Repair And Restoration
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Frustrating Fret buzz
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Frustrating Fret buzz
when setting up acoustic guitars, from time to time I have a lot of trouble with getting the G string to ring true when fretted. Starting from lower frets and at its worst at about the 5/6th fret, the G string buzzes when plucked “heavily” (when no other string does so)…most recently a Taylor 724 which had a neck adjustment to reduce action (to 5/64-4/64), relief about 0.003 or 0.004. Increasing relief to about 8-9 helps somewhat. I located some high frets up the neck, corrected and hoped that it was fixed…nup. Took a closer look at the neck and decided there was a tiny ski-jump started at 13th fret – dressed some fall away into the upper frets – still no go (better, but still there). It seems related to relief, so I moved the relief around from straight to about 0.11 and found the best setting for relief about 0.008.
I experience a similar thing with my own Martin OM-42 – I just about got rid of it with a new saddle with correct radius (16″) but the Taylor saddle was correctly radiuses and I didn’t want to mess with it….
Are there any other things I should consider?
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2 Replies
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Depends on what you are calling a “buzz.” The G3 at 196 Hz is going to be very near the T(1,1)2 main top resonance of the guitar. Notes fretted up higher on the G string could conceivably be near the cross dipole, long dipole, or a harmonic of the main top resonance. If the notes played (or their harmonics) were close enough to a resonance frequency, that would cause a wolf tone. But to me, a wolf tone doesn’t really sound like what I would call a “buzz.” You could check that by putting some poster putty on the underside of the top near the bridge, and again on the sides, to see if the effect goes away. If so, the fix is a much longer description.
It is also possible you might be getting a sympathetic resonance from a G string pinch on the saddle. This would sound more like a sitar effect than a “buzz” though. It that is what it is, then eliminate the secondary pinch point on the saddle. (you would want to damp all the other strings to make sure the effect is coming from the G string).
I would say both of these are sort of long shots.
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thanks Michael…that’s really interesting – appreciate you taking the time to explain. It does sound slightly “sitar”, so I’ll have another look at the saddle for pinch points…
cheers,
Steve
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