It's been refinished but the burst looks great on it.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-1976-Gibson-The-Ripper-Bass-L-9S-1970s-L9S-76-70s-/321130917171?pt=Guitar&hash=item4ac4e4ed33
Nice burst. But, whats the deal with all of the holes drilled and plugged at the bridge? Also, is it me, or does this have a maple board that's been stained?
Maybe the fretboard was dried out for a while and has needed to be oiled to try to bring it back to it's original luster??
Cool! My year of birth...
Usually you see that burst on fretless ones. That's the first I ever saw that was fretted. Weird back teardrop.
I like it but the sunburst on the back looks realy weird.
Is that fretboard an original one? It looks like rosewood to me.
Just for comparison a picture of my tobaccoburst Ripper made in 1973.
Stained maple board, IMHO.
Pretty steep for a refin.
maybe started out as a natural ripper?
Okay I got it: "The dirt keeps the funk!" :mrgreen:
For sure it was a natural one! Otherwise it would have had an ebony fretboard.
Greg Lake's Ripper was black with a maple fretboard. Maybe it was a custom shop or something.
I'm not sure I like the red, looks kind of cheap.
Lake's Ripper might have even been a bolt-on one, the very earliest Rippers and some of their prototypes were.
Quote from: uwe on May 26, 2013, 08:44:51 AM
I'm not sure I like the red, looks kind of cheap.
Lake's Ripper might have even been a bolt-on one, the very earliest Rippers and some of their prototypes were.
Hmmm, maybe that would explain this Ripper, though it does appear to be the later body style.
http://asheville.craigslist.org/msg/3811310359.html
Hard to say - I've never seen one of those bolt-on Rippers, only heard about them from various sources. Just as there were initially set neck Victories as prototypes.
the copy says it "has the mid 70s Gibson upgrade of the Gibson neckplate to strengthen the set neckjoint". that doesn't sound right. ???
Lake's bass looks to have been a set neck Ripper. At least it has a painted neck like most of the ebony board ones did. Must have been a custom from Gibson?
(http://i41.tinypic.com/2w6z1b6.jpg)
From the GP interview:
Still another change for Greg is to Gibson after many years of keeping company with the Fender Jazz Bass. A new prototype model distributed by Gibson called "The Ripper," Lake's instrument embodies more powerful pickups than the standard bass humbuckings, as well as a mid-range choke to wring greaters highs from the instrument. Greg feels it is the most "reliable and accurate" instrument on the market. He likes a bass that is electronically well-designed with an absolutely precise neck in perfect tune all the way up to the 22nd fret of the low E string. He also prefers for nothing to be heard resonating in sympathy with a particular note; that is, the bottom E string is of the same intensity as the high G. Lake feels the main feature of his instrument is its capacity to produce four entirely different sounds. With a front and back pickup producing two different signals, the quartet of variations is created by: (1) putting the two pickups out-of-phase, (2) inserting the mid-range choke, (3) shutting off the back pickup, and (4) turning off the front pickup.
Greg powers his guitar with Crown International Amps [1718 Mishawak Road, Elk Hart, IN 46514] which run through a separate EQ circuit. Sound comes from two or three (it varies) cabinets with JBL speakers which Lake describes as a "very flat and sensitive reproduction of what the strings are putting out." Two stacks of four JBL's (two mid-range, two bass) are powered by the two Crown stereo amps and produce a total of 2,000 watts. "It's a hi-fi system, a huge hi-fi system," Lake explains, "and it reproduces the tops, the highs, the mid-range, and the lows." The Crowns are specially built high-powered units tagged DC-1000 which drive the JBL's as well as a set of large Lansing horns. A crossover takes the bass signals, and at about 400 cycles pushes them through the horns.
I'm sure if Greg Lake asked for anything from Gibson in the seventies, he got it pronto. He was leading bass polls at the time together with Chris Squire. Wasn't his Jazz Bass a maple board too? He probably liked the attack of those. I know that he was a guest at the Gibson plant when they were deliberating between the double- and singlecut Ripper.
jazz bass neck not maple. at least in 1970 when i saw elp.
I follow Lake on his Facebook page and sent him an email asking about his Ripper. Who knows, maybe he'll see it and respond.