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Modulus BASSSTAR Fan Club

#261
Well, I might as well stop lurking and fess up. Here's an odd BaSSStar that I got as a birthday present from a pro who played Modulus basses. I got this in 1985 or 1986 and it was brand spankin' new at the time. It came with active EMG pups (and a white pickguard) but no access to swap the battery other than removing the pickguard. A couple years ago I got tired of that and swapped the EMGs for a set of passive Lollars and a new pickguard. Mike Lull refretted and PLEK'd it about that time as well. No pattern on the neck except when the light is just right.

I'll see if I can figure out how to post some pics.

Cheers!
back of body.JPG
back of neck.JPG
body w Lollars.JPG
headstock.JPG
original EMG pups.JPG
full shot.JPG
 
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#263
Thank you! She's definitely got a darker edge since I dropped the Lollars in. I may reinstall the EMGs just to see if I would now prefer that warmer tone again. At the time, I was on a quest for predatory growl (which this experiment didn't quite achieve given the brightness of the neck).
In any event, thank you and the others who have posted here. It has been interesting to read more stories about Stars Guitars, etc.. I actually visited their storefront once in the mid 80s, but don't have any vivid memories as it was ~ 10 min stop so my friend could check in on a custom build they were doing for him.
Cheers!
 
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#266
Yeah, a friend who is a pro woodworker offered to do that but I couldn't bring myself to cut into that body.

FWIW I'm going to attach a picture of the case my friend gave me when he gave me the bass. A well-worn Fender case which at the time only had the Stars Guitars sticker (and a fair bit of duct tape) on it. That Stars Guitars sticker has fared well for 32 years!
Bassstar case.jpg
 
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#267
Pic from 2005 or 2006 playing my beat to hell Bassstar. I bought it for cheap from Ebay, the body looked like it had been beaten with a chain (but in a good way.) The previous owner had also carved out a spot in the body for a J pickup and did a terrible job. So I carved out some more wood and put in two Bartloini humbuckers. It looked like a total Frankenstein but plays and sounds great. The "quilted" neck delaminated a few times and eventually was beyond repair so around 2011 I replaced the stock neck with a Moses. Sadly the guy I had fit the Moses neck on it tossed the original neck.
 

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#269
It occurred to me that some in this thread may not have seen this picture I originally posted in my Facebook page last December. Jack Casady and I met in North Beach, and he gave me back his original BASSSTAR neck from his days in SVT. It's so old, it has no BASSSTAR decal! Here is my original post text from 12/10/16:
Went down to North Beach on a rainy day (the streets were full of drunken Santa Clauses) to meet old friend Jack Casady. He’d been going through some instruments, and thought he’d give me this neck for the “Museum.” It’s one of the very first graphite Fender replacement necks we made in the old days at Modulus. He played it in his old band SVT. So old, it has no logo or serial#! Jack’s in town to do a gig with Peter Rowan tonight at Freight and Salvage.

IMG_8405.jpg
 
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#272
Usually, the 3 Bartolini's I had custom made were neck:vertical coil hum canceller, mid: split-coil (P), bridge: side by side humbucker. Looks like a Macassar Ebony top (we rarely used it), but it could be a rosewood too, hard to tell, with a mahogany center strip on top. The graphite on the outside was a plain weave fabric. The thumb rests are after-market! On-off switches for each pickup.
 
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#277
We started a semi-list on the Mod Mob fan club. I have not been able to convince many to put out the serial numbers of their basses. My Bassstar does not have a serial number. It is a neck thru 5 string with a 3+2 headstock that is similar to a Quantum style headstock.
 

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