From a Luthiers Perspective... Needed a lot of work.

So this bass, going to be honest does sound pretty good. The pickups and electronics work well and has a pleasant and punchy tone. The frets were actually even which was nice...

However, she needed A LOT of work that I feel is a bit inexcusable from the factory. Most if not all stringed instruments usually have a slight pitch back or tilt to the neck, that way the strings can be as close to parallel to the fretboard. This guy did not have that, so I had to install a few cardboard shims to the neck pocket to fix that. The nut wasn't cut right at all and I needed to install a layer of saw dust/Wood Glue in the nut slot to get the height on the nut right. Every string was touching the first fret and causing a buzz making the bass almost unplayable. Some of the adjustment screws on the bridge saddles were stripped so I had to dig through another bass I had lying around to fix this with replacement saddles. On top of all of this, the neck took several truss rod adjustments to get straight (normal I suppose but I never had an instrument go through that many turns on the truss rod to get to stick), the fret ends were beyond sharp and needed to be rounded off. The fretboard in addition to all of this was as dry as the Sahara desert and needed to be treated. It took hours to fix these issues and honestly a few days of continuous work to get playable.

Now I got this bass playing super great, and like I said at the top, the electronics and pickups on this bass are pretty good and I have a gig-able bass on hand but hot damn, it took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get it there. Have to be honest with my review here, because I think there is a playable instrument in this guy but it came with more problems than starter basses I've seen at Walmart (and I know this because I've worked on them before).

The price and what you get from this thing I feel isn't worth it for a beginner. It's one of those instruments where you can see a young student struggle to get through playing and needed so much more than a setup to get playing and feeling good.

Now take all of this with a grain of salt because I could have gotten a bad one out of the factory, and I was the unfortunate bastard who was committed to fixing it. For this bass in particular, two stars because besides a simple fret end round off and fret polish the frets were actually level, and the electronics/pickups were solid off the bat.

Go-To Bass

I first used the Gretsch due to the influence of Mike Kerr, I was surprised by the ease with which he played the bass and saw how it was a fundamental part of his sound. I was able to buy it in 2020 when it came back to my country and I have made it my main bass, I highly recommend this bass and preferably use flatwound strings and not roundwound ones.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

From Gear Setup

awesome!

This one came to stay on the rig for good. it's a great instrument and very friendly to play great tone quality for the road or studio

Amazing sound, easy and fast to play

The Gretsch Electromatic G2220 Jr Jet II is a shortscale (30") bass that has dual TV Jones style humbucking pickups. A pickup selector switch, along with tone and volume controls make for a nice clean setup. Not a lot of knobs, just delicious growly lows. The best thing about this bass is how easy it is to play. The balance and feel are spot on, and the shorter scale makes it extremely fast. One of the best values, great for a beginner, but obviously perfectly at home with a pro as well.

Fantastic Beginner Bass

Got this for uber cheap at guitar center as my first bass. Great sound and plenty loud. Only downside I've found is that playing past the 17th fret is quite uncomfortable while standing.

great bass

is mostly a backup bass for live stuff. used frequently in the 1st year of Shifter's gigging. great bass.