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The track is continuous with the earth for the jack (the designated solder point). It's also connected to the third legs of the volume control pots. The unused pads are in the right place such that there is no need to use heat shrink tube. If this was an electronics kit , those pads would be correct solder point for the pickup earths.Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Ok. to clarify the bridge question, here's a couple of pics of the bridge (since Simon said he hadn't seen a close up)
I soldered up the pickups. Electronicaly speaking, this is probably the simplest of all the kits. I discovered the bare earth wires were longer than I realised. I couldn't find the heat shrink tube I knew I had (Still unboxing after moving and like the bag of bits that came with this kit, nothing was labelled).
I was able to find some thin spaghetti tube to sheath the bare wire with. Just for good measure, at the junction where the signal and earth come out of main insulation, I put on a dab of "liquid" electrical tape. Between the tracks for the earth all being a single track and the signals conveniently marked on the PCB as IN1 and IN2 (but you realy have to squint to read that), it's pretty hard to go wrong, at least from my perspective.
I'm expecting the machine heads to come in on Friday, and the other stuff I have been waiting on today. I went through all 87 "pages" of thread titles to track down other builds of the HB-4 and 4S and found 9. BassGuy must have done a second, undocumented build, since the one he used in the sound demo was not the "Golum" build :P.
Nearly every wiring diagram for the other kits has the bridge earthed. Obviously you can't earth a timber bridge, tommycng did earth his to the tail. Whilst there is no other earth in the wiring diagram, before I button everything up, do you reckon earthing to the tail is a good idea anyway?
Absolutely! Odd that it's in none of the diagrams.
If they originally came with those black plastic-coated flat-wound strings as standard, then there wouldn't have been much point in grounding the ends of them as the strings themselves would be insulated. But it’s worth doing if you are using standard round- or flat-wounds.
Simon: The kit comes with a set of round wounds as standard, I believe your mate Sir Paul likes flats, but I've actually gone the route you intimated, tape wounds! I'm realy curious to see if they produce that upright tone on an electric that everyone claims. That and I couldn't find short scale coated flats. On my current bass I use a mix of DR red devils and black beauties. Very happy with those, but I don't think they are a good fit with a violin bass. The whole point is to have a bass that has it's own character and voice. Since it's no drama in earthing the tail anyways, and Fender3x seems to be hinting that it may be an idea, I guess I'll do that.. Even though the tape wounds may fit the colour scheme, it could turn out to be an expensive flop, and then I try out a set of flats, with the system earthed ready for them. Thank you both for your advice.
Aaaand, we're done. It sounds ok. There is a bit of hum when you fiddle with the volume controls, but not much, and it settles down. There is also some hum when the switch is set to the solo position. The "bass" and "treble" switches seem to be more "bridge" and "neck" since when only the treble switch is on, it only responds to the volume control of the neck pickup and visa versa. You may also notice the bridge is at a slight angle. Getting the intonation right was a real pain. When you got it correct for one string, it was slightly off on other strings. I had to fiddle with it to get it "mostly right"
Even though it is clearly not a Hoffner, I've decided to name it "The Hoff"
My guess is that the setting that the solo position drops the cap out of the circuit. When the cap is engaged, it's filtering out some of the high frequencies where most of the hum is. Not sure why else it would do that.
The "bass" switch *should* turn the neck pickup on/off, and the treble switch should turn the bridge pickup on/off. A little odd, but what isn't a little odd in a Hofner?
Looks great!
You can get a pretty nasty hum if the strings are not grounded. On steel covered strings a lot of the hum will go away once you touch the strings, which means your body is acting as the ground.
I didn't know that the originals came with tape wounds, but I would think that would be an even better reason to ground the tailpiece. The string core is still ferrous. I have a set of D'Addario tape wounds on an ES bass with a tailpiece. The "ball" on the bass end is colored metal which is conductive. The metal string core wraps around the ball, so a grounded tailpiece will ground the string, even if tape wound. The wrap is also pretty loose on the G string, so I am pretty sure it would ground at the bridge as well.
As to sound, YMMV, but I would not count on them sounding like an upright. I had a set of Fender tape-wounds that sounded a LOT like a fresh set of round wounds on my Frankenbass. You could play slap with them. The D'Addarios are far less lively, but still don't sound that much like an upright to my ear. Flat wounds sound more like an upright to me...and it's what my old upright actually had ;-)
BTW if you do get tapewounds, I'd stay away from the Fenders. Only bass string I have had in years that broke on me. I don't think I got more than a few months out of them.
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I don't think tape wounds existed when the Hoffners came out. The kit comes with standard round wounds. I thought I'd try tape wounds for something different, but I believe flats are the preferred strings. I have a set of Pyramid short scale strings on there. They are a very heavy gauge.. they don't give you a choice.. 55, 75, 95, 112 hehe... I normally go for 45, 65, 85, 105
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