Nut question

Hi all,

A while ago I posted this thread with regards to a local luthier cutting the nut slots too deep on the wound strings of my Les Paul Special Tribute, particularly the low E:

https://www.mylespaul.com/threads/im-frustrated-and-need-some-help.494523/

I haven't had the money to pay another luthier that comes highly recommended to make a new nut, but in the meantime I've been tweaking the neck relief and action to get it where if both feels good and minimises buzz. It plays and sounds much better now, however...

When I hit the open low E, it sounds a bit boomy / undefined un-amplified and this it magnified via amplification. What I think I'm hearing is that slight fret buzz up near the nut adds slight harmonics, which interrupts and muddies the base note, making it sound kind of wooly / muddy.

Am I on the right track here blaming the nut, or are there other setup factors that might contribute to this problem?

E.g. combinations of pickup height, wraparound bridge vs ToM, string gauge (I'm using Stringjoy Signatures, 10-48 balanced tension).

Thanks in advance for the feedback, I appreciate it's hard to diagnose without seeing and hearing things in person.

If it were me, the simplest, easiest thing to try would be to raise the thumbwheel on the base side(where the problem is) one full turn. Detune the strings before you do this.(so its easier to raise). Also use a sharpie to mark your spot, so you can come back to that exact position, after this test. It may indicate the action is too low, or it's too close to the pickup. idk. Check the screw heights as well.

Of course the impact will be a higher action, but after tuning back to pitch, does the problem go away after you do this? If it does, you have one answer.
Or is it the same, in which case you will have to look elsewhere. Many other possibilities, but, this is easy to do and easily reversable.

Other possibilities...the nut, like you said, the saddle integrity (seated well?), change strings?.
Does it have a truss rod? sometimes if they are lose, they can resonate( why the truss rod condom was created). Check the path of the string as it leaves back of the bridge. Is it touching before it transits to the stopbar?

These are just guesses at other choices to check, if it doesn't pass the first muster. There are others.
Good luck, i think there should be a solution.

Listen to the tone of the open string and then fretted at the first fret. If it's radically different when fretted then yes, it's the nut.

Thanks all.

I measured my action, which is 4/64 treble, 6/64 bass. Seems high but the numbers, but feels good. I wouldn’t want to go higher though.

Relief is 0.011”. This is withinGibson factory spec.

Pickup neck is 1/8” treble, 5/32” bass.
Pickup bridge is 3/32” treble, 1/8” bass.
Both measured fretting at 22nd. Good balanced volume.

I think I have two exacerbating problems. One is the nut is cut slightly low. Second, my guitar seems to need more relief, or I need to hit the strings much softer as fretting at first and second only makes things slightly better than open buzz wise. the action is high enough, so I don’t want to touch that.

Thanks again for the advise. If anyone has anything else to suggest / comment on, please do! It’s good to learn about this stuff.

If the nut is wrong, like you said, there’s a limit to what you can do to cope with it.

There’s nothing wrong with tweaking the guitar and exploring and experimenting, but you will continue chasing your tail until you get a nut properly cut in the guitar.

It’s irritating to have someone work on your stuff, and they create other problems for you.
Get the guitar to someone who actually knows what they’re doing (NOT at Guitar Center) and assign the cost to tuition.

Leee said:

If the nut is wrong, like you said, there’s a limit to what you can do to cope with it.

There’s nothing wrong with tweaking the guitar and exploring and experimenting, but you will continue chasing your tail until you get a nut properly cut in the guitar.

It’s irritating to have someone work on your stuff, and they create other problems for you.
Get the guitar to someone who actually knows what they’re doing (NOT at Guitar Center) and assign the cost to tuition.

Click to expand...

Good advice! Just trying to make things bearable until I can afford it. Not crazy money at all, but too many bills to pay first!

Ok, at the risk of banging on the same proverbial drum...

I've done two things to try isolate this issue, knowing it's most likely the nut causing the issues.


Firstly, I got hold of a feeler gauge set to measure first fret clearance.

It's 0.010" on treble side (at spec on on the E but perhaps not graduated enough up to the G).

It's 0.015" on the bass side, so very low. Might even be slightly lower on the A string. Gibson standard spec seems to be 0.030 on the bass side, or do people think this is too generous?


Secondly, I went out and tried some other Les Pauls, SGs and Strats at the shop.

The good thing is this reminded me why I really like my own guitar, save for the nut. It just feels like home.

The bad thing is (or good, if you take the mindset of diagnosing things properly,) is that they all had MUCH more clearance on the first fret than mine and sounded better for it. This plus the slight extra tension it causes when fretting at first and second frets especially seemed to make a big difference on helping tighten up the bass notes especially.


I'm pleased to have come to this conclusion, even if I know it is possibly a bit of a no-brainer answer.

Gotta save those dollars to pay a good luthier this time...

If some slots are too low, raise the nut.
A cheap and easy solution would be to remove the nut and place a very thin shim under it, thus raising the nut ever-so-slightly. You could experiment and just place it under the bass side. I wouldn't use anything thick (card-stock) but maybe typing paper? Maybe even a folded small piece of Kleenex? It may take some experimenting.
If you had your own nut files, you could do the baking soda and super glue trick on them, and re-cut.

This may be stupid advice, but it has worked for me. I am my own luthier, for better or worse. I like my slots (nut and bridge) to be as shallow as possible to only keep the string in place. As for nut slots, every new guitar I have bought has the nut slots too high, which makes fretting at the first fret too difficult. So I file the slot down on the nut. A couple of times, I accidentally filed the nut slots too low.,I mixed some “super glue” with some saw dust and applied it to the nut slot, let it dry, and tried filing again where needed. This has always worked for me. And it seems to work. About 12 years ago, a friend brought me a a cheap LP guitar for a (free) set up. I got the low E string nut slots too low and used this technique. I met this guy again a few days ago, and asked how the guitar was doing. He said “fine”.

Thanks for the advice. I think I've done enough of playing with the setup myself to know that alterations to the nut are beyond my ability. Or, should I say, beyond my patience!

@Dolebludger With a user name like that, I'm guessing you're located somewhere in the antipodes? Not sure if I've ever heard anyone outside of New Zealand and Australia use that term?

My nut slots are VERY deep—the strings are well covered with excess nut. I'll post a photo. I'm not sure what the luthier I paid to do this was thinking...

Photos to illustrate the depth of strings within the nut (they don't sit on top, but very much within the material), and an additional photo to show small clearance at first fret.

LPSpecial6403 said:

Thanks for the advice. I think I've done enough of playing with the setup myself to know that alterations to the nut are beyond my ability. Or, should I say, beyond my patience!

@Dolebludger With a user name like that, I'm guessing you're located somewhere in the antipodes? Not sure if I've ever heard anyone outside of New Zealand and Australia use that term?

My nut slots are VERY deep—the strings are well covered with excess nut. I'll post a photo. I'm not sure what the luthier I paid to do this was thinking...

Click to expand...

No sir, I live in the Colorado mountains. My user name comes from my friends from Australia, who have told me it basically means somebody who does not want to work. Well, that’s me! If your strings have excess nut material above where they sit when slotted correctly, that is a “no no”. But can easily be corrected with a small file to take off the nut top.My rule as to nut string passage is that no more than half the string should protrude above the nut slot. More can dull the tone of open strings. And also (though off topic) I want my bridge saddles to have the groves cut as low as will keep the strings in place on bends. I hope this helps.

LPSpecial6403, I think we are posting here about what I would call a simple set up job. It is something every player needs to learn before he/she learns the first chord. To set up a guitar, there are three factors. Bridge (saddle) height and string depth, neck relief (bow or not), and nut slot depth and cut of nut top. If you nail these three things to your satisfaction, you’ve nailed it! I have had my guitars to great luthiers in the past, but final set up has always been up to me.

Dolebludger said:

My rule as to nut string passage is that no more than half the string should protrude above the nut slot. More can dull the tone of open strings.

Click to expand...

Now we've got to the issue (beside the the slots being too deep re. not enough first fret clearance). Even the top of the low E string sits completely flush with the top of the nut. The other five strings are about the same or deeper.

It seems there's a few things going on, and I'm glad to learn something.

My bridge slots are very shallow and the strings stay in place very firmly, so I don't think there's anything going on there.

Dolebludger said:

LPSpecial6403, I think we are posting here about what I would call a simple set up job. It is something every player needs to learn before he/she learns the first chord. To set up a guitar, there are three factors. Bridge (saddle) height and string depth, neck relief (bow or not), and nut slot depth and cut of nut top. If you nail these three things to your satisfaction, you’ve nailed it! I have had my guitars to great luthiers in the past, but final set up has always been up to me.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's why I've been trying to learn and practice as much as I can to get things where I like them. The nut is the issue as I've found and I'll enlist some help on that front, but the rest of the setup is very comfortable.

When the nut is cut properly, I think I'll manage to reduce the relief slightly as I'd prefer it very slightly straighter. It might be possible to slightly lower the bridge a bit too, but I'll do things slowly and one adjustment at a time—letting things settle in between.

Judging by the pic that low E string slot is indeed cut too low....or.... you don't have enough relief in the neck.

My test for determining slot depth at the nut is to have each open string have the same clearance over the first fret as it has over the second fret when fretted at the first. Almost all g]new guitars I bur seem to flunk this test by having the nut slot depth too high, making fretting at the first fret a bit difficult.

When I first got my guitar, it was certainly too high. Very hard to fret at first, which is why I took it to a luthier. First time he cut it too low. Second time, he made a new nut from scratch and cut it too low again, as it currently stands. This, among other things. He's retired now, not that I'd return.

I'm pleased that I went and tried out a few guitars at the shop though, as it did make me realise that aside from the nut, I really do enjoy my guitar and it's otherwise set up well for me. As much as I would REALLY like a new LP Standard, sometimes it's a case of better the devil you know, eh?

Well, if you have a nut slot that’s too low, you can mask off the nut with the slot open to the top and partially fill it with super glue. You’ll probably get it too high again, but after drying you can make it right with a needle file an a bit of patience.

What he said this will be your easiest and cheapest fix. Thw good ol reinforced asuperglue trick.

Lets face it. You shouldn't be able to make it worse than it is.

Or you could ah the current nut if you are confident in removing it without breaking it. Should be easy though.

Lastly, worst case scenario. You get the right preslotted nut and dit it in yourself.

You can do it.