Gibson Marauder

I think I may have one of the only Marauders that came to me with dueling humbuckers. I have replaced almost every stock peice of this guitar except the neck, body, and pickguard. It has a lightning fast neck, a plain mahogany body, a maple neck, and tune-o-matic bridge. Overall a good axe.

With a few simple mods, this guitar sounds awesome! I took out the DiMarzios, and install PRS Dragon II pu's. I plug it into a Marshall VS-100 half stack and this beast has sustain for days! I can't really dial in much of a clean sound, but I have a Les Paul for that.

I had to install new tuning machines and cut new saddles for the tune-o-matic bridge, but nothing I wouldn't expect to have to do on a 20yo used guitar.

I beat the everliving snot out of this axe, and it just keeps on tickin'. I never gig without a backup, but I rarely have to use it when I rock my Marauder.

I repair all my guitars myself, so that element of support is out. But I know a few of the guys at Gibson myself, most of 'em are cool guys.

I love this guitar. I most definately got my money's worth. Anybody looking for an awesome mod guitar, the Marauder is definately worth a look. You can't beat it!

made in usa serial no. 549448, 2 piece maple neck headstock/volute beginning at 3rd fret, rosewood fingerboard, I guess mahogany 3 piece body came completely original.
Price in 1995 680 Deutschmarks was roundabout 450 USD at the time.

Blues it is and yes this guitar suits it. Especially when I finally realised that this guitar will never gain collectors attention and I finally did what I allway wanted to: I swapped HB and Single coil. Before I did this, the Humbucker was good but a tiny little bit muddy and the single coil was close to useless because it had nearly no output at all and was overly bright/sharp. Now the single coil is so very sweeet in clean settings, sings in crunch and the humbucker adds what it needs when it comes to distortion. Amps Peavey Classic 30 + Marshall Tremolo Stompbox, Epiphone & Peavey 5 Watts Class A, sometimes Vox 15W Transistor sometimes +Ibanez TS9 Original

Bought second hand, the set-up was fine with me.
Stays in tune even though the tuners where crap when new and time took its toll....
Nice low action, wide C-shape neck very comfortable and fast.

Very dependable, but I never ever gig without backup.
Built like a tank, and with all its beauty :(

No idea

American Fender Bullet, korean Ibanez AMA 72, jap.Fender Mustang Bass, jap. Fender Performer Bass, Chinese Epiphone EB=0 Bass Ampeg T 15 Flip-Top Bass Combo, Dynacord Bass-King Amp + 2x12 Box.
I play drums for 35 years, guitar and bass for 18 years.
The sweet clean sound of the single coil is what I love.
Good playability, good humbucker in bridge position I can get from many guitars. But this single coil is unique and simply lovely; I have no comparison for it
I read so much about the replaced pickups I??d really like to buy two of them.
Also I??d like to buy a S 1, that the one with the 3 single coils.
And , if it came my way, another marauder with a maple neck/fretboard would be fine.

It's all been said by those in the know... I'd like to comment on the opinionated fools who put down this guitar... The timber in these guitars is real and guitar makers like PRS or Fender or Gibson would kill to be able to access timber of this grade in 2007! Mine came secondhand with a Dimarzio PAF PRO and a HS2... Sounds great :-) It has all the features of a guitar.... so it has everything!

I play 70's to 07's and this can do most without issue... the after-market pickups help from what others have said but again in the right hands even crap guitar can sound pretty good. I go straight into a Marshall JCM900 50w 2x12 combo... it cranks! The single coil is noisy... now that's a surprise.

No idea how it was setup from the factory... I touched up the truss-rod and made minor adjustments to the bridge harmonics and height and she plays great... good gibson type neck (same as my Les Paul Junior Special) Finish and fit is sus with a GAP where the neck meets the body but the neck doesn't move at all... This has been banged around and played professionally for the past twenty years and it's still a gigging guitar... very cool!

Industrial design!

No idea.

The timber makes the noise... and this has beautiful timber... so it makes beautiful noise... the Dimarzio pickups are tops and this makes me happy... I've been playing for 35 years... and I also have 2 USA Strats, and Gibson Junior Special, Ibanez JEM77FP, Ibanez RG570, a couple of Roadstars... I bought this as it looked loney in a guitar shop where it had been for years... unloved and unplayed... the teenage shop assistant offered to show me some painted Samicks "as they are better guitars" :-) FOOL!! Wat I love about this guitar is that it has character and personality in sounds and playability... as someone else said it's a fun guitar to shred out on and it's not the same old same old... It was a weird period of guitar making and I still want a Gibson L6S for my growing little collection. One last comment... If I don't play it... I sell it... so I really only keep working guitars and not show ponies... and this is a great little work-horse!

Has only one volume knob and 2 switches. (weird)
A yellow colored finish.
flying v head.
maple neck.
3 pickups.

I play punk music and the sound sounds so good on my marshall amp.
I dont use any affects besides distortion and it has a ac-dc sound to it.
you can play a punk/rock and even some blues.

I would be better if it had more knobs, but thats about it.

BUILT TO LAST!!!

I gave the code nuber to the company and asked about it and all they said was "1976" Not to good feed back.

VERY GOOD SOUND, THATS ALL THAT MATTERS!

Very simple guitar. I\ve replaced the single coil with humbacker, because it didnt came with original single coil, so f"ck it.

Bridge - DiMarzio Super Distortion, Neck - Seymour Duncan Air Classic
Sounds very good, like SG with little more sharpness. I play thru VOX AC 30 amp. Only two effects are Boss dual overdrive and some crappy wah wah pedal (made in china by those little workers)...

I always set action to very low so i have some string buzz, but nevermind, it's heard only unplugged. I have new frets installed, so it's ok. Finish is little bite screwed, but i dont give a damn.

I think it will last. It's gibson

Great. I mailed them to send me a schematics, and they did!

Playing ALT/PUNK/ROCK for about 10 yrs, and I don't like les pauls, but this Gibson guitar is good. I think I saw it in Teenage Kicks video ftom Undertones and David Grohl is playing it sometimes, also as Joshua from Queens of the stone age, so it's not bad guitar at all. Buy one if you can...

The features are the same as most of the below mentioned. single cut away big tune-o-matic bridge,Gibson tuners,3 piece neck maple fb, hard shell case. Mine is a mahogany body in tobacco sunburst & 3-way selector(retro fit). A basic electric guitar. Here's the big one.. a bolt-on neck. Which is the basis for all the hubbub on this Gibson.

The sound is what makes this guitar stand out. First of all this is not a Les Paul nor was it ment to be. It has Bill Lawrence pups in it that can go from crisp clean tones to deep and muddy. I play blues and rock
this guitar sound great with my fender blues jr. My strat sounds great also but the marauder has a different tone to it that you don' get out of other guitars. I did take that blender out and put a 3 way in . I think the blender was choking the pups.

I bought this guitar in 1977+- new and have tinkered with it over the years. so i don't rememband how the set up was. But the action is great, low and fast with no fret buzz through the amp. The finish still shines and show no sign of checking. At first I didn't care for the maple finger board but have since come to appreciate it. It brightens up the hum bucker a bit and gives the single coil a little twang.

Reliability ? It's 30 years old and still in great shape other than skratches & dings.

Who? What? Never needed it. Only now do I see Gibson saying anything about this guitar on their web-site, along with the S-1. We'll see what the next few years does for this guitars checkered past.

Been playing for over 30 years. It's my "therapy". I also play a strat, tele, Ibanez as-73 and a sea gull. Nothing really great but I don't need great only fun. If it was lost or stolen I would be on line looking for another one ASAP. I love the neck and super humbucker and it looks cool too. I hate when jerks bash this guitar. If you don't like it thats fine, but don't make up Gibson history or call it sub par, the 70's where a hard time for all American manufacturer's because of imports from Japan. If it came out today it might sell well, the line between Gibson and Fender has been blurred since the 70's. It was an entry level guitar made by Gibson, try to find an entry level Gibson today that is as versatile. I recommend this guitar to any one that plays anything but metal. But be careful as of today two out of the seven for sale on line have questionable descriptions.
If you are lucky and get one you will not be disappointed.

Made in the good ole' USA probably in 1978. It was purchased in '78 by my brother, so I assume it was made the same year.

Either alder or mahogany LP-shaped body with a bolt-on maple neck (one piece) with a maple fretboard. Flying V shaped headstock. TOM bridge and typical Gibby tuners. Finish on the thick baseball-bat neck is a thick, sticky, yellowish lacquer variety.

Slanted single coil in the bridge, humbucker in the neck position. Curly-wurly black pickguard on a natural body. Chicken-head rotating knob to switch pickups.

It's a bit odd-looking... Think of a LP with a Fender-neck and a V headstock. It looks... psychedelic.

It's heavy. But then it's a one-piece body and I don't mind.

Nice.

It's a FANTASTIC sound for blues and classic rock. You could probably even make it work for country.

I play mostly blues with this thing and it is the beez knees! I play this either through a clean Laney amp with a FulldriveII for overdrive or through a late seventies Princeton (Japanese 2x12 solidstate - FATTEST cleans you'll ever hear). Sounds great!

The single coil is bright and snappy, but darker than a Strat in the bridge position. The bucker is fat as a hat and through the solidstate Princeton I can get convincing BB King singing leads.

It sounds... organic.

Not bad for 28-year-old pickups.

It was probably never set up so the action on the B and high E strings it a tad high.

Pickups are well adjusted.

This guitar's nearly 30 years old, so the hardware's lost it's chromey shine and the body's original nitro finish wore off years ago. The body's got a few minor dings and what looks like a smudge from a black marker pen.

But everything's in working condition.

I don't think you could kill this if you tried.

It's survived almost three decades. My brother used it to gig playing folksy artsy music. Then it sat in its case for about ten years untouched. Then when I was fifteen I got my paws on it and used it to play hardrock and metal, which probably explains the dings and the marker stain. Then it sat in its case again for a few years whilst I bought other guitars. I've recently rediscovered it as a great blues guitar.

one-piece body, bolt-on one-piece maple neck with a thick finish and solid hardware. After all this time the pickups don't even crackle.

Strap-buttons are the usual Gibson tiny ones. But if you've got a good strap, they'll do just fine. Never understood the need for straplocks. I'm not a hairspray rocker who does high kicks on stage and flings his guitar around his neck, so... Just strap buttons will do, thanks.

Never dealt with Gibson. But they made this here great piece of gear so they can't be all bad.

I've been playing for 17 years. I have own a MIK Fender Strat, a Yamaha Mike Stern, a Yamaha PAC 604w, an Epi faded SG, an Ibanez S540FM and a Kramer Striker. Ampwise I own a Laney hybrid, a Tech21 and a 70s Japanese solidstate called Princeton.

These days I play mostly blues and classic rock and I'm quite fond of my Marauder. It has a character all of its own and it's built to last.

At one stage, in my metal years, I actually thought of selling the Marauder. I'm SO happy that I didn't cuz I really love it.

Gibson should be more proud of this one.

US made, 22 frets, natural finish solid alder body, maple neck, rosewood finger board, 2 volume/tone pots, 3-way pup toggle switch, Humbucker/Tele-esque blade style single coil pups, Tune-O-Matic bridge, gibson flying-v-esque tuners, 24 1/2 scale medium frets, came with a case , a strap and a curly cord.

I'm playing this thing out of a Marshall 1960A cab and a AVT150 head and the sound you get out of the humbucker is a very muddy like quality and a bright twangy sound from the single coil in the bridge. Now the Humbucker is decent but it's far from ideal, you can get some good fat rhythm tones from the neck and the neck/bridge combo but clarity isn't going to be as clear as some other guitars. If you turn down the tone on the single coil pup and scoop the mids, the guitar sound becomes very thick but it has a sharp knife quality that can cut through any mix. If you set the amp EQ just right you can make this guitar sound fairly decent but don't expect that fender twang/gibson solidness.The tone may come up short but I'm in love with the epoxy encased pups, it really sets this guitar from any others. The pickups remind me of those insects that get fossilised in amber, I wouldn't change them out for anything else even if the sound quality is sub-par.

Well I got my marauder off of ebay for roughly 500 bucks. The guitar was in perfect condition, apparently the original owner bought it for his son back in 1975 and his son never played it. So it went in storage for 20 some odd years until it was purchased by a family friend who in turned put it up on auction to which I bid/won the guitar. The guitar's action was really high so I adjusted the tune-o-matic but I couldn't lower the action without getting fret buzz. So then I tried tighting up the truss rod and the guitar now plays smooth and fast. By the looks of it the truss rod was never touched in the 30 years of it's life, beauty. My only complaints is that it needs a wiring job and the toggle switch isn't grounded so it hums a lot.

The tuners went out on the original owner so that he purchased gotoh/gibson tuners on it. Might need to buy some new ones too G doesn't stay in tune very well. It's starting to develop neck whammy as well. The finish is crap, I first thought it was a satin finish but it's just a very thin laquer of finish. The strap buttons are perfect condition, the buttons and the Bridge chrome pieces are in perfect shape no sign of aging/rust on them what so ever. I've gigged with this guitar before and other than having to check tuning every 4-5 tunes or so it holds it's own extremely well.

Gibson doesn't want to remember this guitar at all. It was a stab at fender's bolt on twang but they were stabbing with a dull spoon.

This guitar is a real work of art, even if it's gibson red-headed step child I love it with all of my heart. It's one of the most unique looking guitars I've seen in awhile and I wouldn't sell/trade it for anything. I first saw this guitar from one of the guitarist from asian kung-fu generation and learning that it was a Gibson I did some research on it and when I found out more about it the more I wanted it. So what if the sound quality is crap, it doesn't make me not want to pick it up and play it everyday. This guitar is unique, has a fun history, aesthetically pleasing to the eye, and is reasonably cheap. If you come across this guitar wether you see it on ebay or in a pawn shoppe I recommend you take the time have a look at it and really consider buying it.

1979 Marauder USA ser# 72779638 This 22 fretter has the original single coil/humbucker pickups with 1 volume 1 tone and rotary pickup controls With the chicken head knob on a black scratch plate. The body is mahogany with walnut satin finish(that wore off years ago)and a maple neck/walnut stained finish(worn off ofcoarse)with the maple finger board and jumbo frets(worn out completely)And Gottoh tuners(the factory ones wore out in like 5 years)

I play very hard ALLWAYS and this axe just sounds great for what I like to do with it

It allways plays great and when it needs a tune up ,This time it needs the works ,refretting ,nut, rewiring . But overall, it,s been a great axe ,All but early tuner meltdown ,All is good with my Marauder

This guitar can take a severe beating And come back for more and has done so in the 25 years I,ve had it. My Gibson Flying Vee very fragile compared to my Marauder,This guitar can be used as a sledgehammer and still look and play great NUFF SED

As far as Gibson is concerned about this guitar ,It was made on Mars.All my work to my guitars are done inhouse

Been playing since 1975 and started with a Framus acoustic then put a cheap humbucker and tv panpots and 1/4 RCA jack output in it and an AGS PA amp with a 10 in TV speaker And I was hooked . Next came the Gibson copies till I saw Ron Wood playing an S-3 ,I had to have one,These things were in every guitar shop I was in, So I saw the one I wanted and went to that shop every week and would pick it up and play it for awhile ,looking at the 1000.00 dollar price tag go to 500.00 then to 349.00 and bought it on the spot. Since then I,ve had a few and only kept my 67 Fender Tele ,84 Gibson Flyig Vee and the 79 Gibson Marauder .You can have them when you can pry the from my cold dead fingers.

Mid 70's model 24.4 inch scale with a harmonic, sub-par humbucker in the front and a thin sounding tele pickup in the bridge.

Les Paul shaped, glued in neck

Thin microphonic sound from sub-par pickups

This was a time when north american/gibson quality was so sub-par that people who viewed quality, not name brand, started looking at gibson type models from yamaha, ibanez etc (similar to people looking at japanese cars as an alternative to the american ones

Again with the sub-par quality, the action, neck feel, fret work was sup-par. One could have replaced the pickups, hard to put work on a new sub-par neck

I don't know. I bought the guitar used in the late 70's for $200 and sold it 6 months later for the same thing (which I was lucky to get that time)

To think these guitars are going for $800 and a guitar magazine praised them as 25 year old vintage guitars is once again showing how name and age is rated over quality by too much of the market.

Without a gibson name it would probably be selling for the same as a used Kay, Harmony etc (which are over priced because they are considered "north american vintage"

As stated previously, it was such sub-par north american quality from gibson, fender etc that put companies like yamaha, ibanez etc in the north american market and bought by non-beginners.

Buy another guitar that is half the price and fix it up, like you would have to with this one

Don't get in the folly of certain guitar magazines that view name and years old over quality. This is why any quality used american guitar is way over-priced today