Gretsch Players Edition & Reissue Edition Guitars

94
Guitarist May 2016
review
GRETSCH PLAYERS EDITION & REISSUE EDITION GUITARS
the neck pickup positions. Certainly, when
we’ve tested the No-Load tone fully open
on a Fender solidbody, we quite often back
it off. Here, we kept it pretty much fully
up. Gretsches for the more contemporary-
minded player? Quite definitely.
Verdict
Beautifully made and with some lovely
period-correct details mixed with more
modern concessions, there’s little we don’t
like here. Choosing your fit, however, may
be a more difficult decision. At £3.2k, the
White Falcon is a serious investment,
although its sturdier build and longer scale
(not to mention those Filter’Trons) give it
perhaps the most versatile sonic palette.
Considerably lower in cost, our two Players
Edition models are close cousins and either
would be perfect for those for rockier, less
‘Gretsch-style’ outings – the new string-
thru Bigsby alone will cure what most of us
find a chore: restringing.
That just leaves the Chet Atkins G6120T-
55GE hollowbody, which, with its lighter
build and those DynaSonic-style single
coils, really gets to the essence of the
‘Gretsch sound’. If you haven’t played a
Gretsch for a while, you might be very
surprised. These are some serious guitars.
15. The famous G-brand
body logo had already
appeared on the
Gretsch Round-Up
in 1954, which also
featured the ‘cattle
and cactus’ theme.
Yup, it was aimed at
country players!
16. Designed by Ray
Butts to primarily
cure the hum from the
DynaSonic single coil,
the development of
the Filter’Tron came at
the same time as Seth
Lover’s humbucking
design for Gibson
17. Over the top?
The White Falcon’s
headstock is big,
which refl ects its
larger body and
longer scale length.
Originally, it featured
a vertical ‘winged’
Gretsch logo; this later
spec has the classic
Gretsch ‘T-roof’ logo
and nameplate
17
it’s slightly more forceful, a little higher in
output, stronger and firmer, helped by the
longer scale length. The tone switch is a
very neat circuit that simply offers a slight
high-end roll off when pushed up, and a
darker, throatier sound when pushed down.
On a big guitar like this, not least with
the Bigsby in play, those standard controls
seem quite a way away, so you can set your
individual volumes then control everything
from the top of the guitar: master volume
(which seems to retain the highs as it’s
reduced, while the individual volumes
slightly soften the attack when reduced),
pickup selection and tone control. The
feedback threshold is raised, but it still
remains, despite the firmer structure,
essentially a hollowbody.
The Anniversary and the Tennessee Rose,
on paper, are the same guitar and plugging
in the Anniversary after the Falcon takes
us slightly further still from the 6120. With
everything full up, we feel the need to add
a little treble from our amp to create that
stingin’ steely tone from the bridge, while
both the mix and the neck sound a little
clouded, a little thicker than the Falcon.
Of the two, it might be splitting hairs a
little, but the Tennessee Rose just sounded
a little lighter, especially on the mix and
16
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GIT406.rev_gretsch.indd 94 16/03/2016 08:09