The 6131 Jet Firebird was among Gretsch's 1955 models launched to capture a bigger share of the solidbody guitar
market that the company entered in 1953.
Gretsch threw its hat into the ring of the expanding solidbody guitar market in 1953 with the introduction of the deep black 6128 Duo Jet, later made famous by George Harrison. By 1955, the Brooklyn-based builder spun this body shape out into a series of new models with various cosmetic flourishes. There was the sparkly 6129 Silver Jet, the countrified orange 6130 Roundup and 6121 Chet Atkins Solid Body, the glistening 6134 White Penguin, and this month's featured guitar: the 6131 Jet Firebird in “Oriental Red."
Compared to the other major American guitar brands of the day, Gretsch's dazzling array of eye-catching instruments reflected a specific marketing strategy geared toward younger players in the nascent days of rock 'n' roll. Much like other builders in the '50s, though, Gretsch continuously iterated on its original design, looking to strike a perfect balance of specs for the burgeoning solidbody format.
The first iteration of the Jet Firebird sported a pair of Gretsch-DeArmond DynaSonic pickups. Starting in 1956, Gretsch's famed Filter'Trons became standard issue.
A 1955 Gretsch catalog described the new Jet series this way: “A revelation of electronic perfection, notable for solid tone projection, wonderfully sustained, with infinite variety of tonal coloring. Twin Gretsch DynaSonic built-in pickups, played singly or together at a touch of the fingertip switch, range from rich solo to commanding brilliance as you choose."
The fretboard of this ole '55 features the original rectangular inlays that made way for humptop blocks in 1956,
followed by thumbprints in 1958.
Following its introduction, the 6131 Firebird underwent a set of updates that were shared by most Gretsch solidbody models. Original rectangular inlays made way for humptop blocks in 1956, followed by thumbprints in 1958. The latter year also brought Filter'Tron pickups to the model, replacing the original DeArmond DynaSonics that were standard issue on early Gretsch electrics, along with an updated roller bridge and a realignment of knobs and switches on the body.
The guitar's control array includes a master tone and two volume controls—one for each pickup—at the rounded bottom of the body, and a master volume control on the lower horn.
The Firebird lasted until 1971 in its original run, after making the leap, like the rest of the models, to a double-cutaway body shape in 1961. Notably, a few years before Gretsch built him a now-iconic set of four custom rectangular guitars, Bo Diddley appeared on the cover of his self-titled debut compilation with a red Firebird in hand. This same “Oriental Red" finish was used for Bo's rectangular guitars as well as for later reproductions of the famed Billy-Bo Thunderbird.
The distinctive hourglass-shaped Gretsch headstock shows enough wear to indicate that this 6131 Jet Firebird was
a player's guitar, not a wallflower.
Our featured Firebird comes from the Chicago Music Exchange and showcases all the specs of the debut year. This guitar carries its share of play wear and buckle rash, with some fading on the edges common to Gretsches of this period. At the time of its introduction in 1955, the Firebird carried a price tag of $255. Today, a mid-'50s Firebird in original condition typically sells in the $4,000–$,6000 range.
Books consulted for this article include Gretsch: The Guitars of the Fred Gretsch Company by Jay Scott and 50 Years of Gretsch Electrics: Half a Century of White Falcons, Gents, Jets, and Other Great Guitars by Tony Bacon. Catalog references were found on gretschpages.com.
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Editorial Director Ted Drozdowski’s current favorite noisemakers.
Ted Drozdowski - Editorial Director
My favorite is my Burns Buzz, a stomp custom-made for me by Gary Kibler of Big Knob Pedals. Gary specializes in recreations of old circuits, and this Burns Buzzaround-inspired box has four germanium NOS transistors and sounds beautifully gnarly. It improves on the original, which Robert Fripp favored in early King Crimson, by adding a volume control. I went a little stir-crazy acquiring fuzzes during Covid lockdown and now have an embarrassing amount. My other current darlings are a SoloDallas Orbiter (which balances fuzz with core-signal clarity), a Joe Gore Duh (a no-nonsense, 1-knob dirt shoveler), and my Big Knob Tone Blender MkII 66, which taught me how smooth and creamy fuzz can be with carefully calibrated settings. These pedals allow me to cover all of my favorite fuzz sounds from the past 60 years. I do have one more secret weapon fuzz that only travels to the studio: an original Maestro FZ-1 that I picked up used for about $20 in the early ’90s. It’s banged up but functional, takes two 9V batteries, and is righteously juicy.
Nick Millevoi - Senior Editor
The two greatest fuzzes I’ve ever played are a Pigdog Tone Bender build and a Paul Trombetta Bone Machine. Both experiences will stick with me for decades to come. But creations by those two masters of fuzz come with a price tag high enough to keep my time with those pedals fleeting.
Instead, my favorite fuzz is an inexpensive, mass-produced pedal that hasn’t left my board since I reviewed and subsequently purchased it in 2021: the Electro-Harmonix Ripped Speaker, designed to emulate the distorted tones on ’50s and ’60s records that were created with broken or misused gear.
Retro inspiration is not all it has to offer though. The rip knob, which controls transistor bias, is the star of the show, interacting with the fuzz level to deliver everything from a smooth, mild fuzz to sputtery mayhem that can evoke a faulty channel strip or old tube combo that’s been set ablaze. I prefer to crank the rip knob and feed it to a phaser and slapback analog delay, which gives me a bit-crushed-like gnarliness. Pull back on the rip or add a boost in front of the pedal, and it has a more organic but still gated sound, which, for me, can be just the thing to set my sound apart in a more traditional setting.
For a cool $116, the Ripped Speaker, which seems to fly under most fuzz freaks’ radars, might be the special something that complements the rest of your board or just a tone you turn to on occasion. Either way, it’s a great deal.
Luke Ottenhof - Assistant Editor
You could give me the most powerful-sounding fuzz in the world, but if it was in a stupid-looking enclosure, I don’t know if I’d give it a second look. This is just how we operate: Vision is the sense we privilege most, even in matters of audio.
Luckily, the most seismic, monstrous fuzz I’ve ever heard also happens to come in a beautiful package. The Mile End Effects Kollaps, built by Justin Cober in Montreal, measures an elephantine 7 3/8" x 4 5/8" x 1 1/2", and its MuTron-meets-’60s-Soviet aesthetic matches the sounds its guts produce. The Kollaps is modeled after the nasty Univox Super-Fuzz circuit, and carries a few of that pedal’s hallmarks, including its use of germanium diodes and midrange boost control. Cober added a switchable Baxandall active EQ circuit, with up to 12 dB of boost and cut to both low and high frequencies. Coupled with the mid-boost toggle, this gives the Kollaps a shockingly broad range of tonality to play with.With the mids off, the Kollaps is jagged and ruthless, a deafening turbojet of upper mids and chest-vibrating lows that yanks me toward the darker, less commercially successful corners of ’90s doom and noise rock. Kicking on the EQ circuit and boosting the lows turns it titanic. With the balance (volume) and expand (gain) controls maxed, the Kollaps starts to live up to its name, crumbling into a thick, overextended chaos in a way more polite fuzz circuits rarely do.
My favorite Kollaps sounds occur when the mids are engaged, for an articulate, deeply textured fuzz sound that retains your attack. Playing with your guitar’s volume knob, you can coax a range of EQ profiles and take advantage of the upper- and lower-octave content in the fuzz. With guitar volume lower, you can access some unbelievably emotive and sensitive sounds that still teeter on the edge of chaos and violence. It’s a rich, volatile circuit that gets as close as I’ve heard to a sound and physical feeling I’d call “planet-destroying.”
Charles Saufley - Gear Editor
My first fuzz, A Sovtek Big Muff, remains tied for first place among many favorites. The pedal’s most famous virtues—corpulence and sustain—are among the reasons I treasure it. But the way the Sovtek pairs with a Rickenbacker 330 and Fender Jaguar, which were once my two primary guitars for performance and recording, made it invaluable in various projects for a long time. Neither the Ricky nor the Jag are sustain machines, but the wailing mass of theBig Muff makes their focused voices an asset—inspiring tight, concise fuzz phrases, hooks, and riffs as well as articulate chords.
A silicon Fuzzrite clone built by good pal Jesse Trbovich (long-time member ofKurt Vile’s Violators) runs second place to the Sovtek in terms of tenure, and is a very different fuzz. It’s a piercing, hyper-buzzy thing, but a perfect match for a squishy 1960s Fender Bassman head and 2x12 I adore. Perversely, I sometimes couple it with a Death By Audio Thee Ffuzz Warr Overload or Wattson FY-6 Shin-Ei Super-Fuzz clone. These tandems create chaos and chance, but sing loud and melodiously too—at least when I’m not intentionally bathing in feedback. The Jext Telez Buzz Tone, a clone of the mid-’60s Selmer circuit, is often my go-to now. It’s a low-gain affair compared to the other fuzzes here, and I use it in its even-lower-gain (and vintage-correct) 3-volt setting. It’s pretty noisy, but it is thick, dynamic, detailed, raunchy, and plenty trashy when the occasion demands it. It’s also a very cool overdrive when you back off the gas.Jason Shadrick - Managing Editor
I rarely need fuzz in my everyday gigs, but it's one of the most fun effects to explore when I'm noodling around. At a NAMM show a few years ago I plugged into Mythos' Argo and as soon as I hit a note my eyes lit up. The sound of the fuzz wasn't unwieldy or hard to manage. It gave me the illusion of control while the octave was the magic dust on top. I knew right then I wasn't leaving the show without one. After I spent some time with it, I became enamored by how much more the Argo can do.
It's inspired by the Prescription Electronics C.O.B. (Clean Octave Blend), so the control set is similar. The octave is always present in the signal path, but you can dial it out with the blend knob. The fuzz and volume knobs are self explanatory, but dialing the fuzz and octave knobs all the way down gives you a killer boost pedal. I find my favorite settings are at the extremes of the fuzz and blend ranges. Typically, both are either all the way up or all the way down. Another great experiment is to turn the fuzz down and then pair it with a separate drive pedal. And in octave mode, Argo is one of those pedals that inspires you to head directly for the neck pickup and stay above the 12th fret.
