Rattling Sound

[SquierVM]

Hello all,

I just changed the strings on my Fender fretless, and whenever I pluck the A string, I hear this very annoying rattling sound. None of the other strings do this. I though that maybe something was wrong with the string, so I put the old one back on, and I still hear the sound. Does anyone know what this is, and does anyone have a solution?

Thanks

[metalbass66]

one of your saddles might be loose

[lundborg]

Make sure you've wound the A string correctly on the tuner peg,
i.e. several turns downward so that the string presses downward
firmly on the nut.

See the post from Turnaround on this, in the "nut problem" discussion thread (there's a nice picture):

Nut Problems

[HT Paul]

Check you tuning machines. I had preatty much the same issue with the A string on my Peavey Fury. Turns out one of the elephant ears on the tuners had been knocked just a little loose, and would rattle with any A played, frequency sensitive and all.

I was able to tighten up the ear with a little pressing with a C clamp problem solved.

Give a listen to your tuners, see if one of them is the rattle.

[51m0n]

Actually I've had this kind of thing from a loose truss rod which resonated on a couple of notes only. Really weird, the whole neck rattles when it goes off!

And as for how I ended up with a truss rod that loose, well my bass has a really solid neck (5 piece neck, sawn in different directions through the grain, its the most stable neck I've ever played) and it never needed more than a tweak on the rod to get the action right , it just worked its way loose I guess....

[hockey_head]

sometimes old style tuner shafts rattle in the stamped metal gear plate where more modern designs employ a bushing

[idler]

On my Ibanez, the open A string makes the batteries in the cavity rattle a bit. There's no room to make a harness for them, unfortunately...