String buzzing!!
I purchased a telecaster off ebay a couple of months ago and its got a terrible string buzz. Its on the low E string and maybe halfway up the A string. I played on every fret and get the buzz all the way up the neck reguardless of which fret is pushed on the E string. Not sure if I need a truss rod adjustment or what could be the problem, just checking everyones input to see if maybe a simple fix that im overlooking. One thing that Noticed when I got the telecaster is it doesn't feel like my american strat, it's an american made tele and is fairly new but it feels so cheap compaired to the strat. The strat is a 99 model if that makes a different or not. Just trying to get some feedback from other experienced players or techs...thanks
# 1
My experience has been if a truss rod adjustment is needed you can usually see a bow in the neck if you hold it up and look from the bridge to the headstock (look down the edge of the neck). You might also want to check possible bridge height as the action may be set to low. You can always take it to your local store and get some feedback on what might be needed. Hope this helps
# 2
Either the truss rod needs to be loosen a little to straighten your neck or the saddle at the bridge of the a and e string needs to be lifted a little to give more room for those big strings to vibrate freely without touching the frets.
If your andy and feel confident enought to do it on your own, there's some great lessons on youtube for adjusting your guitar. If not, take it to a luthier he will fix that for you :)
If your andy and feel confident enought to do it on your own, there's some great lessons on youtube for adjusting your guitar. If not, take it to a luthier he will fix that for you :)
# 3
Thanks for the input JEkade and sebastberg, im gonna check the neck for a bow and check the saddle height and go from there. Im pretty handy but pretty new to the guitar so I wanted to get a little feedback first. :)
# 4
I see that you've gotten good feedback from some other users on the buzz... I'm sure a combination of neck relief (loosening the truss rod) and raising the E/A saddle will fix that up for you...
... As for the tele itself. I notice you said you bought it on eBay. Was the instrument new or used? Did it come with documentation? Is there a serial number on the guitar? I would verify these things to make sure your guitar is, in fact, American made. I have heard on several occasions of vendors swapping Made In Mexico decals for Made in USA decals and selling Fender instruments at marked up prices to make a bigger profit.
... As for the tele itself. I notice you said you bought it on eBay. Was the instrument new or used? Did it come with documentation? Is there a serial number on the guitar? I would verify these things to make sure your guitar is, in fact, American made. I have heard on several occasions of vendors swapping Made In Mexico decals for Made in USA decals and selling Fender instruments at marked up prices to make a bigger profit.
# 5
I've played many guitars that are in spec but still buzz and, or rattle with low, comfortable action. The issue, the frets are not finished. If after you do the adjustments and you can't get low, comfortable action and clear tone without fret buzz, get a kit called Buzz-Off! It's a cheap, simple fret leveling kit with one wood sanding tool along with sand paper, steel wool, and fret rockers, two different size metal bars for the upper and lower frets used on three frets to find high frets or high spots on frets. If the middle fret of three frets is high it causes the fret rocker to rock back and forth, that's the fret or spot you sand and finish. Some frets are high on one side, high in the middle, or high under one string. Some frets raise up out of the wood and need to be tapped or glued in. So, get a good fret hammer, tap the high fret to see if it's loose. If it goes in, great. If it comes back out after a few hours of play, get a glue kit from stew mac used to glue frets in place, glue and tap the fret in and see if that works. If the fret doesn't pop out and it's still high or high on one spot or one side, use the Buzz-Off kit and level that fret until the rocker don't rock, but don't go too low then you'll have to re-level each fret, not just a fret or two or a spotty board. But, the sand paper supplied is such that it won't go too low unless you do a fifty or a hundred strokes or so depending upon how hard and fast you sand it. If you do just a few strokes at first and no progress, do more strokes, 5, 10 or so, it depends upon how bad the fret. But pay close attention to the difference, don't over estimate. Also, clean off the debris and don't allow contaminates to get under the sandpaper and scratch the fret. Finish with the steel wool, then finish the frets off with Gorgomyte (stemac). Even if you do see minor scratching after sanding, the steel wool takes it out, the Gorgomyte will smooth it out to a shine. Use fretboard tape when leveling the frets so you don't scratch your fretboard, just loosen the strings and tape them under the neck with fretboard tape so you don't have to keep restringing the guitar. When the fret rockers don't rock anymore, put the strings back on, play it. Repeat if necessary, the amount you need to take off is tiny. Doing that to frets will blow your mind, it's a whole nother guitar after that fret treatment, the frets are silkly, smooth, clear, and grippy when you dig-in and the action is low and taught and it's easy to dial in or out some grit with real low action, clarity with higher action, 1.6mm across the board is middle action, 1.2, low action. I just finished doing all that on a Dean guitar and wow, shocking difference. I had to put a paper shim on the top side of the neck pocket too, easy, perfect alignment how, real good intonation. Sprouted fret ends are easy too, this one had some fret sprout, steel wool took it out, tape off the fret end so you don't scratch the board. Sometimes old stock Gorgomyte takes out tiny fret sprout, sometimes you need a stewmac fret-end kit to fix big fret sprout, owned a few new guitars with that problem. Also, some nuts are too high or low, but that's should be checked first, a whole nother story, but the nuts are usually close and you can compensate for slight variances in nut height with truss rood and string height adjustments with perfect frets, or...google fixing nuts, that's a tricky one on some guitars. ...most guitars have a workable stock nut. Don't mess with the nut unless it's way high, way low or one or two slots are bad.
That's exactly what the best guitar techs do when you turn a guitar over to them because you can't pull-out the buzz, but they hand you back a guitar that plays sweet, everything else is in spec other than the frets!
One further note, sometimes it takes weeks to slowly dial in a guitar, sometimes not if you have a knack for it! And, wood does flex, so after the nut is right, and you got your string height approximately good, let the truss rod adjustments settle in for a few days because sometimes one good pull takes a few days to fully bow or flatten the neck before you rock the frets, in other words, don't rush it, take the neck adjustments slow, for sure before you sand the frets, the frets rise and fall with neck adjustments. The whole process is very easy and quick once you get it down.
Oh, when you string a standard tuner, use two fingers of string past the post, crimp the string at 90 degree angle, like an L two fingers past the post, put the string in the peg at 2 o'clock an insert the string towards you, tighten it down by crimping it on the opposite side of the peg eye, and it locks in place, you can hold the guitar up with that simple lock, tighten it with wraps underneath the locked string, stretch the strings in, locked, done. No need for knots and twists. The strings are locked in place with two to progressively three winds on the plain strings this way, the perfect method to string a guitar that will stay in tune if the tuners are good and the nut don't bind, lots of binding nuts out there, whole nother story too, google that, Nut Sauce works on most nuts in my experience, but not perfectly on some, some nuts needed fine tuning, some just need to break in a bit.
If you have locking or vintage tuners, you know what to do.
If you want to stabilize a vintage 6 screw trem, use two good Fender screws, not 6. Floyd Rose, lol. There's enough out there about Floyd Roses but some of the licensed ones and copies are really cheap and strip out once you dig in like you would on a real Floyd Rose, get a good Floyd Rose and don't drive yourself nuts with the junk, they're useful starting with Floyd Rose Special if you use real Floyd Rose saddles and screws, the special saddles and screws sometimes are mushy and strip.
Hope this helps if you find you still have fret buzz even after a proper setup, this has happened with most of the guitars I ever purchased, it takes time (money) to dial in frets to perfect action and many new guitars don't get that treatment. If you never played a guitar with perfect polished frets on a proper setup to your touch, when you do, you'll be shocked at the difference and how easy the guitar is to play!
One final tip! Don't play your guitar till your finger tips hurt. It's easy to get immersed in a smooth and easy playing guitar until your finger tips hurt because your finger tips are not callused. Get Rock-Tips Callus Formula, it works! It will save you months of building up calluses. If you put two coats on, your finger tips are rock solid, makes playing hammer on'z and pull-offs much easier, fretting notes and chords less mushy. The stuff is amazing.
Good luck fixing the string buzz!
That's exactly what the best guitar techs do when you turn a guitar over to them because you can't pull-out the buzz, but they hand you back a guitar that plays sweet, everything else is in spec other than the frets!
One further note, sometimes it takes weeks to slowly dial in a guitar, sometimes not if you have a knack for it! And, wood does flex, so after the nut is right, and you got your string height approximately good, let the truss rod adjustments settle in for a few days because sometimes one good pull takes a few days to fully bow or flatten the neck before you rock the frets, in other words, don't rush it, take the neck adjustments slow, for sure before you sand the frets, the frets rise and fall with neck adjustments. The whole process is very easy and quick once you get it down.
Oh, when you string a standard tuner, use two fingers of string past the post, crimp the string at 90 degree angle, like an L two fingers past the post, put the string in the peg at 2 o'clock an insert the string towards you, tighten it down by crimping it on the opposite side of the peg eye, and it locks in place, you can hold the guitar up with that simple lock, tighten it with wraps underneath the locked string, stretch the strings in, locked, done. No need for knots and twists. The strings are locked in place with two to progressively three winds on the plain strings this way, the perfect method to string a guitar that will stay in tune if the tuners are good and the nut don't bind, lots of binding nuts out there, whole nother story too, google that, Nut Sauce works on most nuts in my experience, but not perfectly on some, some nuts needed fine tuning, some just need to break in a bit.
If you have locking or vintage tuners, you know what to do.
If you want to stabilize a vintage 6 screw trem, use two good Fender screws, not 6. Floyd Rose, lol. There's enough out there about Floyd Roses but some of the licensed ones and copies are really cheap and strip out once you dig in like you would on a real Floyd Rose, get a good Floyd Rose and don't drive yourself nuts with the junk, they're useful starting with Floyd Rose Special if you use real Floyd Rose saddles and screws, the special saddles and screws sometimes are mushy and strip.
Hope this helps if you find you still have fret buzz even after a proper setup, this has happened with most of the guitars I ever purchased, it takes time (money) to dial in frets to perfect action and many new guitars don't get that treatment. If you never played a guitar with perfect polished frets on a proper setup to your touch, when you do, you'll be shocked at the difference and how easy the guitar is to play!
One final tip! Don't play your guitar till your finger tips hurt. It's easy to get immersed in a smooth and easy playing guitar until your finger tips hurt because your finger tips are not callused. Get Rock-Tips Callus Formula, it works! It will save you months of building up calluses. If you put two coats on, your finger tips are rock solid, makes playing hammer on'z and pull-offs much easier, fretting notes and chords less mushy. The stuff is amazing.
Good luck fixing the string buzz!
# 6
