In a world dominated by Fender Stratocasters and Gibson Les Pauls, it’s easy to forget the power of a large, hollowbody guitar that offers some serious Duane Eddy-like twang. The Gretsch G5120 offers such a large sound at a price that won’t break the bank.
The G5120 is made primarily of laminated maple (body and neck) in order to trim costs. The neck also has a rosewood fingerboard and 21 medium-jumbo frets. Pickups are Gretsch Dual-Coil and come standard with chrome covers.
A Bigsby B60 vibrato tailpiece is standard, as is an Adjusto-Matic bridge on a beautiful rosewood base. The hardware is chrome-plated.
Since the type of guitar you play chooses the music for you in many ways, we broke out our best rockabilly and country-western licks upon playing the G5120.
This isn’t a shredder’s guitar, so don’t try to coax any Dimebag Darrell tones from this beauty, but what you do get is a clean, powerful, large sound that sounded simply amazing through our test amplifiers, a reissue Vox AC15 and a Fender Reissue Twin Reverb.
Even without a super-distorted sound, the G5120 has a huge, clean sound that begs to be played. Honestly, it was fun just strumming simple chords on the Gretsch. We were very impressed with the quality of the finish and fretwork and couldn’t find any problems with either. The Bigsby vibrato held its tune during most normal use, but it’s not a Floyd Rose, so save the dive bombs for later.
The biggest surprise we encountered was simply how easy this guitar was to play. We thought we would have to fight it a bit, but both chording and lead lines flowed with ease. This guitar is really a testimony to how far along Korean manufacturing has come.
Obviously, we were very impressed with the guitar’s quality, especially for a Korean-made guitar. If you’re seeking a quality hollowbody guitar for less than $700 new, you can’t go wrong with the Gretsch G5120.
If you are looking for the absolute cheapest price on a used or new Gretsch G5120, then you need to visit Ray’s Guitar Shop, which offers the lowest prices on all new and used guitars. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for a Gibson SG, an Ibanez JEM77V, or a PRS Mira, Ray’s Guitar Shop has what you need!
