I have a steel string acoustic parlour guitar which was handmade in 1982 which I am extremely fond of – never been much of a player but I am improving gradually in later life. I used to play mostly open chords and the guitar always sounded fine, but now I am exploring further up the fingerboard.
For a couple of years now I have noticed that two notes sound really dead; these are the F and F# (frets 8 and 9) on the fifth string. At first I thought it was just the strings I was using and I have tried various types to try to isolate the problem – brass, phosphor bronze, with and without silk inner winding, nickel – but the problem persists.
There are no string rattles. I searched the Internet (as you do) and one suggestion was that the string might be damping on the fret above – but there is no sign of a rattle. I raised the saddle slightly and put on heavier strings to see if that would help – but no. There is very little sustain. But if I go up to the G on the tenth fret the sustain just comes back again.
Then I noticed that the F and F# on the fourth string (frets 3 and 4) have a similar dull sound, not as bad as the fifth string but noticeable. Now here is the really strange thing! My nylon string classical problem has the same problem! I also have a cheap travel guitar and a very cheap “supermarket” guitar neither of which exhibit this problem.
Any ideas?
Lee, before I took the guitar to be “looked at” I thought up a couple of tests that I could try at home myself, with interesting results.
I tried sliding a small (3mm) screwdriver between the fret board and various frets – just to make a “pretend” fret in various places. And then, as a separate test, I tried swapping over the fifth and sixth strings and then the fourth and fifth strings. And testing what sound I could hear.
Result: my F on the fourth string, eighth fret always sounds dead not matter what else I do. Conclusion: it’s a dead spot on the guitar. And as I mentioned in my first post – my classical shows the same “feature”.
I think my idea of using a small screwdriver to make a “pretend” fret could be useful for any future diagnostics on dead or buzzing frets.
