Fret Filing Frustration!

lower the pickups yourself.

consider asking the guy for a refund, or withholding payment, if you've yet to pay him. its not like you can really get a replacement (if someone screws up my guitar once, I don't really want them doing further work on it).

consider looking for an acoustic luthier, either a specialist or one who does both. I'm going to offend half the forum (myself included) saying this, but honestly, ime, techies who only know how to deal with electric guitars often aren't that hot on the finer points of the instrument, like fret filing. whereas with an acoustic luthier, thats a more integral part of their rep-building work. I'll happily work on electric guitars (and acoustics), but if it involves fretwork, I take it to the shop. I know I'm just lacking in experience there. I wish tech-heads would be a little more honest and humble in their abilities, I've known some total braggards who claim they can do everything and in fact can do very little. sounds like this guy might have been using your axxe as a little practice.

either that, or the fretwork was an 'objective' improvement and you just don't gel with it.

Not really sure how you expect us to address this, but some notes on Strats and frets:

* It's very difficult to believe he removed the frets, unless he over-filed and replaced some them. If this is the case, it should be obvious as the new frets would look slightly different in finish (less wear/polish). On the sharp edges: Are you sure it's really worse? Many players don't notice the edges until pointed out to them -- then they cannot ignore them. IAC, this problem definitely should be fixable by a proper fret dressing. If he did not fix it, take it back and show him. Get it done right or your money back. Are you really sure this guy was qualified to dress frets. It's not that easy, and requires significant experience plus the right tools.

* Strats are not low action "shred machines." If strings are buzzing (how? this covers a lot of ground -- couple frets only? everywhere?), it's most often for one or both of two reasons (assuming frets are not worn, uneven or damaged): Neck relief requires adjustment and/or the strings are too low. As your guitar buzzes more than it did before, this tech may have gone and lowered your strings as part of a set-up. If so, this would not only explain buzzing, but loss of clear tone.

* Strat pup often ARE too high, and this causes many tonal problems. Lowering did not likely cause anything but loss of output -- and usually clearer tone. As mentioned above, lowered strings may be the real reason for poorer tone. Most new players believe Strat pups should be close to the strings. They should not. Turn up your amp.

scrybe:

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll see if I can find an acoustic luthier.

gnease:

Well, I am nowhere near a beginning player, as you are implying. I've been playing Stratocasters over 11 years, have done professional studio session work, and played in front of over 10,000 people (that's all at one time, mind you.) For what it's worth, I suppose I have been very lucky up until now. I've never had any problems at all with my guitars. I change the strings, everything's great, end of story. This is only the third time I've ever had a tech mess with any of my guitars. (The first two times went badly, too--- which is why I've stayed away from them.) This leads me to believe that most techs don't know what the hell they are doing. They're a bunch of hacks, as far as I can tell.

I mean, the guitar now buzzes all the hell all over the place. It rattles. I try to play a nice, sweet, soft song like "Lenny" by SRV and the damn thing rattles no matter how lightly I strum. I asked the tech about this, and his reply was that I just needed to work on my technique. Um, OK. Last week everything was fine. This week it isn't. It's not my technique that has changed!

As far as pickup height: He lowered the neck pickup way down almost flush with the pickguard. Here's the thing: The guitar sounds crappy now, sorry. I picked up a Philips' head screwdriver and raised the pickup to it's old position--- and it DID help the tone. It's not perfect, but it is much better. Besides, I didn't ask him to mess with my freakin' pickups. All I asked him to do was stop the rattle at the B-G strings at the 8-9 frets. That's all! Why did he have to go making my life "better"?

The sound that I'm talking about is like the tone Stevie Ray gets in "Lenny" or "Little Wing"--- that glowing, echo-y sound. I just can't get it anymore since he messed with my guitars.

I am extremely unhappy.

Oh well.

Sorry to hear about your bad experience ............ The only guitar tech I trust is a self taught hack .... ME! :lol: I would gather that we here are not supposed to do anything to help your situation, but rather you wanted someone to vent to and comiserate with you. I can appreciate your frustration. You spend good money and the thing is worse off. I would be upset myself.

scrybe:

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll see if I can find an acoustic luthier.

gnease:

Well, I am nowhere near a beginning player, as you are implying. I've been playing Stratocasters over 11 years, have done professional studio session work, and played in front of over 10,000 people (that's all at one time, mind you.) For what it's worth, I suppose I have been very lucky up until now. I've never had any problems at all with my guitars. I change the strings, everything's great, end of story. This is only the third time I've ever had a tech mess with any of my guitars. (The first two times went badly, too--- which is why I've stayed away from them.) This leads me to believe that most techs don't know what the hell they are doing. They're a bunch of hacks, as far as I can tell.

I mean, the guitar now buzzes all the hell all over the place. It rattles. I try to play a nice, sweet, soft song like "Lenny" by SRV and the darn thing rattles no matter how lightly I strum. I asked the tech about this, and his reply was that I just needed to work on my technique. Um, OK. Last week everything was fine. This week it isn't. It's not my technique that has changed!

As far as pickup height: He lowered the neck pickup way down almost flush with the pickguard. Here's the thing: The guitar sounds crappy now, sorry. I picked up a Philips' head screwdriver and raised the pickup to it's old position--- and it DID help the tone. It's not perfect, but it is much better. Besides, I didn't ask him to mess with my freakin' pickups. All I asked him to do was stop the rattle at the B-G strings at the 8-9 frets. That's all! Why did he have to go making my life "better"?

The sound that I'm talking about is like the tone Stevie Ray gets in "Lenny" or "Little Wing"--- that glowing, echo-y sound. I just can't get it anymore since he messed with my guitars.

I am extremely unhappy.

Oh well.

Clearly you are unhappy. But as this was your first post here, and you really didn't provide a lot of info beyond it buzzes; someone tried to fix it; now it's worse; and I didn't like xyz he did either, it is a little difficult to tell what experience and level of knowledge you have WRT the guitar. Moreover, the amount of time someone has played, seems to have a weak correlation to an understanding of the instrument's construction and maintenance.

So ...

Follow Sara's advice and get in-person, professional luthier help. If you want or need real advice on how to fix your guitar from web forum, you will need to learn enough about it and how to better describe the problems to help us nail the specific issues. Collectively, the people around here know pretty much everything there is to know about Strats and other guitars. But again: You will need carefully describe the issues to get useful, directly applicable advice. If all you've had to do in 11 years of Strat-playing is change strings, then it might be a good thing if you learned a bit more about the hardware. Go to Amazon or similar and purchase The Guitar Player Repair Guide by Dan Erlewine. It will help you understand how to do some of the work yourself, and also equip you to give concise descriptions of problems to guitar techs, and maybe even help you better judge a prospective tech. It's an excellent book and well worth the $20 investment.

On dropping into a site the first time: Introduce yourself. The GN membership and atmosphere are pretty friendly. But like anyone else, we like to exhange initial greetings before jumping into the issues.

On dropping into a site the first time: Introduce yourself. The GN membership and atmosphere are pretty friendly. But like anyone else, we like to exhange initial greetings before jumping into the issues.

Well said! 8)

Gosh! One post here and I seem to have made everyone angry at me already!

What do want me to do?

What I mean to say is, will apologizing at this point make any difference to anyone? Or have I already totally screwed myself here?

A belated welcome to Guitar Noise.

As you're undoubtedly aware, communication over the Internet is difficult enough, and there is no end to the ways people can misread things. Greg mistook you for a beginner from your thread. That was easy enough to do from your first post.

The current matter at hand is whether or not folks can get past this and move on to more important matters, such as your problems with the fret filing.

I don't think anyone's "yelling" at anyone, and it takes a lot more than a single post to "have made everyone angry" (especially with the folks here), so let's all get past this and get back to the topic at hand.

If that doesn't work for anyone, PM me and we'll discuss it. Cool?

Peace

I'm good with that if everyone else is!

So let's get back to the real issue: Fret buzzing.

Knowing what was done to your axe will help us help you to get it back the way you want it.

Is the action a whole bunch lower than it was before?
Did he adjust the neck relief?
Did he change the string height at the bridge? Or at the nut? Or both?

There are many sources of buzzing. In order to fix the problem, it's important to understand what the real problem is.

Well, I'm in late on this one, but... Welcome aboard, GregB777! :)
I wouldn't worry about your initial posts too much. In a week or so everyone will most likely have forgotten most of it. I know I tend to forget items that have been discussed before.

Is there any way you can take pics of the fretboard area/frets/pickups so we could actually see what was done to it? In your initial post you stated -It looks like he actually removed the frets from the guitar Are there actually fret wires missing from the fretbard?

Usually when referring to sharp frets, they are addressing the edges, or the ends, where you fingers would have a tendency to catch on them. (On the side of the fretboard, at the ends of the wires.) Most folks want a "sharp" contact point on the top of the fret, where you press the strings against.

All else aside, I was entirely serious about buying the Dan Erlewine book. It works for just about every level of repair and ambition/intention to do such. Plus the knowledge imparted will help keep you from ending up victim of an insufficiently skilled or unscrupulous tech.

I'm good with that if everyone else is!
I was good with things from the start ..... Welcome to guitarNoise! Last thing I'd wanna do is scare someone off. :D

I just read this post. I have to say, dang! This forum is awesome! Usually that would have ended as a tennis match of who is the better guitar player, most knowledgeable ect. I think it was handled very well and I'll be visiting more than once a week now! I'm telling all my friends about this forum!