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I recently took apart my Epiphone Les Paul electric guitar and then put it together again with some modifications. Long story short, the poor lady is now kind of breaking apart because of what I did to it.

One of the things I did was replace the nut, and I think I also gave a few turns to the trussrod. The problem now is, whenever I put my finger over a fret, regardless of the strength used, I can hear two sounds:

  1. The sound that the string is supposed to make, namely, the one between my finger and the bridge, and
  2. Another sound, usually higher-pitched, which comes from the vibration between the nut and my finger.

This is causing a ridiculous amount of noise, and it wasn't there before I changed the nut. I suspect it also has something to do with the trussrod, but I'm not entirely sure. I'd just like to know how to fix this.

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  • Two questions: can you hear this when you're playing through an amp? Is it still a high pitched sound, even if you're playing above fret 12?
    – Bob Broadley
    Jun 21, 2014 at 20:53
  • Yes, I can hear it through an amp specially when I'm not using any gain. It is not really that high pitched above fret 12.
    – JS Rolón
    Jun 22, 2014 at 19:09

1 Answer 1

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The 'behind the finger' ('BTF') length of string generally can't vibrate much or at all as it touches or is very close to touching the frets.

If the nut is too high and/or the relief too great (aside from the guitar generally playing poorly..) the BTF string will be clear of the frets and can vibrate more freely. Though this generally isn't a problem as it's much too low in volume to be heard over the bridge-finger vibrating length.

What is the string height at the first fret? It should be about 0.25mm at the high E increasing across the strings to 0.50mm at the low E. If not, your nut slots are too high.

How much relief does the neck have? between 0.2mm and 0.3mm at the 7th fret is normal (depending on playing style and neck radius)

It sounds like you've adjusted the TR without measuring the relief and installed the nut but failed to cut the slots to the right height..

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  • I checked string height at the first fret and found it to be way too high for all strings. Though I did not cut the nut slots myself, it seems I'll have to make them deeper now.
    – JS Rolón
    Jun 22, 2014 at 19:21

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