1978 Gibson Ripper - more images and sound clips of this late-period maple bodied bass

Ripper variations

Prototype?: The earliest photographed Ripper appeared in the Jan 1974 guitar magazines, and is pictured here. This would have been built in 1973. This Ripper is very different from all later guitars featuring a smaller pickguard (only one pickup is mounted in it), 2 EB style humbuckers with surrounds and no bridge cover (also no strung through body?).

Dartanyan Brown, bass player with jazz rock group Chase was one of a number of artists given early Rippers to 'road-test'. He recalls this bass well.... "that was one of several 'first drafts' that Bruce (Bolen) reviewed with me, Greg Lake and probably a few others. The instrument pictured has a beveled edge; that's because it was originally flat-edged (like a telecaster bass) and I thought it very uncomfortable so they were bringing various bevel/contour designs. They needed something for the print ad (upcoming Christmas season) so they grabbed that one. It was just a mock-up for an ad that was produced way ahead of the actual guitars on the assembly line." Dartanyan went on to record a track called Base Meant for a Gibson Ripper publicity disk in 1974.

Production models: There were some other differences between the earliest and latest rippers other than choice of body wood. Most notably in body shape, but also varitone selector markings and pickup mounting. The earliest models were wider bodied, but with short rounded horns, and tortoiseshell pickguards ranging from deep red to almost black. In 1975 with the change to an alder body, the horns were lengthened, and sharpened, whilst the body became slightly narrower.

The next modifications came in somewhere in late 1976, early 1977; the pickups had previously been mounted with 2 screws going through the centre of the pickup itself, however now this was replaced by 3 screws attaching it to the scratchplate. This required modification of the pickup routes; from rectangular, to a five-sided shape.

At around the same time, the varitone position labels were etched into the scratchplate, rather than using a label ring similar to an EB3 bass, and the back of the body now had a recessed black metal plate through which the strings pass, rather than individual string holes. Pickguards (at least on some instruments) were now five-ply b/w/b/w/b. All of these differences are illustrated in the pictures to the left.

The ripper was still featured as late as the 1983 catalogue, with no changes in specification, except for an ultra-safe "Posi-Lok" strap button fitted to all Gibson basses of this period.