DEMO Gretsch G5622T modded w/ TV Jones Pickups, ABM 2400 roller bridge, and BricksBiggsFix

In the last few years I’ve become a big fan of Gretsch guitars. I have two at the moment and dream of having a 6120 or Setzer Hot Rod someday too. This is my G5622t affectionately known as Gretchen. I’ve had her for a little less than a year and during that time I’ve made some gradual upgrades to her. First I swapped the standard TOM bridge for an ABM2400 roller bridge. That was an easy mid and a nice improvement immediately in terms of tone and tuning stability. More recently I added a BricksBiggsFix front tension bar roller. I did this mostly to get a little softer feel on the Bigsby. Together with a Reverend soft spring the B70 now feels comparable to a good non tension bar Bigsby.

This past week I finally took the plunge and took on changing out the stock Super Hilotron pickups. The Super Hilo’s are quite good pickups actually. I rather liked the fat single coil sound. However, they’re very low output and I wanting to try something a little fuller and hotter that would blend with my other guitars better. After lots of research, I settled on a TV Jones Super’Tron for the neck and a TVJ Classic Plus for the bridge position. While I’d had no issues with the wiring or pots in the guitar, working on the guts of a semi-hollow is a bit of a pain so I decided to go full tilt boogie and swapped the entire wiring harness for one from TV Jones with a treble bleed on the master volume. It took a while to get the harness with everyone shut down for the pandemic, but I finally got all the parts together last week and spent an evening and afternoon making the upgrade. The TVJ wiring was top notch and all I had to do to it was solder the new pickups in place. I used their install kit to make everything a little easier and found that their tubing idea is a godsend when working on a guitar like this.

I shared some pics along the way and have had a few people asking for some sound samples so this morning I put together this little demo. First I describe the guitar and hear I’m using, then I used a Ditto Looper and an Electro-Harmonix Nano POG to create a simple swing blues backing track. I’m playing through a little Egnater Tweaker 15 watt combo set to USA Vintage Clean with all the controls set straight up at 12 o’clock. I have a little slap back delay from an MXR Carbon Cooy Mini and kick on a Lovepedal Eternity overdrive after the first solo chorus.

The stock Gretsch Electromatic G5622T was already a very good guitar. With the modifications I’ve made she’s simply amazing. Feels fantastic, looks gorgeous, and sounds divine. All together I have about a third of the cost of a Gretsch G6120T Players Edition invested in my Gretchen and would put her up against any guitar I’ve played.