Series 2 with graphite neck

[JimmyJ]

Bob, thanks.  i understand and completely agree with you, the instrument must have a sound WITHOUT an amp.  You can tell all about it, dead spots, sustain, general tone or growl, just by hearing what it does in your lap.  As I said, I didn't very much enjoy the '82 bass above when it had frets but as a fretless it's pretty great.
 
Jimmy J

[afrobeat_fool]

I hadn't really thought about it in that way. With the mothership working on mine I have a unique opportunity.  
I did not mean to interupt this thread.
 
Thanks Jimmy!

[dfung60]

Jimmy -
 
Awesome shots!  I remember seeing your fretless at Modulus back when they were on Folsom in SF (it seemed like it was there forever).  It's an extraordinary bass.  I never got Geoff to admit whether he thought this was better than his personal Alembic, but I know it sounds better than mine.  
 
The different generations of Modulus necks have distinct differences in tone.  The oldest ones have the crystalline cosmetic coat that both these basses have.  After that there was a kind of wavy woven fabric, then checkerboard weave, and finally the polygons that are on most Modulus basses and on my Alembic.  The outside appearance is cosmetic - the molds are build up in layers in a mold, and the first layer in is the one you see on the outside.  The actual guts of the neck have a boring linear appearance.  The polygon necks are made by chopping the linear material into irregular shapes and laying those in the mold.
 
I think the old crystalline necks are stiffer and have a more piano tone.  The polygon necks benefit from years of building them, so they're much more reliable - the old ones often suffer fatal delamination (literally coming unglued at the bonding faces between the structural pieces of the neck).  Mere epoxy can't bear the stress of holding two pieces of invulnerable graphite together.  
 
Geoff pooh-poohs the differences between old and new necks (like any builder, the latest one he built is always the best), but I think it's pretty obvious when you listen side-by-side.  The older necks were overengineered which isn't suprising since they are literally coming from the same hands that built satellite parts when composite parts were unobtainium. The linear graphite used was a stiffer, more expensive material, and I think most of those crystal necks were fabricated by Geoff himself (I guess his stray beard hair provided additional structural stiffness in the matrix).  I have a couple of oddball multi-string basses which were also built from the higher stiffness graphite because they can't predict how the regular stuff will bow with extra string tension and they sound different too.  The checkerboard necks sound exactly like the polygons.  I know I saw photos of a checkerboard Alembic here before.
 
Love the hardware!  I love the Superwound strings too, although I never tried them on the Alembic (these are the strings where just the core runs over the bridge which really requires a different sort of bridge and setup).
 
David Fung

[dfung60]

Since we're talking about it, here's a picture of Geoff Gould's personal graphite Alembic.  I don't have a better picture of the whole instrument or the back.  I remember the sound and feel were amazing.  
 

 
The sine wave inlay is sterling silver.  
 
Unfortunately, Geoff doesn't own this instrument any more, but probably would like to find out who owns it now.  When I found out he sold it, I was kind of miffed I didn't get a chance to buy it although I guess it would never really have been mine.  I hate to think of it hanging in a store somewhere with people saying hey, is this neck made out of plastic or something?
 
David Fung

[bigredbass]

Jimmy and David:
 
Back in the day, I came real close to buying an original Steinberger.  Ultimately, I didn't but I always remember one thing about them and wondered if the graph Alembics and Modulus' were the same way:
 
The Steinberger was almost eerie in that every note sounded exactly the same the length of the neck, no dead spots, and very little of that string-length-is-getting-shorter woody honk that you sometimes hear.  Are these the same way?
 
THANKS for the history lesson!
 
J o e y

[sonicus]

From aesthetic standpoint I can relate to the appeal to this instrument_ Very Cool____.
 
       If only I could reach into my Computer monitor screen and pick it up and play it _

[dfung60]

Posting madness!    I don't have a Hyak, but I have a Moonstone bass that has some signficant graphite plates in the neck laminations.  The four dark stripes are graphite - two thick ones and two thin ones.  This instrument does have a truss rod.    

 

 

  This bass is probably almost 30 years old now.  One of the coolest things that I like about old instruments made of exotic woods is that the long-term shrinkage of the wood makes for a ripply varnished surface.  On this bass, the burl on the face and back is nice and ripply, and you can really feel the graphite laminates sticking out out of the back of the neck, relative to the wood.  I'm sure that the graphite stiffens the neck, but the character of sound of this instrument is like wood, not graphite.  It was converted from fretted to fretless.  It's a bit of an odd bass with a very thin neck and huge body.  This is also heavy - just over 10 lbs.    David Fung

[David Houck]

Love the symetric body and cool top on Geoff's bass.  The Moonstone is pretty cool too!

[sonicus]

Oh thanks for the pics of this Moonstone  as well!
 
              Are the pickups  Bartolini?   Are they #9W4 ?  or ??

[dfung60]

The Moonstone pickups are Bartolini (I don't think I've ever seen a Moonstone bass that doesn't have Barts).  I don't know the Bart models very well, so can't attest to what they are.  Looks like standard Jazz-sized pickups, but the bass doesn't hum when one pickup is on, so they may be stacked humbuckers.  Magnetic viewing paper shows one wide bar magnet in each pickup.  
 
Both pickups sound deep compared to a Fender Jazz.  I never looked in the control cavity before, but it's pretty unusual in there - the wood was left intact in the center of the compartment (Steve Helgerson showing off, I guess!):
 

 
The wiring is volume/tone for each pickup.  This is a passive bass, no battery or EQ.  The mini switch is a dual tone for the bridge pickup (so the two pickups aren't the same).  There's a pickup selector that follows the volumes and before the output jack.  I'm a little embarassed to admit that I didn't know what the mini-toggle did before looking back here.
 
This is a fretless conversion  and the neck pickup is worn into smooth, shiny ridges from string contact.  I couldn't take a picture of that.
 
David Fung

[JimmyJ]

David F,
 
Very cool, thanks for the interesting history of graphite and Alembic.  And for posting these other axes, you must have quite a collection!  Geoff's bass is really cool too.  Judging by the pickup spacing I'd guess it's a short scale?  I can't believe he doesn't still have it...
 
I think my '80 was a pretty early one.  I believe it was the 4-string mold as the nut is only 1-1/8 wide.  (All my basses are essentially 5-strings on 4-string necks - just what I'm used to.)  It's also very thin under the nut, only 1/2 inch of graphite between the bottom of the fingerboard and my thumb.  if I remember correctly, trimming it down left several linear inches under the fingerboard that are solid graphite instead of a hollow trough. I can't think about how rare the instrument is or I'll loose my mind and never take it out of the house.  Each Alembic - or probably ANY brand - is unique.  We know wood varies but now we know that graphite varies.  I suspect even aluminum does for your Beans!  So when you get a great axe you have to treat it like your kid!
 
J o e y, the resonance of an instrument certainly changes with the material but there is almost always some note that can't quite sing like the others for whatever reason.  Sometimes if you rap your knuckle on the body and hear a pitch, THAT will be the note that gets swallowed when you play it (or feeds back when you crank it up).  These graphite basses are very even and as I said almost pre-compressed.  I would say any dead spots on mine are at least in different locations than on their wood counterparts.  And the same note on the next string over works fine!
 
Nice thread!
Jimmy J

[sonicus]

I like this Moonstone .
     The reason I ask if they were Bartolini model 9w4 because I have  
them in a passive fretless Jazz Bass that was put together for me by Jerry Dorsch who was the co- founder of  Modulus. The neck was originally a Paul Chandler lined fretless bolt on design. Jerry completely refinished it for me and then coated the surface of the rosewood fingerboard with an epoxy like coating . He is really a master at such coatings .The 9w4 uses 4 discrete coils resulting in a very quite signal. I believe that the 9w4 is no longer manufactured.

[dela217]

Here is my graphite bass from 1981.
 

 
I've had this bass for about 10 years now.  I'll have to admit the sound takes some getting used to.  I also find that the strings on this bass makes quite a difference in how it sounds.  I use mostly flats on my basses, and right now I am using the D'Addario Chromes on this one.  To me this bass sounds best with a set of D'Addario Slowounds on it.  But, of course those are discontinued.  Anyone know of something close to the Slowounds??

[dela217]

Here's the back.  To me the maple with the koa lams is just beautiful on this bass.

[dela217]