Bite Size Tips 004A – Buzzing No More!

Buzzing is arguably one of most common guitar issues. It will happen in your lifetime of guitar playing regardless you’re into electric or acoustic guitars. This Bite Size article will discuss acoustic guitars buzzing. To avoid over-simplifying buzzing issues of acoustic guitars, I will highlight both the causes and solutions. Once again, this sharing comes from my personal experiences. Make sure you’re exercise good judgment and adaptability in dealing with your guitar buzzing issues.

These are few common causes for guitar buzzing issues.

1. Low string action or height (nut & saddle)
2. Bowed Neck which alters string relief
3. Uneven crown heights of the fret wires

To keep the article compact, I will address a single cause in this article, i.e low string action. The other two will be addressed in subsequent postings.

Buzzing causes by low string action is commonly due to the set-up of the nut and saddle. String slots cut too deep or insufficient saddle crown height are two set up problems that contribute to buzzing. Typically, string relief for acoustic guitar ranges from 2mm to 4mm taken at the 12th fret.

Measuring string action at 12th fret

More pictures of actual guitars with low and sufficient string relief set up at 12th fret.

Low string action; the 20 cents coin contacts the string

Sufficient string action; slight clearance

Obviously replacing the wrongly set-up nut or saddle can stop the buzzing. However those who are not well practiced, it may be better to consult a qualified guitar tech. For those who DIY mostly, you could undertake the attempt. Alternatively, you can shim-up the nut or saddle to increase the string action thus reducing or eliminating the buzzing. The following pictures and descriptions will show how shim-up works for both nut and saddle. Please note that in most cases, it is not necessary to shim-up both the nut and saddle at the same time. It should be decided by whichever part that causes the buzzing.

Shim is thin strip of material that is used for aligning, fitting, etc. parts together. In this case, we will be using wood. Preferably woods that is associated with guitar making. While any wood should do the job, it is a good lutherie practice to use associated materials. Shims are commonly made from veneers. The picture below showed maple veneers. Well, veneers are thin layers of wood. Maple veneers are pretty common in the market.

This may raise the question about the resulting sonic properties of the guitar fitted with shims. By and large, maple is hardwood that possesses acoustic properties therefore it should not adversely affect the guitar tone. However if one uses stripes cut from name cards or plastics, I would not give the same amount of assurance.

Maple veneers

You can visit Art & Craft shops or wood shops to get larger piece of veneer. All you need to do is to cut out the required footprints.

Veneers cut into nut and saddle footprints

Pay attention to details; personally I will not leave the corners of the shims sharp. The corners are chamfered instead.

Maple veneer with corners chamfered

Last but not least, stick the shims to the nut and saddle. Use of super-glue for adhesion is preferred.

Maple Veneers made into shims, glued to the nut and saddle

The rest is just fitting the nut or saddle back where they belong.

Caveat; for those who are not familiar with removing guitar nuts, it will be best to view some video clips on YouTube regarding it. As for the drop-in saddle, it is much easier to deal with. In any case, make sure you have every step visualized in your mind to avoid making errors. A friend of mine uses this mantra to avoid making unforced errors in his work; Measure twice and cut once!

Have fun!

Synthetic Saddles Face-Off!

A Full Black Diamond Saddle

For guitar enthusiasts who emphasize on total tonal quality, this blog post may be the most wanted by them, i.e. the face-off between the synthetic guitar saddles. Much has been written about the deliverables of synthetic guitar saddles. Conversely there aren’t many literatures on comparing and contrasting of these materials. You can take this blog posting as the extension of “Saddle Materials For Guitars Part 2”. Importantly, the objective of this posting is not to subordinate one under another. Instead maximum efforts were made to reflect the full value of the saddles in question. The synthetic materials are in the limelight now. Here goes…

Synthetic is an adjective to Synthesis. It is the reaction and interaction of various chemicals concocted at the suitable and controlled quantity, coupled with the desired conditions to produce something that imitate the properties of organic materials, e.g. synthetic rubber. These are the selected materials to be featured.

1. Plastic

2. TUSQ®

3. Black Diamond™

Here is an overview of the above three materials

A Plastic Acoustic Guitar Saddle

Taken from:  http://www.mojotone.com/Mojotone-Plastic-Compensated-Acoustic-Guitar-Saddle-3-x-1-8-image.jpg

Plastics – taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic; A plastic material is any synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids that are moldable. Plastics are typically organic polymers of high molecular mass, but they often contain other substances. They are usually synthetic, most commonly derived from petrochemicals, but many are partially natural. In guitar saddle application, plastics satisfy mass production needs like no other materials. Hence it is most common used for producing guitar saddles for many entry to mid levels acoustic guitars.

An Off-White TUSQ® Saddle

Taken from: http://luthierssupplies.com.au/images/TUSQ%209200%20saddle%20Compensated.jpg

TUSQ® - taken from: http://www.graphtech.com/kbase.html?ArticleID=9; TUSQ is a proprietary material which is precision engineered under high pressure and heat. It is specifically formulated to deliver the right frequencies with the optimum transfer rate to the top of your guitar every time. Because of the way TUSQ is made, it is a consistent material that is rich in tone and harmonic content.

By the above literature on TUSQ®, one could not conclude that TUSQ® is petrochemical based or it is a derivative of plastics. Users of TUSQ® have indeed reported enhancements in tonal properties of their acoustic guitars. However certain mechanical properties do exhibit commonalities to plastics.

A Black Diamond™ Hybrid Saddle

Taken from: http://www.obbligatoinc.com/

Black Diamond™ - taken from: http://www.obbligatoinc.com/; This material is a very specialized form of carbon. There are many forms of carbon ranging from graphite to diamond. Black Diamond carbon is not graphite, nor is it a carbon-fiber composite, versions of carbon typically used for musical instruments. It is a highly engineered form of carbon requiring specialized equipment to produce. While, unfortunately, expensive to produce, the random, fine grain structure of Black Diamond carbon provides a very efficient means to create or transmit desired string harmonics of a musical instrument.

According to its patent (http://bit.ly/QJcgjr), Black Diamond™ is the result of pyrolysis of pyrocarbon onto suitable substrates. The application is wider than just guitar saddles. In fact this process is used in manufacturing of human body parts. Pyrolysis is nothing like injection molding.

Since there are many ways to skin a cat, invariably the face-off can be as simple as just making audio clips of each material, allow everyone to listen and judge according to own personal preferences. It can be a full fledge scientific testing. To make it interesting for many people, the face-off should borrow certain scientific experimental principles, but not over-complicating it.

Black Diamond™Hybrid Saddle for Martin Guitars 

Black Diamond™Hybrid Saddle for Emerald Guitars

Here are the experiment norms,

• In this experiment, the test subjects are the Black TUSQ® Saddle and Black Diamond™ Hybrid Saddle. The Black Diamond™ Saddle is made primarily from wood with acoustic properties. 6 insert cavities are cut to accommodate the Black Diamond inserts. The combination of Black Diamond and wood makes it a hybrid.
• Two Emerald Guitars were used in the experiment. The model name is X5-OS, one which is of glossy amber finish and the other is matt black. The amber one is fitted with new strings whereas the matt black has dead strings on it.
• A total of 5 audio tracks were recorded and uploaded to SoundCloud, which is sound file sharing website.
• Reference recordings were done on two Emerald Guitars, X5-OS with original factory settings, i.e. with black TUSQ saddle. The file names are X5-OS Amber.mp3 and X5-OS Black.mp3 respectively.
• The reference recording consists of the chords progression from the C major key instead of playing a tune. This chord progression is C | Dm | Em | F | G | Am | C. The chords are played at various position of the neck.
• Another recording done with switching one of the Emerald Guitars’ TUSQ saddle to the Hybrid Black Diamond Saddle. The file name is X5-OS Black Dia.mp3.
• Another two recordings done with playing the same original acoustic fingerstyle tune on both X5-OS for comparison. The file names are X5-OS Amber Hpy.mp3 and X5-OS Black Dia Hpy.mp3 respectively.
• Direct recording using ZOOM Q3, high quality WAV file format, unplugged.
• All WAV files are converted through MP3 Encoder, set at 192kbps conversion rate, thus keeping the file size manageable for uploading to SoundCloud

The Guitars and Saddle Set up,

Top Matt Black, Bottom Glossy Amber

Fitted with Black Diamond™Hybrid Saddle

The sound files,

Reference Recording, Emerald X5-OS, TUSQ® Saddle, Glossy Amber Finished, New Strings


Reference Recording, Emerald X5-OS, TUSQ® Saddle, Matt Black Finished, Dead Strings


Emerald X5-OS, Black Diamond™Hybrid Saddle, Matt Black Finished, Dead Strings


Emerald X5-OS, TUSQ® Saddle, Glossy Amber Finished, New Strings


Emerald X5-OS, Black Diamond™Hybrid Saddle, Matt Black Finished, Dead Strings
End of sound files section

My two cents,

Firstly I will discuss the comparison between both X5-OS guitars with original factory setting, fitted with black TUSQ Saddle, one with new strings and the other with dead ones. Listening to the audio clips, it was clear the one with new strings produce clearer treble notes, the ring is crisp and very audible. As the low ends, it gave rounded bass. The one with dead strings didn’t provide as clear and crisp treble notes. Not withstanding the reduction on clarity, the full range of tone was audible nevertheless. This is indicative of the capability of the TUSQ saddles. As for the bass characteristic, it wasn’t much different from the one with new strings. The conclusion was guitar strings’ conditions will affect the resulting tonal qualities. In this case, the differences were noticeable.

The Wave Patterns captured from Garage Band

I shall now discuss the comparison between X5-OS with dead strings, it audio recording with original TUSQ saddle and switching to the Black Diamond Hybrid Saddle. Listening to sound file X5-OS Black Dia.mp3, i.e. the saddle was switched from TUSQ to Black Diamond Hybrid, the immediate difference was the treble notes. They were clearer and crisper, closer to the X5-Os with new strings. The bass notes were tighter as well. By using the frequency analyzer from Garage Band Software, I noticed the wave patterns of produce by the Black Diamond Hybrid Saddle possessed evident stability whereas the wave patterns of the X5-OS with original factory settings were shifty.

The differences between X5-OS Amber Hpy.mp3 and X5-OS Black Dia Hpy.mp3; this is probably the acid test for the Black Diamond Hybrid because a full tune is being played and recorded for comparison. I find both guitars gave quality tone. Considering the amber gloss one was fitted with new strings, the Black Diamond Hybrid Saddle truly resurrected the dead strings from the grave. The crispness are comparable and I find the bass notes of the “dead strings” X5-OS became tighter with the switch of saddle. It was indeed a pleasant surprise.

Well, these are my two cents and it is your turn to be the judge!

Some tips for listening,

• Focus on one spectrum at a time, e.g. concentrate on the bass notes, block out the rest mentally.
• Repeat small parts of the audio track, do rapid comparisons between the intended audio tracks.
• If possible, use quality heard sets instead of judging by listening through the onboard PC speakers.
• A quiet environment helps.
• There is no good or bad sound, they are all sound.
• Judge base on known criteria like Bass, Mids and Trebles. Connecting the audio quality to abstract terms like majestic, shimmering, etc. will probably add more confusion. Use simple terms instead.

Thanks for reading! Any comment is welcome.