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So, my Penguin felt lonely.
Had to get some orange friends for it.

Nice family picture! If I owned any Gretches, those would be the ones! Do the Penguin and the Roundup sound that much different or is it mostly cosmetic?

They sound alike for sure. The penguin Is a CS so it has Seymour Duncans which sound a bit different, still very similar though.
The bigsby makes it different enough for me, and the looks obviously.

Andreas N wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 12, 2019 5:40 am

They sound alike for sure. The penguin Is a CS so it has Seymour Duncans which sound a bit different, still very similar though.
The bigsby makes it different enough for me, and the looks obviously.

I still have the G-Cadillac tailpiece. I like the look, but I really miss not having a Bigsby. It’s like my Gretsch has been neutered.

Newest addition to my guitar family:



I've wanted a Gretsch for a long time. But I hate Bigsbies. This is from a weird period for Gretsch, the mid 1990s, in which they producsed this "Historical" series that wasn't the least bit historical. HOWEVER, it doesn't have a Bigsby, but DOES have TV Jones Classics, so... hard to pass up.

I have a Panther I am quite fond of:



I kinda want a Duo Jet, too, though I have an S2 Starla which is filling that role right now.

Tritone wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 21, 2019 10:15 am

I have a Panther I am quite fond of:



I kinda want a Duo Jet, too, though I have an S2 Starla which is filling that role right now.

It's your sweet pedalboard that's caught me eye! Great stuff on there! Oh, is that the AC15HW?

Maggieo wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 21, 2019 1:50 pm

It's your sweet pedalboard that's caught me eye! Great stuff on there! Oh, is that the AC15HW?

Thanks. And yes, it is! I replaced the Greenback with a Creamback and it's my favorite amp.

A lot of neat guitars in here.

So I picked up a Gretsch on a whim a while back because I wanted to try something different, and the opportunity came up. It's orange, has a Bigsby, TV Jones, MIJ. The neck feels real nice with a soft rounded shoulder. Maybe a couple years old, looks like it's barely been touched.

Unfortunately the vibrato action is terrible. While I'm not super familiar with Bigsby, it seems like there's excessive play where the arm swivels, so if you try to wiggle the arm subtly the pitch isn't changing, it's just the arm flopping about. The problem is probably worsened by what looks like an ABR-1 bridge. When you do push down hard enough, the strings are pinging like crazy as they grind over the bridge.

I wasn't sure if a bit of careful filing on the saddles, and maybe some kind of tweaking on the arm would be enough, so I haven't tried yet. I was wondering if it would be easier to just replace the arm and bridge with something different. The case seems to put a lot of pressure on the arm regardless of which direction it's turned.

But aside from that, the sound of the Power'Tron pickups doesn't really suit me. It's like the top end is really muted, and the rest is too wooly. So I was thinking maybe replace the pickups also, but I don't know what would be a good choice that would fit in this form factor. I'd like something with more top end clarity and sparkle, maybe try TV-HT single coils?

Ultimately, I'm on the fence of whether to start working on it or just give up and say Gretsch just isn't for me, and sell it on as-is.

nothing fancy, but here's my electromatic and streamliner. Both play excellent and the streamliners pickups sounds very nice for a budget gretsch.

For a couple of months, I've been keeping an eye out for a new Gretsch. The criteria: hollow body, Bigsby, orange, double cutaway. I tried the new Electromatic centre block model (G5622T), but I didn't get on with the neck and my girlfriend didn't like the shade of orange. I tried the full-hollow Electromatic G5422T, which was the right shade of orange, and had a nice neck, but I figured it was too similar to my current green G5420T.

Then I saw that Gretsch had released the G5655TG Electromatic Center Block Jr. Single cut, which, given that it had a smaller body, was *almost* what I was after, but wasn't double-cut. Then I saw the G6659TFM Player's Edition, which was similarly sized, with all the luxury extras, but STILL wasn't double cut.

What followed was several months of me mentioning to my girlfriend in every guitar shop we were in, that Gretsch needed to do a junior-bodied double-cut with a Bigsby, in Orange, and I would be all over it. She is remarkably patient.

Then, one day in August, just after I'd ordered my dream bass (which never arrived, but that's another story), I saw this in the window of my local guitar shop (Glaswegians will do doubt figure which one:



Hollow body, junior-sized, double-cutaway, ORANGE, Bigsby. All boxes ticked!

My girlfriend basically told me that if I didn't buy it, I could NEVER complain about Gretsch not making what I wanted again, so I bought it. It's very lovely.

wingnutkj wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 08, 2019 4:50 am

For a couple of months, I've been keeping an eye out for a new Gretsch. The criteria: hollow body, Bigsby, orange, double cutaway. I tried the new Electromatic centre block model (G5622T), but I didn't get on with the neck and my girlfriend didn't like the shade of orange. I tried the full-hollow Electromatic G5422T, which was the right shade of orange, and had a nice neck, but I figured it was too similar to my current green G5420T.

Then I saw that Gretsch had released the G5655TG Electromatic Center Block Jr. Single cut, which, given that it had a smaller body, was *almost* what I was after, but wasn't double-cut. Then I saw the G6659TFM Player's Edition, which was similarly sized, with all the luxury extras, but STILL wasn't double cut.

What followed was several months of me mentioning to my girlfriend in every guitar shop we were in, that Gretsch needed to do a junior-bodied double-cut with a Bigsby, in Orange, and I would be all over it. She is remarkably patient.

Then, one day in August, just after I'd ordered my dream bass (which never arrived, but that's another story), I saw this in the window of my local guitar shop (Glaswegians will do doubt figure which one:



Hollow body, junior-sized, double-cutaway, ORANGE, Bigsby. All boxes ticked!

My girlfriend basically told me that if I didn't buy it, I could NEVER complain about Gretsch not making what I wanted again, so I bought it. It's very lovely.

I’ve a friend with one of those. It feels a bit small to me as I’m used to Falcons and the like, but he loves it. His other guitar is a Les Paul Jr.

Oh and I can only dream of being with a girl who's patient enough to hear me talking about small details like that, let alone understanding what I'm saying lol

Did Gretsch ever do any 24" scale guitars hollow bodies?

Updates to my Gretsch G5420T. Mods include SD Psyclone pickups, all new pots and caps, football jack plate, aluminum Compton bridge, and a Reverend soft spring in the Bigsby: