So I bought myself a new Epiphone 400 Pro and have had it setup by a luthier who to be fair did a reasonable job as the action is nice and low now but my frets buzz on frets 1-4 on the low strings and it’s beggining to annoy me. I can take it back to him but it’s a long drive so was thinking I may as well learn a bit more about it myself. He has supposedly setup the neck relief correctly and cut my nut so maybe I just need to tweak the action up a little. Anyone care to offer some advice before I dive in? Thanks Chris
What he said. ^^ Most of the time, a tech's shop has a different humidity then your house, so the neck adjusts to your house after a tweak. Since it's lightly buzzing on the top frets, there's a small amount of back bow. A minor adjust of the truss rod, loosening it, will cure it.
My luthier's shop is located 3/4 below ground in a large concrete building. When I play there, the neck is perfect. Sometimes when I bring a guitar home from a setup, it will buzz on a fret or two. The answer is in what the other blokes here said....
There's almost always a bit of acoustic fret buzz, as long as it's not coming through the amp then you're fine.
"Nothing through the amp purely acoustic..." --OP "In that case the setup is virtually perfect." --Don I agree with Don here... if you don't hear anything through the amp then your action is deliciously low and easy to play, without creating noise through the speakers. If you can't stand it, you can solve the problem by cranking the truss rod counter clockwise a little... try an eight of a turn or maybe a quarter of a turn. Then let it settle for a day or two and play the hell out of it. (which, in the case of an SG, is simply not possible... there'll always be some Hell left in it for you to raise.)
My G400 is stock. All I did to make it stay in tune was get the nut slots right. But that applies to every guitar I have ever bought.
Feh, I've had a tech setup before when I had them swap pups for me. Of course it wasn't perfect when I got it back to my place, and that was a given on the outset. Just a truss adjust, and then everything else was prefict. I don't exactly work with my hands, but even I can adjust a truss rod and bridge properly. Slow and steady wins the race. Give the guitar a bit to adjust between tweaks when you're not used to it, follow instructions online, safety for your guitar first, and you should be fine. Soldering I'll never do, tho. A good man always knows his limitations.
