Modulus BASSSTAR Fretless 4-String Bass with Graphite Neck

Vintage 1980. Neck Serial Number 440

34” Scale, Graphite nut

New Black Schaller machine heads

Leo Quan BadAss II Bridge with Thru-Body Ferrules

Vintage DiMarzio Single-Coil J-Bass Pickups

Lined Ebony Fretless Fingerboard with Maple Inserts

Width at Nut is 1-5/8 of an inch.

No unusual dings, chips or scratches, very well cared for over the years, although I did recently refinish the body with Industrial Auto-Body conversion paint.

46 Years in and the neck is flawless

The story behind this fabulous vintage instrument.

The name is a reference to a measure of the stiffness of an elastic material. Carbon fiber has an exceptionally high modulus.  So, it makes a great bass neck, so stiff no truss rod (or adjustment) is needed.

Traditionally, bass necks are made from hardwoods (ash, maple, etc.) reinforced with an adjustable steel truss rod. Wood, being a naturally occurring material, is prone to variations in density and flexibility. This, coupled with the high stresses created by stretching steel strings across them lengthwise, makes wood necks prone to certain unpredictable and undesirable qualities. Among these are twisting, incorrect "bowing" (either too pronounced or too subtle), and "dead spots," or areas on the neck where notes are quieter or more indistinct compared to other areas. Non-traditional neck materials such as carbon fiber and aluminum are attempts to correct these issues by replacing wood with lighter, stiffer and more uniform components.

I first met Geoff Gould in 1980 at his shop in Sausalito California where I purchased this instrument.As founder and president of Modulus Graphite for almost 2 decades, Geoff Gould was the driving force behind many of the modern innovations which have become standard in the world of guitars and basses.