Gretsch’s Players Edition guitars are designed with the today’s modern player in mind without losing sight of what made the original Gretsch Guitars so iconic. The Gretsch G61120TG Players Edition is no exception but that’s a lot of letters and numbers, so let’s break it down.
G6120 refers to the Nashville body style. This famous body style is a single cutaway full-hollow construction with the top and back constructed of arched laminated maple. This model is braced with the “ML” bracing pattern which combines two of Gretsch’s iconic vintage bracing systems for the best of both worlds. Parallel bracing is two struts running the length of the guitar underneath the top, for support. It leaves the guitar completely hollow which gives Gretsch guitars a ton of their unique resonant woody sound. Trestle Bracing was introduced later, and it has two struts running the length of the instrument that connect to the back of the guitar as well with four “feet”. This reduces feedback and increases sustain. “ML” bracing is two body length struts with only 2 feet connected to the back, near the bridge, which give you the openness of Parallel Bracing, with the feedback and Sustain of Trestle Bracing.
T refers to the String-Thru Bigsby Tremolo system with key features throughout the instrument that lend to the rigors modern music making. String-Thru means that the strings are actually installed through a hole in the roller bar on the Bigsby, as opposed to having to hook the ball-end of the string on a pin and wrap it around the bar. This makes string changes a breeze and shortens the string break-in period. The Adjusto-Matic bridge is mounted on an Ebony based that is pinned to the body. Its sitting on retaining pins that fit into the base of the bridge to allow it to stay in place without actually being hard fastened. Up top the Graph Tech TUSQ nut guarantees slipper string passage through the nut slots keeping your guitar in tune while you put the Bigsby into action. Locking tuners minimize wind requirements, which shortens the string stretching/break-in period, and makes string changes a breeze.
Pickups are FT-67 Filter’Tron humbuckers which deliver the vintage Gretsch voicing with a bit more bite for the modern player. Another key electronics upgrades is the standard treble bleed on the master volume to maintain highs while rolling back the volume. This is done through a combination of a resistor and a capacitor in the volume circuit. The master tone has a no-load tone pot for “true bypass” of the tone circuit when turned all the way up.
- “ML” Bracing
- String-Thru Bigsby
- Locking Tuners
- Master Volume with Treble Bleed
- No-Load Tone Control
- TUSQ Nut
- Pinned Bridge
- Gold Hardware