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Has Gretsch been lying to us for over a decade?

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#261
OK. Dig this. For the Gretsch G2220 Junior Jet Bass, the Gretsch website calls them "Gretsch mini dual-coil bass humbucking pickups." They don't call them "humbuckers." Wondering if that made a difference, I did a search and found EMG sells a humbucking pick up that is a "Single coil pickup in a humbucker housing."


I'm not tech-savvy enough to know what that means, but does it explain things?
 
#263
From Wiki

In 2002, Gretsch entered a business agreement with Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (FMIC). Under the terms of the agreement Fred W. Gretsch retains ownership while FMIC has the exclusive rights to develop, produce, market and distribute Gretsch guitars worldwide.

Wonder what Fred would think of these shenanigan's?
 
#264
blackat said:
OK. Dig this. For the Gretsch G2220 Junior Jet Bass, the Gretsch website calls them "Gretsch mini dual-coil bass humbucking pickups." They don't call them "humbuckers." Wondering if that made a difference, I did a search and found EMG sells a humbucking pick up that is a "Single coil pickup in a humbucker housing."


I'm not tech-savvy enough to know what that means, but does it explain things?
Click to expand...

It might. There appears to be a lot of vagueness about humbucker vs. humbucking, just like their is over what is the difference between a (vintage) Filtertron pickup and a Supertron and are these pickups wired series or parallel. Plus, we cannot ignore marketing spin. And then there is the case of the Maxon pickup, which from the top looks like a humbucker but from underneath clearly is a single coil.

My take would be that humbucker refers to what the pickup is called, while humbucking describes what it does. But I am in no one's marketing department.
 
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#264
bugtussle said:
My walnut G2220 arrived three weeks ago from GC. I was amazed at how perfect it was out of the box. The setup was spot on. It was one of the only guitars I've purchased where even the intonation was perfect. I just put it back in the box and its going back to the store next week. Thanks for the report Lobster!
Click to expand...

If I liked it that much, I'd keep it (despite the humbucker lie). I've never had a bass with a humbucker, and I mostly haven't liked the sound of the basses I've heard other people play that I knew had humbuckers (Ginsons, mostly), so personally I wouldn't buy a bass BECAUSE it has a humbucker, but DESPITE the humbucker, if I like the sound of it, or if it was really cheap. This bass is really cheap, and the two times I've heard them from the audience, they've sounded great. So if I had $300 lying around (sometimes I do) and if I needed another bass (I don't) or if had extra room for another bass (I don't), I'd still buy one. (I want a green one.)
 
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#265
Kevin Doyle said:
I’m Super curious what Sweetwater will have to say
Click to expand...

me too.

Full disclosure: I'm not that good at bass. I know more about bass than I can play on it. As such it doesnt make sense for me to have multiple. I have a Kala, A fretless (currently in pieces.... may stay that way), and a G2220. I'm not poor, but I spend most my money on my family. A collection, or a nice bass, would be a bit wasted on me at this present time (I've been burning the candle at both ends for years, but there is an end to that). In short, I'm a typical dad that spends waaay too much money on kids/family and I feel guilty spending on myself.

So with such a small budget allocated to myself, this really burns me bad. To get these basses, I had to sell a BTB. To get that BTB I sold my first bass I bought in HS.(luckily GC valued that thing for more than I bought it for. Yay for rare non-reverse Tbirds having value)

If I sound mad..... I am. I've been mad since Kev1955 found it. I'm just more open about it since the cat is out of the bag now.
 
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#266
mcgreivey said:
If I liked it that much, I'd keep it (despite the humbucker lie). I've never had a bass with a humbucker, and I mostly haven't liked the sound of the basses I've heard other people play that I knew had humbuckers (Ginsons, mostly), so personally I wouldn't buy a bass BECAUSE it has a humbucker, but DESPITE the humbucker, if I like the sound of it, or if it was really cheap. This bass is really cheap, and the two times I've heard them from the audience, they've sounded great. So if I had $300 lying around (sometimes I do) and if I needed another bass (I don't) or if had extra room for another bass (I don't), I'd still buy one. (I want a green one.)
Click to expand...

You may be suddenly in the right market. I'm sure a few people may want to sell.
 
#267
Does anybody have an older model than the last couple of years? There was a Jet I with a single pickup that might be interesting to have a look at.

I suspect that the consistent two bridge pickups are actually due to there only being one type of pickup. It's a budget guitar with proprietary pickups so I doubt they're going to commission two separate winds vs just using two of the same pickup that came in the JJ1. If anybody finds a neck in theirs then I'm happy to stand corrected.

On a side note it's fine saying QC should have picked it up, but if you're an employee on the line with three hundred budget guitars to do before your shift finishes you're not going to get the can opener out and take the pickups apart to check them. For a start it's going to destroy the pickup. More likely you test a certain percentage of models off the line and as long as they're not totally microphonic, make sound, and have an output within the tolerances on your QC sheet when you hook them up to a meter, then that's a pass. QC is an industrial process, not tone nerds seeing whether it's a good guitar or not, which is why you get guitars coming off the FMIC line with dodgy fretwork and all the other fun stuff.

Not to be a megacorp apologist with any of this, but I reckon the most likely route is that during the last few years of panic production and shortages they were unable to stock the pickups they initially spec'd. The manufacturer said "We can't get those right now but we can give you THIS substitute pickup with similar specs to maintain production" and nobody bothered to tear one apart to check whether the advertising copy was still accurate. Very similar to the issues with out of spec body woods on the last set of CV Late 50s P basses.
 
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#268
GretschWretch said:
It might. There appears to be a lot of vagueness about humbucker vs. humbucking, just like their is over what is the difference between a (vintage) Filtertron pickup and a Supertron and are these pickups wired series or parallel. Plus, we cannot ignore marketing spin. And then there is the case of the Maxon pickup, which from the top looks like a humbucker but from underneath clearly is a single coil.

My take would be that humbucker refers to what the pickup is called, while humbucking describes what it does. But I am in no one's marketing department.​
Click to expand...
A humbucking pickup, humbucker, or double coil, is a type of guitar pickup that uses two wire coils to cancel out the noisy interference picked up by coil pickups.
—Wikipedia​
 
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#269
darkwasthenight said:
On a side note it's fine saying QC should have picked it up.
Click to expand...

Business leaders use complex equations and statistics to figure out efficiency and QC. It's a pretty precise science that they have gotten down to knowing only a 5% amount of defects will get past most factory QC.

So far we're at 100% single coils as of when I'm writing this. That's a 100% failure rate. QC has nothing to do with it.

Edit: some factories have much lower failure rating and hover in 2% or less.
 
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#272
Old_Noob said:
Curious if any of the specs or marketting material refers to a sngle pickup as a 'humbucking pickup' or if they are referred to consistently as 'dual humbucking pickups.'..... becuase if they are both on, then they are humbucking, right?
Click to expand...
But if you have two single coils, like any jazz bass, don’t they have to be reverse in order to cancel each other out? I believe people are saying since they are both bridge pick ups in the Gretch they don’t even canceled the Hum when they’re both on?
 
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#273
GretschWretch said:
My take would be that humbucker refers to what the pickup is called, while humbucking describes what it does. But I am in no one's marketing department.
Click to expand...
While one could say there may be a difference in that a "humbucker" indicates a specific technical configuration of a pickup's electronics whereas "humbucking" is a subjective term meaning that, in their opinion, the single coil in the humbucker casing... bucks hum, it would imply they knew they were playing word games. That said, FTC restricts the use of misleading marketing terms and I reckon this would qualify. If I owned a Gretsch bass covered by this discussion, I would certainly file a complaint with the FTC. They will investigate. And if they get multiple complaints regarding the same product, they will really investigate.

What the buck, eh?
 
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#276
On Gretsch’s website, as Lobster did in his video, and as already quoted in this thread, one can clearly read the following selection:

A pair of Gretsch mini dual-coil bass humbucking pickups…

o Gretsch mini dual-coil bass humbucking pickups

ELECTRONICS
BRIDGE PICKUP Gretsch® Mini Humbucking
NECK PICKUP Gretsch® Mini Humbucking
CONTROLS Master Volume, Master Tone
PICKUP SWITCHING 3-Position Toggle: Position 1. Bridge Pickup, Position 2. Bridge And Neck Pickups,
Position 3. Neck Pickup
PICKUP CONFIGURATION Gretsch® Mini Humbucker / Gretsch® Mini Humbucker
 
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#278
Kevin Doyle said:
But if you have two single coils, like any jazz bass, don’t they have to be reverse in order to cancel each other out? I believe people are saying since they are both bridge pick ups in the Gretch they don’t even canceled the Hum when they’re both on?
Click to expand...
To cancel hum, two single-coils need to be RWRP, i.e., reverse-wound, reverse-polarity. That means that one pickup needs to be wound in the reverse direction and have its magnet flipped.

My G2220 does not cancel hum in the middle position. In two-pickup single-coil guitars, it's common that one is RWRP, but not universal. In three-pickup guitars, like Strats, the middle pickup can be RWRP. This also is not universal.
 
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#279
B-Mac said:
Do you know what happened to Gretsch pages?
Doesn't seem like site is around anymore?
Gretsch Talk is still around.
Gretsch-Talk Forum
Click to expand...

Someone online said that Gretsch Pages was migrating to a different platform and was encountering difficulties.
Whether it will be restored or not at present is unknown. Besides GT, there still is the Last Bass Outpost. Gibson-centric, but they do cover other brands.
 
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#280
Adagietto said:
To cancel hum, two single-coils need to be RWRP, i.e., reverse-wound, reverse-polarity. That means that one pickup needs to be wound in the reverse direction and have its magnet flipped.

My G2220 does not cancel hum in the middle position. In two-pickup single-coil guitars, it's common that one is RWRP, but not universal. In three-pickup guitars, like Strats, the middle pickup can be RWRP. This also is not universal.
Click to expand...

This is usually referrred to as "hum canceling" as opposed to "humbucking" which is the dual coil in a single pickup
 
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