Q: I have a newish Gibson Hummingbird, which overall I think is a great guitar. I haven’t had much issue with it. I take it in for setups once a year or so, but a few months ago, I started getting a loud, rattly buzz when I strum. It came and went for a while, but now it’s steady. What do you think is the most likely cause? —George, Chattanooga, Tennessee
A: Ah, the buzz. Whenever I encounter the problem of the dreaded mystery buzz, I have a list of possible causes I run through. As with everything, a buzz is always in the last place you look, so I try to start with the simplest answer. I always bear in mind that the sound of a buzz can travel far from its origin, so sometimes you can’t trust your ears to tell you where the noise is originating.
Technique How is my client’s fretting technique? Does their fingertip sit between the two frets, and are they giving firm pressure downward on the fingerboard, enough that the string doesn’t fish around on top of the next fret up? This common issue calls for some real tact in conversation with the player.
All About Guitar String Dampeners And Fret Wraps
Low Nut Slot Is one nut slot too low, causing the string to buzz along the top of that pesky first fret? If you press down the string at the first fret and the buzz is gone, you’ll know it was coming from the nut. Alternately, your low nut slot might give you a “back buzz”—this usually happens on the low E string, and can feel pernicious. It works like this: You get a metallic buzz when fretting or using a capo up the neck, but it’s quieted when you touch the string between the nut and where it’s fretted.
Poorly Cut Nut Slot A nut slot should give the string a clear take-off point at the edge of the bone that meets the fingerboard. If the slot is cut so that the highest point is in the middle, or on the wrong edge, the string can buzz through the slot like a sitar. It’s the same idea with a saddle of any material—if the take-off point isn’t on the edge toward the soundhole, the string can buzz across its top.
Too Low an Action/Strung Too Light While not the root cause of a buzz, trying for a very low action or using too light a gauge of strings can put a magnifying glass on little problems that you might otherwise never hear from. Things like…
New Strings And Now Got Buzzing
Hitting a Fret The sound of a string hitting the top of a fret is a pretty distinctive metallic buzz. If we think we hear that buzz, we want to know why. Is there a high fret, a low fret, or a fret that has bounced back up after we thought we’d seated it properly? Is the fingerboard warped, or ski-sloping at the fingerboard extension? Or do we have a…
Neck Without Enough Relief If a neck is too straight or back-bowed, strings are bound to hit the tops of the frets as we play. If a taut string is a straight line and we create a sine wave when we agitate it, you can picture why we need at least a little relief in a neck. Your tech can help you figure out the right amount of relief for your style and instrument.
Loose Hardware This is a kind of buzz that often migrates; it can make you feel really silly when you figure out that the annoying rattle that seemed to come from the body of your guitar was just a loose screw on the strap button or a tuner strip. Electric guitars can have loose pickup hardware.
Tgp: » How To Fix Guitar String Warble
(Pro tip: Lots of older flattop Gibsons have bridges with two bolts fixing them to the top. The 1/4-inch nuts threaded up against the bridge plate can come a bit loose and rattle. If you didn’t know they were there, you’d be driven absolutely nuts looking for the explanation!)
Loose Brace or Glue Joint While these tend to have a different quality of sound, wooden rather than metallic, they are still noisy and irritating. It’s especially audible in the case of a loose top brace in an acoustic guitar.
Your tech will test for this by thwacking a finger or thumb around the guitar’s top and back and listening for the sound of wood-knocking-into-wood.
What Causes Fret Buzz And How To Fix It?
Mamie Minch is the co-owner of Brooklyn Lutherie and an active blues player. She is the former head of repair at Retrofret Guitars.I need to talk about fret buzz. This is a bit difficult for a repair guy to do because, as I get into this, it can sound like I’m trying to dodge responsibility for shoddy work. That’s not the case—I actually feel pretty strongly about not doing that. The thing is though, it’s important for a player to be realistic about his or her needs and expectations when it comes to setup. Nowhere is this more of an issue than with fret buzz.
In order to generate noise it’s necessary to make a string vibrate up and down. Unless you’re fingering at the very end of the neck, under that vibrating string is a length of fingerboard, usually with a number of frets installed in it. It’s not like a harp, where you pluck a string and it rings beautifully and unimpeded—your guitar or bass has a bunch of wood and metal just dying to interfere with that vibrating sting.
Careful fret levelling and good setup can get an instrument playing cleanly. However, bear in mind that your playing style and technique, and the choices you make around action and strings, will have a major bearing on how cleanly that guitar plays.
My High E String Touches The Pickup Of My Guitar, And Buzzes After 9th Fret. How Do I Fix That?
However, if you’ve got a low action on your electric guitar or bass and you tell me you can hear a buzz when you play it unamplified, I’m going to ask you if that buzz can be heard when you play it through the amp, in a normal setting.
Buzzes on electric instruments that can’t be heard through the amp are often the price of that low action you like. In an ideal world, it wouldn’t be there but it’s not an ideal world (see note above on harps). If you want to play your electric guitar unamplified, it might need to be set up differently. Remember that there’s a reason most acoustic instruments are not set up with actions as low as their electric cousins.
Is your action appropriate for your style of playing? We’ve talked about this before—if you’re a hard player, you can’t expect to play with the same action as a really light picker. Bigger string vibrations need more room to move and a higher action is the answer.
Common Setup Problems Affecting Beginners
Super light stings wobble about more on a particular instrument. A heavier gauge might give you a cleaner result. Playing the heaviest strings you’re comfortable with is always good advice.
I’m (very, very) far from being the best player in the world. However, I’ve worked on these things enough that, at least, I’m pretty good when it comes to fingering/fretting notes cleanly. There have been times when I’ll play a guitar that someone’s brought in for buzzing problems and it’ll play just fine.
That’s tricky. Nobody likes to think something might be their fault (I certainly don’t) and nobody wants to be the guy to tell someone that it’s their fault (I certainly don’t). But sometimes it is.
What Is String Break Angle?
Fingering position and pressure are likely culprits. You want to be right behind the fret with a firm enough pressure to ensure good string-contact with the fret. If chords are buzzing, play the same notes individually—is the buzz still there? Sorry that I’m teaching grandmas to suck eggs here. However, if someone else can cleanly play your buzzing guitar, you might need to consider adjusting your technique or your expectations for your setup.
For a guitar to play cleanly, each fret should be neither higher or lower than its neighbours. If a fret is high, playing notes behind it may cause the string to vibrate off that fret. If you’ve a low fret, then the fret directly in front of it is (relatively speaking) a high fret.
High or low frets can be caused by poor fret installation and levelling. It’s also possible for frets to loosen and to sneak up out of the fretboard over time.
Seymour Duncan How To Fix Your Guitar Like A Pro: Solving String Problems
If your guitar buzzes in one or a few small areas but plays cleanly elsewhere, high or low frets may be the reason. For instance, if you’re playing each note up the board and all play cleanly until, say, 9th fret. The 10th has a little buzz and the 11th sounds awful but the 12th plays cleanly again. You might have a high 12th fret.
It’s not always so cut and dry as this, of course, and it can be useful to use a short ruler to try ‘rock’ across a few frets. You can buy a ‘fret rocker’ (which has a number of different-length sides to fit across differently spaced frets)
0 Response to "Why Do My Electric Guitar Strings Rattle"
Posting Komentar