Has Gretsch been lying to us for over a decade?

[Tubeblues]

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

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

 

[LowEndLobster]

It was Lisa Lowbster that got me to Stay.

You say... I only slap when I want to.

 

[Tubeblues]

Fender is not the company: it's the brand.
The owner is a company:
Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company
Key people Andy Mooney (CEO) James S. Broenen (CFO) Evan Jones (CMO)
These are the ones responsible for bad marketing or manufacturing errors that do involve potential fraud and or intentional errant
marketing or accidental errant marketing. I am saddened this could be a major class-action suit about to happen.

 

[SPlavick]

 

[BunchyMutt]

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The classic.

Good thing we have mods to protect us from ourselves

 

[LowEndLobster]

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[WG Plum]

I don't foresee any type of suit, let alone a class-action suit, over cheap pickups in a cheap bass.

 

[BunchyMutt]

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gold

 

[sleddogn]

oh, scooby and the gang, love that stuff

 

[Green Knight]

Very interesting to read this saga about the advertised pup's vs the actual pup's in these basses.

I owned one for about a year and just didn't like the, in my opinon, muddy sound. But never had any hum at gigs or practice.

I bought one too and couldn't sell it fast enough. Mud is right! I brought it to jam once and it cut through nada.

 

[WG Plum]

Mine should arrive tomorrow. I ordered it right before this kerfuffle blew up. I'm stringing mine ADGC so a little extra mud may not be a bad thing. We shall see. I'm looking at a Gibson short scale too, so if the Gretsch is crap I have another option.

 

[Jamie_Funk]

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"And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for that meddling Lobster!" - Gretsch/Fender

 

[Guitalia]

Rule 1 of being an actual lawyer: Don't give out advice on the internet.

Rule 2, as demonstrated by a former girlfriend's response to each and every random question I might ask that touched on law-related topics: "That's really not my area of the law."

(Each time she responded that way, I found my respect for her increasing: "Damn! She must really know her area!")

 

[BigAlBass69]

As your former girlfriend, you must have not known her area.

 

[E2942]

The cold hard truth is that Marketing & Advertising has just become a way of stretching the truth to its limits.
You'll see little USB card readers advertised that they can read 101 types of cards, but they count every iteration. So for one format, SD, micro-SD, & whatever is in between.

 

[Patrice B]

Though we haven't seen a lot of data yet, it appears so far that the 2220 has always had two single-coils, and that perhaps only the old 2202 single-pickup model ever had a humbucker. I think (if I remember?) that there used to be a different 2-pu model with some other number besides 2202 or 2220. We haven't heard from anyone yet with one of those.

There was a G1222 and, I think, the G2224.

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Fender Musical Instruments - G2224 Junior Jet Bass II - Tobacco Sunburst

 

[mcgreivey]

they're called lowbsters for a reason

~~~[groaaaannnn]~~~~

 

[el jeffe bass]

My wife, who has been listening to me rant about this thread for the last few days walked past me as I was looking at the new Meteora bass. The conversation went like this. Wife asked me what are you looking at? I told her that I was checking out Fenders new bass, looks cool, double humbuckers. She deadpanned “are you sure”. I guess that she actually listens to my rants.

 

[tyohars]

Can't wait for the movie

 

[lunarpollen]

i can imagine the marketing people @ fender testing the factory prototypes...

"wow, i know we went for super cheap on the pickups, but these sound even weaker and duller than a pile of unflavored jell-o"

"hey, i know, we could just say that they're humbuckers, and then people will expect them to sound super dark... they are budget-line basses; no one's gonna expect brilliance in the first place, and nobody's gonna bother dissecting the pickups... they'll just swap em out and throw em away if they want to upgrade to decent pickups"