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  #1  
Old 10-07-2010, 01:47 PM
dms_dc dms_dc is offline
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Default "Dead zone" on a few frets of one string (Breedlove American)

Hello all -

I finally got a hold of a Breedlove American C20/SM after much waiting (should have had an official NGD post, but got sidetracked), and it has one idiosyncrasy that I'd like to hear people's opinions about.

On a few frets of the A string (around the 7th through 9th frets, especially on the 8th), notes come out sort of muted relative to everything else on the guitar. You can feel, see and hear that the string doesn't vibrate the same with those few notes as elsewhere.

Since the guitar is generally quite resonant and has a lot of sustain, if you do a progression that moves to any F chord that uses that 8th fret on the A string (whether a barre chord or an inverted jazz chord), it's a little jarring to have that one note not resonate like the rest of the chord does.

I'm wondering what sort of thing might cause that, and if it could possibly be fixed with setup before I drag it out to a luthier or anything.

Other than that, the guitar is lovely, very playable with factory setup, with a wonderful tone, and does a lot of things very well - very hard strumming doesn't sound great on it, but that's not my style anyway. (I'm not sure what my style is, but it's not that.)

Anyway, if anyone has any ideas, that would be great!
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Old 10-07-2010, 01:58 PM
nachomaga nachomaga is offline
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It happen in all my guitars that have 14 fret to body. And happened too in a Martin D-16 I had. I think is a normal issue with the 14 fret X frame guitars, because don't happen in my Washburn Parlor that it have 12 frets.
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Old 10-08-2010, 08:34 AM
dms_dc dms_dc is offline
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Thanks, that's good to know. I'm enough of a noob in the acoustic world that I haven't come across this before. It's subtle enough that I didn't really notice it as I was trying other guitars. I need to go back out and compare to another Breedlove C20.
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Old 10-08-2010, 03:00 PM
Jeff M Jeff M is offline
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Every guitar has some dead spots.
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Old 10-08-2010, 04:44 PM
gitnoob gitnoob is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff M View Post
Every guitar has some dead spots.
It's interesting (to me) to try to figure out which parts of your guitar are responsible for resonating at different frequencies.

This will give you a quick overview:

http://www.alcarruthluthier.com/Downloads/Acoustic1.pdf
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Old 10-08-2010, 07:17 PM
emmonsh emmonsh is offline
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who do you like it? i have 1 coming end of next week.
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Old 10-08-2010, 09:51 PM
OleFudd OleFudd is offline
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Could be just a bad string. Just a thought.
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Old 10-14-2010, 02:15 PM
dms_dc dms_dc is offline
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Interesting PDF - I'm going to have to read through that some more. Sounds like it's not uncommon for various guitars to have some dead spots, I'm guessing mine just falls into that camp. I found one poster that said their guitar's dead spots went away after a while, which is kind of interesting - who knows.

Is it possible for a bad string to be dead over a small area? Sounds strange to me, but I don't really understand this stuff anyway. Will be easy enough to confirm when it's time to change strings.

As for the guitar itself, yeah I love it otherwise - lovely tone, more bass than I expected, very resonant, comfortable setup for me. Seems like you can "overdrive" it a bit if you really bang on it (the opposite of a 40s Martin in the shop I played with, which only came alive when you really drove into it), and there can be a touch of boominess in the bass which I don't remember the rosewood version having. That's my attempt to be critical, mostly I just love listening to it, even with me playing.
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Old 10-14-2010, 02:43 PM
Anand00028 Anand00028 is offline
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Glad you brought this up.I have a couple of dead spots on my fairly new Martin 000-28.It's simply a fabulous guitar otherwise.I'm just going to ignore it from now on!
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Old 10-14-2010, 07:29 PM
StringFive StringFive is offline
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Dead spots? Hmmm. I've never heard of that. None of my guitars (Breedlove and Martins included) have a dead spot. That's sounds odd to me.

Try changing the strings. If that doesn't help, I'd definitely take it to a qualified guitar tech for a look-see.
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Old 10-14-2010, 08:48 PM
darylcrisp darylcrisp is offline
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IMO shouldn't be happening on a properly setup guitar. Possibly a high fret or 2 in that area stopping the action for you. I'd have it properly looked at for diagnosis.

I have saw exactly what you say,on a high end guitar before-the exact spots. Lots of work and a proper setup ended up not helping-the luthier ended up deciding it was simply a muted area on that particular fretboard.

But most good guitars should ring true up and down on all frets-thats been my findings.

keep us posted on what you find
daryl
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  #12  
Old 10-14-2010, 08:53 PM
larson07 larson07 is offline
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My Silver Creek T-170 had one dead note around the 11th fret on the high E string, and it went away when I changed to medium strings. No problems since.

I wouldn't accept a dead note on a guitar that cost a high amount though; if it couldn't be fixed, I'd try a different guitar.
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