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That's encouraging. I play an L-00 too, those are sweet guitars. I think I'll investigate this further because one or more frets over the body on my j-45 are indeed high. Can't remember at the moment exactly which one. I've always been under the impression that since the action is so much higher at that end of the board, and I don't play those frets, that it didn't matter that much if one was a bit higher. I'd be happy to be wrong in this instance, because that would be an easy fix, all things considered.

I think this is pretty sound advice. At least, it's easier to drive the 45 minutes to GC before boxing the guitar up and shipping it to Montana.

Sure thing. When I mashed down on the string at the 3rd fret, I noticed a *very* slight rise in the string at about the 5th fret. I think of it like a see-saw. Imagine being at playground after a fresh rain and the ground is soft and muddy beneath the see-saw. If you push one end of the see-saw down really hard, the muddy earth will give a little, and the opposite end of the see-saw rises just that much more. It's just barely noticeable to the naked eye, but it's there. Since the string does rise ever so slightly, it supports the notion of a high fret, thus the fret rocker. I've practically always been under the impression that the frets over the body don't particularly matter, which has been reinforced all these years because I've never had as puzzling an issue as this. And to the naked eye, it doesn't appear that the strings are making contact with those high frets. Additionally, I dismissed it because the source of the buzz/rattle very much seems to be coming from the bridge. But from what reading I'm doing, this isn't all that uncommon. So I may yet investigate a board leveling, fretwork, or both.

I checked this out yesterday during a string change. Even though my guitar has the pearloid bridge dots on either side of the pins, there are no screws protruding through the other side. I find this a bit odd. But anyways, I can eliminate this as a suspect.

Thanks for your story. I did buy the J-45 brand new, and there are a couple Gibson authorized dealers nearby, one of which sold me the guitar and installed the Anthem pickup. I will not go back there, because when I picked up the guitar after the pickup installation, I discovered the pickup didn't work. Lucky for me, when I found this out, it was because I plugged in at home to test it right before leaving for a gig. It would have been embarrassing to show up to the gig otherwise. Nothing wrong with the pickup, it was an installation issue. I took the guitar back to the shop and he had it operational in five minutes. But it proved to me that at least sometimes, the tech doesn't check his work. Very discouraging. I might take it over to the other shop (a Guitar Center), but I'm not optimistic. Escalating to Gibson might be a good idea if all else fails.

WOW! Some new things to investigate. I will start with the ceiling fan.🤓 Thanks all, I will check back in here as I go down the list.

No, I'm not doing any muting on the rest strokes, other than the pick coming to rest on the next string toward the floor--a de facto mute. But again, my touch is not all that aggressive. The weight of my arm is mostly what's driving my pick through the string, and the string that the pick comes to rest on isn't contacting any frets as a result of the impact. I'm having trouble visualizing what you mean by "when you push down like a good player you lift the string higher up the neck". When you push down with your fretting hand? How does that lift the string higher up the neck? At any rate, I truly don't think my technique is at issue. As I said, this guitar is the outlier among many guitars. I have an L-00 with very similar setup specs that I can play the same way, and I don't get this very particular noise. But anyways, thanks for your response. I'll probably figure it out eventually.

Hello all. I originally posted this in Repair/Restoration, and user Dave F suggested that I'd receive more feedback if posted here. I joined specifically hoping to zero in on a fix for a perplexing buzz/rattle I hear from my '20 J-45. It's not normal fret buzz. The action at the 12th fret is 6/64" bass side, 4/64" treble side. Pretty typical. The action at the nut is OK--when I fret at the 3rd fret, there's enough clearance that I hear a little "plink" when I tap the string down over the 1st fret. The noise comes from the area of the bridge, but I haven't pinpointed its exact location. It appears under specific conditions: While I am playing "rest strokes" (in my playing, this is normally the bass notes of a bluegrass style "boom-chick" rhythm) with a flatpick (higher dynamics than finger style) in the low register of the instrument (it is most pronounced on the 5th string C3, but can be heard on the 4th and 6th strings at various fret positions to a lesser extent) I haven't encountered this specific issue on any other guitar I've played--even guitars that cost 10% of what I paid for my J-45. I don't think my playing is to blame--my touch is on the lighter end of the spectrum. Nonetheless, it seems the problem has something to do with the energy going into instrument during a rest stroke. Perhaps frequency plays a part, too? The guitar has been inspected at three different shops in my area, including one which has a sterling reputation (the 12th Fret in Portland, OR, where it was set up after I bought it). The feedback I've received has ranged from "I don't hear anything" to "I hear the problem but I can't figure it out". I've had some fairly typical post-market work done to the instrument: the installation of a bone nut and saddle, and an LR Baggs Anthem. To the best of my recollection, I first noticed the noise after the Anthem was installed. At first, I thought that was the problem, and after a lot of back and forth between Sweetwater, Caleb at Baggs, and the shop that did the installation, I returned the original Anthem and got a replacement from Sweetwater. The issue persisted after the replacement was installed. It's not the pickup. I read on multiple forum threads that the endpin jack can be problematic, so I fooled around with that a bit (even though the noise is clearly not coming from that area of the guitar). It's not the endpin jack. Ditto tuning machines. I've also tried putting the original saddle back in, installing different bridge pins, inspecting the pickup wires and mic module (inside the guitar), installing a variety of different strings. I gave the neck just smidgen more relief (it's probably at about .014). No dice. I gave up in frustration and for months, I dealt with it as best as I could. Grin and bear it, ya know? I'll sometimes go weeks playing exclusively finger style, under which condition the noise isn't as prevalent (but never completely a non-issue). I periodically try to troubleshoot it by producing the rattle and holding my head close to the guitar to try pinpointing it, and having my wife touch/damp various guitar/pickup parts to see if it disappears. Without exception, this ends in frustration. Yesterday I revisited it again. I produced and isolated the noise by playing rest strokes at C3 , and for no real good reason, I tried something I hadn't thought of before: mashing down on the string very hard with my fretting finger. The noise disappeared! Adapting my playing to work around the noise, in light of this discovery, is out of the question for three reasons: mashing the string down that hard defies principles of good fretting technique, and besides, the pressure required to make the rattle disappear causes the pitch to go significantly sharp furthermore, I paid what I view as a lot of money for a fine acoustic instrument--I want my money's worth Nonetheless, this is the first break I've had in understanding the problem. My first idea--not sure why--was to check the frets with my handy Stew-Mac fret rocker. They look pretty darn level until up around where it doesn't matter. So I've made some progress, but again, I'm stumped. Y'all have any fresh ideas? Thanks for your consideration.

Thanks for the tip, I'll do that now.

Hello all. Thank you for reading my first post on the forum. I joined specifically hoping to zero in on a fix for a perplexing buzz/rattle I hear from my '20 J-45. It's not normal fret buzz. The action at the 12th fret is 6/64" bass side, 4/64" treble side. Pretty typical. The action at the nut is OK--when I fret at the 3rd fret, there's enough clearance that I hear a little "plink" when I tap the string down over the 1st fret. The noise comes from the area of the bridge, but I haven't pinpointed its exact location. It appears under specific conditions: While I am playing "rest strokes" (in my playing, this is normally the bass notes of a bluegrass style "boom-chick" rhythm) with a flatpick (higher dynamics than finger style) in the low register of the instrument (it is most pronounced on the 5th string C3, but can be heard on the 4th and 6th strings at various fret positions to a lesser extent) I haven't encountered this specific issue on any other guitar I've played--even guitars that cost 10% of what I paid for my J-45. I don't think my playing is not at fault--my touch is on the lighter end of the spectrum. Nonetheless, it seems the problem has something to do with the energy going into instrument during a rest stroke. Perhaps frequency plays a part, too? The guitar has been inspected at three different shops in my area, including one which has a sterling reputation (the 12th Fret in Portland, OR, where it was set up after I bought it). The feedback I've received has ranged from "I don't hear anything" to "I hear the problem but I can't figure it out". I've had some fairly typical post-market work done to the instrument: the installation of a bone nut and saddle, and an LR Baggs Anthem. To the best of my recollection, I first noticed the noise after the Anthem was installed. At first, I thought that was the problem, and after a lot of back and forth between Sweetwater, Caleb at Baggs, and the shop that did the installation, I returned the original Anthem and got a replacement from Sweetwater. The issue persisted after the replacement was installed. It's not the pickup. I read on multiple forum threads that the endpin jack can be problematic, so I fooled around with that a bit (even though the noise is clearly not coming from that area of the guitar). It's not the endpin jack. Ditto tuning machines. I've also tried putting the original saddle back in, installing different bridge pins, inspecting the pickup wires and mic module (inside the guitar), installing a variety of different strings. I gave the neck just smidgen more relief (it's probably at about .014). No dice. I gave up in frustration and for months, I dealt with it as best as I could. Grin and bear it, ya know? I'll sometimes go weeks playing exclusively finger style, under which condition the noise isn't as prevalent (but never completely a non-issue). I periodically try to troubleshoot it by producing the rattle and holding my head close to the guitar to try pinpointing it, and having my wife touch/damp various guitar/pickup parts to see if it disappears. Without exception, this ends in frustration. Yesterday I revisited it again. I produced and isolated the noise by playing rest strokes at C3 , and for no real good reason, I tried something I hadn't thought of before: mashing down on the string very hard with my fretting finger. The noise disappeared! Adapting my playing to work around the noise, in light of this discovery, is out of the question for three reasons: mashing the string down that hard defies principles of good fretting technique, and besides, the pressure required to make the rattle disappear causes the pitch to go significantly sharp furthermore, I paid what I view as a lot of money for a fine acoustic instrument--I want my money's worth Nonetheless, this is the first break I've had in understanding the problem. My first idea--not sure why--was to check the frets with my handy Stew-Mac fret rocker. They look pretty darn level until up around where it doesn't matter. So I've made some progress, but again, I'm stumped. Y'all have any fresh ideas? Thanks for your consideration.