I own a Modulus fretless. The fretless aspect plus the graphite brings a heavy mid range quality. Almost to harsh for certain settings. Currently I have EMG pickups but would Bartolini's be a warmer sound?

I'm going to move this to the pickups forum. This is to keep questions more luthier specific, or rather, those that a luthier would best be able to answer and that others might not be able to.

R:

Bartolinis will smooth out the sound to a degree, perhaps warm it up some. Another big thing that will affect the sound are the physics of your bass -- the woods and the fingerboard. Many Modulus basses have the alder body w/ maple top. That's pretty bright and rockin' for a fretless. Plus, the phenolic fingerboard will contribute to the bright, modern, "synthetic" sound.

Zon basses often use ash as the body woods, many times with a midrange-producing top wood, and then they have the phenowood fingerboard (It's birch that is injected with carbon resin and then pressed and heated). Phenowood is stable like graphite but it retains the "woody" sound. Also, the Bartolinis used in Zon basses are custom-wound to "voice" the instruments a certain way.

Electronics will help some, but pickups will amplify the natural characteristics that your instrument already has.

Hope this helps.

Found the Q5 I wanted states\away from where I live. Had to haggle with the dealer to replce the EMG,s with the Barts. I can definately tell the differance,

i played a few Modulus basses at NAMM 2003.

i didn't like any of the ones i played.

hard to describe the sound.

now, the workmanship and playability were a definite 10+++. no complaints there.

something about the Modulus voicing that really turns me off.

f