A few days ago I was doing M5 L1, and I was getting a lot of fret buzz on the D string. No matter how hard I pressed, it was buzzing like crazy.
After the lesson, I put down the bass and walked away despondent, fearing that the pro setup I paid for was a waste of money, and that I would have to either go back to a luthier or try to adjust the bass myself to get rid of the buzz.
Two days later, I picked up the bass again for another lesson. There was no buzz. I played and played on that string, and it didn’t buzz once.
I don’t know if it was the environment (temp/humidity change in my music room) or my technique, or a combination. I’m leaning more toward technique.
There’s a ton of things that could have caused that. The first ones that come to mind:
Temperature and humidity fluctuations - wood still moves long after it dies
Guitar settings - the tone knob on a passive and treble control on an active can cause a more noticeable buzzing. Maybe that got changed accidentally?
Compressor pedal/compression in general - It’s kind of like the fluorescent lights in a changing room. Every zit, knick, scar, blotch, crease, and flaw is highlighted at a disturbing magnitude. Disregard if not using one but keep in mind for the future considering every bass YouTube channel has at least 1 video saying “buy a compressor”.
PEBGAF - “Problem Exists Between Guitar and Floor”. In other words, you could have been doing something wrong and 2 days later it either ironed itself out or you were conscious enough of it that you inadvertently avoided what caused it. Usually digging in too hard with a lower action will result in a nasty buzz.
One of my guitars is set up with low action and has a slightly high 3rd fret (maybe like 5 to 10 thou high by eye/feel with the rocker) , it buzzes sporadically on E and A depending on temperature, humidity, and how aggressively I play it. Usually a tiny nudge of the truss rod makes it go away so I haven’t really messed with leveling or raising the action, it plays well otherwise.
You do say you’re leaning towards it being technique so you might be unconsciously noticing fretting errors. When I get a buzz I usually stop playing and investigate it, trying to find where it’s happening and what fretting it takes to induce it, and look for a pattern in where it happens and what you were doing. Do that routine enough and you’ll start to pick up what a fret buzz sounds and feels like and what an error sounds and feels like.
Some basic luthier tools from Amazon may also be helpful to have on hand, I got a fret rocker and fretboard straightedge for around $30 and that makes looking for problems/geometry changes a lot easier.
I’ll have to give that a shot. I think I have a urethane faced auto body dent pushing hammer around here and a couple taps sounds a lot safer than trying to freehand file it.