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The Gibson Grabber was a
bass guitar
The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...
introduced in 1973 along with the
Gibson Ripper, both designed by
Bill Lawrence.
The Grabber featured a bolt-on neck similar to
Fender basses and shared a similar body shape with the Ripper. A distinctive feature of the Grabber was its adjustable pickup, which could be positioned by the player to simulate a neck or bridge pickup position, or in between, to provide further tonal variation. The pickup was brighter than the traditional Gibson style
humbucker
A humbucker, humbucking pickup, or double coil, is a guitar pickup that uses two wire coils to cancel out noisy interference from Single coil guitar pickup, coil pickups. Humbucking coils are also used in Microphone, dynamic microphones to can ...
s. The Grabber had one volume and tone control each, and a removable bridge cover. The Grabber was originally built with a thin, maple body, but it was changed to alder in 1975. 1975 was a peak year for Grabber sales, with 2,637 units sold, due largely to its high-profile use by
Kiss
A kiss is the touching or pressing of one's lips against another person, animal or object. Cultural connotations of kissing vary widely; depending on the culture and context, a kiss can express sentiments of love, passion, romance, sex ...
bassist
Gene Simmons
Gene Simmons (born Chaim Witz; ; born August 25, 1949) also known by his stage persona "The Demon", is an Israeli-born American musician. He was the bassist and co-lead singer of the hard rock band Kiss (band), Kiss, which he co-founded wit ...
. The Grabber was available in wine red, ebony, natural, walnut and white finishes along with a very rare Eggplant Sparkle used by Gene Simmons for the KISS Alive album shoot. It was basically Gibson’s wine red (transparent) color with multi colored glitter applied to the finish between layers. The Grabber was discontinued in 1982, though small numbers were produced as late as 1984.
Later, another model of the Grabber was produced, called the
Gibson G3
The Gibson G-3 was a bass guitar by Gibson building on the design of the Gibson Grabber.
Introduced in 1975 as a companion to the Gibson Grabber, the G-3 (which stands for Grabber 3) introduced a new pickup scheme to the already established bod ...
. This bass had three stationary pickups mounted in the neck, bridge and middle positions. A three way switch was added to the control scheme so that the pickups could be activated as humbucking pairs; neck & middle, bridge & middle, or all three in humbucking configuration for the so-called "buck and a half". Although very similar, the Grabber and G3 have different and unique sounds which led players to prefer one over the other.
Notable users of the Grabber are Lou Barlow (Dinosaur Jr) Mike Dirnt (Green Day) and Krist Novoselic (Nirvana).
2009 Reissue
In 2009 Gibson produced a limited reissue of the single adjustable pickup version of the Grabber. It was limited to 350 models, all with a black finish.
See also
*
List of Gibson players
References
External links
Gibson Grabber reissue{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090221154454/http://www2.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/Bass/Gibson-USA/Grabber-Bass.aspx , date=2009-02-21
Gibson electric bass guitars