Schecter km7 FR Buzzing past 10th fret

[BusinessMan]

Hello. I’ve got one of the km7’s in lambo green with an FR. I changed the strings on it to one gauge up (from .09’s which were stock to .10’s tuning 1 step down from stock) and started buzzing very badly across the finger board from the 9th-10th fret up the rest of the neck. I’ve tried adjusting relief and action, which are both pretty high as of now, and it’s still buzzing/dying out pretty bad. Other than taking it to a shop, what insight to the issue does everyone have? Could the relief be too high (it was between .5-.75mm around the 8th fret)? I should add that I’ve pretty much resolved to taking it into a shop. I’m just curious as to what caused the caused.

 

[Rubbishplayer]

The symptoms you describe are typical of a guitar with too much relief, which is also consistent with going up a gauge without adjusting relief. However, that might not be your only problem.

0.25mm should be what you're aiming for with 10s, not 0.5-0.75mm. If you find you're buzzing with 0.25mm of relief, then it'll likely be because of some high frets as well.

Taking into a good shop is never a bad idea, but with 30 minutes and a few simple tools, you could check yourself. A capo, trussrod wrench and feeler gauge (or a suitably-thin business card) to check relief and a fret rocker for high frets. However, finding high frets and fixing them are two very different things and unless you're a luthier, I'd hand high frets over to a luthier to fix.

 

[BusinessMan]

The symptoms you describe are typical of a guitar with too much relief, which is also consistent with going up a gauge without adjusting relief. However, that might not be your only problem.

0.25mm should be what you're aiming for with 10s, not 0.5-0.75mm. If you find you're buzzing with 0.25mm of relief, then it'll likely be because of some high frets as well.

Taking into a good shop is never a bad idea, but with 30 minutes and a few simple tools, you could check yourself. A capo, trussrod wrench and feeler gauge (or a suitably-thin business card) to check relief and a fret rocker for high frets. However, finding high frets and fixing them are two very different things and unless you're a luthier, I'd hand high frets over to a luthier to fix.

So before I take it into a shop, I can try and remove some of the relief. 2mm is about where i like the action, but I understand if it’s a bit higher on the low side.

I did try checking for uneven frets with my action gauge (basically a metal credit card) and I didn’t really find anything but that was my first instance of checking for such things.

 

[Rubbishplayer]

So before I take it into a shop, I can try and remove some of the relief. 2mm is about where i like the action, but I understand if it’s a bit higher on the low side.

I did try checking for uneven frets with my action gauge (basically a metal credit card) and I didn’t really find anything but that was my first instance of checking for such things.

Yes, especially if you have checked for high frets and have not found any.

This video is one of the best I've seen on how to do it.

 

[Rubbishplayer]

So before I take it into a shop, I can try and remove some of the relief. 2mm is about where i like the action, but I understand if it’s a bit higher on the low side.

I did try checking for uneven frets with my action gauge (basically a metal credit card) and I didn’t really find anything but that was my first instance of checking for such things.

I should also add that an action gauge and a fret rocker are two different devices. A fret rocker is trapezoidal in shape to enable you to accurately check all frets, whereas a height gauge might not.

This video shows the basics. I like to do this with the neck perfectly straight (zero relief) but opinions on that may vary.