NBD: Modulus BassStar

Purchased from an old friend who has been unable to play for a number of years due to a medical condition. I've bought a couple of his other instruments and this one was under discussion for about two years. He finally called and said "Let's just do this.", and it was done. I paid what I feel is just a little above market and was happy to do so - he's a good friend and he can use the cash.

I'm guessing it's from '83 as the pot codes are from 51st week of '82, but there's no telling for sure. It has the cloth weave pattern in the graphite instead of the cool "KLD" pattern and an ebony fingerboard. I haven't had the neck off yet to see if there's a serial number or a truss rod. I don't think there's a truss rod.

The Good: It's cool as heck. The neck feels really nice. Frets are in good shape (he had it strung with HS flats). No dead spots! Not too heavy. Probably all stock... I think.

The Bad: I've never been a big fan of EMGs. I'll probably end up swapping them out for something passive and a separate, bypassable pre. I'll hash all of that out later. The EMGs and the battery were installed using some pretty crude chisel work, which I thought must mean that they were added later, but another TB'er mentioned the same thing on his BassStar from the same period. I know a lot of these came stock with EMGs, so I suspect Modulus was just modifying the aftermarket bodies they were using to make room for the battery and the pickup wires and didn't care how it looked since it was all covered up. I'll probably never know....

The Ugly: I'm pretty sure this bass has no truss rod and the neck has a ski-jump and more relief than I like. I'm still deciding how I want to deal with these issues. For now, I may level out some of the ski-jump on the upper frets (there's plenty of fret left) and then start experimenting with lower-tension strings or lighter strings or both to address the bow. The fingerboard is fairly thin, so I can't plane the board out level, and based upon the Modulus thread that's been up for a while I won't be able to send it to them to straighten the neck! If it can't be satisfactorily fixed with a change of strings, I'll start weighing heavier options (gulp).

I picked it up from him on Thursday evening, gave it a good cleaning, un-stuck some frozen bridge screws and set it up with rounds Friday evening and was gigging with it Saturday night! It rocked!!!

Okay, okay.... pics or it never happened, right?

 

More pics:
The string tree was nickel, but I switched it out. I've seen a few pics of old BassStars with contrasting string trees; black with nickel tuners and vice-versa. Maybe the guys at Modulus were having some fun?

 

Stock tuners. Anybody know who made these? They look like Grovers, but not quite.

The weave pattern goes all the way down the neck.

 

Stock Stars Guitars bridge. Very chunky. Stars and Modulus and Alembic were all kinda tied together.

Back is nice and clean - no belt rash at all!

 

No graphite love?

 

Probably just as well. I wouldn't want us to have to fight over her or anything.... it would only feed her ego.