Setup woes - please help...

[benecol]

Hello

 

I've got a lovely MIJ Tokai SG - I've never played anything better or faster, but as I draw nearer to the end of the honeymoon period, I've noticed something a little odd; even though I've got the bridge (a tuneomatic) set quite high, a fair bit of neck relief and it's strung with 10's, I get a fair biit of buzzing on the low E and A when I play around the seventh fret. The buzzing seems to come from the twelfth fret.

What weirds me out is that I usually do my own setups, and have owned a Fender Jaguar, so I'm quite happy with tweaking a guitar, but to no avail: I've raised the action, put the (considerable) relief in the neck, and the frets seem pretty level. What's going on? For those not familiar with the Tokai SG70, it's a *ahem* tribute to a '61 SG, but with a chunky neck like a standard.

The buzz isn't audible through my amp, but I'd like to keep my action at least fairly low.Please help. Thank yew.

[k4df4l]

Originally posted by benecol and the frets seem pretty level. What's going on?

 

 

did you run a straight edge to confirm that?

[tin whistle]

It seems to me that if you have a lot of relief, that would be the problem.
If your strings are being raised away from the fretboard via more bow in the neck then to compensate for lower action you need to lower your bridge. That would give you less string to fret clearance when fretting, especially around the seventh fret, which would be around smack dab in the deepest part of the curve in the bow of your neck, thus making the strings buzz more at the higher frets.
I basically set my instruments to as straight a neck as possible without too much string/fret rattle on the open and first frets. Unless one or more of the nut slots has been cut too deep by the manufacturer, then I'm OK. In this way, my action is determined by the bridge and affords the best clearance between strings and frets all the way up the neck. If a nut slot is cut too much, I fill it and refile it. I like low action and don't mind buzzing...it doesn't come through the amp and does add a percsussive edge to the sound that I like. In order to get absolutley no string/fret noise on an electric, you'd need to raise the action high... more like an acoustic instrument.

[walkinblues]

since the buzz isn't audible through your amp, what's the problem? do you perform "unplugged" a lot?

it's common for guitars to have strings that buzz when they're not plugged in.

[benecol]

Yep - I play unplugged most of the time. So tinwhistle, are you saying that I should lose some of the relief? I know what you mean about a bit of buzzing, but I tend to play a lot around the seventh fret, and it's starting to annoy me. Thanks for all the replies so far, btw.

[mc5nrg]

I vote w/Tin Whistle.

[tin whistle]

Thanks for your vote of confidence, mc5nrg

Yes, tighten up your truss rod...do a little at a time. Leave the rod cover off for a while, if it has one obviously, till your finally done. Then tune to pitch.
To see the relief, I fret the first fret of the low E with a left hand finger and with my right, I'll fret with my thumb on a fret were the neck joins the body and stretch my index finger back towards the center of the neck where the most relief is and tap the string down onto the fret to see and feel how much relief there is. Its usually a very small gap. I'll raise or lower the bridge how I like the action, then I'll just go ahead and check to see if any of the open strings are not being inhibited from vibrating enough and whether or not there is too much rattle fretting the strings on the first fret. When I'm satisfied, where-ever that point is, relief-wise, is how the neck gets set. Then I simply adjust the bridge to my liking.

I hope I'm making myself clear here.

[benecol]

Cheers all - will give this a go.