CAT scans of a 61' gretsch w/ trestles..kinda neat

Posts: 3454 Join date: 2008-04-21 Age: 98 Location: so cal.

more ancient gP repost, but again..for those who havent seen. I share.

"Dr. Mark Kuo, right, watches as Mike Lewis, left, and Ritchie
Fliegler, both from The Gretsch Company, remove the hardware from a
1961 Gretsch 6120 guitar at Scottsdale Medical Imaging Ltd., Monday,
May 12, 2003, in Scottsdale, Ariz. A CAT scan was performed on the
guitar, owned by The Gretsch Company, in order to determine how the
instrument's bracing was assembled. The Gretsch model 6120 was made
with unique bracing from 1959-1961 but was discontinued for no apparent
reason. Legendary rockabilly guitarist Brian Setzer requested the
reintroduction of the bracing for his Gretsch signature series 6120
guitar, which prompted the CAT scan rather than disassembling the
guitar to study how it was built."

secret gretsch company CAT scans

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TV,

Thanks - that IS kind of neat!!

I'm sure glad they didn't take it apart - that just would have been a tragedy. I wonder, though...couldn't they just have fished a little camera in through an f-hole and studied it that way? Of course, that wouldn't have been nearly as cool a a CAT scan!

Posts: 844 Join date: 2008-11-20

that's cool that Brian wanted to reintroduce the 6120 Smile

Posts: 1462 Join date: 2008-05-17

TV I was under the impression from you that Setzer said he preferred the sound of the guitar without the trestle bracing? Something to the effect of just three pieces of wood? How come he specifically asked for the bracing to be brought back?

Posts: 3454 Join date: 2008-04-21 Age: 98 Location: so cal.

andi wrote:

TV I was under the impression from you that Setzer said he preferred the sound of the guitar without the trestle bracing? Something to the effect of just three pieces of wood? How come he specifically asked for the bracing to be brought back?

I have shared that based on his live performances since say "dirty boogie" that he favored particular gretsch guitars (the hotrods) that did not have trestle bracing.

also as much as that quote was posted about the trestle bracing, it was said many times after the fact, that those scans were not setzer's guitar but rather a 61' gretsch nashville that was owned by fender/ mike lewis.

Now we also know that all the hotrods and setzer sigs from late '04 (if I remember correctly) to now are trestle braced, along with some of the
falcon series...

Yet, amidst this we have seen Gretsch move forward with newer stuff ( my pessimistic nature sez' mike lewis/gretsch knew this was a great marketing tool to cause gretsch owners to want to buy a "better" model
because it has been "improved" say like a CD that is "digitally remastered) yet Brian continues to use his older tone post model hotrods.

Also there are contradictory Guitar Player magazine quotes with brian
saying he doesnt like "all that wood in there"...

So, I have many times made statements (with documented articles and
proof pictures of his performances with the older tone posts) that it
appears he perfers "non-trestled".

I guess I could also say he constantly changes his mind, even about
the abr-1 gibson bridge saddles he likes. For a while he was using
drilled aluminum and some titanium saddles, then he went back to
brass saddles...

for the record I made a point of asking Tom Jones, face to face some
questions about Setzers preferences on his guitars and some of the urban myths flying around. In those conversations the latest thing Setzer perfers is the brass saddles, stainless steel fret wire (all guitars
are refretted with 6105 dunlap fretwire) and TRESTLE braced
guitars...
Thats straight from the horses mouth.

YET.. we see him using that candy apple red, purple and flatblk pinstriped Hotrod gretsch that have the empty hole up by the
pkup selector (gretsch was not putting it in the right position even though they'd removed the mud switch, so tvjones redrilled/repositioned it to setzer's liking), these are pre FMIC tone posters...

Setzer obviously is going to continue to change things up and keep
looking for new things, and Gretsch is going to keep hyping crap to
keep reselling the same guitars to us.

I remember mike lewis poppin a picture up of him jamming with a
"hotrod version of a silver falcon" and claiming that it wasnt going to
be production guitar... then suddenly it was in the Stray cats reunion
DVD and TADA!!! ITs being sold by Gretsch..

I am still holding my breathe, now that they've made a "relic'd sparklejet", waiting for the marketing bomb to drop for a
Setzer signature '59 sparklejet. The lacquer will be aged, dynasonics, with an abr-1,drilled saddles... yada yada.

As much as I hate that sh%t, I am the perfect sucker to start lusting after the damn thing because I LOVE, L-O-V-E the sound he gets with
his. I bought a sparklejet because of this but come to find out, mine is
one of the sh$t jobs fred gretsch did..big dark, heavy with small body routes and sounds like an anemic les paul. Nothing like a '59 sparklejet in which the body cavity was almost totally routed out on the inside.

Sparklejets by nature are darker than a duojet because they have the stupid gretsch drum laminate on the top so the wood gets its maple top
brightness attenuated.. BUT when you have the body routed out like the originals and you take the dynasonic single coils to setzer's rig. IT KICKS ASS!!!
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/the-brian-setzer-orchestra-the-dirty-boogie/1724842864/?icid=VIDURVMUS04

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Posts: 844 Join date: 2008-11-20

nice video, thank you tv! Very Happy

"Setzer obviously is going to continue to change things up and keep
looking for new things, and Gretsch is going to keep hyping crap to
keep reselling the same guitars to us."

I think it's good for Brian to change things up from time to time, gotta push those music boundaries

otherwise he would sound like janet jackson with the same type of albums over and over (that's what I hear from the fan critics of her)

Posts: 3454 Join date: 2008-04-21 Age: 98 Location: so cal.

kelley68 wrote:

nice video, thank you tv! Very Happy

"Setzer obviously is going to continue to change things up and keep
looking for new things, and Gretsch is going to keep hyping crap to
keep reselling the same guitars to us."

I think it's good for Brian to change things up from time to time, gotta push those music boundaries

otherwise he would sound like janet jackson with the same type of albums over and over (that's what I hear from the fan critics of her)

let me guess, you want justin timberlake to pull his top off too?

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Posts: 140 Join date: 2008-04-18

THat's cool TV, when I was talking to Billy Zoom at summer Namm last year, he told me that when they were getting ready to do his sig. model. he took his duo jet and had it x rayed, because the way it's chambered is unlike anything gretsch had done since it was made. if memory serves theres something about it on the gretsch site. BZ's duojet is totally routed out. there are two small blocks under the bridge, but they don't actually contact the top.

g

Posts: 3454 Join date: 2008-04-21 Age: 98 Location: so cal.

Bigbassape wrote:

THat's cool TV, when I was talking to Billy Zoom at summer Namm last year, he told me that when they were getting ready to do his sig. model. he took his duo jet and had it x rayed, because the way it's chambered is unlike anything gretsch had done since it was made. if memory serves theres something about it on the gretsch site. BZ's duojet is totally routed out. there are two small blocks under the bridge, but they don't actually contact the top.

g

oh you dog you...I know what you are doing!! I cant afford the BZ model. I could sell my Kay bass..oh ya those go for free now and are worth less than a korean BC rich warlock.

ps. I found a house for $200K a mile from starbucks in franklin! I need
a job out there dammit. ( 300 patrick ave, franklin MLS No.
1044151 )
...wife's almost licensed for tennessee too.

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Posts: 507 Join date: 2009-01-28

I have only limited experience playing both tone post and trestle braced gretsches...at shop volume levels at that. I have come out liking the SSLVO's a lot, but I'd be curious to get my hands on a White Falcon or another 17'' wide body gretsch. The Trestle bracing just seemed to give more "pop" and prescence which would be great for rock, and the tone posts were a little more mellow...which would seem to work for a more jazz type playing.

I did not need to watch that video for the sparkle jet! Those things kill, and make my tele totally jealous because deep down that's how it wants to sound. haha! Yeah, those zoom jets are crazy expensive...but boy are they sweet! I know post FMIC jets are routed pretty good, but are they any where near the zoom jet?

Nashville? now that would be pretty sweet, TV. Then again, anything would seem cool when stuck in Omaha in late January.

Posts: 3454 Join date: 2008-04-21 Age: 98 Location: so cal.

I'm Incinerator wrote:

I have only limited experience playing both tone post and trestle braced gretsches...at shop volume levels at that. I have come out liking the SSLVO's a lot, but I'd be curious to get my hands on a White Falcon or another 17'' wide body gretsch. The Trestle bracing just seemed to give more "pop" and prescence which would be great for rock, and the tone posts were a little more mellow...which would seem to work for a more jazz type playing.

yes the trestles tend to make the nashville rock a bit more, more presence a little less mids. Problem is the guitar loses some of its low
mids growl with trestles. Tonepost doesnt make the guitar warm and jazzy by any means...save that sh$t for gibson!
Comparing our Spectra sonics to the trestled Hotrod, tvjones guitar wins hands down IMO especially if you cant afford both a duojet and trestled nashville.

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Justin Timerlake???

man, I just threw up a little in my mouth!
was eating too-*justin timberlake Suspect

*

Posts: 708 Join date: 2008-09-05 Age: 42

Hey TV,
My Hot Rod is a '99 model, does that make it trestle or no trestle? That'd be the same models Brian likes?
Cheers Pete

Posts: 3454 Join date: 2008-04-21 Age: 98 Location: so cal.

Pistol Pete wrote:

Hey TV,
My Hot Rod is a '99 model, does that make it trestle or no trestle? That'd be the same models Brian likes?
Cheers Pete

Pete... look inside your F-hole, then look at this:

if this is not inside your guitar, you have the tonepost model which is just one small post joining the top and bottom of the guitar at the bridge. (my SSU is a 99')

12-04-03' supposedly was the announcement of this upgraded model with trestle bracing, sperzel locking tuners, pinned bridge,etc in its appointments.

your 99' is the first issue of a Setzer hotrod. The scheduled announcement for this new guitar was slated for 1-1999 but Setzer showed up for a Jay Leno Xmas performance 12-21-98 and the world
saw the new Setzer line right there. The first issue hotrods did not come with tvjones pkups or locking tuners but rather alnico japanese filtertrons and import cast sealed tuners (mine had grovers)..although a
midwest gretsch dealer told me they could indeed be ordered as an option. It was a post braced hotrod we have been seeing him with..
Tom Jones made of point of telling me the post braced models you see
setzer with have that extra hole on the upper bout since gretsch screwed up by removing the mud switch but moving the pkup switch
over to the place the mud switch was at ( asthetically it looked best I guess), so tom jones drilled the suckers and put it were it needed to be.

So.. when I see the candy apple, the purple, the blue and the flatblack with the exposed hole, tell me how Setzer is favoring the new hotrod
w/ trestles over the old..

When I play a 63' bassman the post braced nashville just growls,barks,snarls and twangs with more authority than my
purple and tangerine trestle hotrods. It bugged me so much, I
had to put supertrons in.

Its what you are use to. The minute the live in japan DVD came out, my ears tuned to the live sounds on that disc and locked in place.

I'm sure I could adapt with a nice setzer phoenix and its 25.5 scale, trestles and 17" lower bout, 2.75" deep (mathmatically I wonder how many more cubit inches that adds internally...) I was swooning at the NAMM show playing one through the Victoria built Gretsch amps

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Posts: 560 Join date: 2008-04-19

Excellent feedback as always! Was that your first time playing through one of the Victoria built Gretsch amps? How did it stack up in comparison to say Gomez, or Tophat in terms of tone and punch?

Rick

» Kinda lonely :(
» Japanese fashion magazine scans thread
» CAT scans of a 61' gretsch w/ trestles..kinda neat
» GRETSCH SETZER SSLVO GOES NUTS THRU A MARSHALL ON MAX !
» Brian's Gretsch Baritone

CAT scans of a 61' gretsch w/ trestles..kinda neat

CAT scans of a 61' gretsch w/ trestles..kinda neat

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