Gretsch Pristine LTD, P90E 2024 In-Depth Review, TIP - What to ask if you want to buy this guitar

Опубликовано: 03 Октябрь 2024
на канале: Efren Plaza

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Gretsch Pristine LTD, P90E 2024 In-Depth Review

Each of us have its own perception and preferences when it comes to sound and influenced by so many factors, so guitar tone is highly subjective. I'm not a salesman, I'm just a small time content creator. I may sound that I'm selling you something, aside from subscribing to my channel but it's because the product that I bought or have used have its own merits and if there's an issue i will gladly point it out.
In this guitar review I will start with the equipment. As much as possible I want to use the minimum number of effects so as not to add color to the guitar tone.
This guitar is connected to an old Boss Multi Effect pedal BE-5 then to the Marshall Amp, MA50C with a foot switch to select Clean and Overdrive channel and a Boost switch. This Boss pedal will be used only as a noise gate which will be shown later in this video.
The Marshall amp is mic'd using Shure AXS 4 connected directly through AXE IO interface to Digital Audio Workstation, Reaper.
The emphasis of this review is the guitar's playability and usability of pickup tones to your desired genre and not so much about guitar technique. So please concentrate more on listening to the guitar tone and not on my sloppy guitar playing.
If you're not familiar with my channel, please take note that most of my videos, all instructions or Information I consider important are shown on the screen usually in step by step format.
So let's get to it and watch the video and please subscribe to help my little channel. Thank you!
Equipment:
a. Gretsch Pristine LTD P90E 2024
b. Boss BE-5 Guitar Multiple Effects - used only as Noise Gate
c. Marshall MA50C
d. AXE IO Interface
e. PreSonus Eris E7 XT Studio Monitor
e. DAW - Reaper

My initial assessment of Pristine LTD, P90E 2024 guitar
The playability of this guitar is quite good considering it came directly from the factory. I did not see a need for any adjustment except the height of the G string pole-piece which I found it, a little loud.
I'm satisfied with its action, the neck profile is good but it takes some getting used to, just like any new guitar. It's quite evident on the first three songs that I played in this video. I was sluggish but towards the end I thought I got it.
For me, this guitar can be used on all kinds of music genre, rock, blues, jazz, country, rockabilly, and so on, limited only on the guitarist skills. Not too many guitars can match this versatility.

So far I've said nothing but praise but later in this video I'll tell you the unfavorable aspect of this guitar

Amp, Pickup & Noise-Gate Settings:
a. Amp - Overdrive channel with Boost
b. Pickup - Bridge
c. Noise-Gate - Minimum

At this setting noise are more pronounced but sounded the best. Most of all, it felt good and responsive playing Hendrix, Stevie Ray and Steely Dan's songs which requires a lot of bending. It felt like it made me a better guitar player.

This line noise issue can be suppressed with a Noise-Gate as shown in the video.
I felt there's a very slight change in tone when noise is totally eliminated but I doubt people will even notice it. Anyway i like a certain level of noise to get through so it does not filter out usable input signal and if necessary I'll remove it in the DAW.

The hum problem where it gets louder when touching only the volume knob, a Noise gate can be used also to suppress it, but without it, this guitar is unusable particularly at higher volume, 12 o clock position of my Marshall Amp.

I knew there's a grounding issue so I did a continuity test on all the metal parts of this guitar and sure enough this master volume knob is the only part that is not grounded and it also means that the treble bleed circuit is useless.

At this point my nightmare of buying a guitar online is about to come true so I called Sweetwater and talked to Frank, their Tech support Engineer and immediately understood my issues. Without the usual song and dance routine that some tech support will tell you, he immediately gave me some options how to fix it. I chose to get it replaced with this same model for the obvious reason that I love the tone and beauty of this guitar and it's arriving today earlier than his ETA.

The lesson learn here is, if you're going to buy a guitar online. Buy it from a reputable company for the reasons that i just have experienced. And if you're going to buy this same Gretsch model, make sure that this grounding issue has been fixed, I suspect this is a manufacturing, not a design issue because it clearly shows in Gretsch schematic that this master volume potentiometer must be grounded.