[Guitar buzzes] Now that’s what’s known as fret buzz. If your guitar sounds like that — don’t worry, it’s not time to get a new guitar. It’s just time to do a simple adjustment.
OK so you’ve got this lock-nut on this truss rod underneath the cover there. And we’re just going to fit it with this five sixteenths deep socket. And we’re going to just give it a little bit of a turn.
So it’s a new guitar and so I assume that the wood is swelling. It’s become too tense against the truss rod so I back off the tension.
Quarter turns
The standard change of tension is a quarter turn at a time, meaning ninety degrees at a time. OK we’re just going to slip on the deep five sixteenths socket, just like that you see. We’re going to back the truss rod nut off. Just a quarter turn to begin with, of course, that’s what everybody does.
OK so I like to slack it off a hundred and twenty degrees. Then turn it up another thirty degrees to make it a ninety degree turn in total.
Now having just done that adjustment… I’m just going to set it down and let the wood “take”. And reshape a little bit before I go restringing it.
You can see for yourself what the fretboard looks like after the adjustment. [No dialogue] For a ninety degree total reduction in tension. But as with tuning a guitar string you like to come up to the tension on it. Rather than just go down to it.
So, if you’re a guitar player I’m sure you understand what I’m talking about. You don’t tune down, you only tune up. So that’s what I did with the nut. I backed off further than I had to and then came up to the tension that was required.
Sounds OK now.
