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G. Gould Club!

#702
I play mostly jazz...standards most of the time..some bebop and some fusion. Many of the folks I work with prefer that I play upright bass and I do for most of my gigs.

This week I played a large venue and used my ggi6. My amp is an Aguilar AG 700 into a pair of Aguilar GS 112's. The tone was to die for. Clarity and warmth...fantastic response from the bass and the amp. It was heaven for me.

How I wish I could play a gig like that every week.
 
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#705
I haven't been on TB in years, but this occasion warranted trying to remember the old password and reaching out to you folks.

I went pawn shopping here in San Francisco a while back and I picked up this very interesting mystery Stars Guitars body matched to a mid-70s baseball bat of a fretless P Bass neck, with dated '66 Fender pickups and pot codes dating to 1969 and 1975. It has a handmade brass control plate and neck plate, with a vintage Leo Quan Badass bridge in gold plate with slot head bridge screws. It's an extremely high quality vintage parts guitar, but I had no idea what the story behind it was, and it was too fascinating to pass up on, so I took it home.

Fast forward to now. I recently listed it for sale locally ("Hi, my name is Fitz and I'm a chronic gear flipper"), and an awesome local fellow emailed me and pointed me towards this TalkBass club, as he informed me that this is probably one of Geoff's creations from the Stars Guitars days and that he or other members might have some info.

So. I am hoping Geoff can chime in and tell me the story of this guitar, particularly why the neck has no frets on it--was it de-fretted, or was a fretless neck modified with cut fret lines and custom dot inlays? Who was this guitar for, who owned it, why was it put together with these parts, etc? Any info would be super appreciated. Attached are some photos.

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#706
Fitz said:
I haven't been on TB in years, but this occasion warranted trying to remember the old password and reaching out to you folks.

I went pawn shopping here in San Francisco a while back and I picked up this very interesting mystery Stars Guitars body matched to a mid-70s baseball bat of a fretless P Bass neck, with dated '66 Fender pickups and pot codes dating to 1969 and 1975. It has a handmade brass control plate and neck plate, with a vintage Leo Quan Badass bridge in gold plate with slot head bridge screws. It's an extremely high quality vintage parts guitar, but I had no idea what the story behind it was, and it was too fascinating to pass up on, so I took it home.

Fast forward to now. I recently listed it for sale locally ("Hi, my name is Fitz and I'm a chronic gear flipper"), and an awesome local fellow emailed me and pointed me towards this TalkBass club, as he informed me that this is probably one of Geoff's creations from the Stars Guitars days and that he or other members might have some info.

So. I am hoping Geoff can chime in and tell me the story of this guitar, particularly why the neck has no frets on it--was it de-fretted, or was a fretless neck modified with cut fret lines and custom dot inlays? Who was this guitar for, who owned it, why was it put together with these parts, etc? Any info would be super appreciated. Attached are some photos.

View attachment 3262946 View attachment 3262952 View attachment 3262948 View attachment 3262949
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hehehe... guilty as charged your honor! :D

hi, it's mark. @GeoffGould occasionally chimes in here and over at the 'modulus mob' forum (amongst others) so hopefully he'll be able to shed a little light on your bass. kudos!
 
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#708
well, I don't have much to say. This was probably made before we moved in with Stars Guitars. I actually have a 62 Duosonic neck and body I harvested from the stuff they left behind when they went bankrupt. The body has a slab of very similar looking birdseye maple on top of the body, probably ruining it for any vintage freaks! What makes me think it's early is it's using a BadAss bridge, instead of one of their own Brass Mass bridges. Is the body heavy?
 
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#709
GeoffGould said:
well, I don't have much to say. This was probably made before we moved in with Stars Guitars. I actually have a 62 Duosonic neck and body I harvested from the stuff they left behind when they went bankrupt. The body has a slab of very similar looking birdseye maple on top of the body, probably ruining it for any vintage freaks! What makes me think it's early is it's using a BadAss bridge, instead of one of their own Brass Mass bridges. Is the body heavy?
Click to expand...

The body is insanely heavy. The bass as a whole is 11 lbs.
 
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#711
GeoffGould said:
it was made in the day where mass=sustain. I'd like to think we changed that formula.
Click to expand...

Did you guys ever refret bass necks, or did you ever cut fret lines into fretless necks? This neck is weird because there are what looks like tool marks in the center of a few of the dot inlays, which makes me think they were added on later, but I could be wrong.
 
#712
The neck looks like at some point the frets were pulled (not very well), filled and left. You can see the tang marks on the board from where the frets were pulled and the wood was ever so slightly damaged, but filled. Pretty common. My very old Modulus Bassstar had the same thing done to it.
 
#713
iriegnome said:
The neck looks like at some point the frets were pulled (not very well), filled and left. You can see the tang marks on the board from where the frets were pulled and the wood was ever so slightly damaged, but filled. Pretty common. My very old Modulus Bassstar had the same thing done to it.
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heheh, those were the days (early-mid 80's) we all thought we were jaco and took a pair of pliers to one of our basses to become masters of the fretless.

i went one step further and stopped by the local marine shop for boat epoxy. needless to say, after about a half hour, i had a chewed-up looking fretboard and epoxy running down the back of the neck.... :rollno:

ah, the joys of youth... ;)
 
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#715
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