Bigsby?

D

Druw

New member
Hi guys,
Would any of you reccomend I get a bigsby for my guitar? It would have to be a bigsby b-5 for my flat top les paul wannabe. I really enjoy bending and stuff like that, and with a bigsby I feel that it will improve my playing, and won't break so many strings :P. What are pros/cons for this?
Thanks!
 
immediately you'll lose tone and tuning stability....im not sure how much tone exactly, but seeing as gibsons arent thru body strung, i dunno if itd matter as much. But its quite the job, have you priced it and talked to a tech?
 
Yeah, my local guitar shop said that he would do it for me. Last time I saw him fitting one on a Gibson Les Paul. I asked if he would be able to fit one and he said no problem. Does anyone know what kind of tonal loss there will be?
Thanks for replies!
 
I shudve elaborated...to my knowledge, tone is affected by mass..on Fenders, you can fill up the tremelo cavity and improve tuning and tone. Im not sure if the moveable bridge gets tweaked alot on the LP....or how much strain it puts on the strings.
 
I had one on a top of the line Maton years ago, it was a bastard of a thing, when you press or raise it, the strings are supposed to slide over the bridge saddles, mine used to do that plus tweak the bridge backwards and forwards so I broke a fair few strings, then the whole thing goes hopelessly out of tune. It was more nuisance than it was worth.
 
Wow...I can't believe some of the generalizations that are being passed off as fact on this thread. First of all the statement...

greater the mass, better the tone...so yeah, weight is good.
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.. is complete nonsense. The best sounding guitar I have ever played weighs in at a hefty 5lbs. Weight has nothing to do with tone, I have played heavy guitars that sound great and light guitars that sound great. 8 million things go into tone, so generalizing like this is really not true.

Also, the last thing you want to do is get a cheap Bigsby copy for your guitar. The material that a trem is made from plays a big factor in the tone of the unit. Getting a cheap unit made from cheap metal will more often than not sound like ass, and last about a year before rusting apart. A real Bigsby has a great sound but it does effect tone...whether the effect is good or bad really depends on what you are looking for. It will effect sustain, but if you are playing a form of music that doesn't require sustain, like rock-a-billy, then this is a non issue. One of the best examples of what a Bigsby equipped guitar sounds like can be found on the Cult album Electric. Billy Duffy hadn't yet switched to his LPs and played a Gretch with Bigsby for the majority of this album.

Last...Getting a Bigsby or any other trem will not make you a better player. It can enhance your playing, but if you are not technically sound, the trem won't fix that problem. Good luck, I hope it works out for you.
 
I had one on a top of the line Maton years ago, it was a bastard of a thing, when you press or raise it, the strings are supposed to slide over the bridge saddles, mine used to do that plus tweak the bridge backwards and forwards so I broke a fair few strings, then the whole thing goes hopelessly out of tune. It was more nuisance than it was worth.
Click to expand...

Graphite saddles and less of a break over the bridge will solve this problem. Like I said in my previous post... A Bigsby can be a wonderful unit, but it needs to be properly setup or it can indeed be a bastard to deal with. Once you get the unit setup properly, it has a feel and a sound that nothing else can duplicate.
 
edgarallanpoe said:
Wow...I can't believe some of the generalizations that are being passed off as fact on this thread. First of all the statement...



.. is complete nonsense. The best sounding guitar I have ever played weighs in at a hefty 5lbs. Weight has nothing to do with tone, I have played heavy guitars that sound great and light guitars that sound great. 8 million things go into tone, so generalizing like this is really not true.
Click to expand...

I dont wanna hijack this thread to argue with you over physics, but what i said isnt nonsense. For from it. Body mass will affect your tone, for better or worse. Ever heard of a fat finger? Solid lump of metal that clips to your headstock, just to add sustain. Mahogany is choice wood for Les Pauls because its so dense, which contributes a huge amount to sustain.
 
I dont wanna hijack this thread to argue with you over physics, but what i said isnt nonsense. For from it. Body mass will affect your tone, for better or worse. Ever heard of a fat finger? Solid lump of metal that clips to your headstock, just to add sustain. Mahogany is choice wood for Les Pauls because its so dense, which contributes a huge amount to sustain.
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Thats not what you said. You said weight = tone. And that is simply not true. Mahogany varies widely in weight. I had a 1959 LP Jr that was a feather and was a tone monster. I have played light LPs that absolutely smoked. One of the holy grails of tonewoods is Korina and that, more often than not, is lighter than mahogany.

I haven't seen anyone use a fatfinger in years. As a matter of fact, a lot of the guitar players I know are using either wood or pearloid for their tuning buttons to *reduce* weight at the headstock to increase resonance and sustain. Check with all of the heavy hitters in the high end electric guitar builders and you will see that the majority of them do this as well. I have a Nik Huber Redwood Dolphin that weighs in at 5.5 lbs, and has ebony tuner buttons and it will out sustain any LP on the planet. Huber, Thorn, Driskill, Mcinturff, Mcnaught, etc...all have the wood buttons as an option. *None* of these guys increase mass at the headstock. Just the opposite, most of them have small narrow headstocks for two reasons.

1. Straight string pull at the headstock that increases tuning stability by reducing binding at the nut.
2. Small headstocks and less mass at the head increase resonance and sustain.

PRS was one of the pioneers of this way of thinking. The huge headstock of the 70s Strats is a thing of the past.
 
One more thing...

If what you say were true.. ie mass = tone...then why don't we use denser woods than mahogay for guitars? Why not use ebony, or rosewood? the answer is because it isn't a simple as that. Fender tried rosewood bodies and they failed. Why? Because they sounded like ass. I would know, I owned one.
 
edgarallanpoe said:
One more thing...

If what you say were true.. ie mass = tone...then why don't we use denser woods than mahogay for guitars? Why not use ebony, or rosewood? the answer is because it isn't a simple as that. Fender tried rosewood bodies and they failed. Why? Because they sounded like ass. I would know, I owned one.
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Actually theyre endangered woods and are almost impossible to come by. And now you're just turning into a prick, nobody likes an asshole maybe you should stop posting.
 
Okay, let's keep this clean and scientific.

A vibrating string will sustain for a longer period of time if it is allowed to vibrate for a longer period of time.

Materials that do not absorb the kinetic energy of a vibrating string - i.e, dampen it - will therefore facilitate sustain, to an extent.

These materials, while not necessarily the heaviest, often are the most dense or the most physically hard.

Mass and density are not the same thing. Density refers to mass per unit volume. It is where this dense material is placed, and indeed just how much of it is used, that will influence tone.

Essentially, the less kinetic energy that is taken from a vibrating string, the better. Thus, a tight neck to body fit will be of benefit, for example. The mechanism of the 'fatfinger', on one level, would prevent needless headstock vibration, thereby preserving the motion of the string, which, coupled of course with a powerful enough pick-up, would benefit sustain.

Then again, a smaller headstock will also vibrate less, so that, too, has its advantages.
 
edgarallanpoe said:
Graphite saddles and less of a break over the bridge will solve this problem. Like I said in my previous post... A Bigsby can be a wonderful unit, but it needs to be properly setup or it can indeed be a bastard to deal with. Once you get the unit setup properly, it has a feel and a sound that nothing else can duplicate.
Click to expand...
In 1963 graphite saddles had not been invented and it was also a non adjustable bridge, it was cast with the settings, preset is the word I wanted.
It was a great guitar but I was such a dickhead when it came to managing money that the guitar and I parted company.
 
Actually theyre endangered woods and are almost impossible to come by. And now you're just turning into a prick, nobody likes an asshole maybe you should stop posting.
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Nowhere in any of my posts did I resort to namecalling. I disagree with your premise. So what...DEAL WITH IT.

Secondly...rosewood and ebony are *not* impossible to come by, as is evidenced by the furniture industry, and the fact that every guitar maker on the planet uses them. So again...you simply are not correct. The reason that these woods are not used for guitar bodies is because they sound terrible when used for that application. If they sounded great, they would be used, and people would pay for them. Sustain and tone are two different things. Just because something sustains well doesn't mean that it will sound good.
 
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