How much wood can you shave off a bigtone???

constantine

I have a 7/8 bigtone and need it to be about 5/8 at the high E.

Bob Holo

More than 0.3" .... if you're able to get that much off of the top of that bridge, the element will be too close to the surface and the bigtone will get microphonic as all heck. When you strum, you'll get a pronounced "thud" every time you strum/pompe. If you need to lower it that much, your best bet is to take most of that material off the feet (if possible - generally not - because it would make the bridge feet razor thin and might put the wire coming out the bottom of the bridge in harms way as you thin the feet) or sell it and buy one that's lower. When you say bigtone, I'm assuming you mean a "Dupont Bigtone" so - which number is it? There should be a number stamped on the bottom of one of the bridge feet. If you have a 3, then buy a 2 and if a 2 buy a 1...

The amount you can vary a bigtone is more limited than the amount you can vary most standard bridges because you need the right amount of mass over the element and you have that fragile wire coming out the bottom. Or maybe just toss the bigtone aside and get an ATpro70 or something like that. If you're not doing big gigs or really loud gigs where you have feedback problems your sound will be more natural with a clipon mic. Tough to beat a Bigtone for feedback resistance and sheer "cut" though... so it depends on where you're gigging.