Fret Buzz : acceptable or not?

#63
Guild B301 said:
I am starting this post, out of a question on another thread. How many of you play a bass with fret buzz? How many of you cannot stand fret buzz? I hate fret buzz on my basses. I have friends who have it & just ignore it. It used to be expected that it should be eliminated, no matter what, because it was a defect. In music shops, it seems there are more new basses that have buzz, than there used to be. Is that ok with some of you? What’s your opinion?
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I hate it.
 
#64
Personal preference, for sure. I HATE fret buzz and purposely have higher "than average/spec" action on my basses to try to avoid this. However, I still get it occasionally, especially when using a pick, which I do about 40% of the time. I'm learning to live with the occasional "buzz".
 
#65
FB is the #1.5 reason I quit playing the fretted bass many years ago and went to the FL. The rattling, clinking and tinkling was #1, but the buzzing was all rolled up in reason #1 too into one big ol fat reason #1 :).

Only to discover, unfortunately, the buzzes happen on the FL as well, and you have to take as much care on an FL, if not more, to make sure the fingerboard is as flat and free of dips and humps etc as possible.

But it's a little more controllable on the FL, and the awful rattling is almost completely gotten rid of. You do get string slap against the board, which can mimic the clicking noise, but it's significantly reduced. And it's not as hard to learn to play FL completely free of the slapping too.

Circumstances may drive me back to the fretted bass at some point, though, where I'd have to revisit getting rid of the noise The Old Fashioned Way (with EQ).... But that may still be a ways off.

L
 
#66
Fret buzz under normal playing conditions was the sound of $ to me a long time ago.

You need a capo, appropriate hand tools for your hardware, initial spec #s, know how to adjust to diff string behavior/gauges not used by factory.

It's also nice to have a strobe tuner.

If YouTube existed 25 years ago a lot of people here would be famous to some degree bc we would log constantly the same issues on customer instruments bc a bunch of them try to get out of paying their invoice or something else would need attention they wouldn't pay for and we would get the blame.
 
#75
Guild B301 said:
I am starting this post, out of a question on another thread. How many of you play a bass with fret buzz? How many of you cannot stand fret buzz? I hate fret buzz on my basses. I have friends who have it & just ignore it. It used to be expected that it should be eliminated, no matter what, because it was a defect. In music shops, it seems there are more new basses that have buzz, than there used to be. Is that ok with some of you? What’s your opinion?
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I agree with another poster that there is a semantic difference between "rasp" and "fretbuzz". Rasp is a buzz you get from plucking too hard for your string height. It's no big secret that the lower your strings are to the fretboard, the less forcefully you can pluck before you start getting clack and buzz in your tone. Now, to many people and in many styles, that's not a bad sound; it adds a rhythmic element to your playing and gives an edge to your tone. Fieldy made a very successful career of treating his bass as a percussion instrument, as did countless thumbstyle players from Larry Graham onward. If it's consistent and reproducible all over the fretboard, and most importantly, you can easily not do it by backing off on your plucking intensity, it's fine.

Fretbuzz, OTOH, is buzz you can't control with technique, or at least not without unacceptable changes in dynamics from note to note. Fretbuzz is the sound of a bad setup; unlevel frets cause fretbuzz when playing a low fret near a high one. Too little neck relief causes fretbuzz in first position. Too much relief causes fretbuzz in the upper first octave (7th-12th frets). A bump at the neck joint, or a ski-slope at the very highest frets due to improper shimming, causes buzz in the upper octave (or if severe enough, everywhere. Too low an action for the player's plucking style also causes buzz just about everywhere, because the action is too low for that player and they can't or won't tame their pluck (even if it would be perfect for someone else with a lighter touch).

Rasp, I don't personally mind. It's not an intentional or integral part of my tone, but I do tend to clack a bit in the hooks of the more upbeat songs. It just happens and I don't mind it that much. I do not, however, accept fretbuzz; if I can't play a note, however quietly, without buzz, or if one fret buzzes but the next played at the same dynamic does not, that's a problem and I don't tolerate it. If I can fix the problem myself, I will (and every bassist should be competent in following basic instrument setup instructions; neck relief, string height, intonation), if I can't I take it to a luthier for a fret leveling/dressing and setup.
 
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#78
I can't stand it on my D/G strings, but favor it a bit on my B/E/A (mostly B/E), and that's how I set mine up. I play exclusively with a pick, and love the sound I get with the low strings vibrating against the frets when digging in.
 
#79
HalfManHalfBass said:
It's very unusual that a bass will play well or comfortably at 2mm -it's better to stagger the heights in accordance with the string gauge. For example, my 4 string basses are all 1.5 at the 12th fret on the G, going to 1.75 on the E.

I don't think anyone except Jamerson could play at 6mm across the neck! I was just trying to make the point that to totally eliminate buzzing while playing with every technique it would require something ridiculous. :)
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Most people have slightly higher action on the low strings mine actually goes 2.25 to 1.75.
 
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