Is this buzzing acceptable?

[BillyC]

Well I certainly think not.

 

I have a Gibson ES-175 custom with gold hardware. I purchased it through my music store, Alto Music about 8 months ago. I got it set up with a 13-56 gauge string set in the store, but my luck with their tech has been horrible. For some reason, the strings were binding at the nut; they would stick when tuning and all of a sudden make a click noise and force the string sharp even after the first time I took it in for a setup to get the nut slots widened. After two more returns (the last of which I physically watched the idiot file away at it), the strings don't bind anymore, but they are sooo much wider than they need to be it seems, and the action at the nut seems like it can't be precise at all because I know for a fact the tech didn't measure a thing, he just filed away to shut me up. At factory bridge settings, (3/64" at the treble and 5/64" at the bass above the 12th fret) I still get very audible, amplified, and needless to say annoying fret buzz (I'm positive it's fret buzz) between the 11th and 14th frets. This doesn't include the annoying body buzz I get from suspected wires touching the top of the body inside. I don't know if the frets are out of level (I already got one of them leveled before on one of these trips back) but it's pissing me off big time. I KNOW what you're thinking: "Well of course you have problems, they set it up at the factory with 10 gauge strings and you've switched to 13s! However, if this is your mindset, you're wrong for several different reasons. 1, the guitar (more importantly, the bridge height) wasn't even at factory settings when I purchased it and it played pretty good with the 10 gauge factory strings, it was higher. 2) who knows how badly the careless idiot tech screwed up the fretboard and action at the nut over the various times I've taken it in? and 3, IT IS A DAMN GIBSON. IT COST ME WELL OVER 2000 DOLLARS. IT SHOULD PLAY PERFECTLY AT FACTORY SETTINGS (OR EVEN LOWER) WITH ANY GAUGE STRING I LIKE.

 

So if you all take these issues to be unacceptable for a high end Gibson, then I'm pretty sure I'm sharing all this with Gibson through Alto Music in the hopes of getting a free replacement since it is still under warranty. Any objections/thoughts?

[L5Larry]

when I purchased it and it played pretty good with the 10 gauge factory strings... who knows how badly the careless idiot tech screwed up the fretboard and action at the nut over the various times I've taken it in?

 

You clearly state above "the guitar played pretty good" when you purchased it. So there was no problem when the guitar was shipped from the factory, or sold to you by the retailer. Not only was the setup "pretty good", you make no claims against "defects in materials and workmanship", which it what is covered by the Gibson warranty.

 

Your problems seems to have been created by an inexperienced or unqualified tech, while doing the conversion and setup to the heavier guage strings. There is no reason that a qualified tech shouldn't be able to do a setup to make that guitar play like butter with 13's.

 

To me, your claim clearly lies with Alto Music (as employer of the tech), not with Gibson.

[BillyC]

You clearly state above "the guitar played pretty good" when you purchased it. So there was no problem when the guitar was shipped from the factory, or sold to you by the retailer. Not only was the setup "pretty good", you make no claims against "defects in materials and workmanship", which it what is covered by the Gibson warranty..

 

Yes, but I also said that the guitar was not at factory settings when I purchased it; the action was slightly above factory (what I want and deserve) to compensate for the "defects in materials and workmanship", which included the unleveled fret that I had worked on. However, there are still more unleveled frets in the area that I specified in the neck, because the neck seems to be at a reasonably healthy curvature to my knowledge (although it could be a little straighter). While I did say that it may or may not be the fault of the tech, the fact of the matter is that when I purchased it, the action was higher than factory specifications, which I believe was a lazy attempt by Gibson to compensate for a faulty fret job.

[vincentw]

What year is your ES-175? We've been Plekking these since 2008. It's unlikely to be uneven frets.

[BillyC]

Mine is a 2008 based on the Pre-Pack Checklist it came with.

[BillyC]

I really do think it is uneven frets. If I lay a straight edge in the problem area, it rocks slightly, if that's any indication of the problem. And like I said, I had one really bad fret already re leveled (how well, I don't quite know.)

[AlanC]

In my view, the simplest way forward is to find a genuinely good tech and get him to have a look. If you are unlucky enough it may need a new nut but finding a replacement would be easy given that the guitar is almost brand new.

 

I've had techs almost ruin a couple of my guitars. I had an SJ200 Gibson Acoustic and the tech had two goes at it and told me that the neck was quite bad. After I got it back it was almost unplayable. I took it to someone else who said that all the guitar needed was a good set up. He fixed it and now its great. Some of the tech's have absolutely no idea!!

[milod]

You may laugh at this, but it happened to me...

 

Check how the pick guard is touching or not touching the bridge pickup assembly.

 

If it's touching anywhere around there, get a little piece of felt that they sell to put on the bottom of lamps and stuff to protect your furniture, and put it under the pick guard.

 

I had a certain hollowbody sitting in the closet for nearly 25 years because of the buzz that no string changes, no adjustments could shake. Then I had a wild idea and... there was the buzz that even seemed to be as bad electrified as acoustic. It was gone with an incredibly inexpensive mod.

 

m

[Robin Nahum]

Hi Billy,

 

I have had bad experience with incompetent techs over the years and I can imagine how frustrated you are. If such techs are associated with a shop, it's usually a symptom of a short-term business perspective largely focused on moving stock and keeping costs down.

 

I'm with the other guys. I would get it looked at by a competent tech who will advise what needs to be done and where the responsibility for remedy lies.

 

It might be an idea to ask Gibson to recommend a few in your area so that you are working from an agreed baseline. If you wish, you could then post the list here and ask people who they know and recommend.

 

If the tech considers that the responsibility for remedy lies with Alto Music

 

http://www.altomusic.com/altoweb/get?dept=100

 

(who, it appears do not carry Gibsons anymore) you then have to decide whether you want them to have another go at it.

 

If it lies with Gibson, and you need to ship the guitar back to them for who knows how long, and brief the repairer at a distance, there will be no opportunity for you to try it out and give feedback while the work is in progress or when you pick it up.

 

I suspect that getting the setup right shouldn't be a major job and, for the money involved (even if you need to replace the nut), it will be easiest to just get the competent tech to sort it out. And you will also have the ongoing benefit of the relationship. When you are taking your instruments seriously, competent guitar and amp techs are a must.

 

I have only a limited familiarity with NYC music stores but I wonder if Mandolin Brothers on Staten Island would be an option for you? They specialise in guitars for acoustic and jazz and I am pretty sure that Gibson would recommend them.

 

RN

[BillyC]

You may laugh at this, but it happened to me...

 

Check how the pick guard is touching or not touching the bridge pickup assembly.

 

If it's touching anywhere around there, get a little piece of felt that they sell to put on the bottom of lamps and stuff to protect your furniture, and put it under the pick guard.

 

I had a certain hollowbody sitting in the closet for nearly 25 years because of the buzz that no string changes, no adjustments could shake. Then I had a wild idea and... there was the buzz that even seemed to be as bad electrified as acoustic. It was gone with an incredibly inexpensive mod.

 

Well that may be the solution to my other less important unamplified buzzing.

 

But as for the fret buzz, is it really true that heavier gauge strings require higher action? Doesn't the extra tension minimize the radius of it's vibration? And if it is true, shouldn't a high end Gibson be able to handle factory settings?

[milod]

Billy... Robin and others offer good info...

 

But as for the buzzing, I swear the #@$%#@$% buzzing on mine was through the amp too. All kidding aside, she went back into the case for 25 years after two weeks of messing with everything I could think of on the guitar.

 

I though I'd had things "fixed" but took my nice shiny new guitar to do a gig and it buzzed no matter what I did. String buzz I was certain. It came through the amp playing some country rock in a saloon, so you might imagine it was more obvious than just an "acoustic" buzz.

 

It was a local gig so during break I stretched time a bit and headed to the house for my "faithful" Guild SG clone. Yeah, it doesn't sound possible that an odd pick guard buzz would affect the electrified sound, but it did.

 

Also I think any given setup - factory or not - on a fine guitar assumes a certain generalized playing style. Most people who try to play my two "sweetheart" guitars usually have problems from the way I have a very low action and light strings set up for a very light finger style of playing. In fact, if the nails on my right hand get just a little long, I get a very, very different response from the instruments' setup - including not so much a buzz but some other sound artifacts.

 

I'd add to Robin that given your frustration, after you find a craftsman approved by Gibson, you further find a way you can play the way you wanna play in a gig while he/she is watching - then mutually decide what sorta playing, strings and action combine to meet your style. "Factory" is a general setup for a general string and a general playing style... Not yours.

 

There's more to string tension, too, than gauge. That's also part of why I recommend a craftsman. And no, a high end Gibson may handle factory settings for somebody, but be horridly clumsy for me and buzz for your playing style.

 

m

[BillyC]

All very true. It's just that I think the factory settings are perfect for me, and I play jazz, so I'm really not heavy handed with it at all.

[badbluesplayer]

I can only guess what's going on, but I would be suspicious that if anybody messed with the frets, they may have caused the problems. I would be very reluctant to start messing with a pleked guitar. You know the tech didn't do a good job on the nut. If I had to guess, I'd say the fret buzz is probably due to trying to "fix" a pleked fretboard.

 

Sounds like they messed up the guitar when they worked on it. It doesn't sound like a problem from the factory. You might want to try a different shop or find a better luthier. If it were me, I would never take the guitar back to somebody who already messed it up.

 

I understand if you want the shop to make good on their work. But they've already messed the thing up. They might just keep messing it up.

 

Another suggestion - Avoid looking over somebody's shoulder when they're working on something for you. Not the cable guy, not your HVAC repairman, not your luthier. People screw up way more when somebody's watching them.

 

Good luck - I hope you can find somebody to fix your guitar.

[Alto Music Wappingers]

Well I certainly think not.

 

I have a Gibson ES-175 custom with gold hardware. I purchased it through my music store' date=' Alto Music about 8 months ago. I got it set up with a 13-56 gauge string set in the store, but my luck with their tech has been horrible. For some reason, the strings were binding at the nut; they would stick when tuning and all of a sudden make a click noise and force the string sharp even after the first time I took it in for a setup to get the nut slots widened. After two more returns (the last of which I physically watched the idiot file away at it), the strings don't bind anymore, but they are sooo much wider than they need to be it seems, and the action at the nut seems like it can't be precise at all because I know for a fact the tech didn't measure a thing, he just filed away to shut me up. At factory bridge settings, (3/64" at the treble and 5/64" at the bass above the 12th fret) I still get very audible, amplified, and needless to say annoying fret buzz (I'm positive it's fret buzz) between the 11th and 14th frets. This doesn't include the annoying body buzz I get from suspected wires touching the top of the body inside. I don't know if the frets are out of level (I already got one of them leveled before on one of these trips back) but it's pissing me off big time. I KNOW what you're thinking: "Well of course you have problems, they set it up at the factory with 10 gauge strings and you've switched to 13s! However, if this is your mindset, you're wrong for several different reasons. 1, the guitar (more importantly, the bridge height) wasn't even at factory settings when I purchased it and it played pretty good with the 10 gauge factory strings, it was higher. 2) who knows how badly the careless idiot tech screwed up the fretboard and action at the nut over the various times I've taken it in? and 3, [b']IT IS A DAMN GIBSON.[/b] IT COST ME WELL OVER 2000 DOLLARS. IT SHOULD PLAY PERFECTLY AT FACTORY SETTINGS (OR EVEN LOWER) WITH ANY GAUGE STRING I LIKE.

 

So if you all take these issues to be unacceptable for a high end Gibson, then I'm pretty sure I'm sharing all this with Gibson through Alto Music in the hopes of getting a free replacement since it is still under warranty. Any objections/thoughts?

 

 

Hi Billy C., Dave from Alto Music here. I'm sorry to hear you are having problems with the 175. I have a call in to you to try to rectify the problem. I (we) try very hard to make sure that every customer is taken care of properly. We sell thousands of guitars every year and sometimes a few have issues. Considering it was purchased 8 months ago, I wish you had contacted a manager before posting this. My tech is Gibson authorized and quite competent. Please give me a call in the Wappingers store when you can. I'm sure we can resolve this. Thanks Dave 845 297 0011

[Alto Music Wappingers]

Hi Billy C., Dave from Alto Music here. I'm sorry to hear you are having problems with the 175. I have a call in to you to try to rectify the problem. I (we) try very hard to make sure that every customer is taken care of properly. We sell thousands of guitars every year and sometimes a few have issues. Considering it was purchased 8 months ago, I wish you had contacted a manager before posting this. My tech is Gibson authorized and quite competent. Please give me a call in the Wappingers store when you can. I'm sure we can resolve this. Thanks Dave 845 297 0011

[BillyC]

Well I'm very pleased to say that the Alto Music of Wappingers did an excellent job on my ES-175. It is now buzz-free with only a bit higher action, which turned out to be for the better. A fret job and reworking of the nut made this guitar play like it should. Thanks again.

[crazyhair]

What did they do, hide the other tech while someone else fixed it correctly? Too bad most businesses don't respond till they see the company name associated with bad publicity!

[Robin Nahum]

Well I'm very pleased to say that the Alto Music of Wappingers did an excellent job on my ES-175. It is now buzz-free with only a bit higher action' date=' which turned out to be for the better. A fret job and reworking of the nut made this guitar play like it should. Thanks again.[/quote']

 

Good one. Thank you for the update.

 

RN

[vincentw]

Thanks for the update. Glad to hear a good setup resolved the issue.

[milod]

If nothin' else, it looks as if the setup went rather quickly as well as giving good and expected performance for what I feel is perhaps the best overall Gibson design box ever.

 

But then ... <grin> ... I'll admit to some prejudice.

 

m