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Sad NBD

#41
AustinRanger101 said:
They buzz at 1 and 2 and are good until about 10-14. I know everyone is gonna jump on the 'Truss rod adjustment' tip, but the neck is perfectly straight. If anything it bows in the OTHER direction. I'll add photos when I get home from work. I did look at the nut and it seems fine to me. Like I said, i have 4 other basses set up almost the same way and they are fine. Who knows, maybe it is the nut.
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I think everyone needs to know how to set up their own bass and you have to start somewhere. However, you are doing everything opposite to what you are wanting to result. I believe you need to try what others have stated - loosen truss rod and lower saddles. It's not the nut causing a third fret buzz.
I suggest GTS Google that s**t before touching another wrench.
Filing first 3 frets is horrible advice.
I'm sure you'll figure it out.
 
#42
Mugre said:
More relief and fresh, quality strings. GC should be willing to do a set up for you including checking fret heights. They'd rather do that than have the return.

Mugre
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Yes, yes, YES.....let GC look at it. I bought a used bass from the GC online site, had a horrific nut problem, my local GC fixed it for free rather than taking it as a return.

dkelley said:
edit: apparently I was looking at some other picture LoL - the picture is correct, just not relevant to the problem that I am 99% sure the OP's bass has.

Sorry for confusion (I really want to know where my mind went when I was looking at that pic - LoL, kids, don't do drugs... (no, I don't, but it feels like I do sometimes)).
Click to expand...

No worries - like I mentioned, adjust the truss rod first and get that fixed. That might indeed fix the whole problem altogether.
Without looking at the bass in person, it's hard to see what else is going on. I have run into the neck angle issue on a few basses, some were due to bad design by the manufacturer ie. Cort Curbow basses had a bad design problem where the bridge was at an angle due to the rounded body, rather than having it recessed into the body, they attached the bridge directly on to the curved surface! Lowering the saddles completely were often not enough to compensate for this in order to get a lower action.
Another was on a heavily used Ibanez bass. I don't know what happened to the neck pocket but it wasn't quite as level as it should be causing the neck to attach to the body at a slight angle like in the first picture. I suspect the bass originally had a shim at the factory (as some budget basses often do when they try to rectify the error), I don't know. Putting a shim helped the problem.
 
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#43
Bass Thunder said:
I think everyone needs to know how to set up their own bass and you have to start somewhere. However, you are doing everything opposite to what you are wanting to result. I believe you need to try what others have stated - loosen truss rod and lower saddles. It's not the nut causing a third fret buzz.
I suggest GTS Google that s**t before touching another wrench.
Filing first 3 frets is horrible advice.
I'm sure you'll figure it out.
Click to expand...

Absolutely agree....do not do this drastic measure as it also means you can't return the bass and may not even be something you need to do in the first place.
 
#44
Massive majority of ya'll said truss rod relief so I went ahead and loosened the truss rod about 1/2 a turn and lowered the saddles and that seems to have done the trick. There is still some ringing here and there, but I think every bass does ring from the frets from time to time, at least mine do. I play with heavy distortion which drowns it out anyway. Thank you all for the friendly advice. Rock on
 
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#45
AustinRanger101 said:
Massive majority of ya'll said truss rod relief so I went ahead and loosened the truss rod about 1/2 a turn and lowered the saddles and that seems to have done the trick. There is still some ringing here and there, but I think every bass does ring from the frets from time to time, at least mine do. I play with heavy distortion which drowns it out anyway. Thank you all for the friendly advice. Rock on
Click to expand...

Good news. I don't know what you mean about basses "ringing from the frets" and I'm fairly certain mine don't do that, but if it works for you, rock on indeed.

But if what you're describing is fret buzz, you can definitely get rid of that.
 
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#46
Maxdusty said:
Absolutely agree....do not do this drastic measure as it also means you can't return the bass and may not even be something you need to do in the first place.
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I think this is just good sound advice. In my experience over the years, most setup issues are relatively easy fixes and involve little more than a simple truss rod adjustment. It always makes me a little nervous to see suggestions that involve more extreme measures, especially for players that may not have the same level of experience some of the more...ahem...seasoned (i.e. old, like me) folks around these parts do.

In general, even the issues that seem the most severe are usually a simple adjustment. In order from most likely to least likely culprit, this is where I tend to look (including a highly scientific estimate of how often they occur):

1) 85% of issues: Neck/Truss rod
2) 6%: Bridge saddles (these are usually good from the factory in most circumstances, and get out of adjustment by folks at local stores who mean well and don't necessarily understand how all the parts work together)
3 (tie) 4%: unlevel/worn frets - more common on either new/inexpensive or older/heavily used/poorly maintained instruments
3 (tie) 4%: neck angle - shims are sometimes necessary - the graphic earlier in this thread is excellent showing how and where to consider a shim
4) 1%: nut - I realize this may be a slightly controversial stance, but unless a nut has been filed or really worn down, it isn't usually a big contributor. Yes - a high nut may cause playing in the first or second positions to be a little uncomfortable, but that ends up being as much preference as actual problem

Edit: glad to see things seem to have resolved for the OP - I've enjoyed the setup discussion!
 
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#49
AustinRanger101 said:
I just bought an Ibanez SR500 because I played a SR300E a couple weeks ago and I really liked the tone, but wanted a bit more quality. I play almost exclusively fender, so I was excited to start getting away from the fender tone I've grown used to. My local GC had the Ibby so I went in and played with it for about an hour. I brought in my pedal board to see if I could dial in some tones i liked. The bass felt really nice and the tone was great, but the action was super low and the bottom 3 frets on every string were completely dead. No actual sound just the high metallic ring of a string fretting out. No biggy, I'll just raise the action when I get it home. I prefer higher actions anyway because I downtune to Drop C. So I buy it and get it home and raise the action but the ring is still there. So I raise it a little more. Still a ring but now I'm getting some sound out of the string. So even higher I go. At this point I'm worried about bowing the neck, as I've had it happen where my action was too high and it ruined my neck, but the ring is still there. So I go even higher. Still the ring. I can get sound out of the string, but the ringing is too much. It's not playable. I'm at 2mm at the first fret and 6mm at the 22nd. A 4mm difference in string between frets is unacceptable to me. I know that I'm drop tuned, but my 4 other basses are all fine and they are all between 2mm at the 1st fret and 3-4mm at the 21st. I'm probably going to just return the Ibby because I can't get it to a comfortable, playable set up. I thought about filing the frets, but I might as well just return it and get something I know I'll like. Anyone else have similar issues?
Click to expand...
Don't be sad. Just get a proper setup! :)
 
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#50
AustinRanger101 said:
Massive majority of ya'll said truss rod relief so I went ahead and loosened the truss rod about 1/2 a turn and lowered the saddles and that seems to have done the trick. There is still some ringing here and there, but I think every bass does ring from the frets from time to time, at least mine do. I play with heavy distortion which drowns it out anyway. Thank you all for the friendly advice. Rock on
Click to expand...
Great news! Not only do you have a bass you like, but you also learned something very practical about doing your own setup.

It's always a compromise between low action, how hard you play, and how much fret buzz you tolerate. Now you can adjust your own bass yourself to your tastes.
 
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#51
AustinRanger101 said:
I just bought an Ibanez SR500 because I played a SR300E a couple weeks ago and I really liked the tone, but wanted a bit more quality. I play almost exclusively fender, so I was excited to start getting away from the fender tone I've grown used to. My local GC had the Ibby so I went in and played with it for about an hour. I brought in my pedal board to see if I could dial in some tones i liked. The bass felt really nice and the tone was great, but the action was super low and the bottom 3 frets on every string were completely dead. No actual sound just the high metallic ring of a string fretting out. No biggy, I'll just raise the action when I get it home. I prefer higher actions anyway because I downtune to Drop C. So I buy it and get it home and raise the action but the ring is still there. So I raise it a little more. Still a ring but now I'm getting some sound out of the string. So even higher I go. At this point I'm worried about bowing the neck, as I've had it happen where my action was too high and it ruined my neck, but the ring is still there. So I go even higher. Still the ring. I can get sound out of the string, but the ringing is too much. It's not playable. I'm at 2mm at the first fret and 6mm at the 22nd. A 4mm difference in string between frets is unacceptable to me. I know that I'm drop tuned, but my 4 other basses are all fine and they are all between 2mm at the 1st fret and 3-4mm at the 21st. I'm probably going to just return the Ibby because I can't get it to a comfortable, playable set up. I thought about filing the frets, but I might as well just return it and get something I know I'll like. Anyone else have similar issues?
Click to expand...

It's probably fixable, and it probably won't cost much. Most likely culprit is the nut, next is probably neck pocket or bridge-related. Any decent local luthier could diagnose it in a couple minutes and the fix would likely be under a hundred bucks. Worse would be fret-related, which could be as simple as hammering a few down with a mallet or as complicated as needing to be levelled or replaced, but even the latter would only cost a few hundred bucks if you shop around.

However, GC has a couple techs on-hand (of WILDLY varying quality), and it probably makes the most sense to bring it in there first and have them take a look. If it's fixable without a new part, it should be pretty easy to talk them into taking care of it for free under the implied threat of you returning the instrument.
 
#55
Tom F said:
In general, even the issues that seem the most severe are usually a simple adjustment. In order from most likely to least likely culprit, this is where I tend to look (including a highly scientific estimate of how often they occur):

1) 85% of issues: Neck/Truss rod
2) 6%: Bridge saddles (these are usually good from the factory in most circumstances, and get out of adjustment by folks at local stores who mean well and don't necessarily understand how all the parts work together)
3 (tie) 4%: unlevel/worn frets - more common on either new/inexpensive or older/heavily used/poorly maintained instruments
3 (tie) 4%: neck angle - shims are sometimes necessary - the graphic earlier in this thread is excellent showing how and where to consider a shim
4) 1%: nut - I realize this may be a slightly controversial stance, but unless a nut has been filed or really worn down, it isn't usually a big contributor. Yes - a high nut may cause playing in the first or second positions to be a little uncomfortable, but that ends up being as much preference as actual problem
Click to expand...
Thanks for sharing a "seasoned" player's wealth of experience!
 
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