Saddle Buzz on an AE

Saddle Buzz on an AE

My wife gave me a guitar as an early birthday present this year (woo-
hoo! well, almost).

I played it for a couple of hours out of the box, and I loved it. The
strings were a bit skanky from sitting in the showroom, so I changed
them using a set of .012-.054 80/20 bronze that I had on hand. I
think that the ones that were on the guitar originally were .012-.054
phosphor bronze.

After the string change, I found buzzing on three notes: one on the
low E string, one on the B string, and one on the high E. The buzzing
came from the area of the bridge, and I could even induce a little
buzz by tapping the top of the body around the bridge.

I figured I did something wrong with the string change, so I removed
the bottom four strings and confirmed that I still had a buzz on both
the B and E. Reaching into the soundhole, I found that the buzzing
went away when I diddled with the wire going to the under-saddle
pickup.

Removing the last two strings, I looked more closely at the saddle.
The groove in the bridge is about 1/16" longer than the saddle, and I
had the saddle pushed all the way to the high-E side. The piezo
pickup that lies under the saddle has about 1/16" of play in where I
put it because of the diameter of the hole drilled in the bridge for
the pickup wire.

When I put everything back together, I was careful to center both the
pickup and the saddle. This eliminated the buzz on the low E string
and greatly attenuated the buzz on the two others. But...they're
still there, and I have a kind of sore-tooth fixation with them, now.

Erm, so. Is there anything I can check or do to get rid of the buzz?
I'll go to the guitar shop where my wife bought the instrument if
needed, but that's a last resort. (She's self-conscious about gifts,
so I haven't even hinted that there's a problem. Besides, even a
buzzy guitar beats the heck out of a tie...)

Thanks!

--Cliff (US)

Re: Saddle Buzz on an AE

hcbowman wrote:
> ...Reaching into the soundhole, I found
> that the buzzing went away when I diddled
> with the wire going to the under-saddle
> pickup.

Poster putty. Buy it at Michael's or Wally's
for a dollar. It's tacky putty that you use
to stick posters on the wall without harming
the paint or the poster.

Pinch off a little blob of the stuff, stick
in on the area under the top where the
cable meets the bridge, or anywhere else
the cable wants to bump into a structural
part of the guitar.

Sometimes you can gently grab the cable with
hemostats and twist it into a loop. That makes the
cable shorter and run more direct to the
endpin jack. That may or may not stay.


Lumpy

In Your Ears for 40 Years
w w w .LumpyMusic . com

Re: Saddle Buzz on an AE

On Apr 21, 5:18 pm, "Lumpy" <lu...@digitalcartography . com > wrote:
> Poster putty. [...]
>
>
> Pinch off a little blob of the stuff, stick
> in on the area under the top where the
> cable meets the bridge, or anywhere else
> the cable wants to bump into a structural
> part of the guitar.

Ah! Thanks! I'll give that a go.

Now what to do with that Hannah Montana poster....

--Cliff (US)