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A Bigsby is a type of vibrato device for electric guitar designed by its namesake Paul A. Bigsby. It is also sometimes called a "whammy bar" or "tremolo," though tremolo is not a technically correct term. "Tremolo" refers to fluctuations in the volume of a tone, while "vibrato" is a fluctuation in pitch. 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 conjuntion 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 other vibrato units, such as the one installed on the Fender Stratocaster are more useful. The latter vibrato 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.
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