Tone Report Weekly Issue 110 | Page 27

according to legend, were hated by Chet Atkins, but loved by Duane Eddy. By 1958, however, Gretsch had replaced the DeArmonds with its own design, the now-iconic Filter’Tron humbuckers. These pickups have a near ideal combination of warmth and bark, exhibiting some of the fatness and sustain we associate with Gibson-style humbuckers, while also having the bell-like chime and snarl we associate with single-coils. These days, Setzer outfits his guitars (even the vintage ones) with precisely recreated Filter’Tron replicas from the TV Jones company. TV Jones was launched in 1993, when Thomas V. Jones, a California luthier who had done quite a bit of work on Setzer’s growing vintage guitar collection, built a set of vintage-spec pickups for Setzer’s forthcoming Gretsch signature model. At the time, Gretsch was using poor-quality parts and ceramic magnets which resulted in pickups that sounded nothing like the original 6120 Filter’Trons. The TV Jones TV Classics nailed the vintage sound, and Setzer has remained faithful to them ever since. ToneReport.com 27