New Fat-Bottomed Arrival (making the dirty dozen full!)

[uwe]

Ze Ripper II (I really do need to clean up my office more, Mark would you be my rubber chamber maid?   ):


Pups look just like in the days of yore:


Another reassuringly familiar sight, ze völüte:



Huh, unfamiliar? Natural maple body, yet no maple board?! But Comrade Ernesto's benevolent gaze says all is well ...


It will join ze herd, row of honor of the fat-bottomed girls:


In twos, meine Herren, Grabber Blue and Grabber II (it rhymes!):


Grabber Fretless (most likely aftermarket mod, the fin certainly isn't a Gibson one, sounds like a million bucks though) and old style, big body Ripper (rescued from verdisgris after a prolonged cellar stay with the pre-owner):


Eighties Ripper and mid-seventies fretless Ripper with alder body (the more observant of you will notice that the fretboard was extended to double octave length and the cutaway henceforth deepened, all done so tastefully I never even noticed until I had bought the thing!):


Two G-3s, seventies and eighties ultimate run version with ebony board:


Ze Gödfäther of all Rippers, a prototype, plus two Epi Ltd Ed GRipp3rs in the back, left is prototype with sleeker bevelling, right is series model, the end result looks rather like the very first Rippers, perhaps intentionally so, perhaps because less bevelling is less cost:

[bassvirtuoso]

It must be true what they say, "They make the rockin' world go round."

[Deathshead]

This expression says it all.....

[godofthunder]

Glad ya like it Uwe ! I checked one out locally, Very well made and pretty true to the original unlike the Grabber II.

[Dave W]

Never let law books and legal papers get in the way of your basses.

You have enough for a separate fat bottomed room. Better talk to the building management people.

[TBird1958]

That's it...........

I'm packing my best Maid's out, black lined stockings and heels. Frankfurt, here I come 

[uwe]

I didn't even yet say I liked it!!!   Not sure. It's lovingly made (perfect fret job unlike the Grabber II) and has lots of tasteful sound options (more of that later), but at the rehearsal yesterday it was just that, "very tasteful" and "well-behaved", and I missed the ballsy "take no prisoners"-raunch of the Grabber II.  Have to play it some more, but it might be one of those "gosh, this sounds nice (in the living room)" instruments as opposed to a rehearsal weapon of choice.

[uwe]

Never let law books and legal papers get in the way of your basses.

You have enough for a separate fat bottomed room. Better talk to the building management people.

Do not jest, Dave, they already have me cross-haired for an "undue amount of fire loads in the office". I'm fighting a losing battle!!! Every few months some stern-faced fire, life, safety-inspector drops by and makes me aware of the illegal state I work in. 

[Denis]

Looks nice, congratulations on an even dozen!
I like how they used the old mounting style pups on the Ripper IIs rather than the later 3-screw mounting types. That's how I found out Seymour Duncan makes drop in replacements.

[Basshappi]

Wow....just......wow!

[uwe]

Gibson's blurb about the six Seymour Duncan engineered varitone settings of the Ripper II:

"Tonal Control
The new six-position selector knob lets you dial in six very different tone selections. In position one you get the bridge pickup only. Position two gives you the second coil of the neck pickup and the first coil of the bridge pickup. Position three delivers the first coil of the bridge pickup. Position four dials in the second coil of the neck pickup. Position five gives you the first coil of the neck pickup and the second coil of the bridge pickup. And the sixth position gives you only the neck pickup. That's six distinct choices – each one a clear and well-defined tone all its own."

In reality, all six options have unsurprisingly one tonal base character, there are no radical changes here, but it's all audible, though Pos 2 and 5 are VERY similar:

Pos 1 - bridge in humbucking mode, not too thin though I'm generally not a friend of just bridge pup mode, Jaco left no lasting imprint on me
Pos 2 - a single coil from each pup, as you would imagine given the spread of the two coils (that is one gigantic humbucking pup this pos creates) quite a bit of midrange cancelling out and "hollowing" of sound, similar to Pos 5 which has bit more depth
Pos 3 - bridge in single coil mode and true single coil it is as the humming of my Ampeg can testify!   not such a huge difference to Pos 1 really, but audible, sounds a bit more vintage
Pos 4 - neck in single coil mode, as above not such a huge sound difference to the humbucking mode in Pos 6, but a very typical Ripper sound
Pos 5 - a single coil from each pup, but this time even farther apart than in Pos 2, just slightly bassier than what Pos 2 offers
Pos 6 - neck pup in humbucking mode, see comments to Pos 4, deep guttural Ripper sound


In essence, whatever Seymour Duncan has done pretty closely resembles the character of the old Ripper varitone set up without aping it. My Ripper II is about as loud as my 73 big body maple board Ripper, but not quite as loud and deep as my 81 ebony Ripper.

Gibson took a different course on this reissue than to what it has done before, the Ripper II is closer to a Ripper I in sound than a modern day TBird would be to a Bicentennial or sixties model. And, in comparison, the Grabber II is to an original Grabber what The Incredible Hulk is to Bruce Banner. I think I prefer the latter approach, perhaps I'm just hooked on that TB Plus sound!

Uwe

[Barklessdog]

And I thought the RD was complicated!

[doombass]

Congratulations to yet another completion Uwe. I've stopped counting the times my jaw hit the desk.

They really went all the way with the switching. Well almost. I wonder why they did'nt offer both pickups in full humbucking mode?

[Highlander]

Has "Ze (Gibson) Kolection" passed the "century" mark yet...? (yes, I'll count again...  )

[Chris P.]

Great Uwe! And I had the same idea as Dave: Less papers, more basses!

The sunburst on the fretless one's strange.

Nice review again!