I put a Paradactyl preamp in my Modulus Q6. First, though, a little backstory:
Ca 1999, I was not a fan of Modulus basses. I felt like they had a plastic-y sound. But, I was listening to an old Aquarium Rescue Unit live tape and it clicked. I really needed to get that sound, but it was beyond my means. The very next day, I got an email from a fellow Bottom Line'er selling a 1991 Q6 neck for a very reasonable price. The next step was to get a body for it and I had a friend, Larry Pogreba, up in Lyons CO, who is known for his resophonic guitars for the likes of Bonnie Raitt and Keb Mo. Larry had a big piece of a 100 year old mahogany barn door and he cut a body out of it and routed it for the pickups. I lived not far from Harry Fleishman, who hooked me up with tuners, a bridge, and the rest of the hardware. I bought some EMG 45DC pickups and got to work sanding and shaping the body which took a few weeks. Finally, I finished the body with some gunstock oil and put it all together and had a bass. Then, I swapped out the pickups for Lane Poors.
It was really fun to play and I got a lot of use out of it and developed a bunch of ideas about putting a modular system with removable plates with different preamps and output options, mono, stereo, EMGs vs. Lane Poors, etc. So I had a luthier cut the top of the bass where the control cavity was and shape some maple plates.
Eventually, I cut up the body up so much and discovered that the body/neck angle wasn't great. So, I contacted Jack Read about having him build me a body. He was game, but he had a burled maple Modulus body at his shop that a client had left because of the weight. The only thing is that it was a 5 string, but I sent Jack the neck and he modified the body to fit the neck and sent it back to me.
In the meantime, the Lane Poors sounded great but were very noisy. He and I went back and forth and I sent him back the pickups and he had them for a while and then, before he could get a new set back to me, he went out of business, so I went back to EMGs. Which I didn't really love. I moved on to other basses for a while and then bought some SGD Neo Sidewinders. I tried various preamps from Bartolini and eventually Glockenklang, but the sound was kind of lackluster. To be fair, the original mahogany body sounded better to me but wasn't practical in the long run. So the bass gathered dust for years. I thought recently about putting Zen Blades in, as they sound fantastic in my TBX with a John East preamp, but as I thought about it, I thought I'd try one last thing, which was to install a preamp with an active blend, which I have always preferred. It makes the pickups sound more alive. I've also enjoyed filter based preamps from my Alembic and Alembic equipped Starfire, so rather than getting another John East, I looked into an Underhill Paradactyl two band. Holy moly! Tonight was my first gig with it and it just brought the bass alive! After 27 years, it finally sounds like I imagined all that time ago. The Underhill is incredibly versatile, powerful, and clean. The bass speaks immediately and has a very authoritative low end. I had attributed the lackluster sound to the SGD pickups, but I think they work fine. It's been a hell of a journey!
I highly recommend Underhill. The construction is immaculate and robust. His systems are modular (harkening back to what I was trying to do 25 years ago), so different modules can be swapped in. I'm looking forward to trying some of the others. Excellent communication and very quick shipping. I'm a fan.
Current pic to be added shortly.
Ca 1999, I was not a fan of Modulus basses. I felt like they had a plastic-y sound. But, I was listening to an old Aquarium Rescue Unit live tape and it clicked. I really needed to get that sound, but it was beyond my means. The very next day, I got an email from a fellow Bottom Line'er selling a 1991 Q6 neck for a very reasonable price. The next step was to get a body for it and I had a friend, Larry Pogreba, up in Lyons CO, who is known for his resophonic guitars for the likes of Bonnie Raitt and Keb Mo. Larry had a big piece of a 100 year old mahogany barn door and he cut a body out of it and routed it for the pickups. I lived not far from Harry Fleishman, who hooked me up with tuners, a bridge, and the rest of the hardware. I bought some EMG 45DC pickups and got to work sanding and shaping the body which took a few weeks. Finally, I finished the body with some gunstock oil and put it all together and had a bass. Then, I swapped out the pickups for Lane Poors.
It was really fun to play and I got a lot of use out of it and developed a bunch of ideas about putting a modular system with removable plates with different preamps and output options, mono, stereo, EMGs vs. Lane Poors, etc. So I had a luthier cut the top of the bass where the control cavity was and shape some maple plates.
Eventually, I cut up the body up so much and discovered that the body/neck angle wasn't great. So, I contacted Jack Read about having him build me a body. He was game, but he had a burled maple Modulus body at his shop that a client had left because of the weight. The only thing is that it was a 5 string, but I sent Jack the neck and he modified the body to fit the neck and sent it back to me.
In the meantime, the Lane Poors sounded great but were very noisy. He and I went back and forth and I sent him back the pickups and he had them for a while and then, before he could get a new set back to me, he went out of business, so I went back to EMGs. Which I didn't really love. I moved on to other basses for a while and then bought some SGD Neo Sidewinders. I tried various preamps from Bartolini and eventually Glockenklang, but the sound was kind of lackluster. To be fair, the original mahogany body sounded better to me but wasn't practical in the long run. So the bass gathered dust for years. I thought recently about putting Zen Blades in, as they sound fantastic in my TBX with a John East preamp, but as I thought about it, I thought I'd try one last thing, which was to install a preamp with an active blend, which I have always preferred. It makes the pickups sound more alive. I've also enjoyed filter based preamps from my Alembic and Alembic equipped Starfire, so rather than getting another John East, I looked into an Underhill Paradactyl two band. Holy moly! Tonight was my first gig with it and it just brought the bass alive! After 27 years, it finally sounds like I imagined all that time ago. The Underhill is incredibly versatile, powerful, and clean. The bass speaks immediately and has a very authoritative low end. I had attributed the lackluster sound to the SGD pickups, but I think they work fine. It's been a hell of a journey!
I highly recommend Underhill. The construction is immaculate and robust. His systems are modular (harkening back to what I was trying to do 25 years ago), so different modules can be swapped in. I'm looking forward to trying some of the others. Excellent communication and very quick shipping. I'm a fan.
Current pic to be added shortly.
