Hofner Verythin Contemporary

Nice features relative to other semi hollowbodies: Mainly the light weight. I have two Gibson 335s and two Hofner VT CTs. I don't like to stand up playing the 335s, they're so heavy. The neck does seem to be slightly asymmetrical like the German Verythin, but more subtle. The nice fret detail is a huge feature relative to other Asian guitars I have owned.

These guitars sound great! The pickups are great! I figured on changing them - and I probably will still put a set of Seth Lovers in one of my VT CTs. But I'll leave the stock pickups in the other. They are really wonderfully detailed, jazzy pickups. There are lots of good tones in the neck & bridge toggle position with either pickup rolled off slightly. The bridge pickup has a nasal, honky tone, similar to the 335's. Either soloed pickup sounds good with distortion. I'm more into clean tones.

I got both of my VT CTs used, so I can't comment on the factory setup. They both play great. They both are capable of great action. Both feel exactly the same. They don't feel the least bit "cheap." The one thing that concerns me - and it's the same with both of them - is that I have the bridge height adjusted almost as low as it will go on the high E side. The action's fine like that, but the limiting factor for lowering the action further is the the bridge, not the neck.

Given how light the body is, I would have thought these would turn out to be neck-heavy. But both of these are very well-balanced. The overall girth of the neck is nearly the same as both of my 335s, which is just right for me.

I have owned a lot of guitars, including a few from Asia. Frankly, I have yet to have any problems with the tuners. In fact, in 35+ years and over 60 guitars, the only problem I have ever had was with a Grover on a new 1974 Guild D-25. These tuners work just as well as the tuners on my Gibsons, Hamer, or the German-made Verythin Classic I just sold. The pots are another story - These work fine now, but they will eventually start to crackle, based on past experience.

These two VT CTs are the best made Asian guitars I have owned, apart from the Japanese.

It's a solidly made as any semi hollow body I have owned.

No idea.

I have been playing guitar for 44 years. I have owned a lot of high end guitars as well as a few less expensicve Asian models. The "wow" factor was huge when I first played the VT CT. I hadn't expected it to be quite so good. It is one of the best values in electric guitars I have ever encountered. I have two now and plan to get a third as soon as I see one in natural for a good used price. At present I also have two Gibson ES 335s, a Hamer Monaco Superpro, two Musicman Axises, a Vantage 335-type, an Eastwood 12-string, a couple of Mossman acoustics, and a couple of 5-string basses. I just sold a Hofner Verythin Classic, recently sold another Monaco Superpro and a G&L S-500.

The only negative thing I can say about these is that the pickguard with its numerous points is kind of too busy for the guitar. I think most everyone will remove this pickguard, though. The strings are nice and close to the body, so you really don't need the pickguard as a finger rest. That's pretty much the only reason I keep the pick guards on my 335s.

This is guitar is probably the best buy in 335-type semi-hollows you can get. Made in Germany with German quality control. It sounds somewhere between a Les Paul and a 335.

Yesterday, I saw Peter Green live at a sold-out club gig with 350 people in Dortmund/Germany. For me and many others, he is a guitar god with a magic guitar tone (think of ???Albatross???, ???The Green Manalishi???, ???Oh well???, ???Black Magic Woman??? which he wrote ??? not Carlos!, ???I loved another woman??? and others).

Green played with four other great musicians from Britain and he was really superb! May I remind you that he is the founder of Fleetwood Mac? His sound is as it always was: clean, fat, and when he plays three notes, I get shivers down my spine. He is a musical guitarist, not a technician like most of the modern players. And only two guitarist in the world seem to have his tone: he himself and B.B. King.

Now guess what guitar he played yesterday? Right, a cheap Hofner Verythin in natural color, equipped with the factory humbuckers. These are original Schallers, made in Germany, as Mr. Dieter Fischer, the former head of guitar production at Hofner???s, told me on the Frankfurt Music Messe in 2007. Effects? Yes, one Digitec Digi-Delay, plus a Boss tuner TU-1. He used a small Fender combo in a plastic housing with rounded edges that I have never seen before, obviously with a 15???-speaker. And there it was: The magic of Peter Green???s tone. He played the usual 100 minutes, and he never played any wrong note. He is as good as he ever was! I stood right in front of him at the edge of the stage, just 2 meters away.

He had raised the pole-piece for the thin E-string on the neck humbucker to get a bit more highs there. But that???s the only ???change??? he made to the Verythin. The sound was at least as good as any Les Paul I have heard before, but with slightly more clearness and definition. Don???t forget that Peter gave away his late 1950???s Les Paul to Gary Moore who sold for (rumour has it) around 250.000 $! And this guitarist ??? who knows how a good guitar sounds ??? plays the factory Hofner Verythin!

Everything else is voodoo, I???m absolutely sure about that now. Very many real good musicians (probably without endorsement deals) play cheap, but solid stuff. Just last week, I saw the Spencer Davis Group at the same club, the Piano Theater in Dortmund (with Spencer himself, plus Eddy Hardin on keys, Colin Hodgkinson on bass, Miller Anderson on guitar and Steff Porzel, a great drummer from Bavaria). Spencer played a Squier Strat over a Vox AC-30 and sounded just as good as Anderson with his Music-Man axe.

Verythin CT 2007, made in China, can't be sure that the pickups are german ( they are on the Club CT.. diamond H??fner mini-humbuckers as on original Verythins)
Full scale, 22 frets
laminated spruce, Gibson'esque controls
Maple neck, transparent red finish
335/gretch country gent style body, tune-o-matic bridge, cheap tuners (can't find name, likely generic crap)
plastic nut
Rosewood fretboard, 8 rating because this guitar is very well made, but for it to be outstanding, it would need almost all new hardware most especially the tuners and pots

I own a rickenbacker 330, H??fner Club CT and this verythin... the verythin is great, and I am trying to fall as much in love with my rick as with this.. I play bluesy rock rythm guitar while singing.. It has a fantasticly deep bass neck pickup, and a punchy attack bridge pup, because the pots are cheap, I can't zero in so well on a middle position of any significance, so it's one or the other on full settings.. this guitar played on a tube amp sounds great, as the other review here states; it growls! Center sustain block, so no feedback (a little would be nice sometimes) Very good for blues, jazz, and rock,
the pickups sound quite good, but changing them to something else will do wonders
I am going to change the pups to some TV jones Classics to basically turn this into a gretch, and I am very confident that this will work very well.

Playable from shop, but very unsuitable, the shop set it up for free, so fine.. then very comfortable.. the woodwork is tip-top, the neck is my favorite of any guitar (much smoother than a present day gibson 335) Indeed fair fretwork, no complaints, real pearloid dots and headstock decoration.. classy. Lovely binding and great finish. I like the looks of this better than the 335 due to the softer venetian cutaway. No real visible flaws.

This is where I COMPLAIN... The tuners are horrible.. it stays in tune about as well as a drunk can walk a straight line.. I don't see why h??fner wouldn't take another 100 dollars for this spade and give it some high quality mini-schallers.. everyone would be happier. The nut is cheap plastic and poorly cut.. almost impossible to hold the G string in tune, especially when bending. Not sure about the bridge.. intonation settings on tune-o-matic are easy enough..
Hollow-bodies require a bit of care, but this seems otherwise very solid.. the woodwork is just as good as a high end guitar.. H??fner supervises building, and this is where they stay keen, and why it's more expensive than a epi dot 335. I have played many gigs with this (haveing backup ready).

Haven't dealt with hofner,but the shop does free work on guitars sold (basic stuff)... I wish that hofner's website was a bit more interactive.. I would like to give them some suggestions.

I recommend this guitar to anyone who wants a semi-hollow, and drools over the gibson 335 (or 339), and gretch's double cut-away models. If you spend 400??? on this guitar and throw another 250??? into upgrades, you get a marvelous piece of work that is just as good as a custom shop 335 for half the price.. throw a bigby b7 on and it's a first class hot rod..leave it as is and it is mediocre.. I has a great acoustic sound and enough stage-cool to turn heads. I love it and can't wait to change out the cheap parts... would buy again

Hofner Verythin Standard - CT (Contemporary Series)

2007, made in China, 22 frets, rosewood fretboard, very thin (as the name would imply) semi-hollow electric with two humbuckers (your basic 335 style guitar), two volume knobs, two tone knobs and a 3-way switch.

Mine is a two-tone tobacco sunburst with gorgeous flamed maple (?) top, binding around the edges, and a really pretty mother-of-pearl inlay on the headstock. For a relatively inexpensive guitar, it's major eye-candy.

I usually play a Tele with a maple neck, so this is a very different beast. Certainly darker tonally, and louder. Gets a nice crunch with the stock pups. I'm considering replacing them with something like the Fralin PAFs. But the stocks sound pretty nice to me (remember, I'm a single coil guy for the most part). I'm playing it through my Fender Deluxe Reissue -- mine has a Weber California speaker, which is really clean for my Tele, but there's some nice upper-mid bite that the Hofner gets without pedals. Sounds really nice and crunchy through a Boss Blues Driver.

Action straight off the shelf was very nice. Really sold the guitar just picking up and playing it. No issues with hardware (at least not yet). Bookmatching on the finish isn't perfect, but the guitar is so pretty that it hardly matters.

I had issues at first with the guitar staying in tune, especially the G string. But I believe that this has to do with the guitar "settling". After playing it a few hours at one go, the tuning issue appears to have gone away. Finish seems durable enough, but I'm a major sweat-er, so we'll have to see on that.

No idea about the warranty or anything on this guitar.

I'd been wanting a 335 style guitar for the last twenty years or so, and I'm happy that this is the one I settled on. I was thinking about the Epiphone, but the Hofner seems to be a much better guitar and a much better value. Certainly blows it a way in the looks department, and has better pickups. One of those fun guitars that almost plays itself once it gets going.

2008 Chinese-built guitar. Flamed maple top and back (laminated, of course), maple sides with SPRUCE center block. Maple set-neck, bound rosewood fretboard, 25.5" scale. Beautiful trans-red finish -- not sure what, but looks like nitro (the manual says it's prone to checking, but they might be speaking of their higher end guitars). Two-ply binding (cream with thin black) on both front and back.

Bound headstock with inlaid logo and graphic. Nice touch there. There's a volute on the neck, small enough to stay out of the way, but enough to strengthen the neck. The neck itself is one piece-- no scarf joint (I hate scarf joints), instead the headstock is two pieces jointed at about the line of the E tuners.

Double-cut body with smaller, rounder shoulders than an ES-335. Nicer looking. Nice wide body --great for sitting, since it keeps the back straighter, great for standing, with plenty of support for the arm while bracing well against the thigh.

Tuneamatic-style bridge and tailpiece. Not a huge fan of those, but the saddles adjust smoothly, the height adjusters too. I don't trust metal saddles (string breaker here), so I'll eventually change those. Very slight neck angle.

Two humbuckers, volumes work independently, the pots on mine work fine, nice range of sounds. On the other hand, the tone knobs don't do much (but I leave them open anyway). The jack is mounted on the side, but high enough toward the strap peg that it doesn't get in the way at all while sitting (a big problem with a lot of sidejack guitars).

Tuners were a generic sealed chromed vintage-style button type. Pretty smooth, perfectly adequate for home or studio use. I only trust locking tuners for live playing though, so I changed the tuners straight off. When will companies start installing those as stock? I'd also prefer straplock buttons as stock.

I needed a semi-hollow humbucker-based guitar for the current band-- we're a drum-guitar duo, the guitar sound ranges pretty widely from Suicide-type riffs to ultra-fuzzed out acid guitar to feedback-driven noise to clean funk sounds. This guitar lets me hit all of those.

The highs seem to be lacking a bit, but I'm used to playing single-coils. I'll probably add an EQ to my pedalboard for the funkier songs. On the other hand, this guitar simply GROWLS through the mids and booms out on the lows -- the lows could be a bit tighter, but I haven't adjusted the pickups yet, that might help.

It took me only a few minutes to find the sweet spot on my amp (Vox AC15) with this guitar -- super-thick, rich sound, very easy to nuance, nice separation of the notes, very beautiful bloom on the chords. A big part of the sound comes from the longer scale length -- 25.5", which I feel gives a better definition to the sound. More comfortable for me to play too.

Feedback is very important to me -- it's a bit difficult to get decent feedback straight into the amp --I don't crank the amp too wide open though (sound guys really hate that) and I keep the top boost (preamp) at around 1 o'clock too. But the pedals help a lot there -- I alternate between a Tubescreamer and a fuzz -- the latter produces a sustained feedback more quickly, the Tubescreamer generates more of an end of note/chord feedback. But feedback remains musical with both -- no microphonics.

Pickups are very quiet and I see no reason at all to change them. And I'm a big fan of building/modifying guitars. But with all the care and attention Hofner specified for this guitar, it would make no sense for them to cheap out on the pickups.

Bridge pickup has a nice midrangey feel to it -- the highs don't shimmer as much as I like, but the sound is very rich for a bridge pickup. Neck pickup has a great deep growl to it -- since we play without a bass player, that helps to fill in the sound a lot. Middle position sounds pretty good too, I like it with the bridge on the full, the neck rolled off to about 6.

Most important though, this guitar really hits the sound I was looking for with the band, especially since there's just the two of us, the sound of the guitar is all that much more important -- we actually played better because of the guitar. For that, it gets high rating.

As I mentioned, I build, modify, setup and repair guitars as a hobby, so I have an idea about what goes into building a guitar.

Finish: This guitar is gorgeous. The flamed maple has been bookmatched on both top and back. Mine's a beautiful transparent red --much lighter than the cherry red you'd find on a Gibson. Beautiful guitar. I was tempted by the natural maple version too, which looks pretty nice too.

I really can't find any flaws in it -- a couple of minor bobbles in the binding, but you really have to look hard for that. The sides of the f-holes are painted black, there was a bit of dried paint hanging off of that --to give you an indication of how hard I have to look to find problems with the guitar.

Frets are perfectly dressed, nicely crowned and leveled, and even appeared to have been polished. The binding helps of course. Rosewood fretboard has a nice deep, even color to it, almost as dark as ebony. I prefer the feel of rosewood, personally. Dot markers are mother-of-pearl, not the grayish plastic you get on low-end guitars.

Fit:
I bought the guitar online, so I had no idea of how the neck would feel, but to my relief, it's a great fit in my hand. Fairly wide fretboard -- 43.5 mm at the nut. Profile is more of a shallow C-shape -about 21 mm at the nut. Really nice feel to the guitar, string spacing makes it quite easy to play both electric styles and acoustic styles.

I'm not sure I like the placement of the strap button --right behind the neck --although I suppose you can have that on the horn on a guitar like this. Strap doesn't get in the way though, and I'm not a solo player anyway, so it's not an issue for me.

Oh yeah, very important: this guitar is very lightweight! Easily weighs half what my self-built tele/strat frankenstein weighs--even with a pretty massive chambering job. The nice thin body makes it much more comfortable to play than a normal semi. And I already mentioned the advantages of the wide body.

The lightweight comes at a slight cost--the neck is very slightly neck heavy. Not enough to make it uncomfortable though. And partly the fault of the locking tuners I put on there, which are heavier -- I'll be changing the buttons to plastic vintage style, and that will fix the neck heaviness.

As for the action...anytime you buy a new guitar, you have to expect the guitar will need a full setup. They leave the factory with generic setups--enough to be slightly playable, that's all. If I bought in a store, I'd expect the store to spend time setting the guitar up. But I bought online.

So as delivered, the setup was pretty much bleh. Not horrible, but not the way I like it. Nut action was sharp, intonation was off, not enough relief, and the bridge action was way too high. But since I changed the tuners right off, I also changed to my preferred strings (.10 -.46s, although eventually the guitar will move to .11s).

The stock strings were probably .09s. The new set of strings by themselves solved most of the nut action problems --they're still very slightly high (i.e., the third fret goes sharp on some of the strings), but not enough to fuss about just yet. Wait until it moves up to .11s. The heavier guage of the new strings also nudged the neck into a better relief -- so now I was able to adjust the action, without being required to adjust the truss rod. I'm able to get the action pretty low -- I'm a heavy player, so I don't like them too low anyway. There's a very slight buzz on the lower strings at the 3rd fret, but the buzz doesn't come through the amp. A truss rod adjustment will fix that. As I mentioned, I haven't adjusted the pickup heights yet, since the sound is pretty close to what I like.

I had to open up the nut slot for the new D string -- took a bit of the cutoff string and ran it through the slot a bit, with some graphite. That took care of it for the most part. I'll perform a full setup of the nut later on.

So this rating is NOT for the setup, on

The guitar arrived on Saturday and I had a gig to play the next day -- so I changed the tuners immediately to locking tuners and changed the strings. The big question for me is: will the guitar stay in tune long enough to get through a set? I hate to tune in between songs, there's just too much going on. I'll only tune up if there's a big problem, but then, if a guitar gives me that kind of problem, I won't bring it onstage.

Still, the guitar was brand new, I had no idea what I was bringing up there. To make matters worse, it was an afternoon outdoor gig-- in full sunlight. And to my relief, the guitar did just great. I believe the maple neck helps there -- I feel that mahogany necks are more sensitive to temperature/humidity variations.

A minor niggle: I kept knocking the pickup switch into the wrong position -- but then, I wasn't used to the configuration.

I'll eventually replace the strap buttons with straplocks, but I have locking washers anyway -- never go onstage without something to lock your strap!

I'll always bring a backup, mostly in the event I break a string. But this is definitely going to become my main guitar.

Hofner doesn't seem to be all that active on their web site, so I'm not looking to them for any kind of support. I rarely have problems with my guitars that either I didn't cause or can't fix myself.

I've been playing long enough to know what I like -- you have to make up your own mind. I have other guitars-- I used to like Gibson-scale guitars, but a couple of years ago realized that I actually prefer the longer Fender scale. This guitar gives me that longer scale with the ES-335 style/sound.

I waited a long time to get the guitar -- when I first saw it, it wasn't yet available, so I bought a different semi that I never really liked. Sold that one a while back and went back to solidbodies. But I really needed a semi...and this one was finally available. I'm really pleased I bought it, and I'm certain it's going to make a major difference in the band's sound and in how I play --which is probably the most important criteria for a guitar.

And I'm really impressed by the build quality on this guitar -- it really feels like a high-end guitar. Either the Chinese have made dramatic improvements in their guitar-building ability, or Hofner was really on the ball with the specifications and quality control. Another nice touch -- no annoying 'Made in China' sticker to clean off, only a QC tag on one of the tuner buttons. In fact, nothing on the guitar tells you it was made in China, other than knowing that 'Contemporary' stands for China.

I don't know what the 'real' Verything feels/sounds like though -- I can only assume it's an amazing guitar. Maybe one day...but for the price, I challenge anyone to find a better-built guitar with a 'real' guitar company's brand name on it.

Contemporary series Hofner Verythin, made in China in 2007. All Contemporary Series instruments are built in the Far East under Hofner's supervision.
Twenty two jumbo frets, rosewood fretboard and maple neck. Maple top and back, very shallow body (four centimetres) fitted with a maple centre block. Two unbranded humbuckers, each with volume and tone control, 335 style pickup selector and tune o matic bridge. Sealed unbranded tuners. Translucent red with cream binding around the body and neck. Beautiful luxurious guitar that looks like it could cost at least twice as much.

The stock pickups sound slightly dark and jazzy and are not dissimilar from the humbuckers that come as standard on Epiphone guitars. It will NOT do a Telecaster impression, but you wouldnt expect a 335 style guitar to sound like a Tele. The pickups take very well to overdrive/ distortion and the sound is easily brightened up with a little eq. Because of the shallow body and the centre block the feedback is very musical and controllable. I bought this one as a general use guitar to have around in the studio and for practicing. Very versatile from clean jazz, retro- chic tones to distorted and effected it always sounds good. I thought of upgrading the pickups with Gibsons or SDs but I got used to the sound of the stock pickups and like it always more. Its a very, very quiet guitar with virtually no hum.

The out of the box action was high and needed setting up. The hardware was fine HOWEVER the pots needed to be replaced with good quality ones as they have no effect until the last few millimeters of travel. This is where they save money on Far Eastern guitar. Upgrading the tuners might also be a good idea if you intend to use it live, they are not bad but a set of top quality tuners will hold for longer. The frets where slightly gritty at first but playing them for a while sorts them out. Now its a supremely playable instruments that its hard to put down as my girlfriend would grumpily testify.
The finish is really excellent and as I said seems to belong to a much more expensive guitar. I would have preferred a matte red (or ever better, sparkle) rather than the translucent finish, but thats my taste. You should have no complaints here unless you are one of those who look at their guitars with a magnifying lens before putting them back in the case for fear of blemishing them.

I'm not planning to gig with this one just because I have another guitar I like to use live. Semi acoustics are inherently more fragile than solid body electrics, of course, but unless you do Pete Townsend impressions its a very well built guitar and you should have no problem gigging with it. I havent had it for long enough to asses the durability of the finish but it really seems very good.

Never dealt personally however they even have a myspace page and seem very proactive and friendly.

Even withstanding my comments on the pots and the tuners I think its great value. Its beautifully finished, sounds great, looks unique and its not a copy of something else.
The shallow body feels so comfortable that other semis now feel bulky and clumsy to me.
When buying this one I took a look at the Epiphone Dot and Sheraton but they both felt too heavy in comparison. If you are after a semiacoustic that will not cost silly money I'd recommend to check it out.