About a week ago, I picked up my SX Les Paul after about a week of not playing it. Much to my horror, it now has several spots where bent notes fret out rather badly, and a few spots where regular fretted notes are all buzz. Every fret has a slight buzz. Up until this point, i've never had a problem with buzzes from this guitar, ever since I got it last December.
I've been trying my hardest to set it up to eliminate the buzz, but even with the neck with a great deal of relief, and the action set up quite high, it still buzzes. Worst of all, some of my favorite blues licks, such as fretting the E string and B string on the same fret, and then bending the b string up 1 step, don't work at all. The note just turns into buzz when it is bent!
I'm quite distressed, since this is one of my favorite guitars, and it has never had any buzzing problems before. My house got a little drier lately with the cold weather, but i'v enever had any problems before, and none of my other guitars have done this.
It's almost as if the frets were pulling themselves out of the fretboard...
Does anyone have any suggestions?...i'm very distressed. I've never had the action so high on a guitar, and still gotten this much buzz, and i've set up a lot of guitars...
Please help...
You may have given the neck too much relief. When the neck has too much upcurve in it (like a smile), the strings can deaden out or buzz on higher frets. This is especially common in frets 5-12.
Imagine a string stretched over a bowl. You press the string down over the center of the bowl. Eventually, the string will touch the outer rim of the bowl. This is what happens when you have too much relief. You press down in the middle of the guitar, the strings touch frets higher up.
Look down the neck from the headstock toward the body. It should look fairly straight with maybe a very slight upcurve around the 3 to 5 frets. If you see a big upcurve, you have too much relief.
Loosen the strings slack and try tightening the truss rod. Go in small steps, maybe 1/8 turn at a time. You want to turn the truss rod clockwise to tighten it. Tune back up and check to see if the problem is gone. It may take you several attempts. You may need to lower the bridge a little as well as you have been raising it to raise the action.
If the truss rod gets very stiff and does not want to turn. Stop. You can break the truss rod. It should feel firm, but turn fairly easy.
If you know something better than Rock and Roll, I'd like to hear it - Jerry Lee Lewis
Hey Wes.
I took the relief out of the neck, and seem to have fixed part of the problem.
Strings no longer fret out when I bend them. However, there are still a few spots where the guitar buzzes when the strings are fretted but not even bent.
I'm beginning to wonder if the strings on this guitar could have gotten kinked or bent when I put them on. That could cause buzzes, right?
