Modulus Guitars


Modulus Graphite is an American manufacturer of musical instruments best known for building bass guitars with carbon fiber necks. The company, originally called Modulus Graphite, was founded in part by Geoff Gould, a bassist who also worked for an aerospace company in Palo Alto, California, and coworker Jerry Dorsch. When they split, Jerry started Graphite Guitar Systems in Washington state.

History

The name is a reference to Young's modulus, a measure of the stiffness of an elastic material, used in the field of solid mechanics. Carbon fiber has an exceptionally high modulus.
Traditionally, electric guitar and bass necks are made from hardwoods 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", 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.
Gould was inspired to experiment with non-traditional materials after attending a 1974 Grateful Dead concert, at which he marveled at the size and complexity of Phil Lesh's heavily modified bass and began to consider the possibilities of lighter, stronger materials. After being passed over by his employers in the aerospace industry, the project of creating hollow, carbon fiber bass necks was brought to fruition by Gould and Alembic, who built a bass with a prototype neck and displayed it at a trade show in 1977. Immediately after the trade show, the bass was purchased by Fleetwood Mac bassist John McVie.
Gould and some of his colleagues in the aerospace industry founded Modulus Graphite and began to make necks for Alembic and other companies before moving on to making entire instruments.
Geoff Gould left the company in 1996 to form G. Gould instruments
On December 20, 2013, Modulus Guitars LLC was placed into voluntary Chapter 7 arrangements.

Instruments

  • SP and SPX
  • BaSSStar - Mostly available as a replacement neck, but some were built as whole instruments
  • Flight 4
  • Monocoque
  • TBX ; it is rumoured, that only 11 four-string, 85 five-string and 90 6-string basses were made before year 2000 - production has started again
  • Quantum SPi bass
  • M-92
  • Sonic Hammer
  • Genesis Bass
  • Modulus VJ Bass
  • Funk Unlimited
  • Funk Persuasion
  • Vertex

    Formerly

  • Modulus Genesis I Electric Guitar
  • Modulus Genesis I Electric Guitar with tremolo
  • Modulus Genesis II Electric Guitar
  • Modulus Genesis II Electric Guitar with tremolo
  • Modulus Genesis III Electric Guitar
  • Modulus Genesis III Electric Guitar
  • Modulus Genesis III Electric Guitar Carved Top
  • Modulus Genesis III Electric Guitar Semi Hollow
  • Modulus Genesis III Electric Guitar Full Hollow

    Notable players

Musicians that play/have played Modulus instruments are:
File:Red Hot Chili Peppers - Rock in Rio Madrid 2012 - 11.jpg|thumb|200px|Red Hot Chili Peppers's Flea with his Modulus Funk Unlimited