MichaelW
Well-known member
A couple of weeks ago I was yakking with @Barry about the Chris Robertson PRS SE model (P90 neck, HB bridge).
I looked it up on Reverb and by golly, based on my search metadata, a week later this guitar showed up in my feed.
Never knew it existed, I'm a total sucker for P90's and this one just tickled my fancy and I had to have it. The "budget" Gretsch guitars have never really been on my radar although I've lusted on and off for Double Jet VT, (which may now get bumped up in my wishlist!)
One of my "other" hobbies is tinkering with guitars and I love the challenge of making a cheap guitar play and sound like a million bucks. So I'm always on the lookout for something interesting that would make a good platform for a "makeover" by "M-Line Guitars" (my alter-ego).
Considering the low cost for this Gretsch, I figured it would be at least worth having a looky look at this guitar, so I made on offer on a new one on Reverb that was priced pretty low to begin with. It arrived with a sizable ding on the back and I wasn't sure I was going to keep it. It took some back and forth with the seller and Reverb for us to arrive at an equitable partial refund amount yesterday and this afternoon I decided it give a good going over and do a complete setup.
I expected to have to gut the guitar, swap the the tuners, bridge, electronics, etc.
I was absolutely shocked at how good this guitar is out of the box. Frets were dead level, well crowned and well dressed. I was expecting to have to do a complete level and re-crown and had the afternoon set aside for that. All I wound up needing to do was roll the fingerboard a bit, oil the fretboard and give the frets a final 8000-12000 grit polish.
Neck is straight and relief set up perfectly out of the box. I know it the box was never opened by the dealer so it came from the factory like this.
The pickups sound surprisingly good. The P90 sounded a bit woofy and there was a pretty big volume discrepancy between it and the bridge pickup. (Way louder) but once I lowered it a good amount it was much more balanced and brought back that P90 clarity to it. It's also now much more balanced with the bridge pickup in volume.
The bridge humbucker is a "Broadtron BT2S" which is a reboot of their budget "Filtertron-ish" Humbuckers. The older ones did not sound very good to me, they sounded like a cheap PAF as opposed to a filtertron. These newer ones are a step in the right direction, there's a bit more twang and jangle but still not really a filtertron. So that might get swapped out when I decide on a replacement. Both pickups are on the hot side, (9.0k and 9.8k respectively) which is typical for budget pickups but they are not without character once properly set up and paired with better electronics.
The stock wiring was crap, as expected, I pulled everything out and pitched it. (Actually the pots were 16mm Alpha's. They'll wind up in a pedal
)
I re-wired it with Gavitt cloth wire, CTS TAOT 500k pots (which measured at 475 and 485 respectively), Orange Drop tone cap and silver mica treble bleed cap.
Toggle switch got replaced with a Switchcraft I had left over from another project.
The new wiring and better pots definitely let the pickups "breath" and there's more depth to them now. I've found that even cheap pickups can benefit from decent pots, caps and wiring.
The wraparound tailpiece actually intonates fairly well although the G string is a bit off and I can't quite get it spot on. So I may be replacing that.
I was expecting to need to replace the tuners but once again shocked at how good they are. Super smooth, zero backlash and work perfectly.
About the only thing I'm SURE I will be replacing is to cut a bone nut for it to replace the cheap plastic one.
Anyway, super stoked about this guitar, it plays like a dream, with only a couple of minor tweaks at the nut and a fret polish it plays every bit as good as my PRS guitars. Pickups are decent and they don't "need" to be upgraded, they've got plenty of bite and growl. Stellar fret work at any price. Not sure of they are all like this or if I just got a "good one".
Check out how well dressed the fret ends are and how well crowned the frets are......and this on a sub-$400 guitar! I could not do a better job myself.
The P90 is a dual magnet jobber, no idea what type but looks to be easily swappable if I decide to get my geek on instead of replacing it.
I've been using these PureTone guitar input jacks for about a year now and absolutely love them. Nice upgrade that solves a common problem of losing contact at the jack after lots of plugging and unplugging. The multiple contact points and extra firm grip ensures a solid contact every time.
Ahhh....much better......
I really like the "Indian Laurel" fretboard wood. It "feels and plays" like rosewood, I know that it seems to be limited to budget guitars but I think it's a fine tone wood. I like it much more than Pau Ferro, which to me really plays more like maple than rosewood. I mean I like Pau Ferro boards too, I have one on my Strat but to me it kind of splits the difference between Maple and Rosewood, whereas Indian Laurel is more like Indian rosewood. The color and figuring is really pretty as well, you could put this on a $8k PRS and call it "Brazilian Rosewood Fingerboard" and no one would blink an eye.
I looked it up on Reverb and by golly, based on my search metadata, a week later this guitar showed up in my feed.
Never knew it existed, I'm a total sucker for P90's and this one just tickled my fancy and I had to have it. The "budget" Gretsch guitars have never really been on my radar although I've lusted on and off for Double Jet VT, (which may now get bumped up in my wishlist!)
One of my "other" hobbies is tinkering with guitars and I love the challenge of making a cheap guitar play and sound like a million bucks. So I'm always on the lookout for something interesting that would make a good platform for a "makeover" by "M-Line Guitars" (my alter-ego).
Considering the low cost for this Gretsch, I figured it would be at least worth having a looky look at this guitar, so I made on offer on a new one on Reverb that was priced pretty low to begin with. It arrived with a sizable ding on the back and I wasn't sure I was going to keep it. It took some back and forth with the seller and Reverb for us to arrive at an equitable partial refund amount yesterday and this afternoon I decided it give a good going over and do a complete setup.
I expected to have to gut the guitar, swap the the tuners, bridge, electronics, etc.
I was absolutely shocked at how good this guitar is out of the box. Frets were dead level, well crowned and well dressed. I was expecting to have to do a complete level and re-crown and had the afternoon set aside for that. All I wound up needing to do was roll the fingerboard a bit, oil the fretboard and give the frets a final 8000-12000 grit polish.
Neck is straight and relief set up perfectly out of the box. I know it the box was never opened by the dealer so it came from the factory like this.
The pickups sound surprisingly good. The P90 sounded a bit woofy and there was a pretty big volume discrepancy between it and the bridge pickup. (Way louder) but once I lowered it a good amount it was much more balanced and brought back that P90 clarity to it. It's also now much more balanced with the bridge pickup in volume.
The bridge humbucker is a "Broadtron BT2S" which is a reboot of their budget "Filtertron-ish" Humbuckers. The older ones did not sound very good to me, they sounded like a cheap PAF as opposed to a filtertron. These newer ones are a step in the right direction, there's a bit more twang and jangle but still not really a filtertron. So that might get swapped out when I decide on a replacement. Both pickups are on the hot side, (9.0k and 9.8k respectively) which is typical for budget pickups but they are not without character once properly set up and paired with better electronics.
The stock wiring was crap, as expected, I pulled everything out and pitched it. (Actually the pots were 16mm Alpha's. They'll wind up in a pedal
)I re-wired it with Gavitt cloth wire, CTS TAOT 500k pots (which measured at 475 and 485 respectively), Orange Drop tone cap and silver mica treble bleed cap.
Toggle switch got replaced with a Switchcraft I had left over from another project.
The new wiring and better pots definitely let the pickups "breath" and there's more depth to them now. I've found that even cheap pickups can benefit from decent pots, caps and wiring.
The wraparound tailpiece actually intonates fairly well although the G string is a bit off and I can't quite get it spot on. So I may be replacing that.
I was expecting to need to replace the tuners but once again shocked at how good they are. Super smooth, zero backlash and work perfectly.
About the only thing I'm SURE I will be replacing is to cut a bone nut for it to replace the cheap plastic one.
Anyway, super stoked about this guitar, it plays like a dream, with only a couple of minor tweaks at the nut and a fret polish it plays every bit as good as my PRS guitars. Pickups are decent and they don't "need" to be upgraded, they've got plenty of bite and growl. Stellar fret work at any price. Not sure of they are all like this or if I just got a "good one".
Check out how well dressed the fret ends are and how well crowned the frets are......and this on a sub-$400 guitar! I could not do a better job myself.
The P90 is a dual magnet jobber, no idea what type but looks to be easily swappable if I decide to get my geek on instead of replacing it.
I've been using these PureTone guitar input jacks for about a year now and absolutely love them. Nice upgrade that solves a common problem of losing contact at the jack after lots of plugging and unplugging. The multiple contact points and extra firm grip ensures a solid contact every time.
Ahhh....much better......
I really like the "Indian Laurel" fretboard wood. It "feels and plays" like rosewood, I know that it seems to be limited to budget guitars but I think it's a fine tone wood. I like it much more than Pau Ferro, which to me really plays more like maple than rosewood. I mean I like Pau Ferro boards too, I have one on my Strat but to me it kind of splits the difference between Maple and Rosewood, whereas Indian Laurel is more like Indian rosewood. The color and figuring is really pretty as well, you could put this on a $8k PRS and call it "Brazilian Rosewood Fingerboard" and no one would blink an eye.
