I am hearing a buzzing sound on my bass that gets picked up and amplified. It sounded as if something was loose in the bridge area. I determined that the bridge saddles for the D and G strings are touching each other in such a way to cause the distortion. There is a resonance at the contact point and it is primarily evident when playing the G string.
I can solve the problem by “insulating” the two saddles from each other by using a pick- see image below. I placed 3 picks at all points, but the problem is on the saddles that I mention above.
Yes, the picks can solve my problem but is there a real fix to what I am experiencing?
Yo Frank
I haven’t seen that before but it seems you have diagnosed the issue.
I didn’t have that on my Squire but I put a Fender hi-mass bridge on it and it looks great.
An easy swap over.
I have noticed similar cases where the back part of the string was touching the saddle intonation spring and making a zinging sound from residual vibration.
Another thing though is that often fret buzz from a high fret will sound like it is coming from the bridge.
If you do hear a buzz you cannot fix with a normal setup while maintaining a low action, I recommend checking the frets with a fret rocker before assuming anything else. High frets are common and can occur over time on instruments that previously were fine. And they are really easy to fix.
I have checked this and all frets are perfect.
But I would like to know how to fix this easily, for future reference … I followed some discussion on zzzeee Zzzerrmann forum, and in the end everybody goes to a luthier. And it seems to be expensive!
I got into that discussion cause of possible reuse of my radius sanding block. People said I could use that to sand down the frets in case I get fret issues.
So I went through the fret rocking procedure, but haven’t found anything…
I wouldn’t use a radius block for leveling frets, As @howard mentioned, it will lower surrounding frets. I would use a fret rocker (or a small straight edge), try tapping down the high fret. If you do have to level the frets, I recommend using a short, flat steel file.
If you use a file to level, you can hear a loose fret. It will make a noticable high(?) frequency “chirp” as you go across the loose fret. If this takes place, you need to secure the loose fret (by tapping down/gluing) before go further with the fret level.
As for the bridge situation, I go with replacing the bridge, no mods involved, and low cost replacements available.
