This is very much the case with guitars: the fifties gave us the best Fenderdesigns, the best Gibsondesigns and the best Gretsch Guitar designs. fountains.things from back then carry a huge amount of talismanic appeal. To someone who was never anywhere near that rose-tinted decade, it seems as though every cultural thing from the fifties – music, cars, clothes, houses, movies – was ineffably cool in a way that no things are these days. The Gretsch Falcon, as we’ll be calling it for the remainder of this blog, begins its story, as all truly great guitars do, in the mists of the romantic 1950s. There’s nothing we can do about these people, so let us quickly forget about them and move on to inspect the hows and whys of Gretsch’s finest! But then, there are some people out there who don’t like Golden Retrievers, too. There are actually some people out there who don’t think that the White Falcon is one of the most amazing guitars ever. Instead, oh dear Whitest of Falcons, we will humbly talk about why you are so incredible. The White Falcon: we want to write sophisticated poetry in its honour, but alas we lack the ability to appropriately capture its magnificence in rhyme and metre. Omnipotent.ĭear White Falcon, how majestic you are. Perched, as it is, atop the great mountain of guitar magnificence. The greatness of the White Falcon is obvious for all to see. The Gretsch White Falcon has picked up its fair share of admirers over the years (albeit most from a distance!) and is famously associated with several name guitarists including Neil Young, John Frusciante, Brian Setzer and Billy Duffy.The Greatness of the Gretsch White Falcon In 1971, the company renumbered the nonstereo/ mono and stereo double-cutaway versions to 75 respectively, however, in 1980 both the 75 models were discontinued with the 7595 being available only on special order.īy 1981 Gretsch had discontinued them all. The Project-O-Sonic design was a bold leap into the new-fangled world of stereo and although stereo guitars never really caught on, it was a sure sign of Gretsch’s continued ethos of progression.īy 1962 White Falcons were being shipped with a double-cutaway as standard and it wasn’t until the early 70s that Gretsch began to reintroduce the original singlecutaway version as model number 7593. In the same year, a stereo version of the White Falcon arrived with a patented system called Project-O-Sonic, designated as model number 6137. In 1958, a pair of noise-cancelling dualcoil Filter’Tron pickups were added, providing a little more in the way of sparkle and crunch to the overall tone. These comparatively harder tonewoods lend a bright acoustic resonance to the White Falcon’s natural sound and when coupled with a pair of single coil, high output DeArmond DynaSonic pickups it makes for a full, clear tone that cuts through with plenty of twang.Ĭoupled with a pair of single coil, high output DeArmond DynaSonic pickups it makes for a full, clear tone that cuts through with plenty of twang Stairstep tuners, a V-contoured headstock and a ‘G’ monogram tailpiece adorned with a V-shape reminiscent of car bonnet ornaments were all set off against a custom colour-style white finish (with more than a sprinkling of gold throughout for that aureate touch of class). In a similar vein to Fender and Gibson’s infatuation with the 1950s motor craze, the angular geometry of dream cars was strongly reflected in the White Falcon’s design. Although the Gretsch company had set up shop in Brooklyn, New York in 1883, it certainly wasn’t stuck in the Victorian era and was a notably forwardthinking firm with regards to aesthetics. It was appearance as much as anything that made the White Falcon stand out from the crowd. The angular geometry of dream cars was strongly reflected in the White Falcon’s design Originally intended as a one-off display centrepiece for the 1954 NAMM trade show, it ended up turning so many heads that by the following year Gretsch had put it into regular production, designated as the model 6136. The jewel in Gretsch’s crown came in the form of a guitar called the White Falcon.
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