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Posted by: kyldeee Sep 8 2008, 12:24 PM

What causes this string buzzing...
You can't hear the buzzin through the speakers,
only when you play the guitar acoustically ( is that a word )
It mainly focuses on the lower strings, and the more closer you
get to the head of the guitar, the more clearer the buzzing gets...

Is this because of a low/high action, or because I just changed my strings
and they are still kinda loose

Cheers

Posted by: Emir Hot Sep 8 2008, 12:33 PM

this is usually a reason. Set your action higher especially if you put thicker strings. Your strings could be touching the frets and that's the common reason for this

Posted by: kyldeee Sep 8 2008, 12:54 PM

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, tho they should be the same size

Okay, it can't be the action, I tried to raise it, but when the buzzing stopped the strings were waaaaay too high

Posted by: Danilo Capezzuto Sep 8 2008, 12:57 PM

If you said the more you get closer to the head I think you need to adjust the truss-rod. Your guitar may have a little bit up-bow. Press down the low E at the first and the 12th fret together, and see the distance between the low side of the string and the 6th fret. It should be 1mm or a little less distance ( the thickness of a credit card is right) if the string touch on the fret is the up bow, check out the guitar's spec sheet and read where you have to turn the truss-rod to solve the problem. Good luck!

Posted by: Marcus Siepen Sep 8 2008, 01:05 PM

To work around this you do not only have to raise the strings, you would also have to adjust the curve of your neck, otherwise the string action gets way to high (as you found out yourself now). But my question is, if you only hear this buzzing when you play your guitar acoustic, what exactly is your problem then? Most electric guitars buzz a bit if they are not played through an amplifier, but when you play them through your amp you don't hear any buzzing anymore. As long as there is no buzzing when you play your guitar the way it is meant to be played things would be fine for me.

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Sep 8 2008, 02:30 PM

Doing a setup is a painful trial and error process that can take two days if you haven't done it before. But in the end once you do it once, you will do it much faster second time. Just needs some practicing and feel. Bridge height and truss rod should be adjusted carefully together in very small increments and let the wood settle for an hour or two. Then do it back again until you find the sweet spot.

Or you can get it done by a guitar tech, and pay a small fee

Posted by: Bogdan Radovic Sep 8 2008, 07:32 PM

Well I would suggest investing in a proper guitar setup to avoid that buzzing (if its possible)..Its a combination of bridge height , truss rod and other stuff that can be setup..

Posted by: fatb0t Sep 8 2008, 07:43 PM

Check out Kyle Lounges (or whatever his name was, I don't exactly remember) lesson on how to setup a guitar. It taught me how to setup my intonation, I miss his lessons kinda....

Posted by: kyldeee Sep 9 2008, 07:26 AM

Thanks guys

A lot of great advices here...
I already tried adjusting the truss rod and the action.
The intonation is in place, but I still really can't get rid of the buzzing.
And again, it's not buzzing with an open string tho

I guess I'll just leave it alone...

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Sep 9 2008, 10:42 AM

Is the truss rod/neck bowed? The neck should be bowed a little to allow strings not to buzz when frets are pressed. If you have buzzing issues on all the frets, specially if buzz progressing as you go upwards the neck then truss rod needs adjustment. And by adjustment I don't mean to turn it around randomly. If you don't know what are you doing, it is always better to take it to shop and say to guitar tech exactly what is the problem so he can worked it out.

Posted by: Juan M. Valero Sep 9 2008, 01:06 PM

if you don't know how adjust the truss rod give your guitar to a technic... is very dangerous !! and you would break your guitar

Posted by: kyldeee Sep 9 2008, 02:42 PM

I don't see any kind of bow what so ever, I've tried to adjust it, to give it a small bow, but nothing major happens while adjusting it... And yeah, the buzz is on the lower notes, on the bass strings...
Maybe, I should take it to a tech, but it would be better if I'd know how to do it myself... Although I do know how adjust it , which way to turn and all, but nothing seems to be happening

Yeah, no use, the buzz won't go away, unless I put the action waaaaay too high, which is not good at all, adn adjusting the truss rod won't do nothing, the neck is straight as dude in a tittie bar... and the bending is kinda difficul on the higher strings...

Posted by: Jose Mena Sep 9 2008, 06:07 PM

This can be a long and painful process, I try to set my necks perfectly straight and just raise the bridge until it doesn't buzz anymore, if the bridge is to high when the buzz stops I try to identify which fret is causing the problem, if it is on the higher frets I found that giving it relief will not help. if it is one a higher fret I remove the neck and put it in place again maybe with something so that the neck is slightly angled, and try again.

Sometimes you have a few frets that have problems and need leveling if this is the case take it to a tech or luthier, they have files and special tools to fix this

Posted by: kyldeee Sep 9 2008, 06:13 PM

Yeah, maybe I should... But maybe it's a good thing, cause I really only play blues, and it gives this kind of raw, "SRV style", tone But yeah, giving the neck a relief doesn't too anything at all, and I certainly ain't gonna take the neck off, I'm too lazy, and I've been playing around with the trem, and trying to set the guitar up properly, and I'm just too tired to do anything with it anymore... I have strong hatred towards this guitar ATM

Posted by: Jose Mena Sep 9 2008, 06:20 PM

This can be a long and painful process, I try to set my necks perfectly straight and just raise the bridge until it doesn't buzz anymore, if the bridge is to high when the buzz stops I try to identify which fret is causing the problem, if it is on the higher frets I found that giving it relief will not help. if it is one a higher fret I remove the neck and put it in place again maybe with something so that the neck is slightly angled, and try again.

Sometimes you have a few frets that have problems and need leveling if this is the case take it to a tech or luthier, they have files and special tools to fix this

Posted by: kyldeee Sep 9 2008, 06:29 PM

Okay, now the buzzing is on the higher frets... too much relief????

Posted by: kyldeee Sep 10 2008, 02:19 PM

Or what

Posted by: Jose Mena Sep 10 2008, 04:34 PM

From My experience adding relief will do nothing if the problem is on the higher frets, I know you don't want to but I would remove the neck, and put it back in, or take it to a tech to set it up for you, don't take out on the guitar.



By the way, what kind of guitar is it, is it a Fender Strat?

Posted by: kyldeee Sep 10 2008, 04:46 PM

Ibanez JS1000

And I just noticed that looking on the saddles, you can see that the strings individual height is weird

The E string is the lowest, A string a pit higher, and then the D string a little lower than A, the G string the highest, B string almost same as the A, and the High E same as the low.... What's up with that

Maybe that screwing up the system.... If not then I don't know what it is, and the truss rod don't do anything, no matter which way I turn it, I've tried both ways, to the end, but nothing, I'm seriously getting worried over here....

Posted by: Jose Mena Sep 10 2008, 04:49 PM

A Satriani Model, awesome guitar, take it to a tech man, it is worth it. Is it to expensive where you live?

Posted by: kyldeee Sep 10 2008, 04:52 PM

Yeah, maybe I should... I don't know about the prices, last time it was free of charge, but then he just showed me how to tune, and he also adjusted the neck, cause it was a little wrong... But I think it's not going to be free now, cause we're talking about a bigger operation

Posted by: Caelumamittendum Sep 10 2008, 04:59 PM

I too would suggest a tech if you don't have a cheaper 50-dollar guitar to practice on, which definately taught me a lot

Posted by: kaznie_NL Sep 10 2008, 06:23 PM

I have the same problem so I'd love to hear your solution Kyldee! You've had quit some problems with that guitar right?? Well I found that my repairst itself... but that's a different story.

I had this problem as mentioned before, but it turned out that 80% of the time it was my straplock vibrating... very annoying

EDIT:I had the same as you, got me crazy. I got the action higher then before as high as possible and.... It stll buzzed!! This all hapened after some action adjustments, so I thougt I had screwed up my guitar, but luckely I didn't

Posted by: botoxfox Sep 10 2008, 06:34 PM

That's just the bridge radius. It's supposed to be like that, so that it corresponds with the fretboard radius, which is fairly small on the JS models.

Posted by: Bedlam Sep 10 2008, 06:39 PM

I too have a JS series guitar. I had a lot of fret buzz when I went down to 9s. When I adjusted the buzz, my intonation was majorly off. Once you get rid of the buzz, make sure you spend the time to get your intonation back on. It took me weeks of messing around with it to get it right!

Posted by: kyldeee Sep 10 2008, 06:48 PM

That's why I'm taking it to a tech, cause I'm this close having a nervous breakdown, from all the **** that's happening around me, and I'm not just talking about the guitar, that's the least of my worries... So the safest thing is to get it to a tech, before I throw that piece of wood out of the window....