Rock & roll heaven - the new Colt Bigsby rockabilly style guitar

Holy cow! I always thought a Gretsch would be my next purchase but I’ve just stumbled across this new work of art from Dean Guitars. It’s a semi-hollow Colt and looks like it was designed in rock & roll heaven.

Image credit Dean Guitars

Forgetting the incredible aesthetics, this new Colt Bigsby guitar is rockin’ a 100% original Bigsby bridge (do you see what they did with the name there).

No I can’t take it any longer, let’s get back to the aesthetics. The Vintage White and gold give it a heavenly touch. Is it me or does it remind you of the Gretsch White Penguin guitar? OK now I’ve had my fix let’s get technical again…

Image credit Dean Guitars

The pickups are even worth noting too for shed loads of classic twang as well as mellow strumming. In addition to Dean Magnetic Technologies (DMT) pickups, a piezo, with dual passive outputs, to make best use of the semi-hollow model, under the bridge saddle there’s a built-in piezo for an endless variety of tones.

Woah, stop right there…

What is a piezo (pronounced “pee-YAY-zoh”)?

Unlike magnetic pickups, which are clearly visible under the strings between the bridge and the neck, piezo pickups on an electric guitar are usually located INSIDE the bridge itself. You don’t even see them on the guitar. The reason? Piezo pickups work by picking up the actual vibrations of the string and the instrument.

Image credit Dean Guitars

Back to the Colt Bigsby guitar

So which pickup combination should I use? Well you can bypass the piezo and just use the magnetic pickup configuration only, simply engage only the piezo or finally use both patched separately to a blended mono or stereo setup.

Finally to the body, the Colt Bigsby includes a dual-action truss rod C-shape neck with 25.5’’ scale.

The body and neck are made of maple (Mmmmmm maple) whilst the fretboard, at a radius of 16”, is ebony and features pearloid block inlays with 22 narrow and tall frets which are 2.4 mm by 1.2 mm. This is completed with Grover tuners.

Check out the Colt Bigsby in action although he's not got his rockabilly game on in this video...