The Fantastic Bigsby Vibrato

When Merle Travis complained to his friend, Paul A. Bigsby, about the shoddy quality of the Kaufman vibrato arm on his Gibson L-10 guitar, Bigsby set out to build a solution. What he came up with is what is now commonly known as "a Bigsby." Synonymous with Gretsch guitars, you can also retrofit one of these musically expressive units on a Les Paul, a Telecaster or just about any other guitar you can think of. The Bigsby vibrato arm allows the player to raise or lower the pitch of the strings by about a half step, producing an almost pedal steel-like expressive quality as you may apply vibrato to an entire chord as opposed to just a single note.

Hand made Les Paul knock off by HML Guitars with a Bigsby B7 model:

In his youth, Bigsby worked as a pattern maker in various SoCal machinery plants. There he learned to hand craft molds used to produce the steel parts for various engines and shop tools. With this skill set, he was able to design and construct his new vibrato unit from scratch. As shop foreman of the Crocker Motorcycle Company, legend has it Bigsby initially used a motorcycle spring as the main point of flex under the vibrato arm.

Modern Gretsch 6120 DSW:


Here is a video showing how these vibrato units are made. Good to see that there is still a fair amount of hands on work done to create these units. The molds used today are the same Bigbsy initially made in the 1950s! The great inventor nailed the design the first time through for a vibrato unit which today is still very popular. In fact, Bigsby stopped building his custom electric Spanish, lap & pedal steel guitars in the late 50's to focus on the booming demand for his vibratos.

I've got a Bigsby on my Gretsch and couldn't imagine playing guitar without one!