Electric guitar fret buzzing plus NO HIJACKING THREADS PPL

Spackle · May 2007

If I could hijack this...

I took my guitar into a shop to have a look at some unnecessary buzz and the guy adjusted the truss rod JUST A BIT and lowered my action. In the store it played awesome, buzz was reduced and the lower action was a lot of fun.

I got home and didn't touch it. Today I played it, and it feels like it's buzzing even more. What the hell happened? Did the strings adjust for worse? It did not play this way at the store...

Pheezer · May 2007

Seriously. Do not hijack fucking threads.

Mishra · May 2007

Do you have single coil pickups? If so are you playing under fourescent lights? if so that's your problem, single coil pickups are very sensitive to 50-60 Mhz noise, the downside to my lovely Strat. Could also have to do with your attach and left hand technique.

Spackle · May 2007

Nope, it's an Epi Les Paul with standard humbuckers. What gets me is that it didn't feel this way at the store right after he did the adjustments. Could my left handed technique just need to get used to lower action?

Mishra · May 2007

Possibly, I know I sometimes have an issue with buzzing on the higher string from the fretted one, The pad of my finger will be resting on the higher string, is everything else the same, amp cable all that?

Pheezer · May 2007

The hum you get when playing with single coil pickups is nothing like fret buzzing. You can feel fret buzzing and it sounds completely different.

I would suspect that you probably need to work on accuracy with regards to fretting notes. Getting chords to ring without buzzing after having the guitar's action freshly lowered is just going to take practise.

Spackle · May 2007

pheezer FD wrote: »

The hum you get when playing with single coil pickups is nothing like fret buzzing. You can feel fret buzzing and it sounds completely different.

I would suspect that you probably need to work on accuracy with regards to fretting notes. Getting chords to ring without buzzing after having the guitar's action freshly lowered is just going to take practise.

I was wondering about this. I guess I thought that lower action would be some sort of miracle buzz reducing thing but I should know better. I'll work on my left hand technique.

Thanks guys!

Edit: The more I think about, the more i'm sure it's my fretting.

Pheezer · May 2007

Lowering the action increases buzzing because the strings are closer to the fret board, and easier to draw into that vibrating range. The buzz is just the vibrating string hitting a fret. Raising the action makes it easier to avoid fret buzz, but gimps your playing because now it's harder to push strings down and it slows you down/tires out your hand.

Even if you've got good technique, there's just that adjustment period if you've never gotten used to playing guitars with low action.

Spackle · May 2007

I think I just had myself confused because I went in to the shop to reduce fret buzz and wound up with the same if not more. BUT, it sounds once I adjust, the problem will disperse. The lowered action is definitely nice to play with though, my scales sound cleaner and, tapping sounds a lot cleaner on the high e.

stigweard · May 2007

It can take a day or more for a neck to settle after a truss rod adjustment, especially if it hasn't been done in a while. Temp and humidity also affect the shape of a guitar. Any, or a combination, of those could be causing the problem or it could be your technique. The other thing to consider is whether you hear the buzz plugged in. I have the action on my epi lp set really low. I get a bit of buzz acoustically, but it doesn't come through the amp, and that is what matters.

Spackle · May 2007

Well the guitar was shipped from Indiana to Colorado (I live in Col Spgs) and when I initially got used to it, a buzz started to become more apparent after the guitar settled. I put some DR10s on it and still got buzz after the strings settled. My technique is still in the learning process (been playing since March of '06) but the buzzing just seemed to never go away. The guitar was bought back in March.

Anywho, I don't get buzz through the distortion but it may show up in the clean channel. I'll have to test that actually, I've only played through distortion.

Pheezer · May 2007

Well, when you took it in the frets were probably buzzing because the neck was bowing a bit. In adjusting that the guy probably ended up just lowering the action a bit because that's where it seemed happy sitting and when he tested it he had no buzzing issues. And you realistically want the action as low as you can maintain it without having fretting issues anyhow.

Penny Arcade

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Electric guitar fret buzzing plus NO HIJACKING THREADS PPL

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