The double-cut mahogany guitar pairs ceramic humbuckers with a fast C neck and a wraparound bridge, and lands in four new finishes.
Gretsch has added a solidbody to its Streamliner Collection. A no-nonsense tone machine, the new CVT swaps the range’s usual hollow and semi-hollow bodies for a double-cut mahogany build aimed at players chasing volume and grit without spending a fortune.
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Both the body and the bolt-on neck are mahogany, which gives the CVT a warm midrange with plenty of low end underneath and highs that cut through. Bevelled contours and a rounded heel take the boxy feel out of the body, so it sits comfortably against you without the bulk you might expect from a mahogany build.
The neck is where beginners and players with smaller hands will notice the difference. Gretsch has gone with a shallow, rounded Fast “C” profile and tapered shoulders that make the fretboard easy to get around, topped with a 12-inch radius bound Indian Laurel fingerboard, 22 medium jumbo frets and Pearloid Neo-Classic thumbnail inlays. Two features handle tuning stability: the Pitch-Perfect head angle, which reduces string tension so strings stop sticking and slipping at the nut, and the GraphTech NuBone nut, which keeps everything resonating evenly. With both of these features, you can rely on the CVT to hold its tuning through long, aggressive sets.
A pair of HotWire high-output ceramic humbuckers do the heavy lifting, with matched coils in the bridge and hybrid coils in the neck. They handle clean and dirty tones with ease, so massive riffs and lead lines are always within reach, without the outlay you would usually expect for that kind of output. Vacuum wax-potting keeps hum and squeal out of the way when the gain is pushed hard. When it comes to controls, everything is fairly simple – a master volume, master tone and a three-way toggle.
Style has never been in short supply with Gretsch, and the CVT is no exception. With a Split-V headstock, this model comes in four finishes: Jet Black, Sea Foam Green, Aged White and Olive Drab.
To show off what the CVT does best, Gretsch is teaming up with Evan Novoa, Madi VanWell, Split Dogs and Jamie Slays for a run of videos, with Evan Novoa’s up first.
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Head here to check the Streamliner CVT out yourself.
