Gretsch G5220 Electromatic Jet BT - Black

Love this guitar! A perfect spot between a Les Paul and Strat for sound and built way better than most Gibsons you pay 5 times as much for. I can say that cause I own them! I have it set up for slide and this thing shreds. Buy one! Best value on the market!

Don’t buy this guitar. This guitar model is fundamentally flawed. The g-string has a quite significant buzz to it and the quality is subpar at best. I had to return it as soon as I received it.

Outstanding guitar.

It’s quasi playable right now and with Covid nothing is open and I can’t get it fixed yet. The pick up wasn’t installed and was just hanging in there so I had to take the strings off all try to put it all together. Hopefully all the electronics are all together. Can’t even play right now to say it sounds good.

Can't believe the quality for the money. You can't go wrong with this guitar.

excellent guitar and arrived in perfect condition, thanks

Summary: For the money, it's a decent guitar. It plays pretty nicely, looks good, and it's relatively affordable. Definitely better to get a nice discount so I recommend avoiding tax and negotiating a better price with the seller vs. just buying at full retail price someplace you have to pay tax. Or find a nice clean used one with no wear and tear. It doesn't come with a case or gigbag, so budget for that. The tuners are not very good, but grover 406C's are a drop in replacement and a huge upgrade to control, string change time, and tuning stability. Pots, like on all Gretsches, have poor control...they use linear taper pots where the control is humped up in one spot so there is little control across the range of motion of the knobs. This is true on my $3000 Gretsch as well as my $350 Gretsches and every other gretsch I've owned across their price ranges. Still, I like these in particular for the bound necks, mahogany bodies, and elimination of the electromatic logo on the headstock. They are made in China, but I don't have any complaints on the quality of the ones I've purchased so far...I have the G5220 and a G5230T from this lineup. Pros: - build quality - black finish is nice - bound neck & body - eliminated the "electromatic" logo down the headstock front - mahogany body, not basswood used in so many electromatics Cons: - cheap tuners. Should be replaced. - pickups are so-so, but that is a matter of personal taste. Subjective... I wish they had put the blacktop filtertrons in this hardtail model - I like those better. - linear taper pots leave little contol on any pots. Might want to replace. This is a nice little guitar, but could use some upgrades. I recommend the following: - Changing tuners to a grover mini locking rotomatic 406C as a drop in replacement is relatively inexpensive, speeds string changes, and offers better tuning stability. The stock tuners are not impressive. They don't stay in tune very well. - If you play with tone and volume controls wide open all the time, then the controls don't matter much, but if you like to use them to control gain, grit and overall tone, then you may want to replace the pots with audio taper pots of a higher quality. The ones sold in the guitar offer little adjustability. I've found this to be the case on every Gretsch I've owned, including Japanese made $3000 ones. They use linear taper pots and on the electromatics, lower quality pots. I basically expect to gut this guitar, but I bought mine on a good discount, so I still won't have that much money in it by the time I upgrade the pickups, pots, caps, switches, jack and tuners. It's still a decent platform for a project guitar. - I personally bought this as a platform to put TV Jones magnatrons in, so I'm doing that as I'm not a fan of the broadtron pickups that come in this guitar. I do actually like the blacktop filtertrons found in the G5230T, and I have one of those as well. Changing to a filterton sized pickup also requires changing the pickup rings.

Guitar is great but the neck pickup was loose and unattached. Screws fell right out. I took it to a tech friend to do repair. How could this possibly be shipped in this condition? Bad on you guys