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Looking at the closeup of the bridge, and the slot for the E, John may be right on the money. Is the ball end up against the plate?

Also can you record the sound and post it? You can attach a small audio file to a post directly or post something to Soundcloud, YouTube, or whatever the kids are using these days.

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Years ago I had a good player come over to play my first banjo build. I had just strung it up and it sounded like a 4 and a half string Kazoo, a clear step beyond a Sitar. Leave it to a banjo player, he said he kinda liked it!

All the nut slots were too tight.

When I've chased them since then, I lift the offending string(s) and slip a tiny piece of paper under them. It usually changes the sizzle enough to help locate the area that needs work.

If you over pluck a string you can usually make it buzz at the nut or saddle. In fact, I think there is a little bit of buzz most of the time, we just tame it to the point you can't hear it. A saddle with a 90 degree drop off just isn't very durable on wound strings. And that little roundover I suspect is always causing some level of buzz.

And it can come from any of the other sources mentioned.

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED

Thanks everybody. I'll be in the shop with it today. I'll give it a good look and listen and report back later.

The bridge came from Blues Creek, so I'm confident the spacing from the pins to the saddle is fine, but I wanted to try to eliminate that possiblity, so I traced the profile of the top of the bridge to the bottom of an extra saddle and sanded to the line, leaving enough height to clear the saddle in the slot. Sat it in front of the original saddle and tuned up to pitch. Still a sharp hiss, no change. I was careful to glue the ends of the braces, probably from watching John's videos (thanks John, I think I must have watched them all) and tapping and knocking doesn't give me any clues. I have a few glue injectors I'll use tomorrow to squirt a little titebond into one or two spots, hoping for the best. And thanks again.

Dan any way you can shoot some video and post it of the buzz?

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Ann Arbor Guitars

It's hard to catch on my cell phone recording, but I gave it a try. I tried to upload it to the forum, but failed. Seems the file's too big. I'll get some help from my wife later, she's much better at these things.. Grateful, Dan

Ran across this this morning, from Ted Woodford, regarding wide, flat fret tops allowing a string to produce a slight buzz:
https://youtu.be/mjc5_gkv-NQ?feature=shared @9:11

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

Thanks for this.
I made a new saddle for it this weekend and changed the GHS phosphor bronze strings to a set of GHS vintage bronze, and seem to have lost a little of the annoying zing. I think I'll try a set of more mellow strings, D'Addario nickle bronze (I like them on my D18 VS) or GHS silk and bronze and try to weed out any high or poorly crowned frets.