Well I hope you video'd the whole process for your channel - advertising revenue covering the cost of a replacement pickup.
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Has Gretsch been lying to us for over a decade?
- Thread starter LowEndLobster
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Well I hope you video'd the whole process for your channel - advertising revenue covering the cost of a replacement pickup.
Just asked my pal Jonny Dibble to check his, also appears to be a single coil! The sample size grows
Can you put one of these on a real humbucker of similar shape and size to show what it would look like?
Great suggestion. I went downstairs and snapped some pictures with some different basses.
Here's my MTD. You can see the 'Reverse P' config of the magnets.
Here's my Status Electro II with a dual coil humbucker soapbar. You can see the two magnets clearly.
Next up is my Valenti with Aguilar DCBs. Same deal, two magnets:
Here's my Stingray Special BFR HH. You can see the different magnetic field because of the magnet config compared to what we've seen above:
Here's the Big Chonks, G&L MFD pickups
dumb question... is it a humbucker because it's a stacked single coil? Like one coil is on top of the other vs side-by-side?
Here are pics from the original Gretsch G2220 pickups. I purchased this bass on 06/04/21.
Looks like single coils to me
Looks like single coils to me
Magnetic aperture does not determine coil layout; see earlier in thread.
Thanks to his Lobsterness, yep, they certainly look like SCs.
Fortunately, I don't have a dog in this hunt. I'm a lefty - and Gretsch doesn't make lefty basses. Well, not for a few decades, anyway; I do have a '90s lefty Gretsch bass. And, the spot in my herd for "Short Scale Solid Body Bass" is well filled by a Warmoth Mini- Precision Bass, thank you. However...
Are the pickups on the G2220 basses really humbuckers? I don't know; never had my hands on one of those basses. I really have no interest in basses in this price category any more; certainly wasn't going to buy one; so... why bother? It would kind of bother me if they said they were Filtertrons - and it turned out to be a fib. Those really are humbuckers. Pretty... well, primitive is one way to put it... humbuckers, but they were also one of the first ones. And, IME, they're probably the most single-coil sounding humbuckers ever made... but, humbuckers nevertheless. In any case, I hope those pickups really are as advertised. It's hard to imagine that they aren't; in today's litigious society, it's hard to see the company lawyers ever letting them pull a stunt like that. I'd hate to have a brand of instrument I love and respect, pull something that stupid...
Are the pickups on the G2220 basses really humbuckers? I don't know; never had my hands on one of those basses. I really have no interest in basses in this price category any more; certainly wasn't going to buy one; so... why bother? It would kind of bother me if they said they were Filtertrons - and it turned out to be a fib. Those really are humbuckers. Pretty... well, primitive is one way to put it... humbuckers, but they were also one of the first ones. And, IME, they're probably the most single-coil sounding humbuckers ever made... but, humbuckers nevertheless. In any case, I hope those pickups really are as advertised. It's hard to imagine that they aren't; in today's litigious society, it's hard to see the company lawyers ever letting them pull a stunt like that. I'd hate to have a brand of instrument I love and respect, pull something that stupid...
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Not a dumb question! That was a possibility that we could not confirm with the paper. I ended up dremeling my pickup open and confirmed it's indeed a single coil.
The thing which really stands out to me is that single coils aren't a negative, especially at $300. However, on the flip side... a $300 bass with two humbuckers (especially when they're mentioned quite a bit as a 'feature') is value added. This is like buying a car that is advertised as a V8, only to discover a 4 cylinder under a plastic V8 looking engine cover Does it still drive from point a to b? Sure. Are folks still going to enjoy the car regardless? Sure. Are consumers getting what's being advertised? No, and that's messed up. It's not like four cylinder cars don't sell, and it's not like a four cylinder engine is a negative aspect of the car.... but when it's being advertised as a v8, one expects to receive a v8. Anything less is disingenuous and dishonest.
If the sales and engineering managers handling Gretsch feel that these particular pickups are a good match for the short scale bass, maybe they have really good lows or something, they could just say that, in the online description/specs. Make a positive point of it.
But this just looks kinda sloppy to me, like there was a manufacturing change, but sales and marketing were not "clued in" and figured the online specs were still current. I've BEEN in companies where this happens.
But this just looks kinda sloppy to me, like there was a manufacturing change, but sales and marketing were not "clued in" and figured the online specs were still current. I've BEEN in companies where this happens.
So if we all did get single coils when all the listings and the Gretsch site say they're "mini humbuckers", then there should be a recall and they should be sending all of us a set of actual mini humbuckers.
How can we get this to happen? I only buy guitars with humbuckers because I have a noisy rig which is tolerable with humbuckers but unbearable and unusable with single coils. This bass is the only one of 5 total guitars/basses that makes an excessive buzz. You can hear it over the bass while you're playing it.
So I need new pickups for this bass and I'm on disability and super poor, so I'd rather not have to spend money on them if I didn't actually get what I thought I already paid for when I bought this bass.
How can we get this to happen? I only buy guitars with humbuckers because I have a noisy rig which is tolerable with humbuckers but unbearable and unusable with single coils. This bass is the only one of 5 total guitars/basses that makes an excessive buzz. You can hear it over the bass while you're playing it.
So I need new pickups for this bass and I'm on disability and super poor, so I'd rather not have to spend money on them if I didn't actually get what I thought I already paid for when I bought this bass.
Any pickup that has two coils wound in opposite directions is a humbucker, regardless of if those coils are stacked on top of each other or side-by-side. Side-by-side is by far the most common layout, so the descriptive "humbucker" basically assumes this layout. Stacked humbuckers are less common and they usually look like single coils so they'll usually be described more specifically as stacked humbuckers, for example Nordstrand Fat Stacks.
Gretsch has a problem one way or the other.......
1)These basses are supposed to be getting humbuckers and they aren't
or
2)These basses are supposed to be getting distinct single coil neck and bridge pickups that are reverse wound/reverse polarity in relation to each other in order to cancel hum (like a jazz bass), and they aren't.
1)These basses are supposed to be getting humbuckers and they aren't
or
2)These basses are supposed to be getting distinct single coil neck and bridge pickups that are reverse wound/reverse polarity in relation to each other in order to cancel hum (like a jazz bass), and they aren't.
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It looks as though a lot of people have been hornswaggled, hoodwinked, bamboozled and boondoggled!
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