Home › Forums › Harps and Accessories › My first buzz. Help, please?
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haromagik.
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June 20, 2013 at 1:56 pm #76924
Angela Biggs
MemberI’ve had my harp for 2 1/2 years, and last week it came up with its first buzz. I’ve tried just about everything I can think of, and I can’t find the source. The only thing I haven’t done is change out the bass strings. They’re wound on metal circley things that back up to a metal washer, which backs up to the leather washer, then the string goes through the strip. Replacing them is an expensive proposition, and I’d like to avoid it if I can.
36 strings, Truitt levers, Heartland Sylvan harp. I’ve checked the lever screws; some were loose, but tightening them didn’t fix it. I’ve visually checked all of the strings; they don’t seem to be hitting levers where they’re not supposed to. I checked the screw that attaches the column to the base; it had a teensy bit of play, but tightening it didn’t get rid of the buzz.
My harp is tuned in Eb. I first noticed the buzz on the Bb above mid-C. Engaging the lever (B nat) gets rid of the buzz. On the Ab string, the buzz is most noticeable with the lever engaged (A nat), but it’s there on the open string too. The G string acts the same way. The buzz is noticeable on F#, but not on F nat.
My husband tried pressing up on the soundboard in this region, from the inside of the harp, and sometimes that got rid of the buzz on all strings.
Have I left anything out? Is there something else I should check?
Thank you for your help!
AngelaJune 20, 2013 at 9:02 pm #76925Tacye
ParticipantHave you checked all your string ends inside the soundboard? Do you still get it in a different room? How about the screws that hold the feet on and the grommets in the soundboard.
June 20, 2013 at 9:37 pm #76926Alison
Participantyou need to isolate which frequency is causing the buzz and whether it’s one particular string or something else resonating, so tune 3 adjacent strings to the same frequency, I’ll leave you to decide which levers are on/off for greater variation, then start to eliminate the cause or particular strings, if they all create the same problem when you are stopping the other 2 then it can’t be a string, it must be a knot or some metal work. So keep plucking as you damp all the other bits and knots you can systematically – stick your ear in the hollow sound board, it could be a long way up or down from the source strings. let us know….
June 21, 2013 at 4:23 pm #76927Sherri Matthew
ParticipantHi Angela,
This past winter I had an annoying buzz on the second D above middle C and it turned out that the wire end where it entered through the hole on the pin had a little bit of slack… even though the wire wrap itself was nice and tight. I experimented by giving it a gentle poke with a wooden q-tip and it moved pretty far, enough to detune that string and also stop the buzzing. So I just bent the wire a little better, where it came out the pin hole and also tightened up the wire wrap to remove the slack.
And I noticed the same thing you did too – put the lever on and the buzzing goes away. Drove me nuts. At first I thought it was happening under the sound board, maybe something to do with an ill-seated toggle.
Don’t know if this will help or not, but it’s one more thing you could check for. 🙂
June 21, 2013 at 10:43 pm #76928haromagik
ParticipantI was taught that the very first thing to do when you have a buzz that is related to a particular string is to change the string. However, it sounds like you are noticing the buzz relating to different strings… but if you can isolate it, like Alison says, then change the string. It could also be the lever. I had to have a lever replaced with a stubborn buzz. The technician said sometimes they just go bad, or can have something loose in the cam mechanism. She replaced the cam first, and then the whole lever when that didn’t solve it. Good luck. I do appreciate how annoying this can be!!
June 22, 2013 at 11:13 am #76929lyn-boundy
ParticipantDo you use a stand for your harp? My Harpsicle developed a buzz a while ago that was eventually traced back to the stand I had just started using. Can’t remember exactly what it was that was causing it but I do remember that, once traced, it was easily rectified.
June 22, 2013 at 3:23 pm #76930MemberTayce — the first thing I did was check the knots and the second was move the harp to another room (since then it’s also buzzed in several other locations. 🙁 ) I did *not* check the screws in the feet, I’ll go do that now. How do you check the grommets?
June 22, 2013 at 10:13 pm #76931emma-graham
ParticipantHave you changed any strings recently? I once had a nightmare buzz and it turned out that when a string had broken, the knot slipped down inside the harp and got stuck inside the bottom. I had searched everywhere for it but never thought about checking inside the harp. Once I remembered and had a rummage, I found it and the buzz was gone!
June 25, 2013 at 8:22 pm #76932Member**Thank you**, everyone! Found it! I finally had a couple of hours free, so I printed out this thread to go through every suggestion one at a time. Fortunately, I didn’t have to go far! I tuned F and G to Ab, and the buzzing kept going, so I went back and started pressing knots again. This time pressing on the knot for mid-C relieved the buzz, so I removed the string and played with the knot a little — it didn’t have a long tail, but I figured maybe the knot itself was loose somewhere.
As I was replacing the string, I brushed up against a long piece of loose nylon. What was it? The Bb string had a long tail that I hadn’t noticed my first time through because it was hiding under the knot for the C string. Sneaky little thing! The morning the buzz appeared, I had turned the knots to make sure that they weren’t bumping into each other, and checked for long tails at the same time. The Bb knot must have been situated so that the tail didn’t get dislodged by turning.
So — Bb to F# above mid-C were all buzzing, pressing on the mid-C knot fixed the problem, but the source was actually the tail of the Bb knot just below it. Geesh.
Thank you all so much for your help. 😀
June 25, 2013 at 8:54 pm #76933ParticipantGlad you found it!
June 25, 2013 at 11:47 pm #76934ParticipantI am so glad you found it! I was just wondering this morning how it was going. hooray! And phew!
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