My 6th string (low string melody side) has a slight buzz to its timbre compared to the other strings. This doesn't appear to be isolated to any fret, but along its entire length. Before making any more adjustments, I wanted to check here first.

Background: recent purchase of new stick, finally getting started with it after relocating from a low humidity climate to a high humidity one. Even with two-way humidity control in the case since Day 1, the Stick developed an arch that caused the outside strings to fret out on the first two or three frets, as well as an excessively-low action on Fret 0. I've carefully adjusted the truss rods over a couple of days to eliminate that, as well as any buzzing lower down.

As far as I can tell, the fretboard now seems to check out visually for flatness, the tuning has remained stable, and the action height seems ... "reasonable". (I'm not experienced enough to have a good frame of reference for this.) I've not touched the flaps or the bridge, since those shouldn't have changed since initial SE setup.

Ideas? It just seems odd that there wouldn't be a fret on the fretboard where the buzz "starts". Maybe string #6 just tends to sound that way?

Hi there, a couple things come to mind:
-Is this a brand-new Stick, or "new to you?" If it's used and has older strings, it's possible that string has a bend in it that's causing contact with the frets.
-I find that an absolutely flat fretboard doesn't necessarily mean the best action, nor does it guarantee freedom from buzzing. It feels and sounds the best to me when it's flat halfway down the fretboard, but slightly bowed at the top.
-When the instrument is feeling "ideal" to me, I can still get some buzz from the frets behind the point of finger contact. It doesn't register on the pickups, but acoustically, it's there. As long as it's not coming out of the pickups, I'm happy.
You should feel comfortable with the setup that came from S.E., and all you should have to do is adjust the truss rods. It could take working through it making readjustments during a whole practice session, or over two sessions, but it'll settle down.
Hope this helps.

Brand-new from SE. I unfortunately only had an hour or two over a couple of days to play with it before relocation consumed me for a few months. As such, I really didn't develop a memory of how things or sounded felt right out of the box before the climate shifted substantially and truss adjustments were needed.


Interesting - once I get more more experience, I may play with the action in this way.


I don't think that this is what's going on here. I think that I know what you're saying: there's definitely at least "clack" between finger and flap, especially on the thicker strings. I'll make sure to double-check, however.


Yeah, I'm only planning on adjusting the truss rod: same strings as from SE, and they don't have any significant play time on them yet. After the initial truss adjustments, the pitch and action are pretty stable already.

The sound difference on that string really isn't that significant, and if I were running through more EQ and effects it would likely not even be noticeable at all. I admit to being a kind of tone freak, so I'm seeing if I can get the melody side just a bit more clear and even across all strings.

This discussion just made me realize something: string 6 is the string with only one pole piece on the Stickup. I wonder if this subtle tone difference is inherent in the pickup design, as part of the tradeoff made to avoid crosstalk?

Possibly; others could answer that better than I can. Now I'm wondering what gauge strings do you have? In light gauge, if memory serves, on the melody side only string 6 is wound. (On my medium strings, strings 6 and 7 are wound.) That could be a factor - but again, I hope someone else who can speak more to this will chime in.

Medium gauge here.

Listened to it again, and can't swear that it's only string 6. May also be all the wound strings on the melody side. May be that the action is still a tiny bit too low, may just be the way that they sound (but only on the melody side?) ... or maybe I'm now hallucinating. We'll see.