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?
I spent a couple of hours looking on the Internet for clues for what has been causing this. From this and in line with what you said about phasing and cancellation, this seemed to be the most likely causes of the dead notes. Oh and I did pick up a tip that was a lot easier to try than the swapping the strings around that I was doing – just tune the string up and /or down by half a tone and see if the dead note moves relative to the fret – it does!
Thinking on what was being said about phasing and cancellation and the fact that guitar really shudders on a dead not (it feels like a car cash) I thought there could be some other things to try.
I tried things that didn’t work, eg adding weight to headstock with a C clamp or holding the headstock against a wall .But the thing that does work is to stick a 2oz kitchen weight to the front of soundboard with BluTack!! It took a couple of experiments to find a good spot, but the difference is distinct and immediate.
Without spending hours with different weights in lots of different places I am counting this a a fix.
