Has Gretsch been lying to us for over a decade?

[LowEndLobster]

Hey everyone! I hope you are all doing well. I've recently purchased a Gretsch G2220 to review. I've heard nothing but great things about these little basses (aside from the tuners) and wanted to check one out and put it through its paces.

I plugged it in for the first time the other day and to my surprise, it was rather noisy. I thought that was rather odd.... the pickups are advertised "Gretsch mini dual-coil bass humbucking pickups". I open up the control cavity and only see a single pair of wires for each pickup. Fine, they could be wired in series or something internally. I did some digging on some threads here and found a post showing the internals of the pickup (opened up)... and they're single coil!

The Official Short Scale Bass Club -- Part 4
Gretsch G2220: noisy pickups

Now I have not opened up my pickups, and I don't want to considering I am not modding this instrument. Instead, I purchased some cheap magnetic viewing paper to get a better idea of what's inside the pickup. As many of you know, I have quite a few basses at my disposal with a variety of different pickups. I checked out various instruments with closed cased pickups to confirm. MTD- reverse split P confirmed, Aguilar DCB- dual coil confirmed, Dingwall- reverse split P confirmed, DiMarzio Area J's- split J confirmed.

Gretsch Junior Jet G2220..... Single coil

Has Gretsch been lying to consumers for over a decade? Does anyone have one of these models with actual humbuckers?

 

[creaturegods]

Interesting! You may have just blown this whole case wide open.

Also, I've never heard of magnetic viewing paper before. It looks pretty dang cool!

 

[Sid the Kid]

Could be a sidewinder style humbucker. It doesn’t look to be a single coil from the dissected pickup to me.

 

[LowEndLobster]

Could be a sidewinder style humbucker. It doesn’t look to be a single coil from the dissected pickup to me.

You'd see two distinct coils in a sidewinder, like this:

instead of this:

You can see that there is only a single wrapping of wire (single coil) going around the two magnets that are stuck together. No pole pieces either, just the two ceramic bar magnets and a single thick wrapping of wire. I leant out my Gibson with the Serek Lazen-B90 sidewinding humbucker, so I can't get a pic w/ the magnetic viewing paper currently.

I'm really curious to see if it's all G2220 models, or if they pulled a switcheroo at some point mid production.

 

[B-Mac]

You'd see two distinct coils in a sidewinder, like this:
View attachment 4646604

instead of this:

View attachment 4646605

You can see that there is only a single wrapping of wire (single coil) going around the two magnets that are stuck together. No pole pieces either, just the two ceramic bar magnets and a single thick wrapping of wire. I leant out my Gibson with the Serek Lazen-B90 sidewinding humbucker, so I can't get a pic w/ the magnetic viewing paper currently.

I'm really curious to see if it's all G2220 models, or if they pulled a switcheroo at some point mid production.

Probably be a good idea to let everyone know where they can get magnetic viewing paper quickly and cheaply in order to help you solve this mystery.

Many at the Gretsch club and SS Club have these or earlier versions of them.

 

[LowEndLobster]

Great idea. Here's where folks can buy the paper: https://www.amazon.com/Luganni-Magnetic-Viewing-Film-inches/dp/B07CGMG1JL/

I'll post this on those threads as well. Thank you!

 

[sleddogn]

wow, i too have never seen this paper, very cool, good luck with finding out this mystery

 

[nostatic]

magnetic viewing paper

Their new album is amazing, but some of the songs are polarizing for the long-term and rare-earth fanbase.

 

[LBS-bass]

I predict a run on magnetic viewing paper.

 

[LowEndLobster]

Their new album is amazing, but some of the songs are polarizing for the long-term and rare-earth fanbase.

I was even more shocked that they pulled it together so quickly.

 

[sleddogn]

that first song really stuck with me, can't shake it

 

[mrperkolator]

View attachment 4646605

You can see that there is only a single wrapping of wire (single coil) going around the two magnets .

2 magnets makes it humbucking right? LMAO.....

they still sound good fairly decent. to make the pain bigger, they're odd sized, so they are hard to replace.

I did not know about the paper. I'll have to buy some just for the science experiment. Will post my 2020 gretsch with paper...

Edit: the older 1 pickup Jr. Jets were known to have better pickups. I'd bet those were different. not as common though.

 

[LowEndLobster]

2 magnets makes it humbucking right? LMAO.....

they still sound good fairly decent. to make the pain bigger, they're odd sized, so they are hard to replace.

I did not know about the paper. I'll have to buy some just for the science experiment. Will post my 2020 gretsch with paper...

Edit: the older 1 pickup Jr. Jets were known to have better pickups. I'd bet those were different. not as common though.

Thank you! You can reuse the paper as well. I'm wondering if that was their 'humbucker logic' - "Hey, there's two magnets! Who cares if they're stuck together and acting as one magnet with a single coil wrapped around em. It's basically a humbucker" hahaha. I'm very curious to see the results here. I already filmed my review (quite scathing due to this discovery, I take corporate misinformation very seriously), but I want to get a good sample size of results from other peoples G2220s.

 

[LBS-bass]

they still sound good fairly decent. to make the pain bigger, they're odd sized, so they are hard to replace.

Yes, I found this out the hard way when I had some fleeting thoughts about pulling the frets and changing the electronics. Um, not going to happen. They do sound pretty good as is, plenty of output, and mine isn't noisy, so it's a bit of a mystery.

 

[Snert]

Are they sidewinders like the old Gibson mudbuckers, Q-Tuners or Nord Zenblades? If so then they should only show a single narrow magnetic aperture but are actually humbuckers.

 

[Snert]

2 magnets makes it humbucking right?

No, 2 coils.

 

[mrperkolator]

@LowEndLobster If you close your eyes and play it, it is better. It is annoying the.... misinformation on the pickups.

@Snert I was joking about the 2 magnets. I know. It needs 2 coils even for sidewinders.

 

[WG Plum]

Well, I guess I'll find out soon enough, just ordered a Jr Jet from Sweetwater.

 

[LowEndLobster]

Are they sidewinders like the old Gibson mudbuckers, Q-Tuners or Nord Zenblades? If so then they should only show a single narrow aperture but are actually humbuckers.

Based on the pics provided by another user of the pickup opened (I may end up doing the same), these appear to be true single coils with a TON of winding.

 

[mrperkolator]

Well, I guess I'll find out soon enough, just ordered a Jr Jet from Sweetwater.

All things considered, you won't be unimpressed. I like mine. I'll like it more after shielding when I get to it. This bass does punches above it's price point. It's just not humbuckers.

Also, TV Jones makes some that are close, requires a bit of sanding to pickup ring. That should help yours too @LowEndLobster. Maybe even get a second video in. Perhaps TV Jones may want to help....