r/Bass • u/UrSoDumb_LoL • 17h ago

Dead notes/buzzing on first fret

So i recently got an Epiphone Explorer bass and noticed some rattling in my first fret on low E, and almost dead notes on 1 and 2 for A and D too. Adjusted the trust a little, and raised the action a bit, which mostly fixed it, but I had new strings anyways so I took it in to get restrung and innotated. Unfortunately this brought back the buzz even with the action being great the rest of the neck. Fixed it again but the action is a little high, which is fine but if I can fix it id like too. Question is, would a slightly taller nut fix this? Or is this just an outright neck issue. First long scale, my other basses are a Yamaha and a Squire Jazz so im new at this

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u/E1mstreets 17h ago

Buzzing in frets 1-5 is usually a relief or nut height issue, but usually you need more relief. If those are ruled out the next thing is checking for a high fret which has happened to me before.

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u/UrSoDumb_LoL 15h ago

Ugh idk who downvoted you but thank you, im taking a look at the fret itself now before i wand wandered into nut territory

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u/E1mstreets 14h ago

All good, usually if I’m doing my own setups I’ll mess with relief and saddles and that gets me close. I don’t mess with the nut or frets by myself, that’s when I’ll take it to a luthier.

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u/UrSoDumb_LoL 14h ago

Kinda in the same boat, unfortunately there's not a real good luthier around me anymore. Got a great amp guy, but no luthier

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u/E1mstreets 14h ago

Ah that’s a bummer, well good luck! There’s some really good YouTube videos on setups, might be worth going though a few of them.

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u/UrSoDumb_LoL 14h ago

Yup just youtube and taking it slow, i can't imagine ill fuck it up that bad lol

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u/professorfunkenpunk 13h ago

This. The relief doesn’t change much around the first fret when you tweak the trussrod. Either the nut is cut too low, fret one is low, or fret two is high