Gretsch’s Project o-sonic stereo, which was available on the White Falcon in 1958, had initially been controlled with a simple two-knob, three-switch system, but within a year of Project-o-sonic’s introduction, Gretsch’s head designer Jimmie Webster couldn’t resist making it better – or at least more complicated.

The Filter’Tron pickups with three missing polepieces were no longer a visual indication of stereo, having been replaced by standard-looking units, but a stereo guitar was now even more easily identifiable by the extra switches – five switches in all, along with two knobs. The 1959 version featured four switches on the upper bass bout; by 1965, they were moved to the lower treble bout.

Like the higher Chet Atkins Hollow Body and Country Gentleman, the White Falcon was “modernized” with a double-cutaway body in the early 1960s. By the early 1970s, however, there was enough demand for the original single-cutaway that Gretsch reintroduced it, and the White Falcon became the only Gretsch model offered in single- and double-cutaway versions at the same time.