QUOTE (goldrush @ Aug 20 2004, 10:32 AM)
If you've checked all those things and couldn't find anything wrong it's probably intonation/action. Higher or lower than normal humidity can create changes in the wood which can affect action and intonation. The only other possibility would be the way you pluck those individual notes (too hard? too far away from the fret? pluck out instead of down?)
However, we will all await DADFAD's response.....
It might be something other than fret buzz. Some other "moving part". A loose truss-rod cover, bushing on a tuner-key, the string
inside the guitar under your saddle vibrating against the under-side or saddle-brace. Check everything you possibly can to see if it moves. Here's the most baffling one I ever had. A rattle I couldn't find (only in some Gs or it's fifth, D)... I checked everything... all the stuff above, I had masking tape on 90 % of the damn guitar inside and out. Braces, kerf, etc, etc. No luck. A guy I know at Gibson, their company "historian", said he'd heard of rare cases of a vibrating truss-rod
inside the neck. I checked it out with a stethoscope and that seemed to be it! The solution (shudder) remove the fretboard and expand the truss-rod cavity around the rod. Replace the fret-board, re-fret and re-finish. Not an easy task, and not something I really wanted to do to a '49 J-45 in pretty nice original condition. Then I got an idea. I took a can of that expanding foam crap you use for insulation. I made a tiny little nozzle from the red-thingy you get like with a can of WD-40 and made it fit the foam-nozzle. I listened to where the buzz sounded like it was coming from generally with a stethoscope. I took the nearest fret-dot (ninth fret) and cracked it with a center punch. I took a small drill bit and rotated it by hand through the dot-hole until I felt it break through into the truss-rod cavity. I stuck the little red-tube in and filled it as full as I could with the expanding crap. I figured what have I got to lose? Worst case is I have to do what I'd have to do anyway. Remove the fret-board and clean it out, etc, etc. So I squirted the stuff in, and then replaced the fret-dot. It worked (three-and a half years ago and counting). Rattle gone, no tonal changes. My buddy at Gibson thought I was crazy! What can I say! Hopefully it'll last until I'm some dead-guy and some luthier-of-the-future will scratch his head and wonder what the hell all this white sh!t is in here.
Anyway, if it isn't a fret. It's gotta be something moving, right?. If you're lucky, it's something outside you can find. It's a pain loosening your stings over and over and putting your hand in there wiggling bracings and all of that. Taping things down to eliminate them from the possibilities, etc. A stethoscope, like the cheap ones you might steal....er...I mean... find... around a hospital or exam-room, or even buy at a good drug store, can come in handy too when you're trying to find the general area. Good luck. I feel your frustration. (I have one now too in the not-too-distant-future. On a 1971 Gibson J-40. Not a great guitar, but a decent one. I don't play it often, but sooner or later (because it's getting slightly more noticeable) I'm gonna have to go through all of this again, and I've already checked the "easy stuff". (But I'll worry about it then!
) Anyway, those are a few possibilities. Hopefully it's something simple.
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