Dean guitars embraces rockabilly and versatility with its Colt Bigsby

(Image credit: Dean Guitars)

If your idea of a Dean guitar looks like the Razorback Dimebag Darrell made famous, the semi-hollow Colt will be a surprise. The series is also even more diverse than it first appears. 

The new Colt Bigsby is a case in point – as you've probably guessed from the name, it's rocking an Original Bigsby bridge. The Vintage White and gold also give it something of a Gretsch Penguin vibe. But the pickups are where things get even more interesting. 

Alongside DMT (Dean Magnetic Technologies) pickups, a piezo, with dual passive outputs, there's a built-in piezo under the bridge saddle to take advantage of the semi-hollow character. Plenty of classic twang and mellow strum on tap.

(Image credit: Dean Guitars)

Players can choose whatever output combination is right for them; they can bypass the piezo and use the magnetic pickup configuration only, utilise the piezo only, or use both patched independently to a stereo or blended mono setup. 

The Colt Bigsby features a dual-action truss rod, C-shape neck with 25.5’’ scale and Grover tuners. There's an ebony fretboard on a maple neck (body is also maple) with pearloid block inlays and 22 tall and narrow (2.4 mm by 1.2 mm) frets. Fretboard radius is 16’’. 

The Colt Bigsby retails for $1,199 street. Head over to deanguitars.com for more info. 

Rob Laing
Guitars Editor, MusicRadar

I'm the Guitars Editor for MusicRadar, handling news, reviews, features, tuition, advice for the strings side of the site and everything in between. Before MusicRadar I worked on guitar magazines for 15 years, including Editor of Total Guitar in the UK. When I'm not rejigging pedalboards I'm usually thinking about rejigging pedalboards.