mod garage

Unlike the interior of your first car, the vinyl on this 172 still looks sharp.

Photo courtesy of L’instrumenterie, Baptiste Zermati, Villeurbanne, France (https://linstrumenterie.com)

Dig into the weird wiring of the Hofner Beatle Bass and 172 guitar.

Hello and welcome back to Mod Garage! In this column, we will have a look at the famous HA2B control-panel wiring from the German Höfner company (often written as “Hofner” without the German umlaut). The control plate became famous on the Höfner violin bass—the model 500/1 that was released in 1956 and is often referred to as the “Beatle Bass” because of Paul McCartney.

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Fig. 1

illustration courtesy of SINGLECOIL (www.singlecoil.com)

This guitar wiring is special in that the two tone controls are freely assigned, and the tone control is bypassed in the two in-between positions. Let’s go under the hood.

Hello and welcome back to Mod Garage. This month, we’ll have a look at the Scott Henderson Strat-style wiring and what it means to bypass the tone control for certain pickup-switching positions.

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Courtesy of SINGLECOIL (www.singlecoil.com)

Fig. 1

Let’s go under the hood of these legendary rockabilly machines and explore different ways to enhance a passive guitar system.

Welcome back to Mod Garage. Before we start, some good news! After finishing the relic’ing series, I was able to raise $650 from our Harley Benton guinea-pig guitar in an auction. The money went to our local animal shelter for cats and dogs, to help pay some vet bills.

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