Buzzing Notes at High Volumes

Last sunday I put on a pack of Ernie Ball 11s (had been using 9s up to then), and when I plugged in, I heard buzzing, especially on my G at the 12th fret and above.

I unplugged and started playing, but could hear nothing.

I decided to tweak the relief on my truss rod a bit but that didn't matters any better, so I took it into my local guitar shop.

Well, I got it back today and the same thing: at lower volumes all's well, with nice, clear ringing notes; but when I turn it up to where there's some amp distortion I get these weird buzzing dynamics.

I'd explained the situation before I brought it into the tech, though I did not mention that at low volumes the guitar sounded fine.

Is the problem with the setup or something else?

Any help would be great!

Could it just be the new strings?

I'm freakin out like Macho Man here...

Are your pickups too high? If the magnets are too close they will get "wolf" overtones or false tones, and it's more apparent on super clean or super dirty amp settings. Try backing the pickups away, the difference may be that the fatter strings are giving the pickups a hotter signal, and with more output you'll get more midrange but start to lose the highs and sparkle that we know and love from Leo's creations.

You were right to have the trussrod and action height and intonation adjusted for the new string gauge, but the pickups might also need to be adjusted. Measure between the high and low e strings and the polepiece with the string fretted at the highest fret, and check it against the Mr. Gearhead specs, then play with it until it sounds right.

Much obliged, Vizcaster. I'll give that a shot today!

Try backing the pickups away, the difference may be that the fatter strings are giving the pickups a hotter signal, and with more output you'll get more midrange but start to lose the highs and sparkle that we know and love from Leo's creations.

Btw, what you wrote illustrates the effect I'm seeing. With the volume turned down, everything's fine, but when I crank er up the clean highs seem to get muddies by some over overtones. Maybe "buzz" is the wrong word to use here: it sounds as if the tones is getting masked by other tones, if that makes any sense.

It does make sense.

Try and lower the pickups; see if you can get a better result that way. If that fails go back towards or to your previous size, get the guitar working right again.
Check and see if your nut is binding on that bigger Ernie Ball; I've switched a number of guitars to 11-49s with no issues. Consider substituting a 46 or 47 for that 49 or whatever Ernie is giving you.

Easy on the truss rod. You should get less fret buzz, not more if you go 2 sizes larger, give that truss rod time to catch up with what you're doing.

Good luck,

Bubbanov