Buzzing on Emerald guitar

[MCP850]

To Emeralds credit, as for the sanding marks on my x7 neck they offered me a 10% credit on a new order. Did I mention I love my x7.

[Warren01]

The frets on my 2018 X-20 appear flat to me and I have an annoying buzz on the G string. My X-7 is perfect.

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by Warren01

The frets on my 2018 X-20 appear flat to me and I have an annoying buzz on the G string.

When did that start, Warren?

[jjhturbo]

Originally Posted by eatswodo

When did that start, Warren?

Also what fret is that buzz on the G string occurring?

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by eatswodo

When did that start, Warren?

Originally Posted by jjhturbo

Also what fret is that buzz on the G string occurring?

Nobody expects the Carbon Inquisition

Seriously, I’m interested to know more about the buzz you’re experiencing and what you might have tried to remedy it - with some detail, maybe someone here can suggest a remedy for you.

[tbeltrans]

When did a buzz become a bad thing? Why, back in the 60s everybody wanted one.

From everything I have read in this sub-forum, if there is a problem, Emerald will make good.

Tony

[GuitarLuva]

Originally Posted by Dbone

I think they have a very nice product overall, but they definitely have more issues coming up on this forum than I personally would like to see. I would call it a trend quite frankly.

This said, my impression of them as a company is very good. They seem like the type of company that responds to problems and tweaks/fixes processes over time. That would be my estimation of how they are.

Their product is too good overall to not want to stay ahead of the curve and make it the best it can be.

I agree. Their response to issues is usually phenomenal but issues are becoming more frequent and they need to tighten up their QC. The 2 Emeralds I currently own have issues, my X20 bridge is not repairable. The X30 I gave to my uncle was flawless (lucky him).

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by GuitarLuva

I agree. Their response to issues is usually phenomenal but issues are becoming more frequent and they need to tighten up their QC. The 2 Emeralds I currently own have issues, my X20 bridge is not repairable. The X30 I gave to my uncle was flawless (lucky him).

Care to substantiate that statement?

[GuitarLuva]

Originally Posted by eatswodo

Care to substantiate that statement?

Sure. Ask and you shall receive. I never posted the following pics before out of respect for the company.

[IMG][/IMG]

This is a top view of the bridge on my X20. Excuse the dust. In case it's not real obvious have a look at the hole spacing for the pins.

[IMG][/IMG]

No explanation necessary for that one

[IMG][/IMG]



Those are the pitted frets on my X30. The first one is on the 2nd fret just under the 'b' string which is why I had to move the string to take the pic. The other is on the 7th fret just below the 'g' string. If you bend a string in either of those locations it gets caught slightly which can be annoying.

EDIT: Forgive me for being blind and missing your bold text above. I have my glasses on now. I'll re-word what I said. My track record with them is 2/3 guitars with issues and in this case 2/3 is bad (sorry Meatloaf). I love the company. Buying a guitar from them is a great experience and makes you feel special. Receiving a guitar that has issues from halfway across the world really knocks the wind out of your sails. I'm not saying anything bad about them or trying to put them down but their QC needs to get better or they need to slow down production. My X20 was a complete mess and that's only the bridge. The guitar never should've left the factory. Most of you guys that frequently post here have had your Emeralds for a long time, back when they only produced a few a week. Things are different for them now. I plan on taking those pics down after a day or 2.

[Llamarebel]

I'd echo statements above, I've had an X20 and an X30 and had some buzzing issues that needed to be addressed, I brought the X20 to 3 luthiers and while all could hear it, all had a really difficult time finding, I replaced with medium strings, went away, ended up selling the guitar. X30 was great, then a buzzing sound showed up a few months in, thought it was the anthem system, had that looked over, seemed to disappear, then reappeared....open B string and at 5th fret...

[jjhturbo]

Originally Posted by Llamarebel

I'd echo statements above, I've had an X20 and an X30 and had some buzzing issues that needed to be addressed, I brought the X20 to 3 luthiers and while all could hear it, all had a really difficult time finding, I replaced with medium strings, went away, ended up selling the guitar. X30 was great, then a buzzing sound showed up a few months in, thought it was the anthem system, had that looked over, seemed to disappear, then reappeared....open B string and at 5th fret...

Thanks for chiming in. Looks like this is more of a trend than just me. Brings me back to one of my first questions -- all things being equal....wondering if frets on a carbon fiber fretboard have more of a tendency to lift than a wood fretboard? Seems that the CF hardness/material may make it more susceptible to this? Either that or the frets are not glued down well.

The fact that you mentioned buzzing coming and going actually speaks to this susceptibility, and makes me a little worried. I'm afraid my fix yesterday may be very temporary.

[Earl49]

Originally Posted by jjhturbo

....wondering if frets on a carbon fiber fretboard have more of a tendency to lift than a wood fretboard?

The fret boards on most composite guitars are cast epoxy or polyester resin, so they should be extremely stable - more so than ebony wood. I have never experienced buzzes on my Emeralds, Rainsongs, or Blackbirds that were not operator error on my part. But I also have not taken a fret rocker and checked across every single fret on every instrument to see if any one was high or low. I carefully check them visually when new, looking for inconsistencies. My oldest Rainsong is from 2001 and there has been no fret pop-up that I can find. My newest Emerald is an X30 from DEC 2018, and ditto.

FWIW, Rainsong says that re-fretting one of their guitars is done just like a wood fret board. Frets are not normally glued into a wood fret board, with some exceptions (like very high on the neck where it is difficult to buck them into place). The tang of the fret wire is barbed to hold it in the slots.

I'm not making excuses, but a friend who visited Donegal about 18 months ago and toured the factory said that they were very proud of being now able to build three guitars a day. It is possible that some people are still climbing the learning curve on certain tasks, hence a few QC issues happen. I know Alistair takes that very seriously. It is hard to expand production and keep quality the same as if "the man" himself did all of the building.

[Dbone]

Originally Posted by GuitarLuva

Sure. Ask and you shall receive. I never posted the following pics before out of respect for the company.

[IMG][/IMG]

This is a top view of the bridge on my X20. Excuse the dust. In case it's not real obvious have a look at the hole spacing for the pins.

[IMG][/IMG]

No explanation necessary for that one

[IMG][/IMG]



Those are the pitted frets on my X30. The first one is on the 2nd fret just under the 'b' string which is why I had to move the string to take the pic. The other is on the 7th fret just below the 'g' string. If you bend a string in either of those locations it gets caught slightly which can be annoying.

EDIT: Forgive me for being blind and missing your bold text above. I have my glasses on now. I'll re-word what I said. My track record with them is 2/3 guitars with issues and in this case 2/3 is bad (sorry Meatloaf). I love the company. Buying a guitar from them is a great experience and makes you feel special. Receiving a guitar that has issues from halfway across the world really knocks the wind out of your sails. I'm not saying anything bad about them or trying to put them down but their QC needs to get better or they need to slow down production. My X20 was a complete mess and that's only the bridge. The guitar never should've left the factory. Most of you guys that frequently post here have had your Emeralds for a long time, back when they only produced a few a week. Things are different for them now. I plan on taking those pics down after a day or 2.

Can I ask why you would take the pictures down? You are not stating anything that is not true, right? You can do what you want, but having truth in information around here is helpful for others to be able to make informed purchase decisions. I don’t personally see anything wrong with that.

[SpruceTop]

Let me add, as I've posted previously, that the Element VTC system as installed by Emerald on my Emerald X20 was unbalanced in that a couple of strings were hotter than the others when amplified. I modified the bottom of the saddle and the saddle slot which helped but there is still some unbalanced signal output that I'll try to fix sometime later.

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by GuitarLuva

EDIT: Forgive me for being blind and missing your bold text above. I have my glasses on now. I'll re-word what I said. My track record with them is 2/3 guitars with issues and in this case 2/3 is bad (sorry Meatloaf). I love the company. Buying a guitar from them is a great experience and makes you feel special. Receiving a guitar that has issues from halfway across the world really knocks the wind out of your sails. I'm not saying anything bad about them or trying to put them down but their QC needs to get better or they need to slow down production. My X20 was a complete mess and that's only the bridge. The guitar never should've left the factory. Most of you guys that frequently post here have had your Emeralds for a long time, back when they only produced a few a week. Things are different for them now. I plan on taking those pics down after a day or 2.

No worries - I figured that might have been the case. I'd agree, having followed the original story, that your X20 should never have been shipped in that state.

I'm an unashamed Emerald fan, but not so partisan to believe that everything they ship will be flawless. I do, however, believe that the company and its leadership are very open and willing to a) admit when things do go wrong, and b) do their very best to put things back to rights again.

Just a little sad that this thread has turned, once again, into an Airing of Grievances