Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I've never encountered this before. When I play my new Larado, I get annoying fret buzz on the E string at the second, third and fouth frets.

I've had the neck straight, and set it with a little relief. It seems to be better when using a .105 E string, but still buzzes. Whats crazy is the first fret, the F rings through loud and clear with no buzz.

When the bass was shipped to me, the strings were detuned. Odd I thought, it took a while for the neck to settle in, could this still be the problem after 2 weeks.?

One more thing, the E side TR seems to be pretty tight as compared to the G side. Should I pull the rods and check them out??

Comments????

Ok, no takers.

What I ended up doing was actually loosen the E rod about a half a turn and then tighten the G rod about a quarter turn. For whatever reason this seems to have brought balance to the neck, and so far the bass plays flawlessly. It even seems alot more "ambient" sounding when played acoustically.

I have been sighting down the neck to make sure I dont have any twisting happening, so far everything looks good.

The funny thing is,, before I did the tweaking I couldnt see any obvious twist or bow in the neck, and I've seen alot of warped necks in my life.

I must have caught the beginning of a problem and was lucky enough to catch it before it became a disaster.

Input??

Resonance. Fret buzz can be encountered when the neck resonates, making the string "slap around" more than usual. Changing the rods even this little bit killed or moved the resonance. Also, that resonant point may move around as the instrument absorbs or loses moisture.

Interesting. Thanks for replying John.

As a side note, Scott, my May '08 4003, since receiving it new in June, has a no relief on the E side. In fact, the strings buzz from the 2nd fret up to around the 8th fret. The truss rod nut is totally slack, so I am kind of stuck! The G side is fine and is fully adjustable, strange.

I think time will tell Jeff.

Usually if I have a problem with one side of the neck, I'll adjust the truss rod for that particular side. This is the first time I've encountered the opposite to be true.

Both the rods on the Mapleglo '00 V63 i used to own, were completly loose but the neck was straight as an arrow and never budged while I owned it.

jps wrote:As a side note, Scott, my May '08 4003, since receiving it new in June, has a no relief on the E side. In fact, the strings buzz from the 2nd fret up to around the 8th fret. The truss rod nut is totally slack, so I am kind of stuck! The G side is fine and is fully adjustable, strange.

Jeff, I'd pull the E side rod and have a look.

johnallg wrote:

jps wrote:As a side note, Scott, my May '08 4003, since receiving it new in June, has a no relief on the E side. In fact, the strings buzz from the 2nd fret up to around the 8th fret. The truss rod nut is totally slack, so I am kind of stuck! The G side is fine and is fully adjustable, strange.

Jeff, I'd pull the E side rod and have a look.

Are you implying that even with the nut loose the rod can still have an affect on the neck?

johnhall wrote:Resonance. Fret buzz can be encountered when the neck resonates, making the string "slap around" more than usual. Changing the rods even this little bit killed or moved the resonance. Also, that resonant point may move around as the instrument absorbs or loses moisture.

In addition to what JH said, I've seen this problem go away when a new nut is fitted, raising the action on that one string a mere .010" or so. The difference is nearly undetectable when fretting, but no more buzz.

A slack truss rod will have negligible effect upon the neck, structurally speaking.

I am hoping that with time the tension of the strings will put some relief in the neck. It had been 8 months now, but then I do have low tension strings on the bass (TI Jazz Flats); I should probably put some higher tension strings on it for a while and see what that does for it.

jps wrote:

johnallg wrote:

jps wrote:As a side note, Scott, my May '08 4003, since receiving it new in June, has a no relief on the E side. In fact, the strings buzz from the 2nd fret up to around the 8th fret. The truss rod nut is totally slack, so I am kind of stuck! The G side is fine and is fully adjustable, strange.

Jeff, I'd pull the E side rod and have a look.

Are you implying that even with the nut loose the rod can still have an affect on the neck?

Implying, I suppose, but I have had two basses now with a rod that was so curved, that when they flipped in the channel, put a localized hump in the neck that was still there even with the rod nuts off. Scott's symptoms parallel mine. It took pulling the rod, straightening it, and putting it back in. Necks are flat now.

Okay, I will look in to that.

I've removed the rods from a vintage 4001, what is the correct way for removing the rods from a Larado?

My Larado is playing pretty good right now, but this sounds like something I might look at just for the sake of experimentation / knowledge.