a buzz on every fret?

[dreadheadbass]

ok my mate has leant me his knackered old fender to see if i can put it right
when he bought it you could fire arrows off the neck the strings were all different hights and the inotation was off the chart
he likes the way i set my bass's up (2mm treble side 2.5mm bass side with little relief)
anyhoo after 3 days of carefull tweaks to the truss rod (no really it was THAT bad) and after several hours spent tweaking the saddles i've finally got the bass set to the desired specs.... however
the E string has buzz all the way up the neck on every fret all the other strings are fine infact the A string is better than mine (i have a little buzz on the 5th and 12 frets)

is this a neck to body angle problem (its a bolt on)
or is it down to the frets being rather worn?

any help most appriciated

[dreadheadbass]

anyone?

[Matthew Bryson]

It is my belief that if you have fret buzz evenly up and down the neck, all that you can do is raise the string. Maybe somebody else with more knowledge knows of something, in which case, I'd like to hear it too.

The Gary Willis method of set up is in the sticky at the top of the forum. His technique, in a nutshell, is to adjust everything until the strings buzz evenly on all frets (like you're describing) and then to raise the saddle just a bit until it stops buzzing.

Maybe your friend's bass isn't capable of taking an action quite as low as your bass. Maybe a fret job would help his bass accept a lower action.

I'll look forward to reading what the pros say about this.

[dreadheadbass]

agreed i'm confused by this one i raise the action to 3.5mm which is very high in order to kill the buzz a bit

i think new frets might help this thing is very old and the frets are pretty worn
i might try shimming the neck n see what happens

[dbcandle]

The best buzz-free action I can get on my MIM Jazz bass is about 2.4mm (a bit worse on the E string), tested with slightly harder plucking than I'd normally play with. I've *very* carefully tweaked the rod in small increments, let it sit overnight, and measured gap with a straight-edge and feeler gauges over the last couple of weeks. Even like this, there are a couple of notes where, if I pluck *hard* and let the string ring, I'll get some buzzing.

I'm guessing that you've reached the limit of your fretwork. I looked at my fretwork with a 24" straight-edge (new bass!), and could see places where here and there a couple of frets are too high or too low. I'm no expert, but it doesn't look like the MIM Fender's fretwire was pressed-in as consistently as my Ibanez when originally constructed. I guess doing the "Mexican hat dance" on the frets at the factory isn't the best way to secure them in the slots...

I was previously "eye-balling" the relief, and using the low E as a straight-edge (fretted at first/last fret). I seem to get a bit more precision with a straight-edge and feeler gauges. At about .43mm, my relief is a bit above the spec of about .3mm, but I've tweaked the rod so many times in the last couple of weeks that I want to let the neck "settle-in" a bit. This one-piece maple Jazz neck seems quite finicky compared with my 6-string Ibanez laminated "aircraft carrier" neck.

The bass plays pretty well, and I primarily got it so I'd have a simple 4-string to learn slap on. I'd prefer to get a better 5-string at some point, but if I stick with the 4, I'll probably get some pro fretwork done after the wood has settled-in for a couple of years.