So, one of my guitars has a tremolo setup on it that is very much akin to the Bigsby setup. As such, I get many guitar-gearheads giving me props for having that system in place. Now, mine is not an actual Bigsby - it looks like it, but it ain’t. And I have to say, the one I have is kind of a piece of crap. From looking at the Bigsby web site, it looks like they have some sort of secondary bar in place, which I imagine would help with tuning issues.
Anyway, my question for you all is this - is the Bigsby trem really all that?
I’ve owned a guitar ('71 SG) with a Bigsby – they’re awful tremolos. The setup is such that the tremolo is the tail piece, and if you use it, the strings must glide over the bridge. If you pull strings over your bridge, the strings (esp the wound ones) will get hung up and go out of tune. On a proper tremolo, like say a Strat, the bridge and the tail piece are the same – actuating the tremolo moves the bridge and tail piece together, so its much more likely you’ll stay in tune.
Secondly, a Bigsby-type tremolo setup has the strings attached to a tail piece that is bolted onto the body; the strings aren’t in good contact with the guitar, and are damped by that big spring on the Bigsby, so you get a loss of tone and sustain. A Strat tremolo on the other hand does float, but the strings are fastened to a big metal block inside the guitar, so the tone loss is lessened, though not eliminated.
My understanding is that a Bigsby has some vintage vibe, which is probably what your friends are latching on to. I know some guitarists like the twangy tone for rhythm guitar parts, but personally I think they’re nuts. Bigsbys suck.
I had a Bigsby that had been retrofitted onto an old Kay archtop, and it suuuucked. It would go out of tune if you sneezed on it, sounded really hollow, and that bigass paddle got in the way of my mute-picking (I’m left-handed and had a righty guitar and trem). Even moving it out of the way, the mounting bit stuck out a lot
The biggest issue was how it affected the Kay bridge - the guitar had a floating bridge where the bridge was a long threaded bolt, and the saddled were six round nuts, with notches where the strings sat. The string spacing was set by moving six little round nuts back and forth - actually a pretty good system, despite the complete lack of intonation.
However, every time I gave the Bigsby a yank, it would of course drag the strings over the bridge saddles and (you know where I’m going with this) change the string spacing on the lower wound strings, because the friction from the winding would drag the saddle along with the string.
I hated that thing - I eventually swapped it out with a makeshift trapeze tailpiece made from a cabinet hinge and a couple other parts, and that sounded much better.
Not all whammy bars are created equal - there are many different designs for many different uses. Heck, Leo Fender himself tried to introduce a different freakin’ trem design on any new model he came out with - Jazzmaster and Jaguars and other models - eesh.
A Floyd Rose locking trem is good for super-aggressive dive-bombs and Steve Vai-fancy techniques like using the trem for up-bends or bouncing it to get weird effects. That is extreme whammy use (and abuse if you ask me)
A Bigsby is for accent work - giving it a little wiggle at the end of chords, or to do little things like depressing it a bit, hitting the note, and then letting up on it so it comes into tune. They are VERY subtle and nuanced - look at videos of Brian Setzer playing Sleepwalk to get a sense of how they can be used to color your playing. They are more suited to playing that is very clean, like rockabilly or country, with a little reverb and/or slapback echo and you hit a shimmery chord and waggle the Bigsby to give it that liquid quality at the end of the strum…
if you use a Bigsby outside its normal use range, the sucker won’t work. I wonder if you are trying dive-bomb-y type uses and the Bigsby simply can’t handle it?
I currently don’t have a guitar with a Bigsby - if I was allowed to have an unlimited guitarsenal (and I was allowed to refer to it in mixed company as a “guitarsenal” ) I would certainly have one. But they are a specialized-use guitar to me - clearly I am NOT Brian Setzer, who lives on his Bigsby - and the tuning hassles endemic to any whammy-equipped guitars will keep it that way for me…
what Wordman said, pretty much exactly.
hey do lend a certain tone to hollow-body guitars, due to their construction. To my ear they’re a little more electric sounding than a classic floating bridge (a la Selmer guitars etc) but not as solid and well ‘grounded’ as a fixed bridge.
But if you’re going to use it, as mentioned above, subtlety and nuance is the way to go.
To tell you the truth, I hardly ever use the whammy when I play. In the rare event that I do, it is definitely more “nuance” than “dive bomb”. But the tuning issues are really what kills me about that trem. Even if I don’t touch it, it seems like it still wreaks havoc with my strings - I swear, I gotta retune that guitar after every single song…
Well, it could be a number of things causing tuning issues. #1 in my mind would be the tuners – cheaper ones can be really shaky. But I’m sure that Bigsby isn’t helping.
I suggest unloading that guitar, as reluctantly as possible – gosh you hate to part with it! – on one of your admiring friends. Then go take the money and get something else.
I don’t have any such trouble with my Gretsch Country Club. The trouble I do have is that waggling the Bigsby makes the wood of the guitar face creak. The Country Club is a fully hollow bodied guitar with no center block under the spring post. I’m always afraid that someday the wood will crack!
Sounds like you should take it to a tech and ensure it is set up properly. If it is not, you can get it set up and give it a fair tryout. If it is set up properly - and the rest of the guitar is set up properly and you/your tech think it should be able to stay in tune reasonably well - then it may be your playing style. If, like me, you rest your picking hand pretty heavily on the bridge, you may be throwing it off - which means you would need to consider modifying your style when playing that particular guitar - or you need to do what **squeegee **said - flip it.
**Biffy **- what year Country Club do you have - I think you have mentioned it before, but I will have to go back and check and the post-edit window will close on me. If it is new, what is it based on - the mid-50’s with the Dynasonic pickups or the late 50’s with the Filter-trons? I used to have a real '55…
Did you keep it stock or did you swap in TV Jones pickups? I have heard tons of times online that most of the current Gretsch stock pickups are okay, but not great. TV Jones makes after-market pickups (and G uses some of them stock in their higher-end guitars, so maybe your CC came with them) - folks tend to rave about them online, but that may just be hype…
) I would certainly have one. But they are a specialized-use guitar to me - clearly I am NOT Brian Setzer, who lives on his Bigsby - and the tuning hassles endemic to any whammy-equipped guitars will keep it that way for me…
