NGD -- Bird of Prey & some Family Photos...

[rbrcbr]

Damn dude, major come up. Such a cool guitar, love that midnight sapphire finish.

That said, let's talk about that '59 select Country Club.....

[Surfysonic]

Damn dude, major come up. Such a cool guitar, love that midnight sapphire finish.

That said, let's talk about that '59 select Country Club.....

Thanks! Yeah, the CC is brilliant. It's a keeper for so many reasons.

[fuzzjunkie]

I love black and nearly black guitars. I only have one Gretsch but I’ve had 2 others and would probably have 5-6 if I were a collector.

I wanted a Falcon from the first time I saw The Edge play his double cut stereo White Flacon. All those switches and knobs seemed so cool and the sound coming out of it was great too. Billy Duffy and quite a few other British guitarists played them. I used to think they must be a UK guitar company until I figured things out.

The first time I saw one in person and tried to play it, it just seemed so big and bling. I was a little heartbroken. A few years later and Robert Smith was on the cover of a guitar magazine holding a Black Falcon, and the desire for a Falcon was back as long as it was black and silver instead of white and gold.

Like you said , there’s a lot more options for Falcons these days. I ended up with a center block version because it was slightly smaller and had the vertical logo. That was a must. It’s one of my favorite guitars. No regrets getting it other than wishing I could have done it sooner. The silver bling is starting to yellow a bit though. I didn’t expect that to happen so quickly.

[Surfysonic]

Nice! I was always leery of center block Gretsch guitars I've tried as they weighed more than my back could tolerate. Those were Electromatics, though.

Yeah, although I'm very comfortable with the big ol' Country Club, the other attraction to the Players Edition Falcon was the thinner depth (along with the Midnight Sapphire finish).

I bought a bunch of Gretsch guitar straps and they arrived today. One of them is a Falcon leather wide strap. Unfortunately, I'm a big guy and while I can use the strap (maxxed out in length), it sits way too high at my chest with the Players Edition Falcon. I'll save it in case I'm ever able to get a Richard Fortus Signature Falcon with it's 1.75" deep body. Maybe then the strap will hang a bit lower then.

[Surfysonic]

Firstly, congrats again on this incredible guitar. It's perfect. I love the super dark metallic blue - falcons don't look right in bright colours. This is basically "black, but with extra snazz" which is perfect on it.

As for the matter of noiseless dynasonics, have you considered TVJ's Magnatrons? They're side by side humbuckers rather than stacked (or sidewinders like Fralin) but since they have magnetic poles, they're closer to Dynas than to any other Gretsch pickup.

Here's a demo of them in a Penguin. I know Falcons sound different because of the body, but you can hear how well they stay within the "Gretschy" realm. I think they also look the part in Dyna housing - instead of a row of big poles and a row of small adjustment screws, you just have two rows of poles.

Thanks, Mike!

Oh, that's a great idea, Mike, thanks! I love Jason Lee's playing, too! Also, I'm far more comfortable buying TV Jones pickups for my Gretsch guitars than anyone else. They fix ya up right with the correct pickup mounting, etc.

I got a great offer on a pair of TV Jones' Magnatrons (gold) from Pitbull Audio on Reverb. I'm likely going to put them in my Country Club and save the TV Jones Classic pickups from the Country Club for a future offset build.

[Embenny]

Nice! Can't wait to hear your opinion of the Magnatrons. They've been on my list for years. Just haven't had the right guitar to get them for yet.

[Surfysonic]

Got the TV Jones Magn'Trons installed...





Sound AMAZING - very clean, clear, and bright (not icepicky) - I totally felt like I was playing single-coil Dynasonics. Awesome Gretschy surf sounds.

I'll try to get some time to do a demo soon.

If thinking about these pickups - I can't recommend them enough.

Now to figure where to put the stock TV Jones Classic set I took out of the Country Club. Leaning heavily on putting them in my Gretsch G5422T Limited Edition DC Electromatic to replace the stock Blacktop Filter'Trons. I was thinking about doing a Jazzblaster type build but I honestly have way too many guitars as is at the moment and I want to pare down to really enjoy the keepers like this Country Club and other Gretsch guitars - all keepers, honestly.

[Embenny]

Awesome. If you record a demo, would you be able to do an A/B with the same amp settings on your blueburst with the T-Armonds? I'd love to hear them against "real" Dynas. I remember those T-Armonds being much beefier than I expected, but the Magna'Tron demos I've heard all seem closer to being Fender levels of bright. These two guitars are built/wired similarly enough that they seem like a great opportunity for comparison.

[Surfysonic]

Sure thing!

[Maggieo]

Awesome. If you record a demo, would you be able to do an A/B with the same amp settings on your blueburst with the T-Armonds? I'd love to hear them against "real" Dynas. I remember those T-Armonds being much beefier than I expected, but the Magna'Tron demos I've heard all seem closer to being Fender levels of bright. These two guitars are built/wired similarly enough that they seem like a great opportunity for comparison.

Mike, what pups are in Bo?

[Embenny]

Mike, what pups are in Bo?

TV Jones TV Classics.

[Maggieo]

Thank you!

[Surfysonic]

Now to figure where to put the stock TV Jones Classic set I took out of the Country Club. Leaning heavily on putting them in my Gretsch G5422T Limited Edition DC Electromatic to replace the stock Blacktop Filter'Trons. I was thinking about doing a Jazzblaster type build but I honestly have way too many guitars as is at the moment and I want to pare down to really enjoy the keepers like this Country Club and other Gretsch guitars - all keepers, honestly.

Welp, I after opening up the G5422T with the intention of swapping out the stock Blacktop Filter'Trons with the set of Universa-mounted TV Jones Classics from the Country Club, I discovered (should have expected, heh) that the Blacktops are English-mounted. I had clips in the Magna'Tron set so I think I could use them with the Classics to make it work. However, the wiring was so efficient with connectors that I figured I should leave well enough alone.

Looks like I'm going to do a Jazzblaster or some other kind of build.

[Embenny]

Thank you!

De rien, mon ami! That was how they were listed when I bought it, at least, and they sounded like the second pair I previously owned in another guitar.

The only thing I don't know for sure is whether the original owner put a "Classic Plus" in the bridge vs a true bridge position Classic. The Classic Plus is overwhelmingly more popular, and it's just very subtly thicker sounding. It's so much more popular that most players will call a set of Clasic neck and Classic Plus bridge "a set of TV Classics" without even realizing they make a calibrated bridge model of the Classic.

If you take a multimeter to the guitar's output and check how much higher resistance it is vs the neck, you'll be able to deduce it easily. TVJ lists the neck as 4.0k and bridge as 4.8k, vs the Classic Plus being 7.8k (due to thinner wire, not a 95% overwind).

The actual numbers will be off going through all the pots, but if the bridge is 20% higher than the neck, they're both Classics. If the bridge is double the neck, it's a Classic Plus.

Welp, I after opening up the G5422T with the intention of swapping out the stock Blacktop Filter'Trons with the set of Universa-mounted TV Jones Classics from the Country Club, I discovered (should have expected, heh) that the Blacktops are English-mounted. I had clips in the Magna'Tron set so I think I could use them with the Classics to make it work. However, the wiring was so efficient with connectors that I figured I should leave well enough alone.

Looks like I'm going to do a Jazzblaster or some other kind of build.

Right, I remember opening up my "Gretschina" with the set of Blacktops the previous owner put in there, thinking I'd stick the random pair of Fideli'Trons from my parts drawer in there to see how they compared, and discovering the same thing...and then similarly giving up.

Didn't use them for another 3 years until I stuffed them into my Guild T-Bird. I know you like oddball Guilds almost as much as you like Gretsches, so maybe consider that as an option. They look super unique, they're crazy comfortable to play, they're unreasonably cheap on the used market, and the stock Little Bucker pickguard can accept a Filter'Tron with only the slightest bit of work (I used a file to take off about 1mm of material). Or you can just get a new guard cut, which I'll do eventually so I can pickguard mount them with the little adapters - they're press-fit in there right now because the routs were too deep for the pickup screws to hit wood. They're shockingly stable though, I haven't had them budge or fall into the guitar's rout in months of playing it like that.

The only thing you might not like about the Guild is the slim neck, but it's also wider than a Fender or Gretsch, so it doesn't feel small at all to my hands. If anything, it feels bigger than my Gretsch's neck because of that.

I wish you could play my Gretschina. It's got such a ridiculous, un-Gretsch-like baseball bat neck.

Oh, and one more Filter'Tron-related experiment to try out - if you want to get your Blacktops sounding a little more unique among your guitars (vs sounding like TV Classics with the sparkle sucked out), I removed half the screw polepieces on mine and replaced them with black plastic screws (to hide the waxy holes left behind). I did a 3+3 pattern like a WRHB, but 6 inline would work equally well. What you get is literally a noise-canceling HiLo'Tron!

HiLos were made as "the budget option" back in the day because they literally just stuck a single Filter'Tron bobbin in a Filter'Tron case and called it a day. The only difference is that they stuck the magnet to the side of the bobbin and held it in place with a wooden spacer instead of having it underneath like a Filter, because there was blank space they needed to fill.

Once I read that, my gears started turning. Pulling out half the polepieces renders the second bobbin more or less magnetically inactive, since most of the windings are too far from the remaining polepieces to generate much signal. That effectively leaves you with have a Filter'Tron picking up the sound (i.e. a HiLo'Tron), but with a built-in dummy coil attached. Still totally noiseless. The dummy coil adds a bit of resistance and capacitance that would take off a touch of high end compared to a true HiLo, but
HiLos are so absurdly low inductance that I'd be shocked if you even noticed.

It's an obvious hole in TVJ's lineup. You just stick a HiLo plastic topper on the bobbins so nobody can see inside, wire up a TV Classic in there, and you have the world's first and only Noiseless HiLo'Tron. Part of me wondered if it would be worth sticking plastic HiLo toppers on cheap Blacktops after pulling out half the poles and selling them for TVJ prices over on Gretsch-Talk as my proprietary perfecting of the HiLo design, but I'm too honest and lazy for all that.

But seriously, 60 seconds with a screwdriver and you can test it yourself without even having to take off the strings. You get a super low output pickup (like a Hilo) with that early George Harrison/Chet Atkins Tennessean tone without the hum.

To me, as someone with a nicer sounding Filter'Tron than the Blacktops already, it was the perfect way to make lemonade out of those lemons. Blacktops aren't bad pickups, they just do the Filter thing significantly worse than TVJs. But their slight bit of extra output and reduced treble becomes an asset for this mod, since taking the poles out of TV Classic or HS Filter would be even lower output and even brighter in a way that would probably push it into the region of it being a handicap rather than an asset.

[Surfysonic]

Cool, thanks for the info, MIke, much appreciated. I'll definitely give the HiLo'Tron idea a try!

As for a Guild guitar, I'm interested in a Guild Surfliner Deluxe - as is would be fine but I am curious as to what is the routes configuration under the pickguard. The other potential option is the Guild Surfliner HH...

Before getting a Guild Surfliner Deluxe or Surfliner HH, I'd like to try to keep my guitar count from expanding further. I'm first going to see if I can get creative with another guitar in my herd for a pickup swap. Here are some possibilites:

1) Taking out the TV Jones T-Armonds out of my Gretsch G6120BS (after vid comparison I promised) - this essentially puts the guitar back to stock configuration but an upgrade with the TVJ Classics replacing the stock Filter'Trons. I haven't played this one in a while and I want to see how quiet the T-Armonds are in this guitar first before doing anything. If they're as quiet as I remember, I'd prefer to leave this one in its current state... or, get a another set of Magna'Trons (loving them that much).

2) Swap out the TV Jones T-90s in my Cabronita build. While probably the easiest solution as they're FIlter'Tron-routed pickup cavities, it would be a totally unnecessary swap as I'm happy with the T-90s in the Cabronita.

3) Swap out the stock humbuckers in my Squier Affinity Tele Deluxe...I'd have to find a new pickguard that had Filter'Tron routes, though.

If I do decide to go with a new partsbuild, I'd want either a Jazzmaster, Toronado, or Meteora body as long as I could find/get made a custom pickguard for it.