Telephant
Active member
Acutally it came in on Wednesday but I wanted to spend some time with it first:
It's pretty fucking cool. It's heavily chambered so it's ridiculously light. And strummed acoustically it's really resonant like a semi hollowbody. Plugged in, it sounds remarkably like a Les Paul, with maybe a slight more twang. The neck shape is like a slightly smaller LP neck. The frets are actually kind of small, but I dig that because I'm not into jumbo frets. I was a little worried about how it played while sitting down, since the body shape is so awkward, but it's great! It actually sits better in your lap than an LP.
The bridge pickup is a TV Jones PowerTron Plus. Apparently Billy Gibbons called up TV Jones and asked him to make a 50's PAF in a Filtertron case and this is what came out. It's got great full mids and just enough output to drive my Superbass. The neck pickup is regular PowerTron and is really warm and creamy. It's not muddy at all, which really surprised me.
Overall it seems really well made. These guitars (as well as the other Pro Line Gretsch's) are made in the Japan Terada Factory. I did have to tighten two of the volume knobs on the pots, as they were a tad loose, but that's it. Today I took it to my tech and took the stock 10's off and moved it down to 9's, and he actually raised the action a hair and adjusted the truss rod to give it a tad more relief. He also oiled the fretboard as it was really dry. Not surprising though, as this guitar has sat at a store since 2006. Now it plays really fucking well. I've been using it at band practice the last two days but tonights gig is the ultimate test, especially since it's now set up to my specs.
I plan on making some clips of it but my rig is the practice space and I'm playing out of town tomorrow with BCB, so maybe Sunday afternoon I'll find the time.
It's pretty fucking cool. It's heavily chambered so it's ridiculously light. And strummed acoustically it's really resonant like a semi hollowbody. Plugged in, it sounds remarkably like a Les Paul, with maybe a slight more twang. The neck shape is like a slightly smaller LP neck. The frets are actually kind of small, but I dig that because I'm not into jumbo frets. I was a little worried about how it played while sitting down, since the body shape is so awkward, but it's great! It actually sits better in your lap than an LP.
The bridge pickup is a TV Jones PowerTron Plus. Apparently Billy Gibbons called up TV Jones and asked him to make a 50's PAF in a Filtertron case and this is what came out. It's got great full mids and just enough output to drive my Superbass. The neck pickup is regular PowerTron and is really warm and creamy. It's not muddy at all, which really surprised me.
Overall it seems really well made. These guitars (as well as the other Pro Line Gretsch's) are made in the Japan Terada Factory. I did have to tighten two of the volume knobs on the pots, as they were a tad loose, but that's it. Today I took it to my tech and took the stock 10's off and moved it down to 9's, and he actually raised the action a hair and adjusted the truss rod to give it a tad more relief. He also oiled the fretboard as it was really dry. Not surprising though, as this guitar has sat at a store since 2006. Now it plays really fucking well. I've been using it at band practice the last two days but tonights gig is the ultimate test, especially since it's now set up to my specs.
I plan on making some clips of it but my rig is the practice space and I'm playing out of town tomorrow with BCB, so maybe Sunday afternoon I'll find the time.
