A 6122-1959 on sale on Ebay with a Bigsby Palm Pedal

[Ray Bohlken]

I found this guitar on Ebay and it has a fairly low starting price. It has the Bigsby Palm Pedal installed and looks kind of cool. Has anyone ever used a Palm Pedal? Is it a good effect? I always liked gadgets, so things like this kind of fascinate me. I'd bid on it myself, but I just got an NC a couple of months back, so I don't need another one in the closet.
Ray

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gretsch-6122-59 ... 3a79daebcf

[Vidar Lund]

About the Bigsby Palm Pedal:

http://www.reocities.com/dbalde.geo/dbbigsbypp.html

[Norm]

The palm pedals do what they're designed to do but unless you want to substitute for a pedal steel in a band they're kinda like a one trick pony. It would take a while to get fluent with it.

Personally, I wouldn't replace a straight Bigsby with one. Good for a second guitar tho.

[Ray Bohlken]

Vidar, thanks for the info - I appreciate it. Norm, I like the regular Bigsby, too...I'd just like to try a Palm Pedal out one of these days. I'm sure it wouldn't take long for me to get over it.
Ray

[Norm]

Closest I ever got to one was when a guy (Pete Grant I think his name was) brought one into the store I was working at. He had one set up on a Dobro of all things and could work it pretty well. I didn't try it.

[gmoseley]

I had some experience with one and didn't care for it. Back in the early 70's I was playing in a country band covering top 40 tunes of that era. I bought a Gibson 355 that had the palm pedals on it,,,,the main reason I bought the thing was that Pete Wade, the well known Nashville session player and guitar player for Ray Price, was using one on his 355 and I was wanting to be able to copy some of his licks.

I could never get the pedals to consistently go back in good tune,,,,seemed like they would sometimes drag a little and it drive me nuts - a hair sharp, a hair flat,,,I couldn't put up with that. Later I found out that Pete Wade's unit was something designed by Shot Jackson at ShoBud Guitars (the famous steel guitar maker). I think Chet had one of the Shot Jackson units on his beloved '59 CG at one time, but evidently he didn't care for it either because he didn't use it long before he took it off! I don't know,,,maybe they are better designed today than they used to be but that regular palm pedal unit I had 40 years ago wasn't too satisfactory. I ended up trading that 355 for a Gretsch CG.

Gayle Moseley

[David Elliott]

Closest I ever got to one was when a guy (Pete Grant I think his name was) brought one into the store I was working at. He had one set up on a Dobro of all things and could work it pretty well. I didn't try it.

Just as a matter of curiosity (since I've never used one), what was/is the purpose of a "Palm Pedal", as opposed to just a regular Bigsby tailpiece? Cost savings? Ease of use? Ease of installation, etc. ?

Nearly everyone who HAS used one (including Chet and Paul Yandell), seemed to have not been too enthusiastic about them, so I'm wondering if they weren't/aren't just another Gretsch "gimmick" accessory (ala Jimmy Webster?)

David

[gmoseley]

Hi David, they have a 'stop screw' you set and then you can lower a string to a given pitch, a'la like a steel guitar sound. When you release the palm pedal, the string returns to its original pitch (if you're lucky) - -therein lies the problem, sometimes it may 'drag' a little and not come all the way back to pitch - - and THAT will drive you nuts
I never really thought of it as a "Gretsch gimmick", it was just another accessory you could add on any guitar, At that time late 60's, early 70's they were fairly popular around the Nashville circles,,,,guitar players trying to get a steel sound. Phil Baugh had a complete pedal setup on his Peavey 6 string,,,,floor pedals and all. Shot Jackson made that for him down at ShoBud. He could pull all six strings with his foot as he played. He was good at it and worked a lot of TV shows back then.

Gayle

[Barry Oliver]

Here is a link to see the foot pedal setup that Shot Jackson put on Phil Baugh's guitar.

http://a4.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/13/543e9921dd58ee56c0e3df23ce1f4749/l.jpg

[Vidar Lund]

The Bigsby Palm Pedal is a development of the B Bender intended for the B string to change one note up to C to emulate a pedal steel guitar. Thence the strange name Palm Pedal, because a pedal really is meant to be operated by the foot.

From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-Bender