We see a lot of Bigsby equipped guitars come in to the shop, with the owners complaining of tuning stability issues. It’s no wonder – Bigsbys are a bit flimsy, and due to the inherent design of the trem they rarely return to zero pitch when the trem is used even sparingly. Historically, there haven’t been many tremolo products on the market for Gibson and Tele style guitars, and Bigsbys were the only real solution out there, so guitarists were stuck. But check this out:
This is our favorite trem design for Teles or Gibson guitars: the Stetsbar. We’ve installed a lot of these over the years, and they never fail to impress. They’re super solid, engineered really well, stay in tune beautifully, and sound fantastic. The trick is that the entire bridge moves on roller bearings on a metal plate, instead of having the strings move back and forth through the bridge saddles, so it’s impossible for the string to catch in the saddle and fail to return to zero pitch. The whole bridge moves as a unit, and it feels super smooth. We think they’re rad, and highly recommend them. Check them out at stetsbar.com
