My guitar makes an awful sound, help!

[st. stephen]

When I pick my A-string, I hear an awful vibrating sound right at my neck pickup, it's really annoying...=(
I own an Epiphone Les Paul Standart, she's my baby, it's really sad and I don't know what to do.I searched for loose pieces on the guitar....
Has anybody experienced that before?
And another issue: I just noted that my humbucker is moveable in its frame xD? is that normal?
if you didn't unsderstand my problem pls ask
thanks for input,

[waldo041]

Buzzing or Vibrating?

peace,
waldo

[strumminsix]

Without pics it's hard for me to help diagnose.

Here are my first thoughts:
Worn A string slot in the nut
Low bridge saddle for the A string
The A string is hitting the bridge pickup

Doubtful but the guitar could just resonate at that frequency. An "A" note is usually easy to get to feed back.

[IamDocWatson]

can you hear it when your plugged in....in my little experience with electric guitars some times you will have a little buzzing here and there....but it wont come through the amp its just buzzing frets or something

take a screw driver sure up all your pieces...and if it still does it take it to a setup pro..he may look at it and say take it home its fine ... or if not im assuming a small easy fix if anything

[tigerstrat]

Pickup cover. It doesn't amplify does it?

[wisedyes]

If the pickups have the chrome covers with the individually adjustable screws, lower the one under the A string. Odds are it could be set too high.

[st. stephen]

ok, the noise is not amplified, but it's loud enough that I hear it when it's plugged in...
I seized all the screws on the pickup, it didn't help, and I'm still not sure if it's normal that the pickup isn't totally attached to the guitar... if i press on the pickup i can really move it up and down, maybe there are loose pieces underneath the humbucker? You see I really don't know what to do, I've got no idea about electronics =(, can I easily take down the pickup to see if the buzzing comes from inside?

[XxRouninxX]

i had a similar problem.. and i turned out that it was the tuning key was a little loose in the socket, so the vibration of the string made it rattle around.

couldn't do much but replace the key and haven't had the problem since.

this sounds like it could be whats happening to you..

[GratefulPat]

id say to check the heights of those things on the bridge make sure there set even, and if you changed string size be4 this happened all that bridge area might have to be reconfigured

[razmablues]

like others have said, i've had this same problem with my les paul. mine was the low E but it sounds like the same problem. It was hitting the bridge pickup ever so slightly if i picked a little too hard or wide or whatever.

My bridge ended up being too low, try to see if adjusting that helps.

[Revv23]

Might want to take it to a pro and just have it set up professionally; messing with the bridge hieght could screw with your intonation causing an even bigger problem...be sure to explain the buzzing problem to the guy... also, tell him you were messing with pickup hieght so he can set those to a more normal setting (pickup hieght makes a major difference on tone typically; depends on the pickups though sometimes it's less impactful)

If you've never had it set up it's probably a good thing to do anyways, as the intonation/action is probably off a bit as it is. Make sure the guy asks to see you play, if he doesn't set the action according to your style, you probably aren't going to get a quality set-up.

Curious - does the buzzing happen on any fret? or just with A string open?

[st. stephen]

thanks for the input
mmh it happens with all the frets, but open string is the worst of course. And on top of it all it seems to come and go xD, sometimes it's really annoying, sometimes it's okay....
but yeah I won't change anything on my guitar without asking a pro =)

[Mick]

If you have the buzzing when you are depressing the string on a fret, it almost certainly has nothing to do with your nut. Nut problems commonly show themselves when you hear a buzz plucking an open string that you do not hear when you pluck the string on a fret.

As far as your pickup moving: As others have said, it is hard to say without seeing a picture of your guitar, but both of my electrics have a cover over each pickup (black plastic on one and brassy looking metal on the other). The ones over the humbuckers are much wider than the ones over the single coils, and these can be easily adjusted with some small screws that are easy to see if you really look but hard to see from any distance. If you unscrew those, you can take the cover off and see that there is a spring system underneath there that keeps the cover in place after you have adjusted the height of the pickup/cover, but since it is on a spring, I can push it down a little and it will pop back up. In other words, the fact that you can mush the "pickup" around a little is nothing unusual if you have pickup covers like mine.

Again, not knowing what you have: you said that the buzz was from the neck pickup, I would suggest that if you have the aforementioned pickup covers on your guitar (they are very common), that you try lowering the cover over whatever pickup is closest to your neck. On the single coils on one of my guitars, that will mean actually lowering the pickup a little. If you are not tech saavy, I would suggest lowering it one half turn on each screw (there should be one on each side), that way if you later feel you have messed something up, it will be easy to put it back the way it was. See if that works, or makes it better but still buzzing. If the latter, try another half turn and see if that does it.