Tim Harman: The first was a Harmony Stella, three-quarter size. All-plywood, trapeze tailpiece. It was the late 60s, so it was probably still made in Chicago.
I'd wanted a guitar for several years; my parents had started me on my grandfather's Gibson TB-3 tenor banjo, from 1918. (I still have it.) I'd been playing that for a couple of years, and they figured I was doing well enough to let me buy a guitar. With my own money, of course. I worked for my grandfather during the summer of 1967, baling hay – and it turned out a neighbor farm kid had this Stella. He thought it was supposed to be in tune when all the tuner buttons lined up, and hadn't made any progress making the chords sound right. I paid 15.00 for the guitar in a soft case, got a Mel Bay chord book, a set of Black Diamond strings from the drug store, and was off.
Stellas are supposed to be horrible, but this wasn't a bad little guitar. The action was quite reasonable. I wrote a lot of songs on it. I also stuck a rat-tail comb under the trapeze tailpiece and pried up on it to have a tremolo.
The first electric – which had always been my end game – is a whole nother story.
What made you want to play?
That must've been a cumulative thing. First guitars I remember were Jimmie's from the Mickey Mouse Club (with those ears, it looks like a doublecut!), and what I saw on Midwestern Hayride, which was a regional country variety show on the order of The Grand Ole Opry, from WLW in Cincinnati. I had to have been hearing classic 50s country, possibly some rockabilly, and the leftover influences of western swing. I also watched all the Roy Rogers I could get my eyes on; he was from my mother's hometown, which made him seem almost local . I liked the music segments. I was 4-5-6 years old during this period, and I don't recall that I started lobbying for a guitar yet – but I liked it.
The next influences came at about the same time, must've been 1962 or so. First the theme from Bonanza, that low-string twang motif. I know now it was played by Tommy Tedesco, and that it was not just "influenced" by Duane Eddy, it was trying to BE a Duane thing. I have to explain that there was NO contemporary pop music at my house, other than what was on TV. Up till the British invasion and Hullabaloo, the only opportunity to see rock & roll on TV was American Bandstand. I don't remember that it was exactly banned at our house, but it wouldn't have been encouraged, and I don't remember seeing it before the time I'm talking about, 1962 or so, when I was in 2nd grade. That means that I missed all of early rock & roll from 1954 to 1958, as well as the second wave which included Duane Eddy. So, unlikely as it seems, Bonanza would have been my indirect introduction to twang.
I liked it. Hearing the theme, watching the Chevy brand burn through the map of California, and hearing "See the USA in your Chevrolet" were the highlights of the show for me. (I didn't care much for dust and horses.)
At very nearly the same time I started hearing surf music, I think from records played by a friend's older sister when I'd go to visit him. The sound caught my ear immediately. I also finally started hearing Top 40 pop radio, even before the Beatle invasion. (How and where I heard it is a good story too, but would be more of a tangent than I'm already on!)
So I was prepped for Beatlemania. I probably would have wanted a guitar anyway, but certainly seeing the Fab Four on Sullivan clinched the deal. Feb 9, 1964 is the first time I remember seeing electric guitars and knowing what they were. I wanted one. Within a week of the first broadcast, a couple buddies and I had made cigar-box guitars with rubber-band strings, and were pantomiming to Beatle songs for our 4th grade class. (Kinda like Rock Band.) A couple months later Grandpa's banjo came out from under the bed.
This doesn't mean I was solely influenced at the time by The Beatles. I liked The Ventures and The Beach Boys as well (I knew them from album covers at my buddy's house) – and the first songs I played myself on the banjo were Bob Dylan tunes.
What was your first experience with Gretsch guitars?
(And the second, third, fourth, and final?)I had to have been aware George Harrison played a Gretsch – I spent hours during spare time drawing pictures of The Beatles' stage setup as I'd seen it on Sullivan and on Beatle bubblegum cards. There were plenty of gear closeups. I surely knew how to draw a doublecut Gent with a Gretsch logo before I knew a chord on the guitar. (And I got pretty expert at drawing the diamond pattern on Vox amps too.)
But I didn't specifically want a Gretsch at that point. To have any electric guitar was, I knew from my dad's objections, a dream too far. There was no point in getting particular about what brand I wanted. At school, my buddy and I had Fender catalogs – and since we associated guitar more with surf than with "singing groups," Fenders seemed the impossible dream to have. (In the mid-60s, Fender was all about Jaguars and Jazzmasters, so those were what we wanted. Teles and Strats were also-rans in the back of the catalog.)
My next awareness of Gretsch had to have been during The Monkees period. I was going into 7th grade when The Monkees hit, I was smack-dead-center of the target audience for the show, and I loved it and everything about it. By this time, though, I'd been listening to Top 40 for several years, and had moved away from my accidental country roots. Believe it or not, Nesmith's hat and voice made him seem like a bumpkin to me – and his guitar looked pretty old-fashioned compared to the sleek solidbodies I liked best. (This the judgment of a borderline hillbilly living on the edge of Appalachia!)
So despite being surrounded by the sound of Gretsch in the 60s – Beatles, Hilton Valentine, countless British invasion and American pop bands – I never sought one out, even on visits to music stores to gawk at stuff I didn't imagine owning. I didn't know anyone with a Gretsch. I barely knew anyone with an electric guitar, period. The Fender-dreaming buddy had a Supro, which is the first electric I played, and a kid across the street had an uncle with a country band. I got to see their gear in his basement once, and saw Bandmasters, Showmans, and I think a Telecaster. My eyes popped out.
My first electrics were all solidbodies, and I was in college before I got a name-brand guitar. (A trashed Gibson Melody Maker which I had to re-assemble.) I had no interest in hollowbodies. Fast-forward a few years, and I ended up with a 335 – not because I wanted one particularly, but because a guitar student wanted an acoustic and offered me a silly trade on a virtually new 335 I knew I'd be stupid not to take. I actually felt guilty, so I insisted he take both my Alvarez 6-string and the 12-string.
I played the 335 a LOT, and it became my principal guitar for several years (at a time of my life when several years meant something.) I was working at a music store during this period – and a kid who worked there part-time was known to be a crazy-good picker. He brought in his grandfather's Country Gentleman – this must've been about 1985 – and demonstrated some Chet stuff. My jaw dropped, but not because I wanted a Gretsch – just because of his skill. But, believe it or not, he was all but embarrassed to play that music he'd grown up with, and which he'd been playing since he was a child. He wanted to play metal.
As far as I remember, that's the second Gretsch I ever saw in person. (The first was during college, just a glance at a Gent during a visit to a house where a country band practiced.) The guitar looked old, weird, complicated, and goofy.
There was no Gretsch during the 80s. At the store we carried Gibson and Fender (selling very little of either), and it was all about solidbodies. I was personally into rock, prog, fusion – though I was playing the 335 in country bands. There must have been Gretschs among bands on the same circuit, but all I remember is the usual suspects. The first brand we sold well from the store was Electra, then Electra-Westone. They get little press and less credit, but they were well-engineered, high-quality, highly-evolved solidbodies (and a few semis), and I ended up with a small collection of them. A Westone replaced the 335 as my gig guitar – and in the meantime, through the opportunities that come one's way in a music store, I amassed a small collection of what I thought of as the essentials. A Tele, a Strat, a Les Paul, a Mustang, etc.
I left the music store in 1989 still clueless about Gretsch. My guitar-collecting basically stopped for nearly 10 years, with just a couple acquisitions during that time. I was still playing, but not in bands – playing a lot more acoustic, and finding myself drifting away from the rock of the era toward rootsier styles. By 1999 I'd started gigging again, doing all originals with a duo, then trio, then 4-5 piece.
Fast-forward to 2003 or so, when I made a chance visit to a music store for strings. There I saw a Carlo Robelli kinda Black Falcon sorta copy. (17", 25.5" scale, Dumbuckers.) I just knew hollowbody guitars were expensive, but they only wanted 550.00 for this thing. (I should mention that when I'd left the music store, Japan had been the quality-for-value leader, and Korea was just starting to come on line as a source of credible guitars.) I hadn't paid attention to the guitar industry for the last 10-15 years, and here was this crazy-good Korean guitar, ridiculously cheap. I played it in the store literally for hours, not believing what I was hearing. Told myself if the sales dog would come down a nickel, I was buying the thing. He came down, and off I went.
So now I was in hollowbody land – and I'd discovered the golden age of good, cheap Korean electrics. I went nuts. Lots of Ebay. Had to sample every combination of pickups, construction, material, scale length. It was like guitar college. Sure, they were mostly copies – but it was a great way to learn. (Look, you knew this was going to be long, right?) 2004 was a manic guitar year. At some point during that time a guy I was doing guitar business with in California mentioned in an email "The Gretsch Electromatics are a seriously good idea."
That planted the seed. Next time I saw a Gretsch in a music store, I picked it up – must've been early 2005. It was a red glitter bolt-neck f-hole Synchromatic with wraparound bridge and Dumbuckers. I thought it sounded great. Was it the Great Gretsch Sound? I dunno – but I'd been playing for 38 years, played dozens (probably hundreds) of humbuckers, P90s, and Tele/Strat single-coils, and this thing sounded somehow distinctive. Enough to hook me. It wasn't for sale (it was the store's Buzz Feiten nut system demo axe) – so I bought a Electro Double Jet on Ebay, one of the earlier heavy ones. Loved it. Still have it.
I was fascinated: how could these guitars be so different from everything I'd known previously?
Next up was an Electro Hollow 512x (the light blue with DeArmond 2000s). Here was a whole 'nother sound, that percussive twang-n-jangle. I had to know more, so I found and joined the GDP (April 2005, I think, a lifetime ago). The Gretsch model line is overwhelming to a new guy: WHAT are all those models about? Can they really be different from one another? I made a spreadsheet of all the features of all the models, which helped me at least start to discern the differences. I learned quick, both on my own and from GDPers. And since I travel for my day job, I made side-trips to every guitar store in a 300 mile radius that carried Gretschs. I played every model they all had, and started to figure out which models most appealed to me, and to narrow down my search. By May 2005, maybe 3 months after playing that silly Synchro, I was into the pro line...and off we go.
I found that Gretschs suited my playing better than the guitars I'd been playing. They brought out elements of my "style" that had been evolving under the surface, but were getting lost on the semis and solids. Hearing those things more clearly helped me continue to develop them. I sounded more like myself on a Gretsch than I'd ever sounded – it felt like I was home on the guitar, in a way I really hadn't been since the 335. Everything in between had been me kinda sounding like other guys. On the Gretsch, I turned into myself.
What made you want to make a new bridge?
There were constant complaints on the GDP about the radius mismatch, and I experienced it firsthand on my 6120 Golden Anniversary, with its 9.5" radius and really flat bridge. The outside strings were stupid high off the fretboard when the inner strings were about right. If I brought the outside strings down, the inner strings buzzed. I lived with it for the tone – and I knew it could be resolved by filing the slots in the bar bridge so that their string-bearing bottoms formed the appropriate radius. But I never bothered to fix it.
When the subject came up, guys whining about it, it always seemed obvious to me that you could do just that – file the slots to the desired radius. But no one ever seemed to do it. Most of us would rather whine.
When did this thought first hit you?
To make radius-accurate bridges? Must've been June or July 2007, when the GDP complaints reached critical mass. It's a wonder it took me as long as it did, and I can only ascribe the delay to mental fog: my brother is a high-precision tube bender, who's done work for NASA, Indy teams, motorcycle builders, hospital equipment manufacturers. Bend bar stock accurately to a given radius? Duhhhhh.
So, with the idea of a new bridge, what was the process of getting it made?
It's pretty embarrassing. I took the bridge off one of my guitars and handed it to him at a family picnic, probably July 4, '07. Asked "can you make that"? He looked it over, wanted to know what the important characteristics were and why I wanted to make a version, noticed a lot of things about its manufacture I hadn't noticed, and said "yep." I asked what it could sell for? 50.00? "Nope." At the time I didn't realize even the 12" radius guitars had mismatched bridges, so I figured there was a lifetime worldwide market of two dozen custom bridges, for guys who had Setzers AND wouldn't mind switching to bar bridges from AdjustTunaRattleMatics. But I wouldn't know what they'd cost till my bro got me an estimate, and thought it was worth trying even if there was a chance they'd be too expensive.
I didn't hear anything for months, probably till early spring 2008. Then my brother called with more questions – what was important in the design, what wasn't – and promised prototypes "soon." At the last minute I had the notion of doing them in aluminum (inspired by the Bigsby Compensated bridge) and stainless along with brass. I literally got the prototypes the day before the first Nashville Roundup. I hadn't tried or heard one till we put the aluminum on Roadjunkie's DSW outside the cabin that Sunday afternoon. The tone caught our attention!
I later learned that my brother had gone through several prototypes, and a couple rounds of custom tooling (jigs and forms) and tools. There were non-obvious elements of the design, as well as a couple pitfalls – obvious only in retrospect, to an engineering type – along the way to the final design. He was able to tell how the factory bridge was machined, and once he understood everything the bridge has to DO, and how it should best DO it, he was able to improve on that. I could never have afforded the development of the tooling, and the attention he paid to engineering details, if I'd walked into a random machine shop. Being a perfectionist, a devotee of the better mouse trap, and a guy who appreciates the jewel-like precision of hot rod parts, my brother (and his lead machinist) are completely responsible for the character of the finished piece.
Why did you choose the bar bridge to upgrade?
Uh oh, another long story. After 38 years of playing guitar, when I lit into Gretsch, I knew, beyond a shadow of doubt, that bridges had to have individually adjustable saddles. I'd done setups for years at the store, intonating hundreds of guitars. I wasn't just prejudiced, and it wasn't an article of faith – it was just bedrock. It wasn't believing in God (which is intellectually optional), it was recognizing gravity. You see what I'm saying? It would never have occurred to me that you could possibly have an electric guitar without adjustable saddles.
So when I was first looking at pro-line Gretschs, it was more than obvious to me that I'd be changing out those stupid, primitive bar bridges. Who were they kidding? What, didn't anyone KNOW BETTER in the 50s? Wasn't that just some cynical attempt to shave a few bucks from the cost of the guitar? In fact, I already had the Tuna-Matic ready when I got the first pro-liner.
But you know how it is when you get a new guitar. You gonna slack the strings and replace the bridge before you even play it? Not me, buttwheat! So I got it out, plugged it in, tuned it up, and started playing. Sounded OK. Eventually I checked the intonation, quick and dirty. Seemed OK. Chords were playing in tune up and down the neck – or as in tune as I play them, given the way natural lateral and vertical pressure tend to push notes out of tune regardless the perfection of your setup. I was incredulous, but there was no hurry. I could put the Tunamatic on anytime.
It didn't take too many days – of not having any trouble – before I started consciously evaluating the nature of the Rocking Bar. Felt great under the hand, check, easy to palm-mute in any degree. No moving parts to rattle, check. The utmost in simplicity, yup. (I'm enough a scientist to believe that the simplest solution that works is the best one – a concept in engineering called elegance.) Beautifully functional with the Bigsby, check. (I'd been through creaking, cranky bridges with strings hanging up in saddles and literally bending the mounting posts, or depressing the guitar top along the front and back of the bridge base as the Bigsby rocks. I'd replaced saddles with GraphTek to solve some of these problems. I'd installed roller bridges.)
I started to like the way it looked – beautifully clean and simple. The tone was the last thing that occurred to me, but eventually I did swap in a Tunamatic, just as a reality check. It became obvious that I actively preferred the tone of the bar bridge. It was fuller, richer, more alive – and this was the Gretsch Rocking Bar (of which some are better than others).
I didn't lay down, roll over, and give up easy – but eventually I became an evangelist of the Rocking Bar bridge. I preached it all over the GDP, recommended people try them, and offered to BUY any bar bridges guys didn't like. No one ever sold me one.
So by the time the radius mismatch issue reached critical mass – and given my brother's ability to develop and manufacture the thing – there was never any question. I had no desire to start from scratch, or adapt any other design. The Rocking Bar was almost perfect, and we knew how to improve it. It's the bridge I actively prefer, on any guitar which can reasonably accommodate it. Why would I complicate matters, or reinvent parts of the wheel that already rolled? If I can think of a better design, we'll try it. But so far, this works.
Can you give your observations on the different kinds of metals and their tones that you offer?
Oh man, that gets complicated. The bridges have been on the market for almost two years, and have gone on a wide variety of guitar types and the whole range of pickups. Aside from the radius and playability advantages, which come with every bridge, choosing the metal is a matter of fine-tuning the tone and response of the guitar to particular purposes.
A body of experience is gradually emerging which suggests that certain bridges interact with certain pickups, on particular body constructions, for particular effects. I often ask a customer how his guitar sounds to him now, what music he wants to play and whose tone he likes, and how he'd like the guitar to sound. Then, knowing the pickups, body construction, the bridge he's replacing, and the character of the metals, I can make at least an educated guess as to which would suit him. I'm saying that the "formula" might be different with Dynasonics on a Jet, for instance, than with humbuckers on a Gibson hollowbody. (I've done them.)
In general, though, I characterize them so:
• Aluminum: quickest, most percussive acoustic response; maximizes "pop" and liveliness of the guitar. "Wakes up" a dull or slow-responding instrument. I think the midrange is "combed" in frequency response, with a pattern of peaks and valleys that produces a distinctive funky kinda twang. Cleans up the midrange of muddy pickups and "brings the twang." Contrary to expectations, the high end is not ice-pick painful, but more transparent and sparkling. In some cases, aluminum can thin the tone. (But you get back some sustain and resonance via the acoustic coupling of the pickup to the top of the guitar.) It's a popular choice, particularly for 5120s with their 5-ply construction (and often, stock G-buckers). And it's a bridge that makes an obvious performance and response difference on the guitar, so it grabs attention.
• Brass: again, details depend on the guitar you're putting it on - but in general it's most like stock Gretsch bridges, which are all plated brass. It's fairly full sounding, bold, bright, brash, punchy. It CAN get too unpleasantly strident in the high end.
• Copper was the big surprise; I had no idea what to expect. I hear it as the fat aluminum. There's a twang there, but it's fuller and warmer than aluminum twang. Low end is full – not pillowy or boomy, but very THERE. For whatever reason (and I can offer no reason), midrange is detailed and complex, very sensitive to dynamics. In some cases – and I don't know why – the high end is warm and rounded, and in other situations it can be as bright as brass, requiring some adjustment at the amp to get it balanced. I hear the copper as being very rich; quite a few Chetly fingerpickers go for it. (Though Paul Yandell, who used it for months, has recently gone back to brass.)
• Stainless. To my ears, this is the most straightforward, "accurate" of all the metals in terms of delivering what the guitar produces without undue coloration. Low end is present but controlled, midrange smooth and not overstated, and high end rather rounded and composed. Some guys call it "polite." I think of it as hi-fi in the audio sense. It's smooth across all registers, provides maximum sustain, and is very predictable in response to EQ and pedals. It imposes less of its own personality than the other metals. It has punch – but it's smooth Cadillac punch, not twitchy sportscar punch.
But remember – these are my impressions, and they're subjective. Other guys have their own experiences and descriptions.
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