Understand while I am no @Al1885, I probably have 15-20 basses. I don’t count, I don’t want to know. But one thing I don’t have is a beatle bass.
So I had a small GAS urge, and put one on order. It isn’t supposed to be here until 2027 so I felt safe. I had it on order with Bass Central, whom I highly recommend.
A Lakland Skyline HB 30, a short scale beatle-ish bass which is hollow body, but instead of thin pieces of wood, it’s carved, and thick enough to have a normal bridge. And a rear cover to access the electronics instead of going through the F hole like so many hollow and semi hollow bodies.
So I was fat dumb and happy waiting on it. I have my Sandberg, in no rush.
So I got a call from Bass Central yesterday. They told me they talked to the owner of Lakland last week (Lakland only has about a dozen employees), and the HB 30s were going to be delayed. And due to global supply chain woes, may not come again.
Oof.
But he had one in stock, but not in sunburst but in black.
I was like but I like black better, and it wasn’t in your inventory online. So instead of suffering nobly until 2027, I have a black bass on a truck heading my way now.
My bass rotation will soon be the HB30 (plek’d), Sandberg Florence (also pleck’d), Offbeat, and my Custom Wombat model
put Labella HBB flats (assuming this is same scale as Hofners). That’s what’s on my Hofner. They are the bomb. Don’t fall for Pyramid, I dislike them al lot.
I use 40-95 (Ernie Ball) flats on all my standard scale basses, a Rickenbacker, P-bass, SDR-900, after many trails (expensive as flats are not cheap) I found I was happiest with the feel of that set of gauges. Don’t know what they would be like on a 30" scale, but on 34" they feel more like round wounds to me. I found 45-100 and 45-105 to be like solid steel girders under my fingers.
I would be interested to hear your views on LaBella strings as I have not tried those yet.
It’s vastly depends on what you tone you are after. I’m not a big flats fan but I love my TI Jazz Flats and lately the Ernie Ball 2801 group 2. It definitely stands out in the mix with the Joe Dart string set.
