i put a "WILKINSON® CONTEMPORARY 5+1 HOLE TREMOLO " on my mim strat to replace the stock trem. really nice sounding trem, etc.

though, what i seem to run into periodically is string high E & B start to fret buzz a bit. it did this on the stock neck and now the new neck. i've checked the relief and is ok at about .009-.010. i think fender suggests .008 for a 16 compound or there abouts.

tapped a few of the frets to ensure they are seated well, and they seem to be. changed strings to new ones.

so, this leads me to thinking this trem and its screws at the treble end get a bit out of line or something. i'm just guessing though.

1. does one need to adjust this type of trem from time to time? or maybe those screw slots get loose due to trem action?

2. what would be a suggestion for a step up in a new trem that would a bit more stable, if it is in fact this trem?


thanks

Hi mo, Do I understand correctly? You have a compound radius neck on your MIM? How high is the action set? I would definitely hold off spending more on a another bridge, or anything, until I find out what the problem is. Could just need minor adjustments.

yes that is correct. this same issue happened on the 9.5 neck that came on the mim. my thinking could be off so i'll check the minor things either a tech or me and see what's up with those 2 strings. maybe just a slight adjustment on bridge or springs or something.

5/64 on low E, tapers to 4/64 on hi E

that buzzing just pierces my ears/brain and you know, just ruins the fun of playing. lol

Hi mo4FFU: I strongly doubt it is an intrinsic issue with the bridge. Sounds like plain old regular string buzz to me, and before we start diagnosing more complicated problems the first thing is to work through the set-up procedure methodically and in the correct sequence.

We can take you through that if you like...?

Cheers - C

_________________

Looks to me as though the relief & action are set pretty much according to spec. Have you got the stock ceramic pups? They can cause string pull if they're too close to the strings. Well all pups can, but ceramics have a stronger pull.
+1 on Ceri's recomendation

sure, let me know what you need me to check/verify

i took the stock ones out right after i bought it last year. i have bareknuckle alnico pickup in neck and a alnico 5 in bridge.

3/64 from bottom of string to pickup cover on high E and 4/64 on low E. maybe this is too close?

Yes, I think that's too close. That could be your problem. Esp. if the pole pieces are staggered, but I'm assuming that you put the flat PUs in to match your flatter radius. Adjust them according to these specs to start, & then fine tune after. No doubt you'll want to experiment later. In my strat, I have each PU adjusted differently, but I was carefull not get them too close to the strings. & of course the neck PU has the most pulling effect. After that, the middle. I don't know which alnico is in the Bareknuckle, but 5s have a strong pull as well. In any case, I think they're too close ATM. If I can think of any other links on the subject, I'll post them.
http://www.fender.com/support/articles/ ... etup-guide

guess that neck pup was too close. gee

that helped. beats me, i guess i forgot to look at that factor. the neck pup is at 4/64 both sides now, hardly any buzz if at all on those two strings. pup is a bit warmer sounding but that's way better to my ears than that buzz. i know now where 'not' to raise the pup.

i"ve seen that setup page before. glad you reminded me of it. guess i don't need to go off on the "bridge" tangent now.

until the next time i forget something and need help/advice, appreciate the help

Hi again: well, what we'd need to know is what you already do or don't know about doing setups. So's we'd know where to start.

But it sounds like you've already found the issue, so... sorted!

Now then: tell us about this compound radius neck, why not? A special order from Warmoth or some such, perhaps?

Cheers - C

_________________

Glad to be of help. Yea, tell us about that neck ! How do you compare it w/the 9.5"?

>> what you already do or don't know about doing setups. So's we'd know where to start.

i can adjust truss rod, action, intonation, i put in the new bridge, swapped out stock electronics for better pots & caps, put in new pups, put in new tuners and put on the new neck. that doesn't mean i can get them all happily coming together in perfect synch.


after putting on the new neck, i did take it to a fender tech guy here as there was something a bit off with the neck alignment i just couldn't get right and a few tweaks with neck-2-bridge. he fixed that and that helped. he set relief a bit less than (straighter) the 0.008 fender recommends. i have it approx 0.009-0.010 now (can't tell if that made any difference. did that trying to fix the buzz i was hearing)

the neck is a10-16 compound radius, 22 fret warmoth, mahogany with kingwood fretboard, med-jumbo frets, sperzel locking-tuners, 25.5 scale, 1.75 nut width, clapton profile. really sweet neck.


>But it sounds like you've already found the issue, so... sorted!

i think so.


for me and my left hand, the 9.5 radius 21 fret neck that came with the guitar just seemed difficult for barring like the first 2-3 high strings. that curvature and my fingers just had a hard time. maybe i could have trained my fingers but the compound neck is much easier to "play" in that regard. i also thought the maple neck would be 'slicker" for movement but it actually seemed stickier to me. i find the kingwood much easier to slip and slide around the fretboard.

one of my creases on my left index finger still misses the E-B string at times when barring but that will just take some practice to land on the sweet spot. still better than the 9.5 radius for my fingers though.

the playability and sound is much improved with the upgrades at least for me. this is my first guitar so much of this is trial & error for me

this article, although old, helped me to see i've been a bit too picky on the buzz issue. that is to say, there just might be a little buzz no matter what -- depending on many things. and as others on this thread educated me that there are many compromises with one's particular setup.

i'll add the article here, it may help someone else as it did me ...


#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reprinted from "Vintage Guitar" January 1995 issue.

PART 10 "THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM: OPTIMIZING GUITAR PLAYABILITY" (setting guitar for killer tone)

This month, since I've had a ton of researching to do for our next Beatles' installment, I've again decided to bring you readers yet another shot of the vitriolic reality of the "Whiteman" a.k.a. Stephen White. As you remember from our June 1994 issue, Stephen had quite a bit on his mind. Since then, they've adjusted his dosage and he is now free to give you even more of what he started with in June. This is the next installment in a series of articles he has been writing for this column on the care and feeding of electric guitars. Drumroll please...

Salutations, fellow sufferers! In my previous article,("The Eau d' Stench") I ranted about the problems endemic to guitar strings. We've just had a bunch of crypto-fascist weasels voted into office, but before the jack-booted maggots come goose-stepping around the corner to haul me off, I'm going to relate some of my experience about tuning, intonation and the "art of the set-up" of electric guitars.

Before proceeding, I want to credit an author whose work has been invaluable to my understanding of this stuff (such as it is...). A distinguished electrical engineer at Bell Telephone Laboratories, John R. Pierce is the author of ( among other works) " The Science of Musical Sound". This book is an amazing distillation of a staggering amount of research on acoustics, psycho-acoustics ( the way we humans hear things) and the mathematical basis of the harmonic intervals of the "western" twelve-tone scale, in a very clear, easily readable, entertaining form. Highly recomended. Now, to business. Guitar players probably have more problems with- and questions about- tuning (correctly adjusting the pitch of the strings of their instrument relative to each other) and "intonation" (correctly adjusting the length of each string on the guitar in order to produce the best i.e. most harmonious tunability) than with any other aspect of guitar use.

My last article focused mostly on how string defects can cause tuning and intonation problems. Now, we look at how the guitar affects the strings. When adjusting a guitar, there are several goals:

* good "action"-the least possible distance between the string (when at rest) and the frets without excessive "buzzing" or rattling of the string againest the fret when played, given the player's individual playing style ("technique") and personal preference i.e. how much buzz they are willing to tolerate.

* good "intonation"-best tunability, given the player's technique (the technical term for this adjustment is "compensation", by the way). * balanced, even, electrical output from each string on all pickup selections.

* easy, stable, mechanical tuning action from the guitar's tuning machines

* accurate returning to the correct tuning after using the guitar's vibrato

* And-last, but not least-KILLER TONE!!

Unfortunately, some of these goals are mutually incompatible. For example, really light strings and really low action don't allow a guitar to sustain or sound "fat", compared with the same guitar with heavier strings and/or higher action. Oh Well, Too Bad. Compromise, compromise.

When "setting-up" a guitar, one performs a series of adjustments. Since these adjustments effect each other, they must be performed in a specific sequence. First, I change the strings. I then LOWER the pickups until I know that they will not magneticly disturb the free vibration of the strings and hence distort the guitar's intonation. In my experience, most people including technicians, adjust a guitar's pickups far too close to the strings for the guitar to even be correctly intonable. Obviously, the more intense a pickup's magnetic field is, the farther away it is going to have to be from the strings. In particular, the neck pickup (assuming that it's the same type as the bridge pickup) has to be much farther away from the strings than the bridge pickup. This is because the strings are more flexible over the neck pickup than they are over the bridge pickup, since the bridge pickup is nearer to the the bridge itself, where the strings are anchored and won't move at all. This means that it is easier for the magnetic field of the neck pickup to influence the vibration of the strings. For example, on a regular, garden-variety Stratocaster, the neck pickup cover has to be more-or-less flush with the pickguard, or it's too close! I'm not exaggerating! On many mid-seventies Strats (which have extra-strong magnets), the neck pickup has to be adjusted slightly below the pickguard! Fender's "official" distance recomendations are ridiculous! Those guys are dreaming!

Les Pauls are somewhat easier to deal with, but their neck pickups still have to be lowered until they are about flush with their mounting rings, and sometimes slightly below flush. This initial step is critical! After all the other adjustments of the "set-up" are completed, the pickups are then raised back up until they just begin to effect the string's intonation. They are then lowered down one-quarter of a turn of the height-adjustment screws. It's rather hard to describe the symptoms of this magnetic interference, but I'll try...

"MAGNETIC HELL-ZONE"
Okay, first try this test. Pluck the harmonic at the seventh fret on, say. the first (high-"E") string. Do you hear a slow oscillation or "beating" sound, as though you had played two unison harmonics on the first and second strings for harmonic tuning and the strings were slightly out-of-tune? Even though only one string is sounding? THAT'S magnetic interference! Does the oscillation also have a fast "jello-like" quivering sound along with the slow "phase-shift"-ish sound? That's really BAD magnetic interference! I guarantee you one or more of your pickups is too close to the strings. Another example of this problem can be heard on the sixth (low-"E") string. Just play a note way up the neck (say, the nineteenth fret or higher...) does it "beat"? Does it actually sound like two notes at once?? AAAARGH! Those damned magnets! Believe it or not, when you get used to noticing this phenomenon, you will be able to tell when you have adjusted a pickup even one-quarter of a turn of the adjustment screw too high (that's less than .025")!

Now, these symptoms I've described mostly apply to the neck (and middle) pickup(s); the bridge pickup's symptoms are a bit different. Typically, the first symptom you'll notice when the pickup is slightly too close to the strings is a slight "damping" or suppressing of the harmonics overall. This often results in a strange tuning problem; you somehow just can't really hear whether the two unison harmonics that you've just plucked are really in phase (not "beating") or not. You try tuning one string slightly sharp or flat, to hear the difference, but it's as though there hasn't been any change! Now admit it-you've ALL had this problem! Man, it's a royal pain in the $@!, too! AAAAAAARGH! The only good news is, you CAN solve the problem by lowering the offending pickup(s). The bad news, of course, is that you may have to completely re-think all of your tonal settings, gain settings and sometimes even change pickups altogether in order to get back to your previous sounds (on the other hand, your previous sound may have completely BLOWN so, who knows...).

Anyway, after this pickup rigamarole, the real work begins. Before you can work on the guitar's intonation, you have to establish exactly where the strings are going to be, relative to the frets-the "action". Adjusting the action involves three adjustments: The truss-rod, the bridge-saddle height, and the placement of the strings over the first fret, which is controlled by the depth of the slots in the nut. Before adjusting the truss-rod, I'll adjust the bridge-saddles to roughly the desired action. Then, I'll examine the neck before adjusting the truss-rod. Appropriate adjustment of the truss -rod is a minor art. Only rarely do I have the luxury of being able to adjust the truss-rod to get the neck into the narrow range of theoretically best adjustment choices. Usually, I have to settle for an adjustment based more on the peculiarities of the neck in question i.e. the best compromise.

The theoretically best adjustment for a neck would be when the tops of the frets under the first string form a straight line, but under the sixth string, the tops of the frets would form a slight "bow" away from the string in the central area of the neck (from the fifth to the twelveth frets). You can see this in various ways. Sighting down the length of the neck, so as to look along the edge of the frets on either side of the neck, is the most commonly suggested method, but it can be confusing. It takes a lot of practice with this method to learn how to interpret what you see. I think that it's easier to see the neck's adjustment this way: Fret the sixth string at the first fret (by the nut) with one hand or a capo; simultaneously fret the same string at the top fret so that the string is lying along the frets for the whole length of the neck. If the neck has a forward bow (technically called "relief") under the string, there will be a slight gap between the string and the top of the frets in the central area of the neck. This gap should exist (on the bass side, anyway) and can be as little as .010" or as much as .050" and still be appropriate, depending on the player's technique. Generally speaking, I find that players who play harder with their picking hand usually prefer set-ups with more relief in the neck. Now, usind this same method to measure the relief under the first string (fretting both the lowest and highest frets), you should see very little gap between the string and the frets in the central area of the neck-say, .010" or less (remember,.010" is about the thickness of your first string: .050" is about the thickness of your sixth string).

Unfortunately, you'll usually find that you get the exact opposite of the result you want when fine-tuning the truss-rod; more relief on the treble side of the neck than on the bass side. This is because the treble strings are pulling harder on the neck than are the bass strings. So, a compromise is in order; Settling for a little less relief on the bass side of the neck than you would find optimal (putting up with a bit more buzz on the lower notes of the bass strings) AND having slightly higher action than you would like on the treble strings in the central range of the neck (assuming that you have the saddle height at the bridge adjusted to give you the action that you want in the upper area of the neck). Once you have the saddle height at the bridge and the truss-rod adjusted to at least a close approximation of their final states, it is then possible to check (and correct) the height of the strings above the first fret. This height is controlled by the depth of the slots in the nut. PLEASE NOTE: Re-cutting these slots correctly is not possible without properly-sized "blind" files. Files for this specific purpose are sold through various guitar-parts and guitar-repair tool suppliers; they are fairly expensive. However, it is still useful to understand the adjustment process and to know what the optimal final placement of the strings is; you can discuss the process with the technician you're employing for the job, and run away screaming if he's a nit-wit!

To check the existing string-to-fret clearance at the first fret, you will need a "good eye" for judging very small changes in small clearances, or a set of "feeler" gauges; these are metal strips used for measuring valve clearances in car engines. we will use the sixth string for this example. Fret the string at the first fret and measure the clearance between the string and the second fret. Typically, this clearance will be between .008" and .015". Now, release the string from the first fret and measure the clearance between the string and the first fret. This clearance should be .002" or so more than the clearance just measured at the second fret. Frequently, the clearance between the string and the first fret will be 2 to 4 times greater i.e. .030" to .060". The slots in the nut must be re-cut to correct this by lowering the slots until the proper clearances are achieved. These seemingly minor errors cause much bigger problems than you would think, because of the nature of the modern twelve-tone scale in music, which is subtly "mis-tuned" to allow one to modulate (change keys) freely. This type of tuning, or "tempering" is referred to as "equal temperment" and is significantly different than the earlier tuning used for just one key, which is called "just temperment". I will discuss this in some detail in my next installment, explain the goals in compensating a guitar to produce good intonation and explain the method which I use to compensate or "intone" a guitar. Until next time, get your hands on (and read) this amazing book " The Science of Musical Sound" by John R. Pierce, published in 1983 by Scientific American Books - ISBN 0-7167-1509-0.

Always remember, if they give you a hard time, tell them "Hey pal, I can play just as LOUD as the next guy!! Ciou... Stephen White

Copyright 1995 by Dean L. Farley

Reprinted from "Vintage Guitar" January 1995 issue.