Sudden Annoying Slight Harmonic on Guitar - Help

[Junk Yard Dog]

Short of it is out of nowhere, from a guitar I've had no problems with, I'm playing with my band last night, all the normal settings I've played for months with this guitar, and I was getting this annoying, fading harmonic, particularly after palm mutes. I noticed is more with the Low E string, which is a .56 tuned in standard. Like I said, I've changed nothing and this just started happening.

I put a piece of foam underneath the strings behind the nut this morning and that fixed it. However, I want to know what caused this to suddenly happen and is there some fix besides using foam, hair scrunchies, electrical tape, etc. And, will any of the aforementioned quick fixes effect my tone negatively?

Thanks guys!!

 

[cardinal]

Can't really help, sorry, but I had the same experience a week or so ago. I noticed that a guitar suddenly had the issue where the strings were ringing out behind the nut. A piece of foam made it go away. I ended up taking off the neck for unrelated reasons, and I just realized that I when I put it back together I didn't put the foam back on there. But the problem isn't there anymore either. So... guitars are fickle things?

 

[XSSIVE]

Is it a reverse headstock without a locking nut and no string trees?

 

[Bluplirst]

I think you just started to notice it. You already fixed the issue with the foam.

 

[Junk Yard Dog]

Can't really help, sorry, but I had the same experience a week or so ago. I noticed that a guitar suddenly had the issue where the strings were ringing out behind the nut. A piece of foam made it go away. I ended up taking off the neck for unrelated reasons, and I just realized that I when I put it back together I didn't put the foam back on there. But the problem isn't there anymore either. So... guitars are fickle things?

Yup. This literally happened overnight. It was not doing it two nights before at all. ...We'll see. I found other threads detailing this issue and it could be a myriad of causes, and yes, others seem to come and go. Weird.

I hope it's not truss rod related. It's a brand new Warmoth neck.

 

[Junk Yard Dog]

Is it a reverse headstock without a locking nut and no string trees?

It's a reverse CBS headstock with string trees. I checked every screw on all parts and nothing needed tightening. String trees are the "T" are good quality; they're the Graphtech versions.

 

[Junk Yard Dog]

I think you just started to notice it. You already fixed the issue with the foam.

Yeah, fixed, but I don't want to rely on foam forever. It's a brand new neck, high quality, so I wanna find the root of the problem. It definitely was not doing it before all these months I"ve been playing it. ...My ears are super solid: better than my playing. I has not always been doing this.

Cheers!

 

[7 Stringer]

All guitars suffer from this, some worse than others. If you listen very closely, unplugged, you will hear that little shime, witch drives me crazy. All my guitars have a hair thingy or a foam. Even tune o matic bridges do it at the bridge, and Floyd's. You gotta put foam on the springs or else, instant unwanted reverb.

When I was young, I never notice all these little noise until I read an interview with Dimebag explaining why he put foam behind his nut. You know what I mean here. Ever since it drives me crazy when I hear it.

Chris

 

[XSSIVE]

Is it a reverse headstock without a locking nut and no string trees?

It's a reverse CBS headstock with string trees. I checked every screw on all parts and nothing needed tightening. String trees are the "T" are good quality; they're the Graphtech versions.

Very common on reverse heads, thus why I asked. It's quite common for them to ring behind the nut since all that extra thick wound E, A and D string mass can keep vibrating after it's struck. Some standard headstocks will do it on the G string too but I've seen more reverse heads do it one E, A and D than standard on the G. Something to dampen it behind the nut is the only surefire fix I ever found. I've had reverse heads cross over my bench from every brand I can think of from low buck to parts mutts to high dollar boutique do it and some that didn't, some with strings trees, some without. I've cut new nuts for reverse heads to see if that helps and it hasn't always fixed it. I've tried adding and removing string trees with no or minimal luck too. It's something to do with the resonance of that particular neck + body + reverse head and all that extra string that just makes it keep ringing I guess. Same goes for the occasional standard head that does it on the G string, even with a perfectly cut nut the resonance of that particular guitar will create a harmonic and keep ringing.

In your case since it just popped up it could be that the nut slot was actually a hair too tight ever so slightly pinching off the string and after all the play time and string changes it opened up to better fit the string and caused it. IMO I rather have the tuning stability of a smooth fitting slot and deal with the ringing than have a snug fitting slot that could lead to tuning stability problems since it's slightly pinching the string.

With such a thick low E string and a reverse head even if you have a new nut cut that fixes it over time as that slot wears with playing and string changes odds are it will eventually do the same thing. So you can try a new nut but it may happen again with the new nut sometime down the road.

You can always just stick a pick between the E, A and D strings over/under/over, it should stop it, give you a spare pick and look cooler than a hunk of foam haha.

 

[Stone Heavy Sound]

Even though it may seem like you changed nothing, is it possible you were even just standing in a different position? My guess would be the sound waves hitting the strings differently, either your were closer to the speakers, the amp was turned up just a bit louder, or you were positioned differently in such a way that the sound coming out of the speakers was ever so slightly feeding back.

 

[aizenx]

Yup. I do the foam thing on almost all of my guitars. It's just a sign of a resonant neck. My guitars sound killer, so I'm not worried about a little foam that deadens the ring during palm-mutes.

 

[Junk Yard Dog]

All very good posts, gents. Thank you! ...I agree, it cold be a combo of the reverse headstock (even with string tree) and the heavy gauge string.

I'll use the foam for now. ...Again, just a surprise since none of my guitars ever had this problem before and neither did this one for months.

Onward and upward!