So what is it? It is not simple. It can be overwhelming. It varies from guitar to guitar and is most apparent with Strat style guitars but Tele styles can drive you crazy also, same scale length. Les Pauls do not suffer the disease so much. It can cost you a tidy sum to fix it because of the amount of diagnostic time involved. I’m sorry there is no quick fix. It doesn’t happen on all guitars and sometimes it cannot be completely eradicated, but here is what it is.

It is a combination of string gauge, scale length, truss rod adjustment, nut slots, action height, fret height and neck angle. Everything is involved.

For a starting point you must know if all your frets are level. If they are not, you cannot diagnose the problem. Leveling the frets will go a long way towards eliminating it but sometimes not far enough.

If you have buzzing you may have tried to pluck the string on a different angle and found that it magically goes away! Good for you. Just by changing your picking technique you may solve your problem. Number one to remember is that if you pound or pluck the devil out of your strings or pluck on a specific angle you will cause E and A string buzz. And there is nothing that will fix that. So remember that technique is involved in the fix of it.

Here is some trivia. Billy Gibbons plays 8′s if you can believe that. I didn’t when I heard it. Google YouTube for vids from his guitar tech. He must have an extremely light touch and this is one of the biggest remedies for E and A string buzz!

Question: Why does my Super Wanger ax buzz but my hundred dollar Crapola does not? Answer: In many ways your 100 dollar Crapola is a better guitar than your Super Wanger that you paid 2,000 for.  You may have bought the marketing hype and are suffering the consequences.

When you pluck an E or A string it oscillates between the nut and the saddle in the shape of a football. If you watch it closely you can see it. The geeks and nerds are going to say that’s not right but for this demonstration purpose it is okay.  It helps if you do not look directly at it but just slightly away from it and in dimmer light. If you pluck it the wrong way you can see it oscillate wildly and you will hear that metallic buzz that drives you nuts just before the sound starts to die. The string is grazing a fret or frets somewhere on the finger board and if the frets are level it is usually the 6th, 7th, 8th or 9th fret. The reason is that the truss rod acts in this area to form a curve, i.e. relief in the neck because this is the point of maximum string excursion, i.e. the widest point of that football shaped oscillation. And because of that, this is where the E string is most likely hitting the fret. There is another hint buried here. Level frets are a must but sometimes frets may need to be unlevel in certain areas but only by a tiny amount. And frets at 6,7,8,9 are sometimes that area. Plek machines work by deducing this property and filing the frets accordingly. We won’t go into that here though.

Once you see it you can adjust the saddle height a half turn at a time by raising it, if it is a Strat style guitar, or a quarter turn at a time if it is an LP style bridge. This will help some but most likely will probably not eliminate it. You are targeting a string height of around 2/32″ to 5/64″ at the twelfth fret. On a perfect guitar you would get 3/32″ at the twelfth fret with 10′s. You need a ruler to measure and keep track of where you are and your adjustments. You can get a 6″ pocket ruler that measures in 32′s and 64′s at the big box store for $3.00.

So time has moved on and you have learned how to see it happening and you have adjusted your string height and it’s still buzzing, maybe not as bad but you know if you pluck it a certain way it does not buzz. Congratulations, you are learning Grasshopper.

As mentioned earlier neck relief can be a contributor to the problem, and for you people that think relief is used to adjust action, it isn’t, but it does affect it so decide right now that you will learn the difference and not continue until you do so.

If it is still happening you might need more relief in the neck. Relief is the amount of bow in the neck. Some guitars have none and some have quite a bit. If you are still having the buzz you might need more relief but this is not always the case and you will have to experiment. So with it strung to pitch and if the truss rod nut is in the headstock which you hope it is, with the guitar in your lap and the headstock on your left and face up turn the TR nut away from you. That would be clockwise. That will normally be loosening it and in some cases the neck will bow up slightly because of string tension. But on some necks the truss rod nut will get tighter as you are forcing the neck into a forward bow with the truss rod. In either case this is what you want, more forward bow in the neck. Thus the reason for dual acting truss rods. Re-tune and see how the buzz is. You have to understand this and experiment with it. Turn it a quarter turn to half a turn at a time, but never a whole turn at a time.  Use common sense and do not strip the threads or pop things by over-tightening it. I have actually kneeled on necks between a couple of blocks to get more tension on it while cranking that nut. But don’t try this if you don’t know what you are doing. You will need to adjust your saddle height again also.

You will have to spend a lot of time screwing around with the above actions and you may determine that none of them do any good. You may get extremely aggravated at trying to fix it, but this is normal!

By now you should notice some difference though you may be upset enough to not want to fool with it anymore. That is normal. This is what your local “Luthier” feels at this point (the one that everyone advised you to see to have it magically fixed).

A day or to may have passed by now. That expensive Super Wanger is still doing it. The manufacturer has told you to have it adjusted by a professional and you’ve already done that and the professional said send it back to the Super Wanger factory because it is not working. You have done everything, almost.

If you are playing 10′s get a set of 11′s and swap the low E string. If the low A string is bigger than the 10 set A string then swap it too. You will probably notice an immediate difference on the low E and A if you have done everything above correctly. Now go back through all the adjustments and you will find a point that things are acceptable but not perfect. If you don’t have any 11′s, then try a low E and A acoustic string! I have used them to prove that it would fix the problem with success. Then I purchased a couple of heaver E and A strings and I was home free. This may very well fix your problem or at least make it tolerable. Consider that you have conquered the unknown. And that is the nature of life. Why does a heavier string stop the buzz? Because it is under higher tension as it is bigger wire and thus it vibrates in a smaller arc so it may not hit the frets, which is where the buzz is coming from. Remember when I told you about level frets at this beginning of this? Some fret work may still need to be done. Ultimately it may be worked out by locating the offending frets and leveling them just slightly.

Points to Ponder:

Truss rod nuts in the head stocks of guitars are there for people who actually play their guitars regularly. Truss rod nuts located in the heel of a neck do not lend themselves to adjustment and it tends to not get done. Because of temperature and humidity variations the neck should get adjusted for proper play and it is just too inconvenient for most people when it is in the heel.

The Super Wanger and Boutique manufacturers do not talk about low E and A string buzz. They all have it on some instruments and they cannot engineer it out. They don’t want to admit they have it so they don’t publish articles about it. This would imply a defect in their instrument. It is not really a defect. Fret work and adjustments are the ultimate fix. And it is expensive to do it so it doesn’t get done.

There is an amount of buzz you will have to accept for a given height of action. That is a fact.

E and A string buzz can be tremendously more apparent on different brands of guitars and amplifiers. Try and you will see. You may not notice it with a certain amplifier.

Learn how to setup your own guitar. It is not that hard to do but you have to learn some fundamentals just like anything else. You invested 1500 bucks into your guitar and if you are serious about playing invest 350 bucks into the tools to do a proper setup on your own. You will go through many guitars and a lifetime before you ever come close to wearing out the tools. And you’ll know how to fix most of your problems.

Understand that nothing made by man is perfect. Everything has flaws. Some believe that their Super Wanger could never have a problem but it eventually will if it doesn’t already. Successful people and musicians learn how to identify and circumvent those flaws.

Tommy Emmanuel, Satriani and others like them can play circles around 99% of guitar players on a 100 dollar guitar. Genius on guitar starts between your ears, not at the guitar shop. And it is the instrument between your ears that you should spend the most time and money on.

In case you feel the need to scream at someone over this remember– humility will take you much farther in life and win you more friends and help than being obnoxious.

So why does my Super Wanger have the problem and my junk pile doesn’t? Guitar characteristics are measured in thousandths. Ten thousandths of an inch can make a huge difference in an electric guitar. Humidity can swell guitar parts that much and lack of it can shrink guitar parts that much. Twists in the wood can have bad effects and they only have to be slight. Too small for you to see. The amounts are too small to perfectly control in a piece of wood. Even for the mega shops! And even in this age of high tech the mega boys have the same problems the little guys do. Some guitars turn out better than others. It has been that way since Stradivarius made his first, and he made some junk too!

So you might not like my answer but I didn’t tell you a bunch of vague voodoo that has no meaning and I did tell you the way it is.

Best of luck!

Send me an email if you have a question. The blog is shut off because of spammers and I don’t have time to fool with it.

Ohms law is a simple math formula that describes the relationship of Voltage to Current and Resistance. It is fundamental to ALL electrical theory. It applies to your house, your car, your stereo and your guitar. Here it is —- V = (C x R) . This means the following:

V = Voltage – Voltage is measured in volts or smaller pieces of volts, don’t worry about it. Just know volts.
C = Current – Current is measured in amps or smaller pieces of amps, don’t worry about it. Just know amps.
R= Resistance (your pot) – Resistance is measured in ohms, usually thousands of ohms, don’t worry about it, just know ohms.

Voltage divided by Current equals Resistance.

Voltage divided by Resistance equals Current.

Current times Resistance equals Voltage.

All very simple math. But how it is applied can be confusing!

Your pickup is a voltage generator and it has it’s own internal resistance and your Pot is obviously a resistance. Let’s make up some simple phony numbers so you can see how it works and why a 250k pot or 500k pot will work with any passive pickup and what the effects will be. It is the relationship of the Voltage, Current and Resistance that you should understand. The phony numbers I use here are not anything like the real numbers and that is on purpose to keep this simple.

Let’s just say that the voltage output of your pickup is 20 volts and it’s own internal resistance is 10 ohms.
The highest current your pickup can generate when a string is plucked by Ohms law is 20 volts divided by 10 ohms equals 2 amps.

Let’s say that your pot is 10 ohms and we connect that to your pickup. Now the total resistance is the internal pickup resistance of 10 ohms plus your pot resistance of 10 ohms and that equals 20 ohms.

So now your pickup can only make 1 amp of current because Ohms law says 20 volts divided by 20 ohms equals 1 amp.

Now if we have 1 amp traveling through two resistors and each one is 10 ohms we need to know the voltage at the point between the two resistors. Ohms law again says 10 ohms times 1 amp equals 1 volt.

So this 1 volt is the voltage on the pot that goes to your amp when the pot is at maximum.

Here we go, now let’s say we change your pot to 5 ohms and we do all the math again but with just this pot changed.

The maximum current your pickup can generate by Ohms law is 20 volts divided by its internal 10 ohms and that equals 2 amps. Same as before.

We connect the 5 ohm pot to your pickup and now the maximum current your pickup can make by Ohms law is 20 volts divided by 15 ohms (10 ohms internal resistance plus the 5 ohm pot equals 15 ohms) and that equals 1.3 amps.

Now we want to know what the voltage is at the top of our 5 ohm pot and from Ohms law it is 5 ohms times 1.3 amps equals 6.5 volts. This would be the highest voltage your humbucker will give your amp with the 5 ohm pot at maximum.

From this simple example your 500k pot is the 10 ohm pot in the first example and the 250k pot is the 5 ohm pot in the second example.

So you can see from these numbers that by using a 250k pot instead of 500k you will have lower output from your humbucker but it will still work and you might like it!

It does get much more complex than this because there are other parameters that can be considered like capacitance and inductance. These are used in complex AC analysis to determine frequency response but they are not necessary to show you how different pots will work. Study electronics if you want to know this.

You might find that using a 250k pot with a humbucker reduces the high frequency sound of your pickup in addition to reducing the output. This would be because of the other parameters mentioned, capacitance and inductance. If it does and you don’t like it then just change the pot to a 500k.

I hope this helps those who are interested in learning how pots work in guitars.

By the way, 250k or 500k really means 250,000 ohms and 500,000 ohms respectively, the ‘k’ means thousands. And pickups generate 100′s of millivolts. A millivolt is 1 thousandth of a volt. So don’t go around telling people your pickup puts out 20 volts at 2 amps because people that know won’t invite you to any of their parties. Just don’t worry about real world numbers as they are not important to understanding how the circuit actually works.

One more note. Guitar pots vary in resistance by up to 20%. If you are NASA and spend taxpayer money then you can get them in 1% tolerance. But a guitar player cannot generally get them that way.  When you buy a 500K pot it might be 400k ohms or 390k ohms or 480k ohms and the same for 250k pots! They can be all over the place. Really picky people will measure them to get the closest to the desired value but in real world application it makes so little difference it truly is not worth the trouble. Spend your time playing your guitar. If you tell an engineer you spent all night matching pots for a guitar you won’t be invited to his or her party either. That is for another article sometime on debunking the myths of pots (big ones versus little ones), capacitors(some real poopoo in here), wiring, wood, cryogenic treatment and a host of other mojo unexplainable type things.

Note – For all you electrical snobs out there I did not use EIR on purpose because non engineers think in terms of V for voltage, C for current, and R for resistance because it makes sense. Besides, who would know that E means voltage and I means current? What genius thought that up anyway?

Here is how it breaks down: “Private equity firm Weston Presidio now owns 43% of Fender. Fender’s distributor in Japan, Yamano Music, holds the No. 2 stake with 14% of the company.” For the time being they can say “Mostly owned and made in the USA.”

Anybody remember CBS? How many different Strats® and Tele’s® are there now? How different from the other hundred million of them is yours? Mine is the same. Just like McDonald’s, soon they will be saying “over 1 billion served”! Would you like some fries with that geetar?

Fender, Strat and Tele are trademarks of FMIC, a giant multinational corporation. Aperio Guitar, a wee little guitar maker, is in no way affiliated with it.

I was recently tuning up my rack in the shop and wanted to offer a few tips if you are experiencing buzz and hum from your rig- whether it is a rack, pedals or a combination.

In my case I have a few pedals and a rack with an old Rocktron Chameleon, a BBE maximizer, a Layla recorder, an Alesis Mixer, an Alesis QSR and a Behringher V-Verb Pro. This is fed by an AB switch selecting either the rack to the amp or the pedals to the amp.

pic here

I recently built myself a fine rack for all this stuff and it created another problem. Ground Loops.

Before starting keep in mind that eliminating 60hz noise and buzz is a matter of degree. It is a fact of wiring and you should be able to get rid of 95% of it but some will always exist. At mid volumes you shouldn’t hear any or very little. It you crank your tube amp to 11 you are still going to hear noise no matter what you do. Solid state amps are a little better but noise is noise and at high amplification or gain levels you are going to have some, period.

Primarily the rack setup was injecting 60hz noise into everything because of ground loops between all the units. These loops occur because of an imbalance between the rack units’ ground in relation to other units mounted on the same rails, thereby electrically connecting them to each other. The first thing to do was to isolate each rack unit from the rails breaking the ground loops between the units. To do this you can get a product called Hum Free rack tabs that are very good and I recommend them or you can accomplish the same thing with electrical tape and a surgical rubber spacer or some kind of homemade plastic spacer, which is what I did. It’s more efficient to just buy the rack tabs but it was Sunday night and I wanted to get it done and not wait a week for an order to arrive. And I had other things to do.

Here is how I did it -(see the pics above). Put electrical tape on the back of each rack tab and cut out the holes with a razor. Then cut a piece of surgical tubing and slip it over the rack screw. Your rack screws should have plastic washers on them already. Then screw the unit back in. That little washer you made should go into the rack mounting hole and insulate the rack unit from the screw. The tape keeps the unit from touching the rail. You may have to put tape on top and bottom of the unit case somewhere to keep the cases from touching each other. You would have to do that if you used the Hum Free tabs. That’s why some people complain that the Hum Free tabs don’t work. It is because the units are still touching each other by their cases somewhere and they don’t know any better. This touching is where rack rash comes from. You have to totally isolate each rack unit from any other rack unit. It’s not hard, just a pain in the arse. If you have an ohm meter, unplug everything while you are doing this and measure the unit case to both rails as you mount it. Make sure you have an open circuit and no shorts between the unit and either rail. If you don’t have an ohm meter just do a good job and chances are it will be OK.

Next and this is very important, and this whole topic can be full of BS if it is allowed. I will avoid that. You want to make sure you have real good cables and well soldered phone plugs. I had some Audio Technia cables that were noisy as could be and I replaced all of them. Who would have thought, right? I had some Hosa cable that shielded so well you couldn’t hear it. Who would have thought, right? So don’t buy cable by the name. Find a brand you like and use it. Some cables shield 60hz and RF much better than others. I don’t believe in boutique cable. I’ve even been told of a cryogenically treated power cord. My waders are not high enough to keep from drowning in this BS. I’ve been around long enough to know that 90% of this kind of stuff is total BS. The only thing that should ever be cryogenically treated is your beer. And all decent copper is oxygen free. More marketing hype. I have cable in my refrigerator waiting for those who will pay me 3 bucks a foot. If you pay over $1.00 a foot for guitar cable you should just set your money on fire since that is a quicker way to burn it. There are a few exceptions in the capacitance of the cable in relation to tone but that is another issue for another discussion. Most all guitar cable is going to fall into the 30pf to 45pf per foot range. You are going to pay more for 20 something pf from the boutique marketers, a lot more sometimes and it is going to make your tone brighter until you load it back down with other junk you plug into and you end up where you started, but with more expensive cable. If that is what you want, go for it. Just make sure you get well shielded cable on the order of 97% to 99% braid. Hendrix recorded with the common stuff and played live with it. Beldon makes it and Hosa uses it sometimes as well as any number of manufacturers. Do what you want- just use good cable with good terminations. If you suspect a noisy cable just swap it out with another known good one to test and if it is noisy throw it away or it will sneak back into your chain one day. A couple of Beldon cables you can use in bulk are 9778 and or 8218. The 9778 is a bigger more flexible cable, the kind you are used to and the 8218 is like the George L cable that is over hyped. But there are others. Just look around. Look at the data sheets for the two cables mentioned, easily found on the web and you will learn about cable.

One more big thing about cable. Keep signal lines away from power lines. If they have to cross, and they will, cross them at 90 degrees to each other. If you place a signal cable next to a power cable or close to the power supply inside a rack case you will have hum.

Always remember that tone starts in your head to begin with and everything else is connected further down the chain. And sometimes when you mis-wire things tone travels right through your wallet, most wallets do not have a true bypass switch and your tone and bank account will get reduced so be careful with it.

Now, once you have done all of that and things are still buzzing you might need to further isolate certain rack units from the common ground. You can do that with a three prong to two prong adapter. The same thing your grandmother used to connect a hundred xmas light strings to one outlet. Or you can do what I did and cut off the ground prong on a power strip. This could kill you so it is just used to find the noisy rack unit. Then you have to do something else so do not leave it plugged up this way or you may regret it.

Plug this power strip into your normal rack power and one at a time plug each rack unit into this ungrounded power strip and see how noisy things are. You may find that one of the rack units is contributing noise when it is connected to the common ground. In my case it was the Behringher reverb unit. (Okay, I can hear it now, you should have known Behringher is junk etc, etc, etc.) We’ll I’ll have you know this unit worked well for a long time and now it is junk so I got my money out of it.

So if you find this is a problem what do you do? You can buy a thing called a Hum X that will isolate a unit from others and that is about it. Or I’ll show you how to make one (see below) but if you kill yourself it is not my fault. That is my disclaimer. In my case I quit using the reverb unit because I didn’t like it anyway. But don’t leave the noisy unit plugged into the ungrounded power strip as it could cause your electrocution if something goes wrong.

There are no mysteries to noise and buzz, just things you have to do. I still have a few cables to replace but the rack and pedals are quiet as can be. Now If I crank up my super duper over drive it buzzes horribly like it should but that is amplified noise and not the same as 60hz hum and fizz. For overdrive noise you need a noise gate and or a noise reduction system like an ISP or Hush unit or similar. Better yet if you fix all your cables and grounds and manage your gain levels you may not need any noise gates or reduction units in your studio!

Good Luck.

Everybody needs to own an American Strat even if it is a new one. It’s just something that should be in the stable.