String Buzz on open D

slyfox

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Joined
Jun 26, 2022
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28
Greetings,

Recently acquired my first PRS guitar - Standard 24 in Satin Cherry. I've had many top notch USA instruments over the years but this PRS I think has got to be the best playing and feeling guitar I've ever had. I liked the 10-46 that came on the guitar but restring it with a set of ernie balls, same guage soon after I got it just to get acquainted with the set up. I've always played Daddarios and realized the ernie balls seem to have a shrillness to the treble strings, particularly E and B, so I went back to Daddario, and wanted to try 11-49 as an extra insurance to avoid any shrillness. When I mean shrillness, I am talking about how it sounds played unplugged...E strings especially sounds rather thin.

I tend to favour a higher action...tone seems better when there's a little air between the strings and I like to get my fingers underneath the strings for bending on higher frets without feeling like the string is going to snap out from under my fingers. I have adjusted saddles with a 10" radius and have achieved approx 3mm at 12th fret on low E and 2.5mm on high E. That works for me.

I do notice however, now the open D has a slight buzz or maybe vibration as does when fretting the D on the A string, 5th fret. When I capo the 1st fret the D string does not buzz/vibrate anymore.

The string thru the nut appears to be clean and the nut slot facilitates the string well so I don't believe there is any issue with that but if there is something I can try without compromising the otherwise flawless guitar I'd try it. The guage itself, while slightly heavier than factory 10-46, there is not a big difference overall in the string thickness. The tremelo appears to be level 1/16th above the body as per factory specification.

With the action set up like this, I don't believe there should be any reason for buzz.

With symptoms as such, any ideas come to mind?

Should I try loosening the strings and tightening the truss rod an 1/8th of a turn and retuning?
 
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I wonder about sympathetic vibration internally - something about the frequency of that note in that octave is causing something else to vibrate - likely a trem spring or a pickup height spring. Less likely but possible is the pickup wiring or ground wire.
 
Hey good guess...seems I evened out the claw screws in the back and all is good now...might have been the ground wire vibrating or touching the spring but once I adjusted them it went away. Life is good again lol.
 
Hey good guess...seems I evened out the claw screws in the back and all is good now...might have been the ground wire vibrating or touching the spring but once I adjusted them it went away. Life is good again lol.
Awesome! Glad you got it sorted :cool:
 
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