This bass is from one of our competitors, but hey, it’s a cool instrument that you don’t see too often on video.
Above is a Gretsch White Falcon bass guitar. It’s a full hollow-body instrument, made of maple. It also has “Thundertron” dual-coil pickups in it, and typical to Gretsch has their way of doing electronics where the switches go all over the instrument.
The bass also has something you don’t see every day:
This padding is provided by Gretsch to specifically protect the back of the instrument from things like belt buckle rash while playing it.
“HOW MUCH?”, you’re probably asking. The price is $3,300.
Worth it? You tell us. Post a comment or two.
A nice collectors piece. I wonder if guitar players attempting to play bass will ever figure out that they sound like guitar players playing bass. As Jaco said, the tone comes from the fingers, baby.
Interesting instrument, looks good!
If it was made in America, it might be worth the price.Sounds great,but i would never pay that kind of money for an Asian import.Sorry Gretsch.I always liked them but not since they have been made somewhere else.
Unless Gretsch do their basses the exact opposite to Their guitars, then the reviewer has got it wrong. On Gretsch guitars, the selector switch closest to the headstock (ie the 2 switches on the top cutaway) is the pickup selector, and the one closest to the bridge is the “mud switch” ie preset tone control. On the guitars the middle position on the mud switch is tone wide open/bypassed, the top is 50% treble roll off! with the lowest position being around 25% treble roll off.
Beautiful looking and sounding bass, regardless of where it’s built. I would own one. By the way, can somebody loan me $3,300? 😛
If you want a Gretsch-y looking bass with a standard 34 inch scale and solid body that plays and sounds like the best Fenders ever made check out the M&V Tonemaster (active) or their new M7 Bass (passive with P Bass type electronics and bridge). These are 100% made in America, one at a time, by one luthier (not a factory worker), using the finest electronics, woods and ultra thin finish. Prices range from $2000 (M7) to $3600 (Tonemaster Custom)
I own one and I’m happy with it in most respects. The plays, action wise, better than any other bass I own or have ever owned. The action on it is just absolutely stellar – buttery with ZERO fret buzz… totally amazing. That being said, there are a lot of controls, that in my opinion, do very little to give tonal variation. There are 3 noticeably distinct tones: neck pickup alone, bridge pickup alone, or both full on. The controls near the bottom are a signal cut switch (center turns the bass off, up or down allow the signal to pass), and a volume knob for each pickup. As with many basses, like Rickenbackers, as soon as you roll one knob or the other back a little, the opposite pickup takes over as the dominant one and the output seems to become louder. Continuing to turn the knob down from that point all the way to zero makes no tonal difference whatsoever. When you bring that knob back up to full, a sort of “cancellation” occurs which lowers the volume and seems to suck out some frequencies. Up on top, there’s a pickup selector and an EQ switch. Using the pickup selector is the same as rolling the bridge and neck volume knobs back just a bit, so functionally and sonically, either the knobs or the switch could be omitted and you’d still be able to get the same effect. The EQ switch, from what I have read, has the same EQ circuit as what they put in their guitars, and thus is not very effective in producing desirable results for a bass. Playing mine through a small practice amp, I can rock the switch up, down, or center, and hear virtually no real usable difference. On a gig size amp, it still does not perform in any real usable way. The single knob on the lower front is a master volume.
Now, with all that being said, the tones I do get out of it are very rich and punchy. It sounds awesome when I’m recording with it! And Live, it really kicks as well, not to mention that it turns a lot of heads and commands a lot of attention. I love it for it’s playability, and it’s acoustic/electric tones. What I would like to get out of it is more tonal variations. I have a modification in mind, but given the way that this bass is constructed, I doubt that I could do it myself… What I’d like to do is replace the two pickup volume knobs with one of two possibilities: #1 – Make one pot a pickup balance control and for the other, put in a StellarTone ToneStyler Bass Eleven. #2 – Replace both pickup volume pots with a StellarTone ToneStyler Bass Eleven so that both pickups have their own individual tone variance, and use the pickup selector switch for one, the other, or both. I’m fortunate enough to live in Scottsdale, AZ where the Gretsch headquarters are located… maybe those guys could do the mod for me 🙂