggest you watch my latest video where I upgraded an icon and delt with tone transfer. EJ

Why didn’t you just buy a genuine (German) Höfner?

Joe Sasser too expensive

Hi, I used the zero glide kit ZS-18. In the kit there are various frets to pick from. You need to use the highest one. The zero fret needs to be slightly taller that the rest of the frets. Watch my latest video to explain this. You can swop them out and try the various frets. Once you find the right one then drop two small drops of ca glue on the fret and drop it in it position. I know it will fit but it does take some fitting and shaping. I suggest that you pickup the german control and put it in the hct. That will be a noticable difference for that bass. Then use the hct control in the ignition. German and hct controls are a noticable tone difference. There is some fitting needed to put it in the ignition. Remove the knobs and then loosen the two volume nuts so there is a little movement on the plastic plate. Drop it into the ignition slot and see what is needed. The control unit can be slighly tweaked or curved to contour to the body. Some wood shaving might be needed. The hct or german plate will cover the four holes already in the bass. The trick is getting very thin screws (much thinner that what was use) and predrill the new holes in the limited area in the wood. The area for the new screws and hole is very slim so be careful. Again check out my latest video where I did this to a cavern ignition bass. EJ

@@BackbeatVintage Thank EJ! I just opened up my Ignition and HCT and some shocking surprise. My Ignition control is NOT a printed circuit board as in your video. It is 2pots directly wired to the 3 switches. My HCT control is same. There is no way the HCT plate (or German presumably) will fit my Ignition. While it might cover lengthwise, plate is 4” and center to center of screw holes is 4” BUT the width of Ignition hole is near 1 3/8 inches while HCT plate is only 1-1/4” at best! A full 1/8” too narrow! I’d love to send you pics to verify but my Ignition definitely does not have circuit board control panel and HCT plate will not cover the hole. I’ll be curious to see how my Cavern Ignition compares to my 500/1 Ignition when it arrives on Monday or Tuesday.

As a follow up - I pulled out a spare Ignition control I just purchased last week. It IS th circuit board wiring and it IS the same size as my CT set. Something is definitely different about my Ignition!

Hi, the one I did it fit and covered the opening. You may have to slightly reshape it to fit the contour of the body. The top plastic plates come off so you might consider modifing the openings in the ignition plate to be used on the german unit.

Thats a tough one. I dont think I would paint them. Might be better if you change out the control plate with one with white switches. Sorry! Good luck! Ej

Use the hct one with the copy on it but get some 1500 grit emery paper and sand it off. Once off use 2000 grit paper and then use some guitar buffing polish to shine it back up. Stewmac.com has the paper and polish. Thx!

I use zero glide ZS-18. Which fret I use from the options they send depends on the height of the frets on the bass. Always want it to be higher than the existing frets.

Hi, they were labella deep talkn flat wounds.

Im not really sure. I know the epi pickups are extremely heavy. It would lighten it up a bit.I would go for the hct hofner pickups. They are the same as the german ones.

@@BackbeatVintage Thank you for your reply and wisdom, appreciate it! 👍

Hi, thanks for mentioning that. Its not there in my finished videos but seems to appear after uploading to youtube. Im not sure why that is. May be due to youtube compressing the file..???

I would google zero glide ZS-18 and see what you can find. I dont know if this would work with that bass. Hopefully it will. Good luck. Thx.

Hi, i used the same pu wire coming out of each pu’s. Use a german 63,64 schematic and attach them accordingly. Thx!

Hi Scott. The only sanding you need to do is to fit the bottom curve of the bridge to the curve of the body where it sits. You do that by taping the mild grit sand paper on the body face up and slowly rubbing the bridge back and forth in the direction of the neck and back towards the tail of the bass. Try googling how to sand and fit a bridge on an archtop guitar. Regarding string spacing, just slide the small pieces of the fret wire used on the bridge to the same spacing as the original one on your guitar now. If one of the outer fret wires wants to slide back simply put a tiny drop of clear ca glue next to it so it seeps down int the groove to stop it from sliding. String height on mine was fine adjusted all the way down. Good luck and enjoy.

@@BackbeatVintage Thanks so much for your quick response! Yes, I know how to sand the bottom of the bridge to fit the body. I had to do it with the crappy wooden bridge that came on the bass as it was not well done. I'm not quite the luthier you are but I do like to work on my guitars. In fact, one of the reasons I bought the Ignition Club Bass was to practise some of these modifications. I've already leveled and crowned the frets (done that many times), it was rather bad from the factory, a slight hump at the neck joint. I'll be replacing the nut with a mammoth blank for the time being. Fitting the Zero-Glide looks tricky. Oh, and of course, I changed the strings to LaBella, but black tapewounds. Meanwhile, I'll be watching your videos for more ideas. Thanks again!

I can buy an Ignition model, made in China for £295 ( sounds not typical but has roundwound strings) or a Hofner 500/1 made in Germany for £1795. Q: Should I buy the Ignition and change the strings to flatwound or buy the more expensive bass with the sound I already want.

Thanks!

Hi, im not sure what sticker you are referring to.

Hi, used a 1000 grit paper and then buffed it back up again. Over on my instagram site I did a short reel on how to do that.

@@BackbeatVintage Mahalo! You have really saved us all a lot of time and grief trying to figure all this stuff out - not the truss cover specifically, but for all of this modding/upgrading (and probably making some grievous errors in the process).

Bob Roman hi bob, i did a video on upgrading the hct contemporary bass. Check it out on my channel.

Excellent work!

Could you please post a link and part number for the "zero-nut" kit part used on your bass.

I used the ZS-18 Slotted for Basses | Zero Glide Replacement Nut. goldtonemusicgroup.com/zeroglide/products/zs-18

Have you tried stewmac?

Hi Steve, i havent done a lefty but you could do it im sure. I wish i could but right now i am committed to a bunch of projects. Let me know how it goes. The ebony bridge is an easy swop. Try northcoastmusic.com for that.

Brendan Thomas Cassidy, J.D. hi, i usually order from north coast music. Voxshowroon.com

@@BackbeatVintage it appears that site cannot be reached!

Not voxshowrooN.com. Try www.voxshowroom.com/northcoast/

Hi, there are very few parts (if any) from the german made hofner bass or the hct hofner that can be interchanged with the ignition bass. Maybe the bridge and the tail piece at most. You would be best to use the truss cover that came with that bass. If there is any writing or logo on the truss cover sand it off with 1500 grit emery paper and then repolish it. Best to you and thanks! EJ

Thanks so much for your quick response; I'll definitely try that. Keep up the great work!

farragoth hi, anything is possible but the ignition pickups are smaller than those pickups. I found nothing wrong with the stock pickups. If u do have a problem with feedback or squealing then pot them in wax. Be careful if u do..also the mounts on the german pu are much larger. If u r referring to the no mount pu like a 63,64 hofner u might have to do some alterations. I havent done that so im not totally sure. Thx!

Hello may i ask where did you Buy it ? Thanks

@@2000MGL Yes, of course. I bought it second hand from a guy how found out it didn't work too good for hard-core metal... 😉 It's 8 years old, already but in good shape.

Google north coast music. They have most of the parts. Thx. EJ

Hi, i believe I changed it out for the german or hct version. Check out the second part video. Thanks! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-J9HckzVtAVE.html