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Permalink Reply by Dan Sleep on August 5, 2011 at 11:42am

Do you have the strings riding directly on top of the rod piezo? If so, that may be part of your problem. Typically, folks put the rod underneath the bridge/saddle. Having a brass rod for the bridge, with the piezo underneath the wood would work better.

 

Using a brass rod for the bridge will help with the sustain.

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Permalink Reply by Printer2 on August 5, 2011 at 5:50pm

Actually it rings with the piezo removed. Will try the rod though.

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Permalink Reply by Clock The Wolf on August 5, 2011 at 6:01pm

What about the nut? Could that be it? Or at least contributing to the problem? Almost all ringing and buzzing problems I've had, at least relating to the strings, has been the fault of the dang-fool nut!

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Permalink Reply by Dan Sleep on August 6, 2011 at 12:26am

From the pictures, it looks like you are using a zero fret?

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on August 6, 2011 at 1:18am

Printer,

OK, now I'm probably gonna come across like your least favorite online tech support guy, but in diagnosing a problem long distance with only a (very nice build, BTW!) pic for a reference, we gotta follow some kinda script, right?

Annoying tech support: "Is your machine plugged in and turned on...munchmunchmunchswig..."
You: "WTF??!!"

But seriously...
How are your strings tuned? If they are tuned 1-5-1, then you'll get some sympathetic vibration on the 1's; I can actually see this even on my commercially-produced 6-string acoustics. And on those, my standard-tuned A string vibrates, because most commercially-produced guitar soundboards are tuned to vibrate at that frequency. But even with sympathetic vibes, you can't actually hear this. Hmmm.

Another consideration, from looking at your pic, is that you have the strings touching the rod piezo, which is mounted to a relatively thin-but-wide piece of wood, which is then mounted to a much smaller, completely different type of wood. This suggests you are concentrating the string vibration to a relatively small area of the
soundboard, through two pieces of wood which transmit vibrations differently. You might want to try, as others have suggested, 1) mounting the piezo into a much wider, larger, thicker bridge piece (look at some of the bridges on the very highly finished guitars from the master builders around here, and at commercially-produced guitars; most have a relatively wide, long bridge) and 2) using a brass or other metal saddle. The wider bridge will spread the string vibrations out over more of the soundboard, and the metal saddle will help some to increase sustain. You could also adjust the bridge height and experiment a bit by using different saddle thicknesses and materials. This leads me to another possibility.

From the pic, it also looks like you have a pretty low action. Yet another consideration, since you appear, as Dan has noted, to be using a zero fret, would be to get a metal straightedge, and check your fret heights along the neck, including the zero fret. You may not be getting enough string break, at either the saddle or the nut. How high (or low) are your strings at the 1st and 12th frets? It looks like you have an angled headstock, so this may not be a problem, but it can't hurt to check.

Finally, also from the pic, it looks like you have wedged a small piece of wood between your 2nd and 3rd strings as a string tree. That right there is transmitting a lot of vibration from your 3 to your 2 string! Try separating them further by either a screw mounted more toward the center of your headstock, for the 2 string to pass around, or maybe use a small eyelet screw for the 2 string to pass through. As The Offspring used to say, you gotta keep 'em separated! ;-) In fact, thinking about this some more, you might want to start at the string tree, then modify the bridge / saddle. I'd bet some combination of these mods at least mitigates your problem.

Oily

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on August 6, 2011 at 1:52am

Printer,

Oops, forgot to add something else to consider. I know many people here have successfully used zero frets and brass saddles without string slots, but another area of investigation might be to try a slotted saddle, and / or slotted nut. Carve 'em out of some scrap wood just to test the idea, to see if that could also help. Reason I mention it is that it occurred to me that all your strings are essentially vibrating sideways along two metal rods: your piezo, and your zero fret. Seating the strings in their own string slots concentrates the string vibration at only those points. Isn't this fun?

Oily

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Permalink Reply by Printer2 on August 6, 2011 at 2:40am

Thank you all for your replies. Oilyfool, you give answers like I do on other forums. Lot of words covering all the angles. All good things to look at but last night I found that when I fret the strings that they do not ring but when they are open they do, looks like Cloockwork is the winner.

 

The picture was a quickie after I first strung it up. The action is low, zero fret nut (did it because I thought it would save me from nut related problems, live and learn). Found out that is not a good thing for slide (hey I am new at this :)  ), actually thought this would be a good way to go and if I wanted to play slide I would insert a temporary nut at the 0 fret.

 

I replaced the wood bridge with a big threaded rod coupler this morning and it evened out the attack envelope (I make up these terms on the fly), the sound has more sustain, less initial attack, need to find some brass to use. 

 

So I tried tuning the strings so they are not in tune with each other. No ringing. Hmmm... that brings up an interesting question. I wonder if there is such a thing as punk slide? So narrowing it down to the nut I am not sure what to do. You mentioned the break angle, here is a picture in both configurations I tried.

 

Speaking of, how high should I be shooting for the string height if I want some slide action and still be able to fret cords?

Attachments:

• IMG_8846 1.JPG, 171 KB

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on August 6, 2011 at 2:56am

Printer,

Yep, I'm wordy. Sorry, just my nature (as I remind people who know me, my last name IS Sprague, which is Anglicized Dutch for "to speak" ;-) ).

As usual, detail provides an answer. Your second pic, and Clockwork's nut grab, so to speak, show the nature of the original problem, and the solution. This is a great pic for showing others how to cure a number of build issues. Your strings were in contact with both the zero fret and the end of the fret board, and as suspected, with a low action, not enough string break angle, plus two points of string contact. Two points of contact = ringing. Raising the nut with a threaded bolt now gives you multiple good solutions: 1) increased string break, increasing sustain, 2) single point of contact for each string, increasing sustain and creating a single node for vibration, and 3) string separation due to the threads, so no string trees needed. Does increasing the string height give you problems fretting, though?

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on August 6, 2011 at 3:19am

P,

Just read the last sentence in your reply, after posting my last. The experienced builders / players can give you a steer on proper string height for fretting + slide. Keni Lee Burgess, Chickenbone John, Wichita Sam, can all give you good advice, or you can search the discussions here for same; Building A Cigar Box Guitar 101, The Beginner's Club, and Searching laboriously for "string height" are other places to look.

I am a newbie CBG builder as well; my comments come from having owned and played lots of cheap to expensive commercially produced guitars over the last 35 years, dealing with these same issues on the cheap ones, and being something of a nosey cuss due to my science background ;-). I like analyzing other people's problems.

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Permalink Reply by Printer2 on August 6, 2011 at 4:06am

Actually I still have the problem with the bolt in place at the nut. And I guess it does not show well enough in this picture, I reduced the size in order to conserve space, there is no string contact on the fretboard above the  zero nut. On the original you can see the shadow below the strings. Oh and yes, fretting is bad with this height but it is only a temporary measure till I work out my problems.

 

I do not have much experience with guitars, I am just learning to play, I have a L&G Tele I bought last year and a cheap acoustic. The Tele, well it is as good a guitar as I might want, the acoustic actually turned out not too bad once the string height was lowered. That said this three string is fun to play. Thinking of turning it into a four string though. Wish I would have placed the tuners a little farther up or down the headstock though. Through the magic of Photoshop I tried too different arrangements. Not sure what I will do yet.

 

 

Attachments:

• tuner options.JPG, 84 KB

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on August 6, 2011 at 5:00am

P,

L&G makes a nice guitar.

Instead of trying to correct everything on your first build, most of the longtime builders will tell you, just build another one, fixing one or two issues at a time. The idea being that these are relatively cheap to do.

This is exactly why I offered multiple lines of investigation. Sometimes it's one factor, sometimes it is multiple factors working together to create the problem / solution. And sometimes, we just overthink these things ;-).

Can you post a sound or video file to illustrate the problem better? I'm curious to hear / see the issue now that you've changed the nut. I've been diagnosing intonation / fret buzz problems on my own guitars for years, and they can be difficult to diagnose for the pros who do it on hundreds of guitars per year.

Anyone else got any idears?

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Permalink Reply by Dan Sleep on August 6, 2011 at 5:18am

Whew, all this information is making me feel like a slacker!! :-)

 

Part of me wants to suggest you just leave the ringing issue for the time being. I suppose it depends on just how bad the sympathetic ringing is. Is it that bad that you really need to resolve it? I realize that the problem is most likely magnified when you have it plugged into an amp as opposed to plucking the strings acoustically.

 

Maybe as a test, make a couple of really small bridge pieces, and slip them under the strings so that all three strings are not supported by the same bridge material. Then see if that reduces the problem at all. That might help identify if it is a lateral vibration that is causing the problem.

 

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