irritating buzz on p bass

[billy pilgrim]

hi
i recently switched from roundwound to flats,and i love em.problem is,i had to set the bass up again.im now left with buzz at the 5th fet on the d string.the rest of the bass is fine.ive set it to the specs on the fender tech support page(its a 77 precision).this suggests 0.35mm relief at 8th fret,and action height 2.4mm(g string) to 2.8mm(e string) at 17th fret.ive tried lowering both a bit to see if theres a difference,but im reluctant to raise it any higher.
any suggestions?

thanks

billy pilgrim

[XylemBassGuitar]

Hi BP,

It is always hard to tell exactly what is going on with setups unless you can see the bass in person. It could be any number of things, low fret, too little relief, too much relief, action too low, etc.

But, if I were to hazard a guess, I would say it sounds like one of two things:

1) The 5th fret may be a little lower than the other frets along the D-string's path, based on the fact that it is the only part of the bass that is buzzing. Also, the 6th fret could be a little too high.

2) The D-string has a defect right where the 5th fret is. You could try replacing that string.

Can you venture a guess as to where the buzz is coming from? Is the string rattling against the 6th fret or somewhere else?

[billy pilgrim]

hi
thanks for replying.
i think it buzzing against the 6th fret,although theres an insignificant amount of buzz from the 3rd to the 7th,but only what youd lose at volume.its the 5th thats annoying.the G has a tiny bit of buzz from the 3rd to the 5th,but only if i play hard.the E and A are fine.the bass plays really well apart fom this.ive set the relief to 0.25mm at the 8th fret,but going up to 0.35mm doesnt solve it.i have to set the D string to at least 3mm at the 17th fret to stop it buzzing,which is way too high for me(tiny hands for a bass player!)
thanks again for the reply

billy pilgrim

[XylemBassGuitar]

Try adding just a little more relief. 0.1mm is a very small adjustment. Try going to about 0.45mm and see what happens. I know that is kind of a lot of relief, but it is possible that it will stop the buzzing of the D on the 5th. If it does stop the buzz, try to take out tiny bits of that relief until you have as little relief as possible before the D starts to buzz.

Other than that, my only suggestion would be to get the frets leveled. Again, without seeing the bass in person I am shooting in the dark just a little bit.

Good luck BP!

[billy pilgrim]

hi again
ill certainly give that a go.its nice to get advice from someone who knows what hes talking about,rather than me just experimenting and damaging my bass.
thanks again

billy pilgrim