This Ripper is gorgeous!

[Denis]

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

[Lightyear]

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?

[Nocturnal]

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??

[Chris P.]

Cool! My year of birth...

[Barklessdog]

Usually you see that burst on fretless ones. That's the first I ever saw that was fretted. Weird back teardrop.

[TobaccoRipper]

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.

[Dave W]

Stained maple board, IMHO.

Pretty steep for a refin.

[patman]

maybe started out as a natural ripper?

[TobaccoRipper]

Okay I got it: "The dirt keeps the funk!"  

For sure it was a natural one! Otherwise it would have had an ebony fretboard.

[Denis]

Greg Lake's Ripper was black with a maple fretboard. Maybe it was a custom shop or something.

[uwe]

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.

[hollowbody]

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

[uwe]

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.

[ramone57]

the copy says it "has the mid 70s Gibson upgrade of the Gibson neckplate to strengthen the set neckjoint".  that doesn't sound right.  

[Hörnisse]

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?



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.