NAMM 2025: Gretsch has refreshed its flagship Professional Collection with new looks and specs for the semi-hollow Broadkaster and Broadkaster Jr. Center Block, and the Nashville, Tennessean, Falcon hollowbody electric guitars.
As Gretsch guitars go, these are the cream of the crop, made in Japan [you'll have to look at the Gretsch Custom Shop for a US model - ed], with top-shelf builds and components.
On the face of it, Gretsch can look like a heritage brand, its most radical shapes rooted in the golden era of electric guitar design – and rocked by rock ’n’ roll trailblazers such as Bo Diddley and Billy Gibbons. Its bread and butter is the semi and fully hollow designs that are instantly recognizable conduits for ‘That Great Gretsch Sound’. There is no hiding from the weight of history.
But Gretsch is always improving the recipe. Take these new for 2025 Broadkasters LX models: available as the singlecut Broadkaster Jr or as the double Broadcaster, these have a newly designed Channel Core center block which is carved from maple and spruce that Gretsch promises lends the guitar a “faster attack and enhanced midrange punch”.
Both models ship with the new Pro Twin Six humbucker pickups and are designed for high-volume rock ’n’ roll – the center block will help nix feedback in high-gain settings.
Elsewhere, you’ve got your Standard U profile neck, the 24.6” scale length, and top-quality hardware, too. These have string-through Bigsby B7GP vibrato tailpieces and Gotoh locking tuners, in gold because why not – these are flagship models and gold looks a treat with these finish options.
The Broadkaster Jr. LX Center Block is available in Midnight Sapphire and Blackberry. The Broadkaster LX Center Block is offered in Black and Cadillac Green. Both are priced $2,699.
For many players, the Falcon has been considered the ne plus ultra of Gretsch design and it looks like this years’ Professional Collection is not going to disavow anyone of that opinion. This hollow-bodied beaut ships in Cerulean Blue, Black (with nickel hardware) and of course White with gold hardware is an option too.
Priced $3,599, it is no cheap date but for your money you get one of the most iconic hollowbodies of all time, with a pair of PRO-FT Filter’Tron humbuckers providing the snarl, and a string-through Bigsby B6GP vibrato.
Even unplugged, this will have some real resonance to it from a fully hollow maple body that’s 17” wide and 2.5” deep and has Gretsch’s Arc-Tone bracing.
The Arc-Tone system places torrefied maple tone bars and “arc-shaped spruce supports” underneath the bridge to enhance the tone and help control the feedback that is one of the occupational hazards of playing hollowbodies.
You’ll find some common threads across all these Professional Collection models. The Standard U-profile necks, the 12” radius rosewood fingerboards with rolled edges, the locking Gotoh tuners, electronics featuring a treble bleed circuit and master no-load tone control with “Squeezebox” capacitor. The Adjusto-Matic bridges (with pinned ebony or rosewood bases) complement the Bigsby vibrato nicely.
And great finishes. Again, the Tennessean is resplendent in Havana Burst, Deep Cherry Stain and Walnut Stain. At 16” wide, the Tennessean is slighter slimmer than the Falcon but it too has the Arc-Tone bracing and it shares the PRO-FT Filter’Tron pickup configuration. The Tennessean Hollow Body is the most affordable of the new Professional Collection and is priced $2,499.
Finally, we have the Nashville Hollowbody, and in Orange Stain, Midnight Sapphire or Cadillac Green it is a knockout, especially with those color-matched headstocks – and the horseshoe inlay(!) – and gold hardware.
You’ll find a pair of the PRO-FT Filter’Trons, a Bigsby B6GP vibrato, and arguably the “quintessential” Gretsch tone. As Gretsch says, the Nashville is often the guitar that people hear in their heads when they think of the brand’s tone. It is priced $2,699. All prices include a hard-shell guitar case.
Like its fellow Fender-owned brand Jackson, who just stealth-released its new Pro Plus Pure Metal series, Gretsch has just slipped these Professional Collection models onto its website, so we have no firm details as to when they are available.
But you can check out more pics and spec details over at Gretsch.
