My bass collection - G&L
Yes, another Interceptor Bass. With its slightly figured maple body, Red-over-Black finish on the front, and opaque black back, it is the perfect complement to this Interceptor III (1st X-body). Like for the ash version, the wiring harness to control the 2 small footprint HB-2 Bi-Pole™ Magnetic Field Design humbuckers is again mounted on a control panel. With the red tip series/parallel switch in the parallel setting, the pickups are combined in parallel if both are selected. In the series setting the pickup selector is bypassed and both pickups are always on, in series of course. The white tip passive/active allows the player to switch between a high-impedance passive mode and a low-impedance mode with the preamp engaged. The 34” scale hard-rock maple neck has a 7½” rosewood fingerboard, 1¹¹⁄₁₆” nut, and a matching sickle headstock with G&L hook and gold font. The Rarebird Interceptor Bass has its own page in the Guitars by Leo (GbL) Registry with links to additional pictures in the GbL Gallery.
Interceptor bass (control panel, maple body)
The story behind this bass
Year:
Serial number:
Neck date:
Body date:
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Too beautiful to pass up, this bass was purchased in 2021 from Vincent Gillenkirk. When first connecting the bass to my Phil Jones Bass BG-400 Suitcase Compact it sounded very dark. Well, therein lies the power of the PTB tone stack. Turning the tone knobs gave that growly sound these basses are known for. The preamp seemed to be dead but some testing showed it was not a problem with the battery. When inspecting the wiring harness, it turned out the ground wire to the output jack was not firmly connected and would only sporadically make contact. Finally time to buy that soldering iron? The date stamp on the neck which turns out to be exactly the same as for this Interceptor Bass (rear-loaded controls). But note the latter has the redesigned, sleeker headstock shape whereas this one still has the early shape with G&L hook. Hmmm. Interesting ...
The story behind this guitar
1985
B015528
MAR 25 1985
APR 26 1984
