Click/buzz during fingerpicking

[CycleBob]

I tuned my guitar down 1/2 a step a week ago to help me comfortably sing a few higher songs.

I was playing a finger style version of Billy Joel, she’s always a woman to me, and there was a very noticeable click/buzz during certain passages.

It took me a while to work Pure what it was: with the decreased string tension I’m actually pushing the b and high e strings when I strike them all the way down to hit the last fret (21). I was amazed that there’s so much vertical travel in the string when I pluck them.

Two related questions:

Has anyone else experienced this (whether down tuned or not)

Does it say anything important about my picking technique that I should work on.

I’ve subsequently tuned the guitar back up to standard, not because of the click, but because this particular guitar lost quite a bit of nice tone down tuned.

Any thoughts appreciated.

[JonnyBGood]

When you detune you are playing with lower tension as you say and have to adjust your right hand, or at least be very mindful which I guess is trickier if you are a vocalist. I play tunes with both E strings tuned as far down as C, I have to be much more careful to avoid unwanted buzzes and rattles especially as I have a VERY low action.

[CycleBob]

Thanks for the reply. There’s no way my main guitar would handle being down tuned 2 full steps and retain some semblance of good tone I think.
I guess the insight for me is the degree to which you may have to alter your right hand strength and style when you down tune.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by CycleBob

I guess the insight for me is the degree to which you may have to alter your right hand strength and style when you down tune.

Well it sounds like you play with a heavy attack (as well as have a low action) and you must really dig in if you are hitting the top two strings on the frets like that, a semi tone is not a huge lowering of tension but obviously its enough here to make a difference. You have several options really:

-don't tune down :-)
-raise your action slightly
-play with a lighter touch and learn to be responsive to the lowering of tension as I mentioned above
-use higher tension strings (but of course that messes things up if you tune back to concert pitch, but then you could keep it a semitone lower all the time...)

Playing guitar is all about compromise I find, I don't get your problem but I get others when I am in a very low tuning (6th string buzzing and rattling especially). However I am reluctant to raise my action for numbers with conventional tunings and same goes for string gauge, I don't want to go higher than 12s.

The solution is obviously to have lots of guitars set up for different tunings :-)

[SouthpawJeff]

I’d say if your picking sounds good then leave it as is. If your string is “bouncing” off the 21st fret, the easy fix is to raise the saddle a hair. Optimum setup at full tension, won’t be optimum at lower tension. So if you were planning on playing tuned down occasionally you may want to keep a shim handy to raise the saddle a hair and maintain playability.

Good luck,
Jeff

[TBman]

I get that "tap" especially in lower tunings. You just have to remember to "tip toe" with your fingers on the strings a bit.

[CycleBob]

Thanks for the ideas gents.
In this case I won’t change my set up (saddle height) as down tuning wasn’t a great sounding option for this guitar anyway, but...
The idea of down tuning one of my other guitars (and adjusting set up as required) is great. Thanks.
The only downside there is that if I want to play out and have this song as part of my set, I’ll probably need to take multiple guitars.... ugg. Even so I’ll give this a try.

Playing with a lighter touch is also a good idea, but I honestly don’t think my attack is that heavy anyway, so being very light and delicate all the time feels like it would limit my playing style and dynamics quite a bit (I’m no virtuoso, but still...)

Anyway, thanks again for the replies