Hey Fender Community,

I own an American Deluxe Stratocaster (http://www.fender.com/products/americandeluxe/models.php?prodNo=011900) which I bought brand new in the summer of 2011. The guitar itself is my first guitar, the previous ones having been borrowed. I am very satisfied with the guitar's performance and looks, but I have run into several problems that I am hoping to fix. I have been looking around the internet for a solution, and I finally decided I might as well ask this community for help. I apologize if this question has already been answered in here.

I probably should state that although this is my first owned guitar, I am not new to guitars or instruments in general, having played guitar for a couple of years now and having played the violin and piano for respectively 11 and 8 years. I am, however, not too keen of performing maintenance on my guitar myself without having seen it done first, and I will be taking my guitar to the store where I bought it next week to have a maintenance performed on it, hopefully eliminating the problems I am having.

Anyway, my problem: I am experiencing severe "oscillation" ("warble"? It's a bit tricky to explain) on mainly the e, H, and G strings starting at the 12th fret and continuing to the 22nd fret (the last fret). The oscillation only takes place when playing on an overdrive/high gain setting, and using a clean amplification does not trigger this oscillation. The oscillation can also be limited by either turning down the tone control or by using the S-1 switching to create a "humbucker" from the single coils.

I've tried to capture some sounds samples of my problem through my Mustang 3 amp, using only the presets of the amp. The problem, however, is not limited to that particular amp or cable, as I have experienced the problem on other amps and cables.

http://www.mediafire.com/?kg5ye55g7ssm4h9 (Uploaded through mediafire - the files are with the .FLAC extension, sampled at 44100 Hz through audacity).
http://www.mediafire.com/?a77mxe8yc72au0a (The same files as above, converted into .mp3 extension rather than .flac)

There are five files included, and the titles should describe the settings used. I picked the 12th-15th fret on all strings, starting on the high E, and concluded by picking the 22nd fret on all strings.
[Bridge on AM90 Overdrive] is the bridge pickup with 100% tone played on the Mustang 3's American 90'ies amp with an additional overdrive on.
[Neck on AM90 Overdrive] is the neck pickup with 100% tone played on the same amp setting as above.
[Bridge on '65 twin] is the bridge pickup with 100% tone played on the Mustang 3's '65 twin reverb amp with no additions (clean low-gain).
[Neck on '65 twin] is the neck pickup with 100% tone played on the same amp settings as above.
[Bridge tone 100, 0, Humbucker bridge-middle tone 100, 0] is the bridge and the S-1 bridge-middle humbucker, both played first with 100% tone, then with 0% tone. The point is to demonstrate the tone control's ability to dampen the oscillation. Both are played on a high gain setting (although not the same as the Am90 overdrive but rather an 80'ies rock with extra overdrive).

In my quest to find the source of the problem I have tried following the Fender User's Manual. My guitar's intonation is a bit off on the high E string, but the saddle itself is too close to the screw from the floating tremolo bridge to be adjusted right now; I will let the store adjust that next week. The rest of the strings' intonations are correct, and the 12+ frets are in tune too (tested with a 1-cent precise guitar tuner).

From what I have been able to read on this forum and several others, the problem might be related to the pick-ups being too close to the strings. But wouldn't that cause a clean amplification of the guitar to be "oscillated" too?

Somebody proposed that the springs of the floating tremolo were causing the problem, but I have tried to unscrew the back of the guitar and "silence" the strings with no result.

There is a somewhat decent amount of fret buzz amongst the lower frets of especially the low E, A an D strings, which I will have the store fix too. Might this fret buzz be related to the oscillation?

I am sorry for my lack of technical terms in this post, but I hope you'll be able to understand what I mean anyway. If not, or if you have any questions regarding my problem, please ask as I want to uncover as much as I can about this problem before taking my guitar to the store.

I spent 15 minutes trying to find a comtatible player to listen to your files before giving up. Sorry.

It does sound possibly like a bad case of "stratitis". What are your pickup pole piece to string distances? The fret buzz clearly indicates a neck relief setting problem. Since you are having the guitar professionally set up (hopefully by someone more capable than Guitar Center) next week, all of these things and more will be addressed (assuming the tech knows what he/she is doing), so I suggest you leave things alone till then. Since by your own admission you do not know how to make adjustments to your guitar, at best whatever you do may be undone by the store in (hopefully) fixing the problem and at worse, you may make it more difficult for the store to fix. You are better off letting someone who can actually see and hear your guitar work on it rather than try and do an "Internet" diagnosis and repair.

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Bill

I am sorry for ignoring the fact that you might have problems with the .flac extension. Sorry. I reuploaded the five files converted into the .mp3 format (probably a bit of quality loss, but not too great).

My pickups are placed as they were from the factory. I'll try measure the distance from each pole to the corresponding string. The pickups are Fender's Noiseless ones.

String | Neck | Middle | Bridge
e | 5/32" | 4.5/32" | 4.5/32"
B | 5/32" | 6/32" | 5.5/32"
G | 4/32" | 5/32" | 5/32"
D | 3/32" | 3/32" | 3/32"
A | 4/32" | 4/32" | 4/32"
E | 3.5/32" | 4/32" | 4/32"

All values above are approximate as I lack a precision instrument with /64". I live in a land where the metric system is dominant. As said by the guide, all measurements have been done with the last fret (22nd) depressed (I take the fret being depressed means you're practically creating a capo at the 22nd fret).

Looking at the measurements I have just done, I can see that it hardly fits with the User Manual's 6/64" treble side, 8/64" bass side...

I have been able to follow the manual as to what to do, but my hesitation is mainly because I'd rather have somebody professional do it the first time instead of me, as you wrote, messing up the guitar completely. However, I'd like to know what the problem is (or at least have an as accurate "this could be the cause" knowledge as possible).

From what I've been able to read on the internet, "stratitis" does not sound pleasant at all - at least not when people give up locating the cause of it...

Those heights should be fine, especially with the Noiseless pickups on Deluxes (Noiseless pickups have less magnetic pull so they have to be very close to the strings to cause "Strat-itis").

Old worn-out strings can cause all the symptoms you're having (oscillations, problems setting intonation, buzzing). Brand-new strings can be defective and have the same problems. (I assume the strings that are on it don't have a lot of play wear, but having the packaging mash them against the frets while sailing on a boat to some other continent can damage the strings.)

I'm assuming you're in Germany or one of the other places where they call "B" notes "H" notes.

Well, first of all, unless you have the measurements reversed (the only ones that matter are the high and low "E") or are measuring from the pickguard to the pole piece, your pickups are slanted the wrong way with the treble side lower than the bass side. It should be the other way around. When you measure the distance, you should fret the two E stings at the last fret and measure from the top of the pole piece to the bottom of the string.

In any case, since the oscillation does not appear to be present on the clean settings (all I heard was some fret rattle) and only appears on the overdriven settings of your amp (they were painful to say the least), I think you have an amp problem and not a guitar problem. It sounds like some kind of wierd feedback to me. Yeah, I know you said you tried other amps and the results were the same, but what were the other amps? Another Mustang with the same settings? I suggest you go find a nice tube or solid state amp (NOT a modeling amp) and set the amp for a clean sound and turn it up. Then listen to what it sounds like.

A good setup will help with the buzz and intonation, but I don't really think that is the cause of your problem.

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Bill

I was taught the German music theory, hence the H. My mistake. I should probably change the strings to see if that helps (haven't done so yet so they are still factory Fender strings).



Well, the two recent amps I've tried were both Fender's, one Mustang 3 that I own and one that I cannot recall the series name of. Both were modeling amps.

I have had my guitar plugged into a Marshall tube amp at a friend's, so I probably could get around to testing it there. However, that was some 5 months ago so I don't recall if the problem was present on the amp or not.

Is it possible that the problem lies in the electronics in the guitar? (Since turning down the tone almost removes the oscillation). Or could it be related to the intonation of the high E being a bit off?

Howdy!

Sounds like a case of "Stratitis" as Bill, previously mentioned. To remedy that you'll need to synchronise the magnetic flux... This is done by pressing down on the strings so they're in contact with all the pole pieces across all three pickups. Here's some tips from forum user Martian, who very kindly enlightened me as to the best way to achieve this.


Job done!

Hope this helps.

Andy

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Pending Greatness

I have read that tip somewhere on this forum before. The only problem I can see is that some of my pole pieces are immersed in the pickup's covering by maybe 1/64", making it quite difficult to get to it...

Ah, well. Still might be worth a go. Costs nothing to try it!

Best of luck.

Andy

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Pending Greatness

It might be me being incompetent, but I tried several times, unfortunately unsuccessfully. I am not sure if the lack of contact with all poles is the problem or if the magnetic flux just does not need readjustment, but it did not work.

IMO, your guitar simply needs a setup, and the fret buzzing might be what you are hearing as an "oscillation" when playing distorted or with effects. Playing clean you hear the fret buzzing, and when using effects the noise is affected too. Very common to have some fret buzz with a new guitar, and a setup usually cures these ills. If possible, try your guitar at the place where you get the setup done before taking it home, to see if the problem still exists. A setup would, more than likely, at least get rid of the fret buzzing.

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---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.

It would sound reasonable if not for the oscillation occurring even at the 22nd fret, which is my last fret.

Like I said in my last post, your pickup to string measurements appear backwards. Get the guitar set up properly. If the problem goes away you are golden. If not, the problem is in your amp. All of the guitar electronics are passive. There is nothing in the guitar that would cause that sound given that the clean amp setting sounds fine except for the slight fret buzz. You should always use a clean amp setting for any sort of tests as you have no way of knowing how the distortion will affect what you are trying to test for. I wouldn't use a modeling amp for clean testing as even that tone is sythesized. Use a real amp.

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Bill

Yeah. I guess I'll have to wait until it has been set up properly to see if the problem persists. And I can understand how the amp's distortion can have quite an unfortunate effect on the 'objectivity' of the bug finding - I just simply don't have a "clean" channel on my amp.

My question regarding if any of the guitar parts could create effects like this was mainly just out of curiosity as I do not know a lot about the instrument compared to what is apparently needed to fix problems like this. The main intend of this topic was also mainly to get a sense of what the problem could be, rather than some way to fix it with a pair of pliers and a screw driver (which I wouldn't do anyway as I'm too scared of messing something up...)

Well, I think you are on the right path.

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Bill