Brain Setzer Smoke

Hello folks !
Well after a week or so I took my Smoke to my tame luthier Dave Winters. I explained that the guitar was about 5 months old, factory strings and untouched since unboxed. I asked him to give it a general look over and set up,sort out the noisy grinding Bigsby arm and replace the jack socket with a cats eye jack socket . Ive seen some horrendous damage on Gretsches and other semi acoustics where the woodpecker effect of a jack plug. wears through the body. I also spoke to him about the buzzing rattling adjustomatic bridge . We spoke of Tru Arc and Compton bridges but as the bridge is pinned he said there could be intonations issues. He said from a luthiers view the angle of the strings was wrong and creating tension. We agreed to fit graph tec saddles and I asked for 10 to 46 slinkys. A week later and I picked the guitar up. My luthier said that the original bridge did not work properly with the compound neck . it did not quite line up but this was rectified by adjusting the bridge and tweaking the Graph Tec saddles. He also said that some of the higher fretwork above the 12th fret required work. The Bigsby creaking noise was metal on metal so this was easily rectified with a washer . Just a lack of attention to small detail in the finished product by Gretsch.He said he was happy with the guitar in the end and often had high end guitars of all makes requiring quite a bit of set up work.. Once I was home I was nervous about playing it but wow!!!! it was fantastic. A totally different guitar , with a fast neck that played like butter. It sounded great and I feel I could play with confidence and reallly hear the sound of this guitar . I had been struggling before the set up . not much , the odd missed fret etc which I initially thought was the unique compound neck so I was sooo relieved when it was simply the lack of set up. The pick ups are great , as Ive said before ,ringing chime to gretsch bite without those piercing highs .. and lots of sound variation between the PU selectors . SO thats my initial view of this guitar, beautiful ,understated, great sound and wonderful playability and one Im very proud to own . It makes me smile .Gigs start in November so that should be interesting . Hope this helps folks .

 

thanks for that info re slotted bridge... maybe of use in the future for a tru arc or compton ???

 

Played The Smoke for the first time in anger at a full rehearsal .( all stage gear ) I played it through my Fender Blues Classic reissue , a touch of delay /hint of reverb, EQ which acts as a boost . I was surprised just how loud the guitar was so it was a learning curve (isnt it always ) sitching PUs switches and various amp settings as we rehearsed. The guitar played beautifully and the band commented on how the clean sound cut through the mix perfectly and one said that I actully played better than normal .. . I tried a touch of 'drive' and it didnt take much to get the guitar growling.The PUs are really sensitive and sound great , I use the Bigsby sparingly but made sure I gave it some time today .After a three hour plus almost non stop rehearsal , I packed it up drove home and once home checked the tuning..absoultely spot on which did surprise me It gives me much more confidence for live work. Well so far so very good, Ill send a catch up now and then to keep folk updated.
Bop on