Help Weird Buzz Coming From The Neck !

DrBob

So, my wifes Uncle Stevie turned up today with his PRS SE Mikael Akerfeldt, nice guitar. Thing is that Stevie had noticed that when he was playing the guitar there was a buzz around frets 5-7. Okay so initial thoughts were to site down the neck of the guitar, treble side of the neck looked sweet slight concave bow, pretty much what you'd want to see. Looking at the bass side of the neck "hmmm" that's interesting, to the naked eye it actually looks like as it goes from the nut to bridge that it actually starts with a convex bow before resolving into a slight concave bow.
'Bingo' I thought, that will be the problem, the neck is 'clearly' twisted...
Except that when I took the time to actually sit and play each of the six strings at frets 5,6,&7 I couldn't hear any buzz, and in fact it played pretty sweet. Hmm,bit confused, so then I absent mindedly fretted a barre chord at the fifth fret and played it pretty hard.
There it is, there's the buzz Stevie is talking about, except it doesn't really sound like fret buzz like I'm used to. More like when a window pane buzzes when a bus goes past...
So I tried hitting each string individually again as hard as I could, couldn't make it happen, play a barre chord at fret 5 particularly but also a bit at fret 6&7 and there it is !
So, what do we think chaps ?
I've checked that there is nothing obviously loose on the guitar, and from what I can tell the buzz/rattle seems to be coming from the fret 5-7 area on the neck.
I'm thinking loose/broken truss rod but would welcome any intel from you darling people !

Sarge

Sounds like a resonance issue, the chord could be causing a slightly loose saddle to vibrate, or a string tree maybe? Even had a pickup ring vibrate before.

DrBob

The other thing to add is that i think the truss rod may be loose/not under tension. I say this because I tried holding the guitar upright & knocking the back of the neck and there is an audible 'clatter' that I don't hear when comparing it to other guitars

Andyjr1515

Hi @DrBob My first thought was a rattling truss rod. It depends what kind of rod it is, but often it will be that the rod is straight and sitting loose in its slot. try tightening it just a tad...if the adjuster feels free, tighten until you just feel resistance. If it already gives some resistance, just tighten it 1/8 of a turn. Might work...

DrBob

Andyjr1515;664444" said:

Hi @DrBob

My first thought was a rattling truss rod. It depends what kind of rod it is, but often it will be that the rod is straight and sitting loose in its slot. try tightening it just a tad...if the adjuster feels free, tighten until you just feel resistance. If it already gives some resistance, just tighten it 1/8 of a turn. Might work...

Andy, my thoughts exactly, I've just ordered a truss wrench to try and sort this. I shall report back anon

guitargeek62

I'd go with the truss rod too. They're dual-acting ones in those so it should be pretty durable, but will naturally have more room in the channel route for movement to occur.

This thread is worthless without pics though, I've not seen many shots of the Akerfeldt's in decent lighting!

ThePrettyDamned

On my strat, my pick guard sometimes vibrates against the body on some chords, just a resonance thing I think.

ICBM

It *could* be the truss rod, but first check…

Sometimes when you play a barre chord, the strings rattle between the nut and the fretting position. It can sound very odd and not like ordinary string rattle. Try running a shoelace under the strings somewhere in the area behind your barre and see if it still does it.

Machinehead keys and collars can sometimes rattle even when they don't seem that loose, too.

TorbayGuitarRepairs

The same thing happened with one of my customers Sadowsky Basses, only when he played certain chords the bass buzzed/rattled. As ICBM said, it was the strings rattling between the fret and the nut, as it turned out the nut had been cut slightly too low, a new nut solved the problem!

Plus if its a tremolo guitar, intonation screws can sometimes rattle too, esp with vintage fender bridges!

TorbayGuitarRepairs

I've also come across chambered body Les Pauls resonating on certain notes, making them sound a bit like a hollow body, so much so that one customer who loved his metal sold it as he couldn't get on with it lol

hobbio

I've had similar issues with my Shine, it turns out that the string had slightly uncoiled from the core. This is apparently quite common with Chrome 12's.

I also had a pup cover resonate sympathetically and cause a similar buzz.

DrBob

Sorry all for not following up on this and thanks for the insight you've all afforded, so much stuff I didn't consider or even know about. As it turns out it was a loose truss rod. Once the wrench arrived I nipped it up just enough to take the slack out of the rod & the noise went away !