Gretsch G5230T Electromatic Jet - Cadillac Green Reviews

Just checking to see if anyone knows if I can get a hardshell case for my new Cadillac Green Beauty. Plays so smooth, love it

I have had quite a few guitars in the $700-$2000 price range, but none have given me the intangible feeling of joy that I get everytime I pick up this guitar! It feels great to hold and has a resonant quality that makes the instrament come to life with every strum even when you aren't plugged in!

Of course there are a few cons.

1. The electronics are what youd expect at this price range. They sound pretty good, but you'll probably want to replace them with with a nice set of TV Jones or similar down the line.

2. Tuning Stability. Budget tuners, budget bridge, and a bigsby are asking for severe tuning instability. When I first bought the instrament I couldnt touch the bigsby without it going out of tune which stunk, but a couple modest updates and she can sceam and hold tune all day.

My recommendation if you're experiencing tuning instability is!
1: Bricks Biggs Fix. This makes the angle from your bigsby to your bridge less severe.
2: Roller bridge. This allows for strings to pass over the bridge with less binding/resistance.
3: Graphite based nut lubricant on both your nut and bridge. This will create less friction so your strings can move freely!

Another note. Tuning with a bigsby can be a pain especially when you restring your instrament! My advice is to tune the 2 E strings first then the A and B strings, then the D and G strings, and repeat as necessary.
If you try to tune in order, EADGBE, you'll be tuning all day all the shift in string tention continually pulls the other strings out of tune.

Again, I love this guitar, but I wanted to be honest, also if a Bigsby isn't for you, the Gretsch 5220 is the same guitar, but $ cheaper because it does not come with the bigsby.

Beautiful guitar that plays like the more expensive guitars. Delivery date on time and in pristine condition

Beautiful player guitar. That's it in a nutshell. Pretty to look at and fun to play. A lot of guitar for not so much money.

Great neck, great sound. Just a joy to play. I did replace the tuners with locking ones so it would stay in tune better, but otherwise it's just plain awesome.

Tone, fit and finish and the vibe from the design...incredible. This baby delivers tone in spades from that classic Gretsch chime and clarity to throaty full crunch and all the way to smooth jazz. It's the only guitar you will need..and they are priced well below their punching weight - so buy two! LOL
The neck practically plays itself, thanks also in part to the incredible set up I had Sweetwater perform before shipping. The workmanship on the instrument exceeds the modest price for such a well made piece of gear.
I ditched my Les Paul years ago - too heavy and limited in tone. This is the perfect replacement for almost any guitar you may have regardless of style of music you play (but I'll never part with my Tele Nashville Special which is another tone machine).
Don't pass this one up if you are in the market for a solid body guitar that doesn't weigh you down like an LP. It is so versatile you really can rely on it for just about everything you are producing; and it looks fantastic.
Hats off to Sweetwater once again for delivering the finest service in the business, terrific work by my sales rep Ian McGee for shepherding the order through and the great tech team at Sweetwater for a perfect set up!

Great guitar. Very well made and the Cadillac Green is beautiful! Fit and finish is first class. Bought it with a Gretsch case. Has that "Great Gretsch sound"! Sounds great with my new Sweetwater POD GO. Ryan my sales engineer was great to work with. Very happy!

The customer service from Sweetwater and my sales engineer Kyle Malone exceeded all expectations. I've been playing for just over 7 months and decided to upgrade to this. I received the guitar quickly with no issues and now I can't put this guitar down. Everyone who sees it loves it, the Cadillac Green is such a unique color. I could not be happier with my purchase. All the reviews I read on this guitar were right, you simply can't go wrong with this Gretsch.

Fits my Gretsch G5230T Electromatic Jet. Great customer service! I'll use Sweetwater because of that!

I love this one, but it really is made to upgrade. The pickups are not the best, but slapping some TV Jones in this one makes it a sweet axe!

Get it, and personalize it. You won't regret it.

I bought This based only that I love the color green and I love Filter'Trons and gretsch but I don't have the... for a jet So I bought this fully expecting to upgrade the pick ups to tv Jones, I mean it's not great out of the box, pick ups are very muddy; looks like Filter'Tron but not quite but everything like the craftsmanship and fit and finish are way above its price range, also I put in a tv classic in the neck And i noticed these guitars are pretty much hollow bodies in disguise, when they say these are chambered they mean it, all the soldering world inside was extremely clean and so was the routing, installing the tv Jones was extremely easy, all I did was pull it through the pick up route straight through to the volume pot and it was ready, great improvement, highly recommend this guitar if you're gonna upgrade the pickups, because… virtually the same tone and feel

I've had this guitar a while. It was a real mess when I got it and I should have sent it back, but the core of the guitar was good so I didn't.

Issues out of the box:

1. Tuning keys were weird to turn, to the point that it was difficult to even get in tune (and you have to tune this guitar a lot)
2. The nut wasn't filed right
3. I don't think they polished the frets at the factory at all. They weren't just oxidized; they were rough.
4. The fret ends were poorly dressed.
5. Pickup selector switch failed about a week after I got it.
6. This is more of a preference but I do not like the taper on the pots.

I replaced the tuners, cleaned up the nut, polished the frets, dressed the fret ends, and replaced the pickup selector switch. After doing all that it plays really nicely and stays in tune more or less. I ordered a Brigg's Biggs Fix for it but keep forgetting to put it on when I change strings. I think that will make it solid.

So the guitar plays really well now and I do like the pickups. It sounds great. The guitar is lively.

In the end I'm happy with it, but I'm not sure a person should have to do that much work to a guitar. Nothing will be perfect at that price but QC was really lacking here and Sweetwater didn't catch it, either. It wasn't really what I'd call playable when it came to me. Well you could play it but it was uncomfortable and would be out of tune almost immediately.