Jackson DK2M - Intonation and truss rod setup

[Ophie]

I bought one of these pups at the local guitar shop with a case. All was fine and well until it started going out of intonation and all haywire. Since wood is wood I expected this, however I have not owned a guitar with Floyd Rose bridges before and even after reading a bunch of websites I have yet to understand the mechanism.

I live in a relatively small town in Eastern Europe and there is only one small guitar shop, where I usually go for my needs. So that leaves taking my guitar in for some guitar tech to fix.

I have fret buzz on the first fret all the way to the fifth fret on the B and high E strings. After reading a couple of posts on the forum I tried gently adjusting the truss rod so it would arch a little and give the neck relief. This didn't rectify the fret buzz, so I resorted on raising the bridge again to no avail.

I tried intonating before and it just messed up the saddle arrangement on the bridge. However I managed to adjust the bass strings to a perfect intonation, but the high E, B and G strings remained flat because I couldn't push the saddles towards the nut anymore, basically I ran out of room.

Given these circumstances I have to fix this conundrum myself, but the lack of information on the internet for this type of stuff is troublesome. I ran out of ideas and turned to this forum which gave me almost no results. I'm hoping that a more experienced member could point me in the right direction or would suggest some solutions. I would like to avoid paying for anything as I am on a tight budget.

[warlok]

How long are you talking about from when you got and all was fine to the time all went haywire? Did it come from somewhere that was a different climate? My first wonder is what made it change but now that it's out of whack, you need to step back and take it step by step. Once you get into it and start seeing how it works, it becomes easy to adjust the guitar for great playability.
1. What is your neck relief with it tuned to pitch - (adjust truss rod) Fret (or capo if you have one) the first and 17th fret. How much space is between the string and the top of the 8th fretwire? Check both high and low e strings.
2. Nut height - (could need to be shimmed) Fret the third fret and see how much space is between the string and the 1st fretwire.
3. String height - (adjust height of the bridge posts) basically looking for a somewhat uniform down the neck. Probably a bit higher at the 24th than the 1st but not way in the air.
4. Is the bridge plate level or leaning back or tilted up? (adjust springs in the trem cavity)
5 Intonation - I set it last..
That's where I'd start. You'll have to check and recheck things as you go because one adjustment may change where another is at that point. But take your time and it all makes sense as you go.

[moku]

fret buzz:
don't adjust the truss rod for fret buzz. 1) check if the neck is straight; stand the guitar up and look down the neck from the headstock and see if both sides of the neck (low e and high e sides) are straight--very slight upbow (relief) is fine. only adjust the truss rod if it is backbowed. if it's backbowed, it wouldn't only buzz from 1st to 5th frets on b and e string. i suspect something else is up. if there's nothing wrong with the neck, then read on: it's either locking nut or floyd bridge. if it's warped on the lower e string side (from 1st to 5th frets), then you're f**ked. you may have to steam press the fretboard. if this is the case, just get a new neck. it's cheaper.

next, check the locking nut on the b and e side. maybe the locking nut shelf is lower than the low e and a strings side, so that when the locking nut sits on the shelf it's actually too low causing buzzing on b and e strings. if this is the case, you could solve the issue by shimming underneith the locking nut just that side with a thin piece of alluminum, tin foil, whatever.

intonation:
intoning the strings is the last step, like warlok says. first is make sure neck is straight or just a tiny relief. second is check the nut. third is check the bridge.

better start from the beginning since you don't know how the hell the previous owner have setup the guitar or messed it up.

1) unlock the string locking screws and take the strings off. remove the saddles and check to see if the saddles are in the correct order. indication of the lineup of the saddles are either by numbers, lines, or dots on the underside of each saddle's lock box (each saddle will indicate where it should be placed. the order should be like this: 2, 1, 0, 0, 1, 2. anyway the middle two saddles (g and d) should be the tallest: they're 0's or no lines or dots. once this is done, then put the floyd back and the lock the strings. the saddle position on the baseplate should be like this:


see how the pattern is? e, a, d pattersn is repeated for g, b, e. this pattern will pretty much get you close to good intonation.

2) the mechanism of the floyd is easy: the springs in the back pulls the floyd's ass (the 6 long saddle lock screws) down but the tension of the guitar strings pulls the floyd's ass up. what you want is to have the baseplate of the floyd rose parallel with the body. the ass shouldn't be kicked up or drop down. to do this, next you need to tune the strings. but first, raise the bridge posts/studs up a bit higher (unscrew the posts counter clockwise) so there's no more buzzing anywhere.

3) once string is tuned, then check your intonation at 12th fret (intone both harmonically and play the tone at 12th). once it is intoned, then lower your floyd posts/studs until all strings touch the neck. from that point on, rise the low e and high e side of the floyd post/studs in small increments until you get no buzzing on the strings anywhere on the neck and yet have the lowest possible action.

4) make sure your guitar is in tune again.
this is a lot of reading. and i'm tired of typing. but hopefully this helps. if not, then post pics of your guitar, maybe we can analyze where the problem is.

[84sups]

On the intonation it honestly sounds like you are going the wrong direction with the saddles. Go away from the pickups with it alittle bit. It you are tuning to E and are using 9s or 10s you should be able to intonate it with no problems.

[Ophie]

Thank you warlok and moku, very informative posts. I will get to it as soon as I can and will post results. I'm pretty sure that I won't be the last person to benefit from this.

EDIT: No matter how high I raise the bridge or the nut around the B and high E strings, I cannot get rid of that annoying buzz. The string buzzes on the fret right after the fretted one. I noticed that the nut is declining from the low E to the high E. I tried shimming it to level the nut, but have note yet succeeded.

[moku]

you checked to see if the neck is straight and not warped? see my procedure above. look down the neck especially on the low e side, the first 5 frets.
also post pics to show the straightness of the neck (down the neck on both sides), string action (height of string over the fretboard), floyd rose height.

[Ophie]

The neck is very much straight. I have followed your instructions and I'm currently trying to intonate the high strings. As it currently stands, I have to move the saddles towards the nut and it would grossly violate the saddle pattern linked above.

[warlok]

Don't worry about the pattern of the saddles, however it ends up is fine as long as it's intonated. Did you get rid of the buzz?

[moku]

Don't worry about the pattern of the saddles, however it ends up is fine as long as it's intonated. Did you get rid of the buzz?

yeah, it's just a reference, a starting point.
also, if how high you raise the bridge or the nut around the b and high e strings the buzzing is still there. i would check if the first 5 frets need a dressing, leveling. have they popped up? is it an old neck? or maybe the previous owner just replaced five new frets there (w/o leveling them to the rest of the frets)?

[Ophie]

It's a brand new guitar, so I would assume that the frets are leveled. I'll try and shim the nut some more see, because I saw a slight change with the buzzing.

[warlok]

Initial fretwork should be ok to get a decent no (or minimal) buzz. Kinda my rule of thumb on the nut shimming is if you hold the 3rd fret and have some space, it should be close. If you go too high with the nut, you'll have to push pretty hard on the lower frets for clean notes. I'd assume the shimming should be good from the factory but you can even use matchbooks for shims to see how it works and get better shims later.

[Tommie]

When you're adjusting the nut, bear in mind that it only influences buzz at the first fret, and has no effect at all on any buzzing elsewhere, however it does affect the overall feel of the guitar. Also make sure you only intimate the guitar with fresh strings.

[warlok]

"Also make sure you only intimate the guitar with fresh strings. "

And chicks too...

[metalone]

"Also make sure you only intimate the guitar with fresh strings. "

And chicks too...

[Tommie]

Haha, damn iPhone and its auto correction. Seems it knows nothing about guitar terminology...