PlayJazzGuitar.com Forum

[Alexo66]

Hey guys, I have recently bought a Yamaha SA2200, a fantastic guitar as you may know/agree.

For some reason, it came with 9's, which are just too thin, so I fitted 10's to it almost immediately, expecting to have to do the usual truss rod setup to adapt to the higher tension. Trouble is, I'm really no good at carrying out this sort of maintenance but was able to give it a good crack. All that's left now is a bit of buzzing in a few places, but it's totally playable. I am waiting to get it professionally done anyway.

One thing I did not notice however, was a sort of dead spot, in one place. When I bend the high E on the 11th fret, before it even reaches a semitone higher, the sound just cuts off, like the string is touching a fret, perhaps creating a sort of 'extreme buzzing' to point where the note doesn't sound. Funny thing is it doesn't happen anywhere else, although there is a bit of buzzing on the same string a few frets below.

Anyway, I was wondering or rather hoping if this problem can be solved easily- a bit fret dressing or something?

Let me tell you what I would like my guitar tech to do, to see if I'm on the right track:

1) Replace plastic nut with bone nut.
2) Change strings from 10's to 11's, and adjust guitar accordingly. LOL.
3) Sort out this dead spot thing? HAHA.

I would like to know if this dead spot thing can be solved or is there something wrong with the neck?

Please excuse my apparent ignorance- I have really had NO experience in this field!

Cheers guys.
_________________
"The first thing I played was boogie woogie, then I had to do a lot of rock and roll. It's all the blues anyhow." - Grant Green

[sunflower]

Its probably just a high fret or two , don't sweat it
Show the Tech whats happening and
Get a COMPETE set-up done and all will be fine probably

BTW the bone nut will only affect (brighten up) the sound
of the open strings so ....

[Alexo66]

OK cheers, thanks for the advice. Will do.

Is that the only thing the bone nut will achieve? If I'm aiming for a conventional jazz/fusion sound, do you think it's worth getting one? Or will it be too bright?

Cheers.
_________________
"The first thing I played was boogie woogie, then I had to do a lot of rock and roll. It's all the blues anyhow." - Grant Green

[trickeydave]

I always add a bone nut to my guitars, electric or acoustic. It improves the tone mostly on open string notes, but it does improve sustain on fretted notes as well.

Also if you're switching to heavier gauge strings, you would need to make adjustments to the nut anyway. Any high-end guitar will most likely have a bone nut on it.

The most important thing is to have the frets leveled and polished and the action set nice and low. A complete set up is absolutely worthwhile.

[Mike Detlefsen]

[bruciekins]

When you have fret work done, always check that your repairman has the correct tools to recrown the frets. I've had problems on certain notes, and crowning a previous fret dress fixed the problem. Good luck.

[dewey decibel]

[randyc]

I suppose that, if one takes all possible variables into account and developed a mechanical model that accomodated each contributor, one could make a case for the nut material being significant.

But "significant" would need to be defined ... is the nut a first-order contributor? Definitely not, for fretted strings. Is it a second-order contributor? Probably not, for fretted strings .... maybe a third-order contributor or something less, I'd suspect.

Anecdotally (and therefore proving nothing), I bought a hard-tail strat in 1973 that had a brass nut (???), never bothered to replace it because it sounded identical to my buddy's '72 strat with a bone (or most probably plastic) nut. It had the same basic sound, same amount of sustain (not much) but the brass did get interesting comments from other guitarists

cheers,
randyc

[planetguy]

yeah...brass nuts were (sorta) popular in the 70's.

i used to have an old tele w a brass nut and like you randy, have to say i noticed no real discernable difference w it. certainly not on fretted notes.

now, i do have a very nice WARWICK Streamer bass that among it's many very cool features does have a brass nut. what make this a winner for me though is that the slots are actually adjustable brass screws that allow you to dial in the height.

this idea works great. as for the brass nut (and screws) contributing to the sustain of this bass.....well, it's a full maple instrument w a 5 pc neck through the body, a big ass (as opposed to BADASS) brass brdg/tlpc, and an ebony fingerboard. so, sutain (and brightness) has never really been an issue on this instrument!


luckily it has a really good active EQ that provides a wide spectrum of usable tones.
_________________
just groove baby!

[randyc]

[M]