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Hey all. Been a while since I've been on here due to school and all. Anyway, I have an acoustic/Electric Ibanez guitar with a terrible buzz and completely dead tone. The buzz is not coming from the frets, but from the bridge area. According to Dan Erlewines GuitarPlayer Repair Guide, a bad bridge plate could cause both of those symptoms. So I took a look inside.









The bridge plate mostly looks like it was just cheap wood blown out when they drilled the holes. I'm not sure if that's really the problem so I am hesitant to do anything with it. If I were to do any work on the bridge plate, I was thinking about getting this... http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,_ta ... _Mate.html
It seems to have good reviews.

Otherwise, you may notice the wires everywhere. One would think Ibanez would have been better about cable management, but whatever. You may notice the white pad stuck to the guitar top that holds the wires. There is another one that came unglued about two years ago. I don't think that is causing the buzz, but I will still fix it.

Also, I read a bit about saddles and pin holes, but still am not confident in my knowledge. Should I do anything about the wear on the saddle or the peg holes where the strings dug into them? replace the saddle maybe? If so, does the piezo cable under the saddle affect me?





Any suggestions welcome.
Thanks,
Kevin

I wonder if the buzz is coming from a weird break on the saddle due to wear. From the pictures I did not see anything all that out of place in the inside pictures. Also have you changed the strings?Terrible buzz and dead tone calls out strings to me. Some times on the wound strings there is a broken wind with just a hair of wire causing a buzz. The saddle just sits on the flat piezo transducer. Not so hard to change the saddle.

Thank you for the response. I know the strings do play a role in the dead tone, but even with brand new strings, it still doesn't sound as good as it used to. Tomorrow I'll try sticking the pad holding the cables back down, and see if that changes anything. I'm hoping that it is just that. I remember doing that before, but it didn't hold. I don't remember if that made a difference with the buzz. It's been doing this for quite a while now but I've just been dealing with it. But now a combination of that and the bad tone is making me just want to get a different guitar, but that would be a bad idea (I'm in college right now).

that plate is crap mahogany I think . Maple would be a better plate and that may not be too hard to remove.
You can put a maple cap on it also but I would remove that plate and replace .

You can can get some buzz when the tops of those tusq saddles start to flatten out and groove. Similar to buzz on a bad nut. Too much string touching the saddle.

I'd actually slot those hole a little more and be sure that the ball of the string can be pulled up tight to the bridge plate - that may be the buzz. then try a new saddle... definitely glue that pad back down.

Maybe reach in there with some sandpaper or a razor (carefully- note the location of the wires there. ) and see if you could clean up some of those shredded bits and pieces. It really could be any number of things.

Make sure it is not the wires vibrating against the top, I've seen that one.

Almost looks like there is a gap between the bridge plate and the X-Brace......that can cause a buzz as well.