LeftyBassist.com

I'm taking my Hofner bass in today for a thorough check up and set up. It's a great bass, but I can't seem to set it up properly. I've also got some Rotosound black strings for short scale to put on it.

It's an HCT Hofner, an offshore model with incredible quality and sound. I first bought it as a toy; you know, to have another Beatle bass to close the circle on my Ric and Jazz (two other basses Macca used in The Beatmehards). Because the Hofner's reputation is mostly made of the first half of the Beatles' career and because of the limitations of sound quality on recordings from that time, I'd discounted the Hofner. Man was I wrong. It is a monster bass.

People love seeing Hofners because as much as they're commonplace subject matter for guitar fora, you don't see a great many of them out and about. And they're instantly recognizable as a Beatles instrument. Even non-musicians automatically connect it to The Beatles.

There are few guitars and basses out there that are almost solely known for one player. Think Ric 4001--a lot of people wouldn't connect it with The Beatles, still fewer with Yes and Rush, maybe even fewer with Yes, though among musicians, those are the first three we'd name. A lot of people see a Strat and think Jimi, but they might just as easily think of Clapton or Holly or John Mayer. Same with the Les Paul. Page? Frampton? Clapton? Joe Perry?

If your string are for a short scale, they may not work with the Hofner.
Because the string attach to a tailpiece, they may be too short. I have
found with mine, that I had to use medium scale strings to work with
this bass, even with it being a short scale.

Yep medium scale strings are the way to go with these. Or a set of LaBella Beatle Bass strings

Thanks. I just called the shop and asked the to use different strings. They don't have the black nylon. No prob. i'll see what they put on it. If I like them, I'll keep them. If not, I'll go for the LaBella's.

Yep, I learned this the hard way with my Hofner. One of the other big issues is the width of the strings at both ends, as the strings I bought for mine were too thick at the ball end to fit in the bridge. So go with the LaBellas as Matt suggested.