Question:
I just bought a brand new, out of the box, first person to lay my gruby little hands on it, Ibanez Artwood 100 CE acoustic guitar. Guitar sounds great, very bright and punchy. However, after a setup with the Guitar Center tech, I get bad fret buzz on the 2nd and 3rd frets, Low E string. Meaning, if i'm barreing an A on the fifth fret, it sounds great, but when I play the same barre chord on the third fret, I get major buzzing. Same with 2nd and 1st frets. Does this sound like something that can be fixed? I don't think I can deal with buzzing this bad. The action is fairly high (i'm used to the Taylor action) so I can't see that raising the action is gonna do anything for me.
Answer:
Most likely if it was find, then some tech guy messed with it, he probably didn't really know what he was doing. Normally you don't get fret buzz at 2nd and 3rd frets unless the frets themselfs are to high or there are some larger issues or the nut is to low, but the problem could be from a combination of minor problems. I would suggest if you want it done right, you find someone that has a lot of experience in this sort of thing... also just from the simple fact that they have all the proper tools that are needed to find the problem and fix it. Though, my guess is that the neck has back-bow, since the tech guy probably just messed with the truss rod and the action. This is not hard to fix, but if you are not willing to take a chance in screwing up your new guitar, then its better to let someone that has more experience(a lot more) do it. Else you might just want to invest in a good guitar repair book that goes over all the area's that are involved in setting up a guitar. If the initial 'setup' was performed properly, then you may have one or two 'high' frets. A setup generally will cover proper relief (truss rod adjustment), action (saddle adjustment), and proper nut function (string depth, etc.). You move into different territory (and expense) to have a perfect neck. The first step in a good 'fret dressing' is to ensure that all frets are properly seated - then you make all the frets level, with the neck in as level condition as possible. You pay extra for all of this. It is not uncommon these days to find that the frets are not properly leveled or crowned on guitars costing less than the $500-$600 range. Too expensive for competition.
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