Bigsby

The Bigsby vibrato tailpiece (or Bigsby for short) is a type of vibrato device for electric guitar designed by its namesake Paul A. Bigsby.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It was the first successful design of what is now called a whammy bar or tremolo arm, although tremolo is not the technically correct term for what it produces. Tremolo refers to fluctuations in the volume of a tone, while vibrato is a fluctuation in pitch. This nonstandard usage of the terms by electric guitarists is attributed to Leo Fender, see vibrato unit.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Bigsby vibrato allows musicians to bend the pitch of notes or entire chords with their pick hand for various effects.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Bigsby vibrato unit is installed on the top of the guitar and works in conjunction with a rocker bridge. The arm of the Bigsby is spring loaded and attached to a pivoting metal bar, around which the strings of the guitar are installed. In the neutral or unused position, the pressure of the spring counterbalances the pull of the strings, resulting in constant pitch when the strings are played. When the arm of the Bigsby is pushed down towards the top of the guitar, the strings loosen, the bridge rocks forward, and the pitch of the strings is lowered. When the arm is released, the strings return to normal pitch. The arm may also be raised slightly to raise the pitch of the strings. Raising the arm too much, however, will result in the spring popping out of the unit. For this reason, the Bigsby is most suitable for downbends, rather than upbends, for which some competing units and notably the Fender synchronised tremolo installed on the Stratocaster are more useful. The Fender unit has been used to great effect by musicians such as Eddie Van Halen and Jimi Hendrix.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Bigsby vibratos have been factory installed on various models of electric guitar, such as those manufactured by Gretsch, and a version of the Fender Telecaster. Many electric guitars can also be retrofitted with a Bigsby, and there are different varieties of the unit designed to fit different styles of guitar, such as a hollow body or solid body guitar. Bigsby units ship with their own rocker bridges, though these are often discarded in favor of more adjustable alternatives such as the Tune-O-Matic style bridge or Jazzmaster style bridge. The rocker bridges that come with the Bigsby do not offer individual string intonation adjustment, and have relative string length preset for string sets with a wound G string, rather than for the plain G string preferred by most electric guitarists today.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Vibrato: Vibrato is a musical effect where the pitch or frequency of a note or sound is quickly and repeatedly raised and lowered over a small distance for the duration of that note or sound....

Electric guitar: An electric guitar is a type of guitar with a solid or semi-solid body that utilizes electromagnetic "pickups" to convert the vibration of the steel-cored strings into electrical current. The current may be electrically altered to achieve various tonal effects prior to being fed into an amplifier, ...

Paul A. Bigsby: redirect Paul Bigsby...