Choking bends at 17th fret - Music Man Axis

[MatsMolandTraeen]

Hello! I just got a Music Man Axis in the mail, and the guitar is amazing to play and sounds great! But I get a pretty bad choke around the 17th fret on the high E string when bending, and it happens a little bit on the other frets in the same are depending on how wide the bend is.

My first instinct was to raise the bridge, but the previous owner said he never had this problem, so I was thinking maybe the neck moved a bit in transit? But then again, this is pretty high up on the neck. I also read something about it not being such a good idea to mess around with the poles on this specific bridge.

Any advice on this?

Other than this, the guitar is amazing. My first Music Man guitar and the sound and playability is among the best I've tried!

 

[fbecir]

Hello

You just have to adjust your truss rod. Good news : it is so easy with a MusicMan

Everything you need to know :

Another good news : DrKev is moderator on this forum and I'm sure he will respond in a few minutes ....

 

[edhalen]

Hello! I just got a Music Man Axis in the mail, and the guitar is amazing to play and sounds great! But I get a pretty bad choke around the 17th fret on the high E string when bending, and it happens a little bit on the other frets in the same are depending on how wide the bend is.

My first instinct was to raise the bridge, but the previous owner said he never had this problem, so I was thinking maybe the neck moved a bit in transit? But then again, this is pretty high up on the neck. I also read something about it not being such a good idea to mess around with the poles on this specific bridge.

Any advice on this?

Other than this, the guitar is amazing. My first Music Man guitar and the sound and playability is among the best I've tried!

Hello Mats and welcome! We have a saying around here....pics or it doesn't exist!!!!

 

[beej]

Generally speaking, buzzing on the lower frets requires a truss rod adjustment, whereas buzzing on the upper frets requires bridge/saddle adjustments. (The bow of the neck isn't an issue on the high frets.)

This might require raising your bridge. But it also could be a sign of a high fret, or something else.

 

[MatsMolandTraeen]

Hello Mats and welcome! We have a saying around here....pics or it doesn't exist!!!!

Thank you! I will took some quick pics just now. I'm planning to take more proper photos later and make some videos as soon as I can, but some phone photos will do for now!

Generally speaking, buzzing on the lower frets requires a truss rod adjustment, whereas buzzing on the upper frets requires bridge/saddle adjustments. (The bow of the neck isn't an issue on the high frets.)

This might require raising your bridge. But it also could be a sign of a high fret, or something else.

Yeah, that's what I thought! Everything on the lower frets is super solid.

Hello

You just have to adjust your truss rod. Good news : it is so easy with a MusicMan

Everything you need to know :

Another good news : DrKev is moderator on this forum and I'm sure he will respond in a few minutes ....

Ah, yes, I've seen this one, but from what I understand the truss rod shouldn't have too big of an effect that high on the neck?

Thanks for all the responses, everyone! Here are some pictures:

It kind of looks like the pole on the treble side is lower than the bass side. I'm not sure if this is the normal setup or not. I have adjusted action on other guitars before, but I want to be a bit careful since I'm not familier with this bridge.

 

[beej]

If it were me, I'd take a straightedge and rock it back and forth on the higher frets (say, above the 15th fret), looking to see if there's a high or a low fret, a hump in the neck, etc. If something's off, you'll see a gap with the straightedge. If you find any issues, you might want to take it to a tech to see. (For example, a high fret might need to be pressed in or filed down/dressed.)

If everything looks fine, I'd try raising the treble side of the bridge and seeing if that fixes your issues. (Just keep track of your adjustments in case you want to go back to where you were.) It's really not a big deal to try this.

Also- make sure you try new strings before making too many adjustments. Old strings can be inconsistent, and sometimes that's all it takes.

Nice Axis btw!

 

[Tollywood]

That’s a beautiful Axis.

Just a reminder, if you plan to raise the bridge, be sure to slacken the strings beforehand to relieve the tension.

 

[DrKev]

The truss rod has an affect on the higher frets, but only in a sort of secondhand manner. If we loosen the truss rod to add a neck relief, the headstock moves forward which raises the strings a little, changing the action that we measure over the 12th fret. If we have too much neck relief, the action we measure over the 12th fret might be higher than we want. But usually people will lower the bridge or the saddles to correct that but that can lead to the saddles being too low and removing the clearance that we want over the higher frets. So sometimes buzzing on the higher frets can be due to too much neck relief. In that case, remove some neck relief, raise the saddles to get the action measurement of the 12th right back to where you want it.

The Axis of course has non adjustable saddles, so using shims under the saddles or shimming the neck are how that is often done.

This is from the official FAQ on the Music Man website…

The Axis guitar is designed for the tremolo to sit flat on the body, and only allow movement in the dive-bomb direction.
Because the bridge is limited in its adjustability via the pivot screws, the string height is primarily adjusted by adding or removing shims from the neck pocket. If you are not comfortable with removing the neck from your guitar, do not attempt to re-shim the neck. Instead, take your guitar to a qualified tech or contact Music Man Customer Service to arrange for your guitar to be sent to the factory for a setup.

 

[MatsMolandTraeen]

Hi again everyone, and thank you all for your responses. I really appreciate it. I did a very slight truss rod adjustment and turned the action on the treble side of about a quarter of a turn and now I can bend for miles!

 

[DrKev]

Awesome! Well done, Mats!

 

[guitarman1996]

I also read something about it not being such a good idea to mess around with the poles on this specific bridge.

A bridge you can't mess around with the poles? Doesn't sound right to me, any idea where you read that?

 

[dean701]

2 words "fall away"

 

[MatsMolandTraeen]

A bridge you can't mess around with the poles? Doesn't sound right to me, any idea where you read that?

I don't recall exactly. I was reading on a lot of websites, including this one. I don't think it was that you couldn't, but that it was not the first thing you should jump into, and some people were talking about shimming, which I have no experience with. I got this through a trade with a guy where we had some time to decide if we were happy before we made the final deal, so I wanted to be extra careful in case I had to return it to him.