Loved the double act! And a ton of great advice for setting up the used resonator I've just purchased. Thank you!

Oh man, Your cat is the real deal. For sure they know when your hands are tied. My orange guy rides me like a parrot. Lucky you! This is my first look inside a resonator. Thank You. Chris

Such a beautiful sound. Nice work Austen!

I was looking at one of these and wondering if I could add a second contact style pickup, like a K&K, and run it to the same jack with a separate volume control. The piezo isn't bad, but it's a little weak, and def would benefit from a pre amp. In the market for such designs, it's basically accepted that you can get better for less, - Gretsch or no.Like most other big builders, there's a broad disparity in their product line between the sugar and the crap.Crafted in China is often a hint.

liked for the kitty, stayed for the repair! ;)

Hi Austen, very interesting video. At first I was a bit surprised there was no spider in the reso (that's what I'm used to) but on looking up net I see there are basically 2 types of construction ( for single cone) 1 is with a spider where the cone faces forwards like a normal speaker and 2 is with the biscuit where the sound is projected into the guitar (the one your working on) the sound of the biscuit type is a duller sound than the other type. The biscuit / pickup confused me. The Gretsch alligator comes with a Fishman produced affair which going by their name would be of good quality. That one your working on looks a bit naff. Is it traditional ie a coil wound with pole pieces? The piece hanging off the back had a wire soldered to it so I couldn't see where it connected to a coil which I assume is wound inside the biscuit. There wouldn't be current flowing through pole pieces of a pickup so your carbon powder idea would be redundant. By the way the bridge is ebony and maple ( both hardwood as you know) according to the blurb. At £500 odd (or maybe more I would be expecting better quality than this though it does get a decent review from guitarists soundwise. I thought on your musical clip the lower E ( or whatever it is tuned to) sounded a bit dull /off in comparison to the other strings but that's just my opinion. Be interesting to hear if the pickup worked.

what are the specs on the screws that hold the sound hole cover; looking for replacements :(

Allegator or Biscuit cone, versus the Spider cones that go inwards.

I noticed the input jack in the endpin so knew there was a pickup. Also, there's a biscuit cone swap KZfaq by National where the luthier glues the biscuit to the cone. Is that necessary? Don't you have to check for intonation at least? ps~I have to put my curious black cat in the bedroom with the door closed when I change strings. Else, he'd chomp 'em.

Wasn’t the biscuit wrong way round because it was setup left handed?

So did the fix end up working for the pickup? I’m interested to know