Resonance frequency rattle.

[NancyJohnson]

I've got an old Ibanez bass that was a bit of a project.  All works, everything tightly screwed together.  Truss rod doing its job, bridge springs not slack. Freshish strings.

 

Irritatingly, it has what's best described as a resonance rattle; unamplified there's this rattling when strings are played.  What causes this?

 

 

[Johncee]

On all notes or just certain ones?

[NancyJohnson]

Most notes.

 

I'm thinking strings.  Don't have a spare set.

[Hellzero]

Tuners are great rattling devices.

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

My guess would be the strings. Is it lessened by putting slight downward pressure on the string between the nut and tuners?

[Woodinblack]

I had that and got convinced it was the truss rod. It was the machine heads.

[itu]

A string may (Simon) rattle (yes, I had to) when it is pressed, and the part between the nut and finger makes some noise against frets.

 

I had one very hard to find rattling: the strap lock washer was slightly loose, because of the thin leather.

[JPJ]

Does the bass have a scratchplate? I’ve had those resonate in the past, but its nothing a small piece of double sided tape didn’t fix

 

[casapete]

On 29/09/2024 at 18:34, Woodinblack said:

I had that and got convinced it was the truss rod. It was the machine heads.

I had the same thing, and it was the machine heads. One of the vintage style Fender tuners

where it fits into the shaft of the head mechanism was slightly loose and resonating / buzzing

on certain notes. Fixed it with a small amount of superglue, job done. 

[Jono Bolton]

On 30/09/2024 at 23:14, casapete said:

I had the same thing, and it was the machine heads. One of the vintage style Fender tuners

where it fits into the shaft of the head mechanism was slightly loose and resonating / buzzing

on certain notes. Fixed it with a small amount of superglue, job done. 

I had the same thing. I put a piece of blu tack on it.

[Stub Mandrel]

My brother asked me to track down a faint, but annoying harmonic buzz on one open string of a guitar. It turned out that one of the nut slots was cut so it was fractionally higher just back from the mouth of the slot, perhaps one or two thousandths of an inch. A few movements of a fine blade sorted it, but it was almost impossible to detect.

In this case, suspect anything that may not be 100% snug, try tapping gently with a screwdriver.