by cockroach » Fri Mar 11, 2011 1:07 pm
Geoff M,
I think the Filtertron was a Gretsch production version of a design by Ray Butts which he created for Chet Atkins.
I have a video of Chet playing on an old US TV show from about the mid '50's, and he uses various Gretsch models, 6120, Chet Atkins Solid Body etc (this is well before the Country Gent appeared) some of which are prototypes with either one or two Ray Butts pickups, and Chet is also using a Ray Butts amp, which had a built-in tape echo unit- Scotty Moore and a couple of other guys also used these custom built amps back then. Scotty was then able to get his Sun studio slapback echo recorded sound live on stage with Elvis
Ray Butts invented his own humbucking pickup design (based on the principle of opposed wound magnetic coils as found in transformers)for Chet - to try and get a noiseless pickup- I think this was about the same time that Seth Lover came up with his humbucker for Gibson- who knows, Ray may have been first?
As far as the sound of humbuckers goes, I always preferred the Gretsch to the Gibson...more twangy, as you say...closer to a Fender or DeArmond tone I suppose.
Regarding neck setups, Tommy Emmanuel plays bloody hard, but his acoustic Matons are set up with very low action and a neck adjusted virtually dead flat with little or no relief. Mind you, the strings used are not these flappy skinny ultra light gauges...