LeftyBassist.com

Drum City/GuitarLand just outside of Denver, CO.

Here's the link:

http://www.drumcityguitarland.com/drumc ... s-C81.aspx

Pay special note to the dUg Pinnick 36" scale ESP (NOT LTD!!!) 4-banger... bad ass!

I just bought the Modulus Genesis 5-string... I'll let you all know how I like it as soon as I get it.

I bought my Modulus Gen 5 from these same guys. Trust me, you will LOVE it. My only "complaint" (more just a consideration) is that it's waaaay hotter than what I'm used to- a little (volume, blend, etc.) goes a LONG WAY with this bass. But the sound is outstanding.

Hey... I tried sending you a PM about this, but I think I might be doing something wrong. It's "stuck" in my outbox and not making it to my sent items for some reason.

Anyway, I have a question for you about your Genesis 5.

I'm having a problem with a HUGE volume drop when my blend knob is at the center detent. I recorded myself direct to illustrate the problem on YouTube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRnT3Xbwot0

On that recording, all EQ is flat and I am ONLY using the blend knob to go from center, to bridge, to neck.

Do you have this type of issue with your Genesis as well?

I have left 3, yes THREE, messages with Modulus over the last week and have not received a call back yet... I completely removed the blend pot and have more on order. Hopefully it's a bad pot, and a simple replacement will fix the problem, but, so far, I have a pretty bad taste in my mouth about this.

Hey Chris (aka Addison):

I just checked out your link. I had a similar problem with my Roscoe Fretless when I first got it. I am unsure what they did but I sent it back and they fixed it. Might have been a bad blend pot as they said they replaced it. I can ask when I call them again.

-gravesbass

Hi, it's not stuck in your outbox. Messages sit in your outbox until the person you sent them to opens them and reads them.
The Outbox is there to tell you if your message has been read by the person you sent it to or not. Hope that helps.

Thanks Andrew for explaining this about the outbox. I was wondering the same thing myself... Good idea. That was the other party can't say "I didnt read that".. Sneaky!!!!

Ah, ok... makes sense!

Thanks for your help you guys... and, yeah... I'm going to rewire it tonight to see what I can come up with.

If I can't fix it, then any extra help anyone can give me would be sweet.

I really don't want to send this thing all the way back to Modulus if I don't have to.

I recommend you pm Rodent or put a post in the Blueprinting and Bondo forum about this. I think he's on the road right now, but he's good about checking in and answering questions.

I just got my replacemet pots from StewMac, and I'm almost POSITIVE they'll fix it!!!

If you guys are interested in some nerdy background on this, here's how it broke down.

First let me say that I am NOT an electronics guy... all of this stuff is stuff I learned because of this very problem. Just in case this happens to you someday, maybe it'll save you some time.

Anyhoo...

Through some investigation, I found out that a common wiring problem can happen with blend posts where they are wired backwards. There's a high resistance side, and a low resistance side... you should always have the audio running through the low resistance side, and use the high resistance side for ground.

Since I have received several lefty basses wired backwards before (the guys doing the wiring wire hundreds of righties before they rewire a lefty, so I can see it as an easy mistake), I figured that must be what the problem was, so I rewired it.

Nope... didn't fix the problem. The only other thnig I could think of is that it might be a bad pot, but how often does that happen?!?!

So I called an old friend of mine from Berkeley who used to set up my basses... he's also one of the masters of electronics related to musical instruments and amplifiers and he was a HUGE help. He had me remove the pot completely from the bass and measure the resistance using a multimeter.

Here's what I got...

Both lugs that were wired to ground read abut 240-260K. Pretty normal. Both lugs that were wired for audio read about 40-50K and would lower to 0 as I turned the pot CW or CCW. He immediately said that he thought this was my problem... a bad pot.

I asked for some advice from some other people on the interwebs and they seemed to think that blend pots never read zero and that this was pretty normal, so then I got really worried. I basically haven't slept for two days while I was waiting for the replacement pots to come from StewMac so I could measure them.

Anyway, I brought my multimeter to work today and here's what I got:

Ground is plus or minus 260 K... normal.

The Audio side is 1.9 OHMS... not 1.9K... 1.9 OHMS. When I set my multimeter to only read in K, it reads as zero (0.0). The audio side of this pot is basically receiving ZERO resistance, while the other pot had almost 50K of resistance when the pot was centered. When I turn the pot CCW or CW, the reading remains at zero... as it should to allow full volume at either soloed or blended signal.

Now I cannot WAIT to get home to rewire this thing and see if the fix worked!!!

Wish me luck!

Good luck!!!

It's fixed!!!

And it sounds KILLER!!!

Now can someone please explain to my why a bass with an MSRP of $4000 came like that?

Or why Modulus doesn't return their calls?

Maybe the quality control for left handed instruments is easily missed? It seems to happen quite a bit as I have owned many lefty basses in my time. But that blend being as low of volume as yours... Unacceptable!!!

Just saw that you PM'd me. I've been out of town for a while, sorry for the late response. I have had no problems like that from my Genesis. However, Modulus IS terrible about customer service. I can't remember why I tried to contact them but I eventually just gave up! Great basses, not great communication skills!
Glad you got it fixed.