Dave Bryce Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 So, I'm up to seven electrics since I started my binge last winter. My buddy David Waters told me I needed a Gretsch. Boy, was he right. All my other electric guitars are Fender or Gibson/Epiphone, and solid body except for the Epiphone Dot. This one is a whole 'nother world though. dB Quote ==> David Bryce Music • Funky Young Monks <== Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dannyalcatraz Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 Beautiful! Whatcha playin" on it? Quote Sturgeon's 2nd Law, a.k.a. Sturgeon's Revelation: âNinety percent of everything is crapâ My FLMS- Murphy's Music in Irving, Tx http://murphysmusictx.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Bryce Posted January 21, 2021 Author Share Posted January 21, 2021 You mean type of music? Mostly clumsy blues and old rock tunes. dB Quote ==> David Bryce Music • Funky Young Monks <== Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CEB Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 Be careful. I don"t even know how many guitars I have. It"s a mess. Some are at Dad"s some are at the rehearsal studio, some are in storage. Some are at home. Quote "It doesn't have to be difficult to be cool" - Mitch Towne "A great musician can bring tears to your eyes!!! So can a auto Mechanic." - Stokes Hunt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caevan O’Shite Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice! You mean type of music? Mostly clumsy blues and old rock tunes. dB I really, REALLY HIGHLY recommend that you put a set of DR Pure Blues 11's on that axe. Round-core wire with pure/solid-nickel wrap-wire. They'll really bring out the best of that guitar, I guarantee it. Richer, fuller mids and upper-mids, and a nice feel, flexible and bendable belying their medium gauge. You'll have to spend a little time adjusting the pickups pole-pieces, particularly those of the wound-bass strings; but it'll be well worth the time and effort. Quote Ask yourself- What Would Ren and Stimpy Do? ~ Caevan James-Michael Miller-O'Shite ~ _ ___ _ Leprechaun, Esquire _ ___ _ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dannyalcatraz Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 Caev, can you clarify why? I ask because I have a guitar that shares many characteristics with that Gretsch. Quote Sturgeon's 2nd Law, a.k.a. Sturgeon's Revelation: âNinety percent of everything is crapâ My FLMS- Murphy's Music in Irving, Tx http://murphysmusictx.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KuruPrionz Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 That's a pretty one Sir Dave!!! Long ago and far away I owned 4 vintage Gretsch guitars from the 50's and 60's. I still have a guitar a friend customized, a Harmony arch top with a new neck, a crushed mirror candy apple red finish, a new neck and he even copied the floating bridge unit from my Viking although he didn't do the "tempered treble zone" thing on the fret board. It's a project at this point, replacing the corroded Bigsby with a Hoyer - German made improved Bigsby AND a set of TV Jones pickups that I am dying to hear again. If your Gretsch does not have the TV Jones pickups (some of the nicer ones do), take a look at them. They are not insanely expensive and they sound like the vintage Gretsch pickups. Since Fender bought them they've used TV Jones on the high end models and really nice Filtertron copies on the ones that are just a notch down. You just made me think!!! (Yikes) I am going to San Juan Island this weekend and TV Jones is in Friday Harbor. Maybe I'll drop off the vintage gold Supertron I have that has way too little windings and needs a bottom plate. Probably was a bass pickup - hence the windings. If anybody can make that into a tone monster, it would be Mr. Jones. So I better shoot him a line tonight. Cheers, Kuru Quote It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larryz Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 Dave She's a real beauty! A very nice axe for classic rock and roll and rock-a-billy...congrats! Quote Take care, Larryz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Schmieder Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 That's an interesting Gretsch model. I don't recognize it off-hand. It has the advantage of not having as many knobs (I feel most Gretsch models have too many knobs, and not enough range for each knob). I tend to have love/hate relationships with Gretsches, but I will likely hold onto my 12-string forever. They messed it up the following year, shortening the scale and making the nut way narrower. I got lucky. Quote Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35, D'angelico SS Bari, EXL1, Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, LP 57, Eastman T486, T64, Ibanez PM2, Hammond XK4, Moog Voyager Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KuruPrionz Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 That's an interesting Gretsch model. I don't recognize it off-hand. It has the advantage of not having as many knobs (I feel most Gretsch models have too many knobs, and not enough range for each knob). I tend to have love/hate relationships with Gretsches, but I will likely hold onto my 12-string forever. They messed it up the following year, shortening the scale and making the nut way narrower. I got lucky. It looks to me like an updated,, slightly smaller 6120 - the original Chet Atkins model. I love the blue, the orange was cool too. A friend of mine used to own a metallic green Country Club, that was pretty awesome too. I love Gretsch guitars but I prefer other things for gigging. Looking forward to getting my "pseudo-Gretsch" up and running for recording. Quote It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Bryce Posted January 21, 2021 Author Share Posted January 21, 2021 The way the chamber resonance interacts with the bite from the pickups on this puppy completely knocks me out. dB Quote ==> David Bryce Music • Funky Young Monks <== Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KuruPrionz Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 The way the chamber resonance interacts with the bite from the pickups on this puppy completely knocks me out. dB Put your Princeton up on a chair, turn it up a bit - fire up that reverb and stand right in front of it. You'll find the beautiful "howl spots" pretty quickly. That's where the Bigsby really shines, a wiggle here and there will start to trigger harmonics into the feedback. It is a completely different sound than anything else! Quote It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dannyalcatraz Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 Seconding the Tv Jones! Quote Sturgeon's 2nd Law, a.k.a. Sturgeon's Revelation: âNinety percent of everything is crapâ My FLMS- Murphy's Music in Irving, Tx http://murphysmusictx.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KuruPrionz Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 You just made me think!!! (Yikes) I am going to San Juan Island this weekend and TV Jones is in Friday Harbor. Maybe I'll drop off the vintage gold Supertron I have that has way too little windings and needs a bottom plate. Probably was a bass pickup - hence the windings. If anybody can make that into a tone monster, it would be Mr. Jones. So I better shoot him a line tonight. Cheers, Kuru I called them today and it turns out they are now in Poulsbo. So I won't be dropping my pickup off this weekend. I got an email address and sent info and photos on my vintage Supertron. I'd love to have it rewound by somebody who understands the Gretsch pickups. Interesting trivia - both Gibson (Seth Lover) and Gretsch (Ray Butts) applied for and received patents for what is essentially the same design for a humbucking pickup. They never disputed this with each other. Leo Fender got around it, the split pickup P-Bass from the later 50's is a humbucking design but a different configuration. Quote It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caevan O’Shite Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 The way the chamber resonance interacts with the bite from the pickups on this puppy completely knocks me out. dB Put your Princeton up on a chair, turn it up a bit - fire up that reverb and stand right in front of it. You'll find the beautiful "howl spots" pretty quickly. That's where the Bigsby really shines, a wiggle here and there will start to trigger harmonics into the feedback. It is a completely different sound than anything else! Listen to much of the album Quadrophenia by the Who and you'll hear that in action- Pete Townshend played a Gretsch through a volume-pedal and a cranked "tweed" 3x10 Bandmaster, sitting nearby. Caev, can you clarify why? I ask because I have a guitar that shares many characteristics with that Gretsch. The DR Pure Blues- with their round--core wire and solid/pure-nickel wrap-wire on the wound-bass strings- have fuller mids, with subtly rolled-off high-treble and low-lows, compared to nickel-plated-steel wound-strings on hex-cores. They feel great, too, being very flexibly bendable for their gauges- I use Pure Blues 11 - 50 sets on my Les Paul, the ONLY strings I'll put on it, and they're very nice for bendy Blues, Blues Rock, Classic Rock, Hard Rock... You'd need to adjust the heights of the pickups, and more particularly, the heights of the pole-pieces if they're adjustable, for string-to-string and pickup-to-pickup balance; it's well worth the effort. Even DR's Tite-Fit sets, with the same round-core and gauges as the Pure Blues, but with nickel-plated-steel round-wound strings, feel the same, are noticeably more 'mid-scooped' in comparison. Other hex-core nickel-plated-steel round-wounds are even more 'scooped' sounding, when compared. I really love the way the fuller, richer mids of the DR Pure Blues brings out the best of Gibson and Gretch style guitars, particularly short-ish scale-length axes like Les Pauls, ES-335's, andf the like; they emphasize that rich, round, warm character with loads of harmonic-overtone swirl. Yet they still retain upper-mid presence, bite and zing. Thomastik-Infeld makes a BeBop "Jazz Round-Wound" set that is similar in round-core, pure-nickel construction, but with smaller-diameter wrap-wire and larger-diameter core-wire, for an even smoother, warmer, subtly darker tone. Fantastic "R&B" tone for Gibson and Gretsch axes, as opposed to the Blues and Blues-Rock attitude of the Pure Blues. The BeBop sets are beautiful sounding and feeling on hollow-body and semi-hollow guitars in particular! These DR Pure Blues and T-I BeBop sets are also great for any guitar- like, say, Strats or Teles, Metal axes like ESPs and Ibanezes- that one might want to warm and fatten up. Been there, done that! Quote Ask yourself- What Would Ren and Stimpy Do? ~ Caevan James-Michael Miller-O'Shite ~ _ ___ _ Leprechaun, Esquire _ ___ _ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surfergirl Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 Just got home with 2 sets of DR Pure Blues, 9-42. Same price as my regular strings, so thought I'd give them a try. Quote Jenny S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Fraser Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 Just got home with 2 sets of DR Pure Blues, 9-42. Same price as my regular strings, so thought I'd give them a try. I think you'll like them. They feel great, as if they're smoother than other strings, in my experience. Quote Scott Fraser Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caevan O’Shite Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 Just got home with 2 sets of DR Pure Blues, 9-42. Same price as my regular strings, so thought I'd give them a try. I think you'll like them. You might have to slightly adjust your pickups, just a little- perhaps just a little closer to the strings on the bass-side. Maybe not, though. Judge by your ears. And, of course, check the neck-relief, and the intonation. Quote Ask yourself- What Would Ren and Stimpy Do? ~ Caevan James-Michael Miller-O'Shite ~ _ ___ _ Leprechaun, Esquire _ ___ _ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dannyalcatraz Posted January 24, 2021 Share Posted January 24, 2021 I"ll keep that in mind, Caev! Quote Sturgeon's 2nd Law, a.k.a. Sturgeon's Revelation: âNinety percent of everything is crapâ My FLMS- Murphy's Music in Irving, Tx http://murphysmusictx.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.