Gibson V:Poor sustain on upper frets of High E

[mccullpl]

Hey tech gurus!
I recently picked up a Gibson Rudolf Schenker V. A very cool guitar, but I seem to have a problem with sustain on the upper frets of the high E. I'd say 20-22 frets are very poor, and almost sound like there's a resonance choking them out. I dropped the pickups down to eliminate that possibility. I have about .008-.010 relief on the neck, and new D'Addario 10's. Since it does it on the 22 fret, it seems like that eliminates everything but the saddle, but I
I don't know. I don't remember it doing this when I got it, and I'm sure I gave it a good flogging when I was checking it out, so it seems like something's changed, but other than tweaking the truss rod and changing the strings (and lubing the nut, and intonating it), I haven't done anything that I would think could cause this...Any ideas?

Thanks!

[leftykingv2]

That's the model with the Granadillo fret board correct? I would check the frets on the higher register where it's losing sustain. You may have a bad fret level job. Also check the saddle.

[mccullpl]

Yep, it's got the granadillo fretboard. I think the frets are fine, but I'll take a look at them. Since it does it just as bad, if not worse on the 22nd, I'm leaving more towards the saddle...

[leftykingv2]

Yeah the saddle could definitely be the problem. Make sure everything is okay down there since you changed strings. I do believe that guitar comes stock with .009's I could be wrong about that. Double check the bridge and the nut. It's got to be on one of the two if there's no buzz or dead notes in between. EDIT; Some graphite will help if it turns out to be the nut.

[leftykingv2]

By the way a friend of mine bought the exact same guitar about a month ago and it is a really nice looking and playing guitar.

[mccullpl]

Trust me, the nut has plenty of graphite on it! It was a challenge to get it to stay in tune worth a shit! It is a cool axe, so I want to get this figured out. Oddly, the manual said they come with 10's, but when I mic'd them out they were 9-46...never seen a guitar come with that stock, but I've never owned a Gibson before either. Always wanted one, but everyone I played was a mediocre guitar at a super premium price, lol. This one "spoke" to me...

[Axewielder]

In general if a sustain issue happens near certain frets only then it is a fret issue. Some fret pinging can be very subtle and hard to hear but can sap your sustain away.

[Chad]

The nut would only be a factor with the open strings. Relief won't have an affect on the upper frets. Could be a high fret or two, but that wouldn't explain it happening at the last fret as well.

My guess:

1) dead string (even if new...it happens).

or

2) burr or something on the saddle causing the string to choke out

But it seems like those would affect all fret positions and not just that last few.

BTW, an easy test with a tune-o-matic to see if that saddle is the problem: flip the bridge around, so the high E and the low E are swapped. Yes, intonation will be crap, but at least you can temporarily test to see if the sustain returns to normal.

[mccullpl]

Chad, you reminded of something else I changed. I flipped the saddle to get more travel, so I flipped it back. I have no room to move it any further back, but it is intonated, so that doesn't matter. Seemed to have fixed the problem!

Thanks everyone!