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iriegnome, I pulled the bass out of the case to look at it quick this morning. The Frankenstein face is not really visible, unless he's grown a really thick uni-brow. I think it was just the light and the angle when I took that photo. The grain has a bit of that prismatic thing going on, so what angle one looks at it from, and what angle light hits it from can have an effect. The ET face is kinda visible, if you use a little imagination.
The comment that I did get from one guy who I showed the bass to right after I got it, and he played a few notes, yanking the strings really hard to compensate for the fact that it wasn't plugged in, was "Geez the strings buzz really bad on this thing!". The bridge saddles each allow height adjustment, and I set it up to be nice and low, and I have heavy gauge bass strings on it. With my more moderate playing technique, it never buzzes.
The thing I've always found interesting about the grain of the pieces of koa used for the body sides (I think that is koa anyway) is the fact they used pieces with knots in them. You can see one in the area near the tone control, and another larger one in the area they sculpted for the player's right arm to rest on. You can see in the photos, lighter looking lines going through those knots. Those are actual cracks in the wood. And the finish does not smoothly go over them, those are lower than the surface of the body.
I've got a Carvin guitar made entirely of koa, and they selected pieces with no knots.
As for the pieces of wood down the center of the body, I'm guessing the light color strips are maple. I'm not real sure what kind of wood the two wider, reddish strips in the center are. The grain looks like mahogany. They might be mahogany, but they look a little more red than mahogany usually looks.
What I know about the bass is largely what I've read in this thread and a few other places on the internet, just doing a google search on Bassstar. I remember ads in the guitar mags for the Black knife necks/guitars. I may have seen an ad for Bassstar back then, but that was over 30 years ago. I have an issue or two of Guitar Player magazine from 1984 and 1985 on my book shelf. I should thumb through those sometime and see if there are any ads for Bassstar basses in those issues.
I'd guess the bass's build date had to be in the 70's. The old logo on the EMG pickup (they'd switched to the small gold or silver letters in the corner of the pickup cover by the time I started reading guitar mags/ads around 1978), the brass strap knobs (see photo), as well as the brass nut, brass neck plate, and brass control cavity cover, as well as the natural finish over multi-laminated wood strongly suggest (scream, actually) 1970's.
Skimming this thread and other places on the net, I read that the early Modulus neck were deeper. Mine certainly has the deep neck profile. Quite different from my other basses.
A friend of mine who used to work at a local guitar shop many years ago says they had a couple of these basses at the shop back then.
The comment that I did get from one guy who I showed the bass to right after I got it, and he played a few notes, yanking the strings really hard to compensate for the fact that it wasn't plugged in, was "Geez the strings buzz really bad on this thing!". The bridge saddles each allow height adjustment, and I set it up to be nice and low, and I have heavy gauge bass strings on it. With my more moderate playing technique, it never buzzes.
The thing I've always found interesting about the grain of the pieces of koa used for the body sides (I think that is koa anyway) is the fact they used pieces with knots in them. You can see one in the area near the tone control, and another larger one in the area they sculpted for the player's right arm to rest on. You can see in the photos, lighter looking lines going through those knots. Those are actual cracks in the wood. And the finish does not smoothly go over them, those are lower than the surface of the body.
I've got a Carvin guitar made entirely of koa, and they selected pieces with no knots.
As for the pieces of wood down the center of the body, I'm guessing the light color strips are maple. I'm not real sure what kind of wood the two wider, reddish strips in the center are. The grain looks like mahogany. They might be mahogany, but they look a little more red than mahogany usually looks.
What I know about the bass is largely what I've read in this thread and a few other places on the internet, just doing a google search on Bassstar. I remember ads in the guitar mags for the Black knife necks/guitars. I may have seen an ad for Bassstar back then, but that was over 30 years ago. I have an issue or two of Guitar Player magazine from 1984 and 1985 on my book shelf. I should thumb through those sometime and see if there are any ads for Bassstar basses in those issues.
I'd guess the bass's build date had to be in the 70's. The old logo on the EMG pickup (they'd switched to the small gold or silver letters in the corner of the pickup cover by the time I started reading guitar mags/ads around 1978), the brass strap knobs (see photo), as well as the brass nut, brass neck plate, and brass control cavity cover, as well as the natural finish over multi-laminated wood strongly suggest (scream, actually) 1970's.
Skimming this thread and other places on the net, I read that the early Modulus neck were deeper. Mine certainly has the deep neck profile. Quite different from my other basses.
A friend of mine who used to work at a local guitar shop many years ago says they had a couple of these basses at the shop back then.
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Are they even both the same species? The difference between the two halves is really striking.
It really is a beautiful piece of work. I love the knots in it. Such character.. I bet it plays nicely as well. I have not gotten to play a Alembic/Modulus before. Only Modulus' and I think from everything I have found out, mine is about the oldest, but yours would be roughly the same age. BTW - Sleep Distance.. Your Bassstar club member number is 12. A very small number, but growing just the same..
If I have missed someone who has a Bassstar and wanted to join our little corner of the world, hit me up
I skimmed back through the pages of this thread. I didn't see these links, so I'll post them. Mainly threads on other forums with people asking about these basses. A couple of responses from people who seem to know more about the history of these basses. I found those informative.
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
In case anyone is interested in buying another one, which the seller claims is the first Bassstar ever built, this came up in a search:
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Iriegnome, thanks for the club number. My bass does indeed play really well. The tone, not to mention the look, is unlike any of my other basses. It's in a class of its own.
Sometime I'll have to make it to one of your shows. I'm not that far from you. I've traveled to the Racine area to catch shows before. Do you remember the brothers Kopecky, or a guitarist named Lyden Moon?
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
In case anyone is interested in buying another one, which the seller claims is the first Bassstar ever built, this came up in a search:
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Iriegnome, thanks for the club number. My bass does indeed play really well. The tone, not to mention the look, is unlike any of my other basses. It's in a class of its own.
Sometime I'll have to make it to one of your shows. I'm not that far from you. I've traveled to the Racine area to catch shows before. Do you remember the brothers Kopecky, or a guitarist named Lyden Moon?
I e-mailed the guy from Craigslist. The graphite pattern does not match a very early Modulus, but it is still really cool!! $3,000 would be way to much for the bass
I did a search on Vintage Guitar magazine's site to see if they'd done an article on these basses. It doesn't look like they have. I wonder if they'd want to do one sometime.
Hey IrieGnome, have you asked anyone (Geoff Gould) about the wording on your headstock? That varied over time. Yours seems to have "Modulus Graphite Products" which I've not seen on other basses. Most older Modulus basses have "Modulus Graphite".
Wow!! Is that beautiful. A neck thru 4 with a fender headstock. Very nice indeed. I will get you a number on Monday when I get to my computer.
BTW - I just scored a set of black Bassstar tuners and an original Bassstar bridge for a 4 string. Great condition and I couldn't pass them up
Geoff has not said anything about that. Any idea when "Modulus Graphite Products" came into use?
IrieGnome, personally I don't know when that moniker was in use. I've seen various labels on different basses. For example, I've seen "MODULUS" and "Modulus Graphite" and I believe later the company was named "Modulus Guitars" and probably labeled the instruments with that. On this thread I see a number of "Modulus/Alembic BassStar".
dfung has posted many entries here on talkbass and also on alembic.com which give invaluable information. I noticed one where he mentions that the neck molds had options for different headstock shapes. I think this facilitated creation of necks tailored for various brands (Alembic, Fender, Music Man, Modulus, etc).
Also, I've noticed your mention of 'BassStar tuners, case, and bridge'. How about pics? I'm curious what it is that makes these specifically "BassStar"? Are they marked that way somehow?
Thanks and Regards,
skippy
Heard from Geoff yesterday. He said that "Modulus Graphite Products" came first, then "Modulus Graphite" then Geoff left and they became "Modulus Guitars".. The tuners and Bridge I have are plain. No markings. Just bought them from someone who had taken them off a Bassstar to upgrade them (don't know why)... I have not found any resemblance of a case specifically for Bassstar's.
I picked up a super clean Bass Star from the classifieds last month and I love it! The neck has no pattern on it at all. I already owned a 2001 VJ4, it has been an amazing workhorse for me and has seen steady use as my #1 instrument since I bought it. Based upon this, I was seriously considering purchasing a Funk Persuasion (FU with a P pickup) when Modulus went belly up. When I saw this bass, I thought this would be a great substitute and would allow me to realize my dream of owning a graphite necked P. I don't have any photos at the moment (I'll try to take some ASAP) but here is a link to the sale thread...
http://www.talkbass.com/threads/very-rare-modulus-basstar-pj-graphite-neck.1120637/
The body is super light and in immaculate condition for a 30+ year old instrument but it had some serious neck dive so I removed the original tuners and bridge (heavy duty!) and added Hipshot Ultralite tuners and a Babicz FCH bridge which shaved off about a 1.5-2 lbs from the overall weight. I also pulled the original Bartolini pick ups and dropped in a set of Geezer EMGs. Unfortunately, the Geezers were the noisiest pick ups I have ever heard and I believe there may have been something wrong with them, so I exchanged them for a regular active EMG PJ set. EMG shows the J in this set as having the same dimensions as the GZR J but this isn't the case and the J won't fit! I'm thinking I could coax it in if I sand a little but at the moment, I'm just running the P. I slapped some TI flats on it and it sounds fantastic! I'm very very pleased!
http://www.talkbass.com/threads/very-rare-modulus-basstar-pj-graphite-neck.1120637/
The body is super light and in immaculate condition for a 30+ year old instrument but it had some serious neck dive so I removed the original tuners and bridge (heavy duty!) and added Hipshot Ultralite tuners and a Babicz FCH bridge which shaved off about a 1.5-2 lbs from the overall weight. I also pulled the original Bartolini pick ups and dropped in a set of Geezer EMGs. Unfortunately, the Geezers were the noisiest pick ups I have ever heard and I believe there may have been something wrong with them, so I exchanged them for a regular active EMG PJ set. EMG shows the J in this set as having the same dimensions as the GZR J but this isn't the case and the J won't fit! I'm thinking I could coax it in if I sand a little but at the moment, I'm just running the P. I slapped some TI flats on it and it sounds fantastic! I'm very very pleased!
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