I replaced the strings on my acoustic and find there is an odd, secondary rattle that seems to come from the saddle area when I strike the open G string. When I fret the string it lessens. I inspected the string, pin and felt around inside. There was a groove worn in the saddle so I tried sanding it a little, but the rattle persists. Before I drive to the guitar shop with my wallet, has anyone encountered this before?
I had a very similar issue once after a string change. In advance my saddle had been replaced by a guitar tech. After the first string change on my own, I had an awkward sound coming from the saddle area (drove me nuts).
I loosened the strings again and figured out, the new saddle was a bit more loose than the one before and wasn’t fully upright. I repositioned the saddle and had no issues since then.
sometimes the ball end doesn’t seat properly under the saddle, things like this can happen …
Could be worth loosening the string and checking it’s seated tight behind the pin.
fwiw,
Don’t rule anything out.
I had a rattle in my acoustic/electric. The D string.
I searched and searched for the issue.
In the end. It was the lid for the preamp controls for the preamp. It only rattled on the open D string. Fret any note on that string and the rattle was gone. So I guess a sympathetic vibration for whatever a open D string vibrates at.
Anyways. That wasn’t what I would have thought was my problem and it took my a long while to finally discover it.
Hope ya can find your issue faster than me. My rattle was near making me crazy before the issue was discovered.
Congratulations! You’ve found a resonating frequency. Sorry, just kidding.
Maybe it could help if you could post a picture of the groove in the saddle.
MIght just be that the G string is touching the first fret?
Thank you @Helen0609, @mathsjunky, @HappyCat and @GrytPipe for encouraging me to DIY this further. You all had plausible ideas, but the string and pin were set correctly, no loose saddle, the groove in the saddle I sanded smooth, and feeling around inside I found nothing loose on the pre-amp until…
There is a silver coated wire that leads to a pickup which is inserted in to a small whole under the bridge, just near the G string. It seemed a bit wiggly, so I tugged it tight, restrung the guitar and then bowed six times to the guitar gods and NO MORE RATTLE! You all just saved me from dropping $100+ on a guitar shop tech.
Woohoow!!
Glad to hear it’s solved!
Not so sure that was a good idea. Won’t sanding bits away from the top affect the intonation?
Well not perceptibly. Call it a micro-sanding. The groove at the G string looked deeper than the adjacent strings.