New Suhr has "dead" notes :(

I’m sorry to hear that you’re encountering this issue on your new guitar. That is a serious bummer.

There will be resonant frequencies that will cause dead notes (or wolf tones) on most any guitar to a greater or lesser degree. PRS guitars commonly have these issues as well from what I have read.

Adjustments to action and relief may help move the offending resonant frequency to a micro tone in between the Western scale notes of the instrument.
 
That can happen even with the most expensive guitars. I had the same problem with an Ibanez J-Custom RG8550MZ. A dead note at C (523Hz) due to the guitar body absorbing the resonance of that specific frequency.

The vendor didn't admit responsibility, so I sold the guitar

I tried everything. Even swapping necks with another guitar without problems. That didn't solved the isue.

https://www.jemsite.com/forums/f18/j-custom-rg8550-vs-prestige-rg2770-why-custom-worth-$1-000-a-145370-3.html#post1389722

RG8550-Neck1.jpg

Brass tremolo didn't help
RG8550-Brass1.jpg


Blocking the tremolo didn't work
RG8550-x.jpg


The only thing that worked was playing the damned note with an U-clamp instead of a finger (increasing the mass)
RG8550-Capo2.jpg
 
I think instruments without dead spots are the harder ones to find, and are often still with dead spots that for whatever reason seem less obvious. (The perceived lack of deadspots was one of the main selling points of Steinbergers in the 80s/90s.) Regardless, my Modern w a regular maple neck and Floyd isn’t significantly dead anywhere, but I can hear a slight dampening on the G at the 12th fret in mine. But that isn’t nearly as bad as the multiple PRS Ce22s I’ve had that consistently had a dead B 10th fret (it quickly moved to the upper harmonic in its decay). I believe changing the mass of the neck, using something like a Fatfinger or perhaps even a clip on tuner on the headstock may move the resonant frequency somewhere potentially less annoying.
 
I have a Tokai LS3 that has a dead spot on C# on the low E-string (much less on the same note A-string, frets and setup are perfect).
I had a Furch Red Master's Choice acoustic where the low G would almost immediately turn into its 5th. I returned that.
Most acoustic guitars have some kind of dead area around the low G and around the F one octave higher. If you have not bothered until now, you will notice it always after your first encounter... ;-)
 
WHAT a bummer.... and what a sTrange issue! good info for others though, so they dont think they are going mad! Good luck with it, they definitely should be assuming warranty responsibility and they should retract that request for a string gauge adjustment on Your part....i cant imagine ANY reputable luthier telling a customer, “........one more thing - just DONT, and by dont, i mean you CANT, use X strings!”

And that’s a Suhr! Anyway, again, hope you get it resolved without cost to you!
 
Sfalsetto said:
If I had to put money on it, I would say it’s a resonant issue.
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jamongrande said:
I think instruments without dead spots are the harder ones to find, and are often still with dead spots that for whatever reason seem less obvious.
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Agreed. Every stringed instrument has resonance peaks and valleys (like every object, cavity, room). Mostly we don't hear them unless it's like +/- 12 dB. Also, with compression from pickups, amplifiers, drives, and compressors it becomes less noticeable and relevant.
 
unix-guy said:
Suhr factory spec is .005" at the 7th fret.
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Yeah, 010" is a hell of a lot of relief. People measure this differently. Suhr does it from frets 1 to 17.

To the OP. I currently have 2 Suhrs with the Gotoh Floyd, and have owned some others with the 510 bridge in the past. None them have had issues like that. CS will take care of you.
 
I've had expensive guitars with dead notes, including a pretty decent Yamaha 5 string bass that fights resonating on the low D note. In my experience there is nothing you can do short of swapping it out if it's bad enough. Like @yyz67 said, every instrument has peaks and valleys, but you don't want them too severe in either direction.
 
I recently tried my hand at re-fretting my Strat. Aside from the various other issues one comes across doing a re-fret for the first time, one of the biggest, that ultimately caused me to re-re-fret it for a 2nd time was dead frets caused by the tangs not being seated perfectly because of empty space under the fret.

To rule that out, you can do a tap-test across the frets. Use any metal object, the whammy bar is a great option so the rounded tip won’t mark up your frets and tap across the frets, you’ll hear a noticeable difference when/if you come across one not seated properly. A visual test won’t do, as you can’t see the tang from the fingerboard and even if the tang from the side view is making contact, it doesn’t mean it is under the fret where you can’t see.

Just one more thing to rule out anything else. If that’s the case, they’ll probably ask you to send it back for them to pull the fret, drop some CA glue in to fill the void and put the fret back in.
 
RevDrucifer said:
I recently tried my hand at re-fretting my Strat. Aside from the various other issues one comes across doing a re-fret for the first time, one of the biggest, that ultimately caused me to re-re-fret it for a 2nd time was dead frets caused by the tangs not being seated perfectly because of empty space under the fret.

To rule that out, you can do a tap-test across the frets. Use any metal object, the whammy bar is a great option so the rounded tip won’t mark up your frets and tap across the frets, you’ll hear a noticeable difference when/if you come across one not seated properly. A visual test won’t do, as you can’t see the tang from the fingerboard and even if the tang from the side view is making contact, it doesn’t mean it is under the fret where you can’t see.

Just one more thing to rule out anything else. If that’s the case, they’ll probably ask you to send it back for them to pull the fret, drop some CA glue in to fill the void and put the fret back in.
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I am pretty sure it's not a fret because I can tune the string up or down a whole step and the problem moves to another fret. It's the specific note(s) but only on that string... Probably due to being resonant and in the approximate center of the scale length.
 
I have only been playing the Suhr since it arrived but last night I played my DK-24 since I had done some work on it earlier in the day.

For grins (or not) I checked it and discovered it has the same issue but to a lesser degree. The F# on the G string dies off faster than other notes.

Interesting that these are 2 of the 4 total 24-fret guitars I own. All my other guitars are 22-fret. I'm going check my PRS CE24 later.
 
unix-guy said:
I am pretty sure it's not a fret because I can tune the string up or down a whole step and the problem moves to another fret. It's the specific note(s) but only on that string... Probably due to being resonant and in the approximate center of the scale length.
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I gotcha. I misread it when you initially said it in another post and then skimmed over. That’ll learn me.
 
unix-guy said:
I have only been playing the Suhr since it arrived but last night I played my DK-24 since I had done some work on it earlier in the day.

For grins (or not) I checked it and discovered it has the same issue but to a lesser degree. The F# on the G string dies off faster than other notes.

Interesting that these are 2 of the 4 total 24-fret guitars I own. All my other guitars are 22-fret. I'm going check my PRS CE24 later.
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are you playing through your Fractal? or an amp?
just wondering if it could be something with your amp? (since you're hearing it in 2 guitars)
or....(don't take offense) could there be something wrong with your hearing?
 
BBN said:
are you playing through your Fractal? or an amp?
just wondering if it could be something with your amp? (since you're hearing it in 2 guitars)
or....(don't take offense) could there be something wrong with your hearing?
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How could you explain that the Fractal, an Amp or our hearing cancels the decay (not the attack) of one specific frequency?
 
Point of asking about his amplification source is that I'd assume there is as much chance of a amp/cab "absorbing frequencies" as there is the guitar doing it (as in your example).
My first atomic clr used to fizz out on certain frequencies. It was a defect that was fixed. Why couldn't this be a similar issue?
 
BBN said:
Point of asking about his amplification source is that I'd assume there is as much chance of a amp/cab "absorbing frequencies" as there is the guitar doing it (as in your example).
My first atomic clr used to fizz out on certain frequencies. It was a defect that was fixed. Why couldn't this be a similar issue?
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Yep, I see it. In my case, the dead note happened even with the guitar unplugged
 
BBN said:
are you playing through your Fractal? or an amp?
just wondering if it could be something with your amp? (since you're hearing it in 2 guitars)
or....(don't take offense) could there be something wrong with your hearing?
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Playing thru the Axe Fx... With headphones or my Xitone wedges... Even just an Input/Output block... Or unplugged.

If it was my hearing then the same notes on other strings would be similar. They are not.

Also, it would be the same on 20+ other guitars, and it isn't...

It's apparently a very common problem that I've managed to avoid for 35 years.
 
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