Gear Friday: Gretsch Electromatic

It had to happen at some point, right? I had to get a Gretsch. Well, I decided to start with an Electromatic and go from there, but it still says Gretsch.


It's certainly a pretty headstock, but I'm not real crazy about the way the strings are bent out from the center. This adds unnecessary tension to those middle few strings, but perhaps that's the point. That means those are less likely to bend when you're playing "normal". I suppose that could keep it more in tune when playing chords, but I've never heard anyone state that as being the reason. I just know I generally prefer straight paths so I can bend them as I want to with minimal effort.


As for the body, it's pretty. The bigsby took a bit to get used to. No divebombs, but a nice vibrato is no problem.

So what do I like about this one? It's certainly a different tone than most of my others. Between the weaker output from the pickups and the airy sound from the semi-hollow, it's a much different sound than most of my electrics. I also like the neck feel for playing chords, especially open chords. It's not a shred monster, but that's not what it was designed to be.

What don't I like about it? The strings like to fall off the saddles if I toy with the bigsby and it gets feedback really easily. Feedback is a common hollow problem, but the saddle issues drive me nuts. I've tried doing a little adjusting, but it just doesn't quite stay stable.

Overall, I like this one for recording, it would be fine in church, but most live settings I'll be grabbing something else. Good thing I have a few to choose from.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yii multiple select dropdownlist with default values

So I was coding a form in Yii, and came across a situation where I had a value of 0111110 (no, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, no) that I needed to pre-populate values in a multiple select drop down. This didn't seem like it should be that hard, but the Yii documentation lacked a bit there. The first step was to split out the string. $optionValues = str_split($model->variable); Now, we create a blank array to hold our options. $options = array(); Then, we go through those options and set selected on the ones that need selected. foreach ($optionValues as $optionKey=>$optionVal) {      if ($optionVal) {         $options[$optionKey] = array('selected' => 'selected');     } } Now, we render the drop down list. echo $form->dropDownList($model, 'variable', array('0' => 'Zero', '1' => 'One','2'=>'Two','3' => 'Three', '4' => 'Four', '5' =&g
Read more

May 2021 updates

 Lots of work has been done since I last posted. Everything feels different, and gigs have been scheduled. It's time to get ready to play live again. Maiden Voyage We're playing a primarily hispanic audience show in a few weeks. New bass player is continuing to learn the songs, new guitar player keeps impressing me with his resolve, and as a band we feel ready for a couple hours of Maiden music. We're also playing a benefit for our lost blood brother in July, where we'll be playing the set list we did at our final show with him. Somehow, Live After Death seems fitting for that show, so that's what we're performing. We also have a special "something" planned for the first song which should hit everyone right in the feels. Pop Band We're currently using the name Hard Candy for this one. We're going to be playing a couple of benefit shows to get things started on stage. One is for our former drummer Dan and also the one with Maiden Voyage in Bill&
Read more

Been getting busy

It's been a while since I posted, so I thought it was time for an update. Maiden Voyage is starting to get busy. This summer saw quite a few shows and several benefits with us performing. We had our first show with us providing sound, which meant I had to buy a trailer. That was going to become necessary anyway just to continue moving our light show around, so it just worked out well. We played in Lincoln for the first time. Nothing earth shattering about playing another town about 60 miles from where we're based, but after that one show we immediately booked 2 more in Lincoln with minimal effort. Guess that first show is the most important one like they say... only one chance for that first impression. Speaking of 2 more shows with minimal effort, that's how most of our shows are happening now. We're not even looking for shows all that hard and are starting to have booking agencies and show promoters contacting us about being a headliner for some bands they'r
Read more