Gretsch Guitars has announced a surprise collaboration with the legendary Abbey Road Studios, uniting its electric guitar expertise with the studio’s innovative recording technology for a one-of-a-kind creation.
As such, its electronics have been completely refreshed and built from the ground up. At the heart of a guitar is a new circuit inspired by the Rumble filter – a filter designed by EMI's Abbey Road team in the 1950s to eradicate low frequencies and mechanical vibrations from recordings.
The idea is to give players more control of the bottom end and remove unnecessary frequencies for more polished recordings and performances.
That means that the guitar signal has already been partially EQ’d before its signal even hits a recording console, interface, or DAW. It is controlled by a gorgeously vintage-looking dial next to the whammy bar for its golden Bigsby vibrato.
There’s a mild and more extreme mode for sound sculpting, with roman numerals found on the dial’s outer ring. It’s real classy.
Elsewhere, there are custom-wound Filter’Tron pickups that the folks at Abbey Road passionately describe as having “a real, beautiful attack”. And the guitar wouldn’t have felt complete without the aforementioned Bigsby.
Other specs include a 2.25” deep maple body with parallel bracing, and a classic C-profile maple neck. That's capped with a 12” radius bound ebony fingerboard with swish-but-subtle pearloid Neo-Classic Thumbnail inlays. Its Adjusto-Matic bridge is secured on an ebony plate, and it's available only in a Classic Walnut Stain finish.
Aesthetics certainly haven't been ignored either. It has a gold plate featuring the Abbey Road logo on its headstock, and the plush lining of its hardshell case nods to the original color of the doors in Studio 2. Idles, Royal Blood, and Wolf Alice are contemporary acts to have tracked in that space, after the Beatles, Kate Bush, and Oasis.
Notably, the guitar has been honored with its own Recording Studio (RS) number, RS 201. That’s a first for a musical instrument.
“The Limited-Edition Abbey Road RS201 Studiomatic was born from the idea of crafting a guitar that thrives in the studio: responsive, inspiring, and sonically rich,” says Max Gutnik, Chief Product Officer of FMIC.
“Partnerships like this are the kind guitarists dream about. Gretsch and Abbey Road Studios share a legacy built on tone, feel, and musical innovation. The result is an instrument that invites players to explore new sounds while tapping directly into the lineage of recordings that defined modern music.”
“The evolution of this unique instrument has been a true collaboration between Gretsch and Abbey Road, driven by a shared desire to craft a guitar designed for mix readiness, sonic flexibility, and great tone,” adds Jeremy Huffelmann, General Manager of Abbey Road Studios.”
The Gretsch Limited-Edition Abbey Road RS201 Studiomatic is available now for $1,579.
Head to Gretsch for more details.
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