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I've got a Tuttle Tele on the bench. Maple neck, rosewood fretboard, stainless steel frets, chambered body with a 3 piece Tele bridge. Of course some buzz is totally normal on an electric guitar but this buzzing is out of control. Tuttle is known for good fretwork and I have checked it and it's perfect. I have also smoothed out the groves in the saddle, adjusted the nut, relief and so on. It's definitely not the nut as it buzzes up and down the neck. It's only the E and somewhat the A string, mostly the E.

I've taken things to the extreme, raised the action up to 4/32nds and put in excessive relieve and it STILL buzzes more than I like.

My only guess is that the neck is super hard maple that imparts all the energy of the pluck into the strings and that the chambered body exacerbates it?

I'm at my wits end with this one. Anyone have a problem child like this before?

Sometimes I can really dig into the E string and it doesn't buzz and then I tap it and it's buzz all over the place. I will make an adjustment and think I finally got it right and then nope there it is again!

Replace the strings first. Cheapest thing on the guitar.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Ah! Should have said. We did that and even went from 9's to 10's which I thought would have helped. I was hoping to hear from you Chris, have you had ones in the past that were just impossible like this?

Step one for me and I set-up three guitars already today is to sight down the neck and set the truss rod and relief.

These Teles have Fender style bolt on necks which are notorious especially in a bit of time for ski ramping at the very end over the body. This is the single most common reason for fret buzz on Strats and Teles regardless of the maker. Seems bolt on necks do move in time sometimes and I'm not sure if RH has anything to do with it.

So check for a ski ramp where the remedy is to impart something that I speak of here more often than some want to hear, fall-away. Or in other words your faith in this fret work may be misplaced and stainless frets actually are more likely to have issues because the person doing the leveling gets tired.... and stainless is difficult to work with.

So I would be first looking for a ski ramp after changing the strings as Chris suggested.

Next would be the Tele saddles. If the bridge is slightly off center a string could be contacting an adjustment screw on one of the saddles. This is common too with Teles which is part of the reason people like me will pay big bucks for Calham saddles or a few others such as Wilkinson.

If you can fret in any position and it still buzzes it not the nut.

So set-ups are sequential where one thing we do builds on the next thing we do and when I have one like this and I can't see for sure what the issue is I simply do my set-up sequence and like fishing with a net it always catches it and resolves the issue. We approach set-ups sequentially because each thing we set this way never needs to be revisited after doing other things down the road AND all dependencies are addressed.

1) Set truss rod and relief

2). Cut nut slots (which even though I don't suspect them I guarantee you that they are way too high) and they need to be cut before setting action since they change the action.

3). Set action at the 12th and play every note with a moderate attack unless you know the steward to be heavy handed then hit harder to test it out.

4). Set intonation.

5). Play Purple Rain and annoy Dave.

So that's what I would do and again I would not have any confidence in the fret work of pretty much anyone. People don't bring us stuff because it's working great....

One last thing. The action expectation what is it? The guitar should be able to play with a moderate attack buzz free with the high e at 4/64th" and the low e at 4.5/64th" both set at the 12th under string tension tuned to pitch and in the playing position. If you can get it buzz free at these specs anything lower likely requires first class fret work to make that happen and is outside the scope of a professional set-up and another job billing wise.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Thanks Hesh, so far I have done all that, including checking the saddle screws, except the ski ramp thing and Purple Rain. This one has a double action rod with the wheel nut.

I really can't say without seeing some photos.. sorry.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Ski ramp is highly likely. A good machinist’s straightedge is an essential tool in my shop and will identify all issues.

It did have a very very slight ski ramp so I imparted some fall away and it still buzzing more then what I would consider normal. I sat down with the guitar last night and 3 of my electric guitars, a Hartfield strat, Les Paul and one of my teles and what I can only conclude now is that the Tuttle has normal buzz but it is just louder. When I played the other 3 guitars they all have typical electrical guitar buzz but it's almost like you can hear the wood absorb it, especially on the Paul. The Heartfield is also a maple neck with a rosewood board and it has the same normal buzz but it's just not as loud.

I really wish I could show it to you guys personally because I've never seen anything like it and I've been at this for a long time too.

Here is a video. The guitar is set up with action at 7/64th in this video. Even a poorly setup guitar should not buzz like this with action that high.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/kXUJBxM79VtsnT7H8

Got to put the thinking cap back on again.

Are you certain that the strings are not hitting a too high pickup? I think that it is not fret buzz.

The little valley where the string comes out of the saddle may not have acute enough edges to give a hard stop for the string. A little wiggle there could give a sitar-like effect.

Yes on both points. I lowered the Pickups and I also refiled the contact point, I may have to check that again though. And thank you for the suggestions.

There’s always the symphony of the springs between the saddles and the bridge (once there’s some pressure on them, that noise goes away). I have a Telecaster that I made with a Gotoh bridge that I never did get quite perfect. I’m pretty sure it’s the saddle valleys on the two smallest diameter strings, but I haven’t gone back to it to finally fix it.

I wish I could see it in person too. How much relief is on the bass side of the fret board when tuned to pitch? Does it buzz with a light attack?

When I set the rod the straighter side of the neck, we never have any choice here it is what it is, I set very nearly straight with very minimal relief. That leaves the less straight side with more relief and sometimes more than I want but it's a crap shoot since manufactures typically don't know how to make a neck. Necks should have less relief on the treble side and this can be imparted in the fretting stage but they never go to that trouble.

7/64th is WAY high I set these at 4.5/64th (bass side) so there should be zero buzz.

How about a close-up pic please JF of the saddles and bridge with enough resolution that I can enlarge at this end? TIA (thanks in advance)

PS: Please show pick-up height too and just for giggles maybe drop the pups to flush just to see what happens. High pups you can tell from the tuner too if it wobbles and can't get a solid read quickly and easily the pup is too high.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

I was just playing with the video checking the tuning, etc. This is weird.

The neck pick-up does look high and it's standard fare for me when I have something like this to drop that pup just for now to flush. Maybe give that a try? I tried to mirror your attack on my Sawdowsky archtop and it buzzes when I hit it that hard too but not nearly as much as this one and the Sawdowsky is set at 4.3/64th" low E at the 12th.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

I'll get some pics Hesh, thanks. I did lower the pups to, not flush tough, so I will try that. I always go for less relief too and in this case I tried the full range. I have seen some guitars in the past that simple demanded a lot of relief. This one doesn't seem to care. I only do relief by eye but I will try to get a measurment.

Thanks JF. I do relief by eye too and our eyes are amazingly powerful at determining something as subtile as relief. I always check relief, what I see using two hands and fretting around the 14th and 3rd and then holding these positions and using my thumbs hitting in-between notes and listening for them to ring true. If I hear the same note in two positions I do not have enough relief.

The idea behind this is that strings are natural straight edges and we can use our strings to determine if relief exists not necessarily how much relief exists.

We had a very weird one recently (last year) where two different guitars both by the same maker and both made in China did the same thing you are describing. The low E would buzz like crazy even with very high action. Both had stainless frets too.

Both of these were Parker Fly Chinese production.

Turns out and we solved the problem that the fret wire used was junk and could be magnetized. So the neck pick-up over time magnetized the over the body frets closest to the pick-up. What resulted was the strings over these frets were drawn into the frets by magnetism and they would buzz out too like your Tele.

Checking the frets if they are magnetized is very easy to do you can do it with any metal object and see what results.

The remedy was to demagnetize the frets with a Weller soldering gun and that solved the problem. Both owners have instructions to come back when this happens again and it likely will as the frets get magnetized over time. We could replace those frets but on Parker Flys serviceability was not a major concern for the fret plane, they are glued on and not easily serviced.

It was the most unusual repair that we encountered last year and may be something you might want to check.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Hahahaa wow! That one must have drove you crazy Hesh. If that's the case with this guitar it would be incredible! I'm definitely going to check it out. I tried measuring the relief but I just don't have the hands of a machinist. I could slide a .08 feeler under there and the string might have barely moved so I'd say it's in the .08-.09-ish range, by eye it looks good and actually on this guitar there is a slight bit more relief on the bass side.

Photo dump: https://photos.app.goo.gl/TPA9Nwrw7yFrQPRk9

Yeah it was wild and then three weeks later we see the very same problem on another Parker Fly Chinese instrument.

Thanks JF for the excellent pics. A couple things I would do after reviewing the pics:

That lone E and A saddle that does not match the other two is highly suspect to me. I can even see some groves in it worn from strings since you also provided a pic of the saddle with the strings off it. Can you replace it or turn it around if that's possible just to test a theory that the groves and crud on the thing, saddle are the source of the buzzing?

Also the neck pup is too high and although usually Tele neck pups are not very hot ya never know with some of these brands what escaped the factory.

I downloaded the pic of you holding the 2nd and 3rd fret while showing the Low E over the first fret. I think I see a gap there but I wanted to verify with you that there is a gap there? Because it buzzes fretted it's not the nut slot but there may be multiple maladies here so I mention it.

Lots of hardware on a Tele so make sure the springs and set screws are all up against something and not rattling.

Lastly I like your sweater and want to get one too Our shop is a bit on the cool side now and I'm old as dirt so I'm always cold and like your sweater

Thanks again for the great pics.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

The sweaters that eventually get holes in the elbows become the shop sweaters. We contacted Michael Tuttle and he is going to send a few more saddles. Good idea turning it around, I will try that. The saddle that is for the E and A is Aluminum as Tuttle says it gives the guitar more 'spank.' And yes there were string groves in the saddle where you could actually see the winds of the string imprinted. I was excited when I first saw that thinking that might be the problem so I smoothed them out with the nut file but it didn't help. I'll try lowering that pup way down next.

It's hard to take a pic of the strings at the nut but yes that was me holding the string at the 3rd fret to show the space over the 1st and there is a slight gap as it should be. But like you said since it buzzes up the neck that would not matter anyway.

Thanks Hesh.

There are numerous places on a Tele that can cause buzzes. Every piece of hardware should be suspect. In these cases I touch every conceivable part to deaden it while plucking the string to find the offender. There may be 100 potential buzz spots.

Exactly! When I was a kid I had a toy set called an Erector Set. No jokes please... Anyway Teles remind me of my erector set with hundreds of metal pieces bolted together.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Bump - JF any progress I'm curious as to what's happening with this one, thanks.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Every once in a while a head scratcher comes across the bench. So many potential buzz sources, as Barry says. Thinking back on a few doozies from my shop in the past few years, I would suggest also checking:

- Rod rattle. I’ve had a couple where a rattling rod almost identically mimicked the symptoms of fret buzz, including the rattle being confined only to a certain string or area of the neck. If you’re lucky there’s a sweet spot of rod adjustment that silences the buzz, if not the rod may need dosing with dilute rubber cement.

- The Quantam Effect aka changing the result by measuring it. This is the almost imperceptibly loose fret that is difficult to spot, because laying a straight edge or fret rocker on it, even lightly, flexes it perfectly back level with the neighbouring frets. Preemptive wicking of thin CA under every fret, even if there’s a little associated cleanup, can be a timesaver in the long run.

- Back buzz, which can sound like regular fret rattle and be unaffected by raising the action, since it’s an interaction between the nut slot height and frets behind the fretted note.

- Crown shape, always suspect especially on a stainless job where as Hesh says the tech can get bored with how long regrowing is taking and maybe leave it a little flat…

- I’m not yet ready to revisit the trauma caused by a Warwick custom-shop bass which exhibited a sort of hinging effect in the 1 inch of neck between the end of the truss rod and body of the instrument, causing the neck to appear, and to measure perfectly straight, with all frets dead level but to develop a pronounced low spot and rattle under the hand pressure of gently fretting a note in the area. I’m working through this one with my therapist and hope to one day achieve closure.

Yes therapy is important too we repair people can suffer from POSD, post Ov*tion stress disorder

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Ann Arbor Guitars

My experience tells me that buzz or unwanted noise can only happen from a certain number of sources. Once you eliminate those, one by one, you should zero into the problem.

Setup issues seems to be the greatest factor. I've seen necks that measure perfect flat when string tension isn't there. Once string tension is on the neck, it all goes wonky. I've seen necks perfect flat without string tension and they transform into rollercoasters under tension. Mostly older 50/60's guitars that do this. But sometimes even 70's or 80's guitars. It happens.

My solution to these instruments are this.
1) Clearly explain the issue the best you can to the customer. "The neck changes dramatically when under string tension". It isn't stable. The best you can hope for is something playable. It's a 60's UniVox, not a Gibson ES335. Although some Gibsons are trash too.
2) Do a fret level while the neck is under tension. You'll get your best result from that. Not a perfect result, just the best you can hope for.
3) Have them fully prepared to pay for a full refret before doing any work at all. Those old frets were small, cheap, and made from the least expensive materials available. They are not worth trying to save.

Old guitars need new parts, more often than not. Frets included. I like old Japanese guitars. But like old tube amps, they need new parts to work properly.