FILTER’TRON SHOOTOUT
In the hands of players as diverse as Eddie Cochran, Brian Setzer, George Harrison, Malcolm Young, Pete Townshend, and John Squire, the Filter’Tron has shown that it can handle everything from 1950s rockabilly and hard rock to indie jangle. They’re not as powerful as Gibson-style humbuckers and P-90s, and not as bright as most Fender pickups, but they fuse hazy clarity, twang and midrange growl in a way that’s endlessly alluring.
For a long time, if you wanted to buy a set of Filter’Trons without a Gretsch guitar attached to them, TV Jones was the only game in town, with founder Thomas Vincent Jones having dug deeper into the work of Ray Butts and the history of these pickups than anybody else. However, that hasn’t stopped almost every other pickup brand throwing their hats into the ring too.
With so many Filter’Tron clones to choose from, it’s time for a buyer’s guide to the best on the market. For testing purposes, we’re using a modern Gretsch G6118T-135 135th Anniversary model loaded with its modern High Sensitive Filter’Trons, and a 1960 Anniversary/6120 conversion with a set of vintage units.
People with vintage Gretsch guitars are not likely to ditch their original pickups, so our focus is how the aftermarket replacements compare both with current Gretsch pickups and the vintage benchmark. We’ll be keeping the G6118T stock throughout and swapping the pickups in
