QUESTION for SPEEDY WEST

Ray Montee · Post by **Ray Montee** » 2 Jan 2002 6:05 pm

Speedy.....what value "POT" did you use on your BIGSBY tone control? With Paul gone now, I have nowhere to turn for this information. If you catch this, THANX for your anticipated response.

Paul Warnik · Post by **Paul Warnik** » 2 Jan 2002 8:34 pm

Ray-I cannot answer for Speedy but can tell you that most original Bigsby steels and the foot volume/tone pedals used a 100K ohm pot in the tone circuit

Ray Montee · Post by **Ray Montee** » 2 Jan 2002 9:56 pm

Paul I very much want to THANK YOU! Speedy's name popped into my mind and right away I tho't of his famous boo-wah effect and realized I needed to know the answer.
I believe you are most likely right on the money. Most radio/guitar shops however, have no idea!

Eric Stumpf · Post by **Eric Stumpf** » 3 Jan 2002 4:40 am

....and what about the value of the capacitor in the tone cicuit? .05 meg , right?

Paul Warnik · Post by **Paul Warnik** » 3 Jan 2002 10:00 am

Eric-yes the capacitior is .05 for the tone circuit-you can use 250K ohm for the volume pot-but the most currently available 500K dont work well at all-the 100k ohm tone pot allows for a nice long gradual sweep of the timbre from bass to treble for the length of the travel of the pot shaft-if you want a very quick change from treble to bass for a faster "boo wha" you can try going to a 1Meg-1000k ohm pot in the tone control but the change from bass to treble will not be gradual but rather quick on one end of the pot-this has been my experience from building seven reissue Bigsby steels and also wiring the circuits for a number of new production tone/volume pedals for Ted McCarty Bigsby Accessories before he sold out to Gretsch

Eric Stumpf · Post by **Eric Stumpf** » 4 Jan 2002 9:27 am

Thank you, Paul! I do want a faster boo-wah and I will stick a 1 meg pot into the tone ciruit...linear or audio taper? Also, the .05 meg caps I've been able to find locally are all high voltage ceramic type....I bet you could suggest something better. Sure appreciate your input on this subject. Last but not least....was Speedy's tone wanger on the side of his Bigsby spring-loaded? It looks that way in the video clips of him working the control (with an extention lever on it, maybe?).

Carl West · Post by **Carl West** » 4 Jan 2002 10:19 am

Speedy's Bigsby did not have a spring loaded
tone control . I had the pleasure of playing that Bigsby once . . I wish I'd had the dollars to by it when he went with Fender

Carl West (no relation)
Emmons D-10

Paul Warnik · Post by **Paul Warnik** » 4 Jan 2002 12:31 pm

Eric-it has been difficult for me to find good capacitors in .05-the old orange drops(I think the manufacturer is Sprauge?)are workable-I wish that I could find the Cornel Dubiliers-mostly we have been using ones from Radio Shack but they do not have .05 they have them in .047 which is close-also I think that you use linear taper in the tone pot and audio taper for the volume-you can try both to see which works better<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by PAUL WARNIK on 04 January 2002 at 12:34 PM.]</p></FONT>

Ray Montee · Post by **Ray Montee** » 5 Jan 2002 10:06 am

Thanks fellow Forumites for the valuable information about Bigsby guitar Pots.