Bad fret?

[DMX]

When I play the 15th fret on the G-string of my Skyline JO5 all I get is a dull thunk, absolutely no sustain whatsoever. At first I thought this might be a very very bad dead spot, but it seems that if I press down (very) hard on the fret the note rings out clearly. I then thought I might have a high/low fret somewhere, but closer examination shows the string is not touching any of the higher frets. The fret is not loose, at least I can't see it move if I press down on it (unlike a couple of the higher frets, but they sound fine). Any idea what could be causing this? I'm guessing I'll have to take it to a luthier, but is there anything I could do myself to help?

Thanks,

dmx

[DMX]

Originally Posted by Joshua

How old are the strings? Is this a new problem or has it always been this way?

The problem was there when I bought the bass about 6 months ago but I don't think it was nearly so bad, more like a 'normal' dead spot. Certainly it wasn't bad enough for me to return the bass. I haven't had the need to play up that high recently so it hasn't really bothered me until now.

The strings are about 3 weeks old, but the problem's the same no matter what strings are on the bass. I have done a bit of truss-rod and string height tweaking and it doesn't seem to make any difference, but I might try some more extreme changes, see if that does anything.

[DMX]

Thanks Joshua, I'm pretty experience with setups so I'll see what I can work out.

[Turnaround]

Should be easy to determine if it's just a dead spot. Jam the headstock up against a doorframe or something really solid like that and see if the string still sounds dead. If so, it's not a typical deadspot, in which case I would be checking out that fret some more.

[DMX]

Well, it's certainly not just a dead spot then. I tried all sorts of adjustments last night and nothing made it go away, but strangely the problem seems a bit better this morning, more like it was when I bought the bass. I now don't have to press the string quite so hard to get it to ring out.

There's nothing visually wrong with the fret that I can see so I think I'll just live with it until I get the opportunity to take it to a tech.

Thanks for the input guys.

d.