So i bought a new jazz bass! But i have a problem…

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Bassed123

Jun 5, 2021
23
23
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#1
Bought a brand new jazz bass. In the store the setup was incredibly horrible. I got it home and spent about 3 hours setting it up and it is amazing to play and none of the frets are buzzing, except for Fret 3,4 and 5 om the G string. Its extremely annoying, and i have no idea whats causing it. If the rest of frets were buzzing than i would understand, but its just those three, and its bad.
The strings on the bass are probably like three years old, there is no life in them. Could this cause the fret buzz? Or maybe the frets above are too high in the spot? The relief and string height is fender specs.
 
#4
Warpeg said:
You bought this new, correct? If so, then why not have the shop make it right?
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The shop dont do setups really. I asked the guy to set it up and he went away for like an hour and came back with no difference in the bass. Unless the new heavier gauge strings help then im getting a professional set up.
 
#5
rickster4003 said:
As long as the strings are not indented from many people picking up the bass and playing, it is a matter of string height adjustment and truss rod adjustment. You can walk that buzz right down the neck until it is gone assuming strings and frets are good and equal.
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Would you say it needs more relief? Do the fender specs have too little relief? I guess i could loosen the truss rod but then id have to lower the saddles alot. I read somewhere that if it buzzes on the first frets then it needs more relief and if it buzzes only on last it needs tightening. Im just worried about making the relief too loose.
 
#10
I'm just assuming that you at least somewhat know what you're doing.

When the string hight of your bass is quite low and the neck is rather straight, it may be, that if the snarling occurs only on a few frets and strings, the bass has some frets that are not properly leveled and therefore some are higher than the others. In this case you would have to locate these and work them a bit.

Have a look in these Vids, maybe they help.





 
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#12
Klangfarbe said:
I'm just assuming that you at least somewhat know what you're doing.

When the string hight of your bass is quite low and the neck is rather straight, it may be, that if the snarling occurs only on a few frets and strings, the bass has some frets that are not properly leveled and therefore some are higher than the others. In this case you would have to locate these and work them a bit.

Have a look in these Vids, maybe they help.





Click to expand...

Thank you! I will add more relief and hope for the best. Seems like a lot of different sites agree that buzzing on lower frets = too straight.
 
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#14
Bikeguy57 said:
Raise the action on the G string slowly until it goes away. Messing with the relief after its correctly set is not the answer. Check your frets with a fret rocker.
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Problem is that its not correctly set, i did the setup, and im by no means an expert. I very well may have done something wrong. Raising the G string did not help without it becoming completely unplayable. I will try it as the video and manu others suggest
 
#17
If raising the G didn't help, it probably won't be bad frets, more likely just loose the truss rod say half a turn and try again. There's no real need to do the setup by fender measurements. The right setting up follows this row: set the truss rod, then set the saddles height, then set the octaves. Many videos on YouTube. You can't really harm anything if you use common sense.
If you're planning to change the strings soon, do it now. Strings may affect the setup too.
 
#18
Start with making sure relief is correct. Fret the E string at the first fret and the fret where the neck joins the body at the same time. See how much distance is between the bottom of the string and the top of the seventh fret. That's the relief. How does that compare to the Fender spec? It's important to do that first.

If you can't get it to stop buzzing at those frets on the G string with the relief set correctly, and it's good on the other string I'd suspect problem frets, but unusual to have the problem on only one string.
 
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#19
Bassed123 said:
Bought a brand new jazz bass. In the store the setup was incredibly horrible. I got it home and spent about 3 hours setting it up and it is amazing to play and none of the frets are buzzing, except for Fret 3,4 and 5 om the G string. Its extremely annoying, and i have no idea whats causing it. If the rest of frets were buzzing than i would understand, but its just those three, and its bad.
The strings on the bass are probably like three years old, there is no life in them. Could this cause the fret buzz? Or maybe the frets above are too high in the spot? The relief and string height is fender specs.
Click to expand...
If the seller won't adjust it...Check the height of the G string with a ruler and see how it relates to the other strings. Replace the string maybe? If everything measures fine and string isn't hosed, loosen the truss rod a little less than a 1/4 turn and see if that helps.
 
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#20
First you mention that you didn't replace the strings yet, put the strings you use on before making adjustments, no need to adjust it for strings you won't be keeping.
Second if you made a lot of adjustments it could take over night at least for the neck to settle in, that buzzing may go away or get worse, I would wait and check relief again in the morning.
Third if you get everything set where you want it but just a bit of buzzing on the G then I would raise the G until it goes away, then see if you can live with that height on the G or not.
 
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