Well, they did it too me, and I couldn't be happier. My band has gotten me to play bass (for the time being, since we have no drums). The keyboardist handed me a left-handed Rogue violin bass, commanding me: Take, and learn thee "All of My Love" by Led Zeppelin.
Well, after switching the strings around so they are not backwards, I've come to the conclusion that two-year old strings do not sound so good. As I've only played bass casually, and not on my own since I do not have one, I don't know exactly what strings I should get to replace them. Any suggestions? The kind of music we play is, you guessed it, Led Zep/Beatles/Stones/anything we can make sound somewhat interesting. But mostly a classic rock style. Any hints?
Also, is it just me, or is this style bass almost impossible to get intonated right? The bridge fell off when I changed the strings, so I'm just wiggling it around under the tuned strings to get it in the right spot, using my tuner. And yes, I did flip it around. Any help would be greatly appreciated! :D [/img]
If you don't know where you're going,
Any road will take you there
For those violin basses, you might have to get medium scale strings as opposed to short-scale. The original Hofners were 30" scale length I believe, and my Turser volin bass is 32" or so. I got short scale Rotosound flatwounds and they were just a tiny bit too short - some of the thread winding was down past the nut.
You might try Rotosound flatwounds to give it a good thumpy sound, but as far as the bridge - you could probably just do it like you have it - turning it until it's close. In order to really get it set right you'd have to not just flip the bridge around but actually have a mirror image type thing - a real righty bridge, because even if you rotate it, that 'stair step' pattern will be the same. It has to go the opposite way.
I don'td know about the Rogue, but on mine, the bridge actually has four little channels in the top of it that the little metal pieces (which look like fretwire and probably are) fit into. I guess it would be possible to pry those out and push them back in in reverse order but that might mess up the wood of the bridge.
Maybe just leave it and turn it like you did.
Also, when you get the new strings it'll be easier to intonate it closer; the old strings were already 'set' to the bridge as it was.
Hope this helps.
Thanks a lot! I can't wait to try those strings. I've heard good things about flatwounds, and now that I've got direction, I'll set right on it.
Yes, the Rogue has that kind of bridge too. I thought about getting the pliers out and getting the intonation dead on right then and there as I was switching everything around, but my friend bout had a cow seeing me try to pry the nut off. No harm was done (mostly) but she wasn't ready to let me perform surgery on her precious Paul-bass, as she calls it! :twisted:
I can get the top two strings sounding right, but I'm sure after I get new ones, it'll be easier.
Thanks again!
If you don't know where you're going,
Any road will take you there
