[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING WITH THE MODULUS VINTAGE J BASS]

OWEN O'MALLEY: Welcome back to Gearwire.Com. I’m Owen O'Malley, and this beautiful instrument here is the Modulus Vintage J. It’s Modulus’s take on the classic Fender Jazz Bass design, and it’s a pretty beautiful instrument as I said already.

Modulus is famous for their graphite composite necks, and this bass has a beautiful composite graphite neck on it. You can get a lot of different options on the Vintage J. You can get one with the Genesis neck, which is this sort of fiber composite/wood hybrid that has maybe a more -- well, maybe a warmer tone. As you can hear this guy, the tone is it is sort of aggressive. It’s a little bit hi-fi. That’s because this one has the full carbon composite fiber neck. It also has the composite fretboard. You can get a rosewood fretboard. You can get something called a Chechen fretboard, which is from Chechnya maybe. I’m assuming that’s a type of wood, I don't know.

Anyway, the neck here has 21 frets. It’s the action is excellent. You should never have to adjust it once you get it into the action that suits you but there is a truss rod in case you do. This particular bass comes with two passive Bartolini jazz pickups, which are really excellent pickups. The standard electronics configuration is similar to the standard Fender Jazz Bass electronics configuration that would be two volumes, one for each pickup and the master tone. This one has the Bartolini NTBT active preamp, which is a 9-volt battery-powered preamp, which has a single master volume right here...

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING WITH THE MODULUS VINTAGE J BASS]

...and also this pickup selector. We actually been listening to the neck pickup favored.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING WITH THE MODULUS VINTAGE J BASS]

Bringing right into the middle here.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING WITH THE MODULUS VINTAGE J BASS]

Or we can favor the bridge pickup.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING WITH THE MODULUS VINTAGE J BASS]

And then we’ve got a two-band active EQ. Let’s bring the pickups right back to the middle. This is a centered detented control right here. If we bring them both off...,

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING WITH THE MODULUS VINTAGE J BASS]

...you get a sort of kind of it’s almost like a John Entwhistle tone but a more vintage sounding tone, and if we pump up both of these...

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING WITH THE MODULUS VINTAGE J BASS]

You get some really fizzy or a lot of low end as you can hear. It’s a bolt-on neck. It’s a four-bolt bolt-on neck, and an Alder body, top-routed. You can get this tortoiseshell pickguard and translucent finish, both standard -- Translucent finish might be standard. You can also get -- For extra money you can get a flamed or quilted maple top, a lot of different options.

The tuners here are the Modulus-designed tuners and they’re very, very stable tuners. The base price on this bass is well over $2,000. It’s I think it’s about $2,500 actually if you sort of custom order it directly from Modulus. You can also get Moduluses from Modulus dealers like Manny’s Music in New York.

The composite neck does give it a very particular sound. It’s not actually a vintage sound. It is a bright sound but the neck just feels fantastic. It’s just an excellent, excellent bass. It’s balanced really well too. For whatever reason, it balances better than I think the Fender Jazz Basses. It’s a little bit heavier but it’s not too heavy. It’s not as heavy as say an Ibanez ATK which is one of the heaviest basses and is the bass I play. So anyway, this is my sister’s Modulus Vintage J.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING WITH THE MODULUS VINTAGE J BASS]

You’ve been watching Gearwire.Com, and I am Owen O'Malley.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING WITH THE MODULUS VINTAGE J BASS]