Uwe it is your duty...

[Psycho Bass Guy]

... as a Gibson bass lover to check out one of these shows: https://www.facebook.com/135339756866/photos/a.135475391866.123164.135339756866/10151904792501867/?type=1&theater

http://supersuckers.com/tour/

Eddie Spaghetti's bass is an early 90's black Les Paul Standard with a three point bridge. I have never seen him use anything else live. Covering the ground of both Gibson basses and three-point bridges, you are required to attend. Their music may come off across as a bit simplistic for your tastes, but I promise that you will never see a work harder. I think you would enjoy it.

[Blackbird]

..but don't sit close...the bass has chrome hardware....

[uwe]

Hey, I always liked those early three point Standards, comparatively rare too! The later Warwick bridge wasn't bad of course, just kind of unneccessary though it did give the basses a kind of merciless edge. And the Supersuckers sound fine to me, know a chorus when they hear it. I assume that the bass is active then too as all the Standards were before they introduced the toggle switch and did away with the 9 volt.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

No. The ones with the "guitar" pickups and rings didn't have a preamp. They're all passive. Some of the later ones with TB+'s had preamps without the switch, but I have seen two that were not modded that didn't.

[uwe]

Huh? Here we go again ..., I thought:

LPB 1 aka Special: initially passive with three knobs and TB Plus soapies, all maho, Schaller bridge, Bartolini TCT active electronics added after first year of production or so, change to four knobs, model deleted before becoming passive again,

LPB2 aka Deluxe: always Bartolini TCT active electronics AND Bartolini pups, board inlays, Schaller bridge, maple veneer flat top, deleted before turning passive

LPB3 aka Standard: initially three point bridge, later models Wawick behemoth bridge (Schaller bridge doesn't work on figured top), first few years active via TB Plus guitar size humbuckers and Bartolini TCT electronics, figured maple top, later on - while Special and Deluxe were deleted - turned passive (but retaining pups), toggle switch added, board inlays, deleted for allegedly Warwick refusing to deliver the Warwick bridge anymore after the old contract ran out

So you mean the three point Standards were passive, then turned active and then returned to passive? I'm not denying it (never handled a three point Standard, they certainly always had the four knob set up which came with the TCT active harness), just incredulous. That would have given those early standards pretty much an EB 650 set-up, i.e. TB Plus guitar size humbuckers, but passive. Since both basses were Phil Jones designs, that might even be.

[Dave W]

AFAIK the early LPB3 (Standard) had a preamp. At least the Gibson literature listed them that way from the beginning. That's not to say that some couldn't have left the factory that way.

[uwe]

I do recollect an early nineties brochure by Gibson of their bass models that featured Special (already the active version), Deluxe (always active) and Standard (still with three-point). It would have been weird for the upmarket model to be passive when the budget and the middle model were active. At that time, active basses were all the rage and Phil Jones - lamentably so - championed the mid-less Bartolini TCT circuit within Gibson as hot cakes (it went into four bass models: LP Special, Deluxe and Standard as well as the EB-750). He would only later confess: "It was the easiest-to-get harness at the time, readily available in good quality and abundant quantity".

[Dave W]

I may still have a copy of that brochure somewhere. IIRC it was from early '93.

[uwe]

That would fit, I think the three knob passive LPs came out in 1992.

[SKATE RAT]

yup, my 3 knob passive is a 92

[Psycho Bass Guy]

I'm not sure of the vintage. I assumed that the guitar-sized pickup models with the three point bridge, four knobs, and no switch predated the active LP Stds. There was one on eBay just like Eddie's a couple of years ago that we discussed here (it was being sold as a '93 IIRC) and it was passive (and shown with no strings in the auction.) I've always assumed Eddie bought his new when the Supersuckers got signed to Sub Pop records in 1992. The only other bass I've ever even seen pictures of him holding is a First Act Custom Shop that still has a Gibson three point bridge (thank you carved top.)

[uwe]

When he created the LP series, Phil Jones did some experimenting, double- and singlecut, different pup positions, so you can't rule out that the first carved top LPs were passive just like the EB-650 which was created around the same time.

[ramone57]

this is a '94.  came with the TCT (now gone) and has TB+ pups. 

[uwe]

Yeah, a Special/LPB-1. The prototype of it had the front pup closer to the neck. Except for the ill-fated SG-Z, no Gibson bass had the pups as way back as the LPB series. But the Les Paul basses still retained sufficient ooomph, unlike the anorectic SG-Z.

[4stringer77]

Every LPB 3/standard with a three point bridge I've seen for sale has always had the active two band pre. That LP special is getting me all worked up thinking about my Stambaugh LPBTV thunder. I decided to go for a single black ply guard on it after all.