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Posted: Thu Jan 07, 2010 5:47 am
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Shockwarrior wrote:
Are some of your frets flattened slightly?

Yes, some of them are slightly flattened - mostly the upper (lower?) frets 1 -5. Rookie mistake - I didn't look closely at the frets when I bought the guitar at GC. For all know, they could have been that way when I bought it. I see what you're saying about the two contact points. I imagine that's a bad thing since a string would hit a properly crowned fret at pretty much the same point regardless of fretting in front of, or behind it.

FWIW - I have string height set to Fender specs. Not sure if that's considered a high action or low, but I figure I'll just stick with Fender's guidelines for now.

nikininja wrote:

Phil theres nothing newb'ish about this question. I see players having played for decades still making the same mistake. It's simply a problem with technique that has never been corrected. Luckily your in the prime position as a new player to do something aboit it NOW.

What you have to do is spend a bit of time with each finger on your left hand. Fret a note with them and try to suss out the minimum pressure you can use to make that note ring clearly.

The problem is your applying too much pressure to the frets. Now to my eye this looks like the middle finger on a barre chord shape causing the problem. As a new player barre chords are hard to master. We tend to apply the vice grip to them with the index finger. The middle finger is actually the strongest finger on your hand. (I'm not saying your good at rude hand gestures. Its the same for everyone). So pressure seems to displace from the index finger which is quite safe as its pressure is spread over 6 strings in a barre. To the middle finger that already has superpower and isnt spreading its pressure across 6 strings. It focus's on one string in the barre shape. It's not even the middle fingers fault its muscle memory from being used to using multiple fingers for gripping things.

Now theres another good reason to watch how much pressure you apply. You can fret notes sharp by putting too much pressure on them too.


Luckily the fix is easy and in minimal cases like this one, its do-able by anyone with a bit of care.
I'd go with this system-
http://reviews.photoweborama.com/allthi ... t/fret.htm

It's a doddle to do (and you will get the best part if not all of that ding out with a polish). Also it's way better than the dimarzio/planetwaves system.

I really appreciate the information, NN. I haven't done too much with barre chords yet, other than practice the full F chord. Haven't used it as part of a song - just practicing the shape. (strangely, that "full" F barre chord is much easier for me than the "small" F where you're barring just the high E and B strings - I understand it's the opposite for most beginners) But yeah, I'll make it a point to be aware of finger pressure when fretting. However, I am pretty good at rude finger gestures ... hopefully I can get it tamed! :lol:

I didn't realize you can fret a note sharp with too much pressure - good to know!

So, have you used that kit? I imagine a polish would take care of most of it. There's a blurb at that link suggesting there's some "controversy" over the kit - do you know what that's about? I don't think I'd want to try a fret leveling job with the kit with it's short'ish abrasion surface but polishing seems doable.

BTW - I've watched this entire series on fret replacement and dressing (I know I don't need anything nearly this drastic - it just interests me), but it suggests a long abrasion surface is the way to when leveling frets, which makes sense to me. Leveling begins at about the 5 min mark. Love this guy's attention to detail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fus__nO6 ... re=related

Anyway, I had my teacher and the guitar shop owner (didn't buy from him), take a look and both of them said the frets are fine. The owner does complete setups and such - even fret work but I don't know if he's an actual qualified luthier or not. This is a small town and his is only shop in the area.

Something else I've come to realize it that It's quite possible that I've made the dimple look worse than it actually is. While I'm new to guitars, I'm highly experienced at lighting. As a pro photographer, I've photographed many products over the years, and a big part of that is bringing out the texture of an item through lighting. I can make a glossy surface look dull and a dull surface look shiny - simply with lighting. So, in my attempt to show the problem as well as possible, I may have over-emphasized it rather than giving a true representation. Running my fingernail over the area doesn't feel nearly as bad as the photo suggests.

(Guys, when you're thinking about buying something based on photos alone, remember this - all photographs LIE! (even before the days of Photoshop), there's no such thing as an "accurate" photograph.) ;)

Anyhoo ... thanks again for all the advice. Much appreciated!

-phil

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Posted: Thu Jan 07, 2010 6:14 am
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So where's the OP in all of this? They haven't replied to this thread or even posted since 12/30/09.


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Posted: Thu Jan 07, 2010 6:15 am
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Matt_B_67 wrote:
So where's the OP in all of this? They haven't replied to this thread or even posted since 12/30/09.


Apparently, he made his point and we made our's.

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