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Thanks to an old thread somewhere, and Hammertone's words in particular, I picked up a Yamaha AE-18. I've had it for awhile and it plays lights out. I took it to my guy for some tweaking, and it came home with a buzz on the D string Bb, right in the middle of the neck. I took it back to my guy, he tweaked again, and the buzzes migrated and multiplied. Most of them tended to happen in the key of Bb, and on strings G, B, and high E.
He: is the guy people turn to with crazy problems. I've lost track of the number of times I've been in the shop when someone has called and said "____ told me that they can't repair my guitar, and they gave me your number." He's tightened everything up, cleaned up and snugged wires together, etc. Given that the guitar is 50 years old, I suspect that his attention to detail dislodged some grime, rust, etc.
I: have committed to a contest of wills with my tech. He doesn't want to work on the guitar anymore since he's worked through all of the likely and lots of the unlikely culprits, so I've read the interwebs and tried a number of things. I've changed strings, I've shimmed pickup covers, I've stretched the pickup springs, and now I'm waiting for clear nail polish to dry on the bridge intonation screws.
Any bets on what this will turn out to be?
Oh, and through my fiddling, the buzzes have spread like misinformation, so now I've got buzzing on G, B, and high E pretty much all the way up the neck.
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09-01-2023 04:11 PM
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Obviously, the buzzes did not get fixed. It simply needs to be set up correctly. If it played fine before you took it in then it should play fine again. Not sure what he did but things can happen after a set up. It simply needs to get some attention. Nothing here on this forum will help diagnose the problem you need it looked at and the problem solved.
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take it to a different guy. sometimes reputations are bs.
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Thanks to both of you.
Regarding a different guy, yeah I do need to do that. I’m loyal to a fault, but a new set of eyes makes sense here.
Regarding the setup, that’s actually what he did. It played well enough that I figured I’d pay him for a real setup (beyond what I did after receiving the instrument), deal with any fret issues, etc.
He left the action where I like it, and intonation was spot on. I know things move (settle?) over a few days after work is done, and that’s what happened. Maybe buzz isn’t the right word, but I don’t know how else to describe it. It sounded like a mechanical buzz, but just at the one spot on the fretboard.
When I took it back, he adjusted the neck, adjusted the action again, and adjusted the intonation again. No buzz, in tune jazz box. A day or two later the buzzes appeared.
Since I posted: the clear nail polish dried, and I put everything back together. Buzzes seemed to mostly be gone. I then did my own ghetto setup and took my first pass at intonation. No more buzzing. I’ll let things settle and then try to get the intonation dialed in over the next couple of days.
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This has the indications of being something loose on the guitar. Maybe a nut holding a tuner, maybe a pickup, but it could be anything. There is a lot of hardware on an archtop, and all of it can get loose. There are multiple threads here discussing the causes of buzzing, and there is FRETS.COM The possibilities are endless. I've had buzzes that I could have sworn were coming from the guitar or the amp, and which turned out to be something in the room, hanging on a wall or on a shelf, that was rattling. To check this, try playing in a different room.
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Since you’ve already looked at the typical culprits, your particular unwanted resonances may be related to the truss rod. I’ve had hard-to-locate buzzes end up being something loose in the truss rod cavity. Tighten the truss rod nut very slightly and check for buzzes again. If not better, loosen the but a little and check again. Good luck sorting this out.
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Don't look for an answer here. You can find lots of crazy wacky and unbelievable solutions and experiences too numerous to catalogue but only hands on will take you any closer to the truth. Do you like/demand a really low action? Does your string gauge give you sufficient tension to work with your picking style? A set up on one guitar will not be a good setup on a different guitar. Straight dead on is what some guitars demand, another player will pick up that guitar and say "Amazing! I want THIS!" and set up a guitar dead on, but in their own living room playing will get "Buzzing" (what does this even mean? Buzzing can happen on a nut with an insufficient break over, or a wire that happens to be close to something inside the guitar, a loose winding on a string, a loose fret, a separating fingerboard, a loose washer on a tuning machine, a loose screw on a tuning button, a crack in the top you can't see yet, an emerging glue separation, warping neck just becoming a problem, the weather change that sends a low action guitar into the TINIEST of overbow, a picking technique that clears up once the player is warmed up, even a jar with a coin on it close to the amp... ) I've seen many things but I haven't seen it all.
Don't look for an answer here, but let's all chime in with YOUR weirdest anecdotes.
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Thanks for all of this! This particular buzz has happened plugged in, unplugged, and at the shop, but it looks like my nail polish hack worked.
Originally Posted by sgosnell
Thank you! I'll add that to the list if the buzz returns. Originally Posted by rolijen
But Jimmy, I've been told that the internet has all the answers... (/s) Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
Regarding weird anecdotes, I haven't performed too much on guitar, so most of mine are on woodwinds. I'd love to hear some head scratchers.
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My AE-18 (for now), with a whopper replacement neck made by George Furlanetto back in the late '70s:
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you had the neck replaced because of a buzz? Originally Posted by Hammertone
I guess drastic times call for drastic measures!
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And then it probably turned out to be a picture on the wall that was rattling! Originally Posted by wintermoon
(That's been my culprit).
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My 7 string Tele developed a weird buzz shortly after I got it. It turned out to be a saddle height screw that was backed off so far that it was loose in the thread. Screwing it back in until it was firmly against the baseplate fixed it. Originally Posted by osloutah
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I used to crank an L-5 through a Twin at the crib and it rattled a couple 110 yr old windows Originally Posted by bluejaybill
And then it probably turned out to be a picture on the wall that was rattling! (That's been my culprit).
a thin wooden shim fixed them, I recommend a thin wooden shim for all guitar related buzzes, whether in the house or on the guitar itself.
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Bees.
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Earwax
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My guitars often have a bit of cardboard from a matchbook cover or a business card, wedged in somewhere to stop a buzz.
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I had an amazingly bad buzz that turned out to be a loose set screw in a tone knob. I figured it out when the knob fell off.
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Unlike Oslo’s bee-infested AE-18, mine was run over by a car, or so I was told by the original owner. That unfortunate event necessitated neck replacement surgery, which ended up not to the liking of the owner. I’ll provide some self-explanatory neck measurements later. Originally Posted by wintermoon
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I've had a buzz turn out to be a tone control shaft. It was a push-pull control for a coil tap, and there was enough play between the shaft and the control that it buzzed when the laminated top vibrated. A felt spacer under the knob eventually cured it, but it took a long time to find the cause of that buzz.
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Here's my non-car-wrecked example. No more buzzes, intonated well enough to keep me happy for awhile.
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I'm also going with buzzy truss rod. It happens with old guitars that get worked on a few times, serial adjustments, string changes - that stuff tends to wake them up. Originally Posted by rolijen
Hold the strings silent and tap the back of the neck gently with your knuckle and hear if that makes a buzz...
The tolerance between buzzy and not buzzy truss rod is literally microscopic, and at the transition can behave like it's moving around, changing frequency, getting worse/better.
Hope it's as simple as that.
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Another maneuver to find odd loose bits is to hold the guitar firmly with one hand around the neck (damping the strings) and the other on the lower bout or end. Shake it hard in all directions a few times in a quiet room and listen for rattles etc. I found a nasty buzz that way that only happened at certain frequencies. It was a loose locking nut on one of the tuners.
Using this trick, I also found a buzz from replacement wiring that was too long and resting lightly against the inside of the lower bout on the treble side in playing position.
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I had a situation where there was fret buzz on a particular note. It took me years to figure out the cause — the nut slot was filed too low on one string and the length of string between the nut and a fret (I forget which specific fret/note did it) would vibrate sympathetically with a note. The cure was to fill in the nut slot (baking soda and super glue), and refile it.
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I’ll start a new thread with a full report on it, but I had the same experience last week when I picked up my Tele 7 after a fret level / crown / polish and setup by Marc at Guitars ‘n Jazz. Ever since I got it (new), it had a very faint, weird, and inconsistent plink to its tone with all but very very light picking. It was more noticeable with lighter strings but was still there if you listened hard with 12-53 Chromes and an 0.075 Chrome 7th. And whatever harmonics & resonances it was putting out interfered with OD from both my pedals and master volume / gain pot balancing. Originally Posted by John A.
The first fret turned out to be the problem. Even after leveling, Marc filled 2 nut slots a bit. It now has a beautiful jazz tone, and with a pair of Lace Alumitones it goes from thunky to woody to chimey as I need it. And it goes all Robben Fordy through my Steel String Singer SRV. I played 4 gigs over the weekend and it was great from the jazz trio on Thursday to the blues brunch on Sunday.
The first fret was a tiny problem with hugely annoying consequences. And this is another example of the major benefits of a proper setup on any guitar, even brand new.Last edited by nevershouldhavesoldit; 09-05-2023 at 11:01 AM. Reason: typo
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To me, the most difficult and time-consuming part of a setup (other than a fret level/dress) is the nut. If the slots are just a little too high the action is too high, and just a little too low and it all goes to hell. Most techs who do a setup leave the slots a little too high for my taste, because that's far safer than taking them just a little too low. Every factory guitar is shipped with the slots much too high. If the slots are cut to the perfect height when there is relief in the neck, they may be too low and buzz when the relief is taken out by adjusting the truss rod. That's why I always adjust the relief before I start on the nut slots - I learned the hard way. It's a balancing act, and it's better to err slightly on the high side, IME, and that's what most do. For my guitars, I go all the way to perfect, although that can take a few days of kissing slots with a nut file. I try to sneak up on it.
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