I bought an Epiphone Viola bass some while back partly because it looked like the Hofner and its obvious Beatles associations, but also because it was light. I tried one in a shop and as it was also a lot cheaper than the Hofner, which was a major consideration at that time, I went for it.
I've not compared it tonally with a the Hofner (they didn't have any) so can't say if they sound the same (maybe someone here will have made such comparisons?) but I liked its light weight and despite it having a tendency therefore to be a bit neck heavy, thought it sounded pretty good, albeit without some of the sustain that a solid body bass naturally has. I know they added a wood block into the body design later trying to remedy the sustain issue.
My personal view was that it was essentially a one-trick pony - it had the traditional punchy dub-dub thump associated with many of the earlier Beatles tracks but I felt that was pretty much it, tonally speaking. I tried to reproduce some of the sounds featured in later Beatles tracks, only to discover most of the ones I really liked had in fact been produced with Paul's Rickenbacker bass
, which was rather frustrating. That alone wouldn't have made me sell it, but I did feel a Fender bass of some sort would be more appropriate for Shadows tunes and I was having difficulty trying to reproduce those tones with the Epi.
I subsequently sold it on and then bought a Burns that came up for grabs but couldn't cope with its awesome weight and size - I'm not very tall and folk commented the bass looked like it was wearing me rather than the other way around
. I was suffering with neck and backache playing standing up and although I loved its tones it had to go.
I currently play a Fender Jazz bass but I still occasionally look to see if any Hofners are up for sale at an attractive price.
What do they say about the grass is always greener . . . .
Regards,
Martyn