What can i do to fix my cello's buzzing strings?

Question

Okay, I'll admit, it's a pretty cheap instrument. I got it new about 8 months ago from amazon and it worked perfectly for the first 7 months, but recently i haven't been able to play it.

When i press down any of the strings, the whole string touches the fingerboard, so when i try to play on that string it just buzzes. I thought the problem was that the strings were too close to the fingerboard, so i raised the bridge by putting a piece of cardboard under each of the legs... and that did not fix the problem. Also, when i first took the cello out of the box, the bridge didnt have any indents on it for the strings to rest in and i had to make the indents myself (not my proudest work).

I am willing to buy a new bridge if that turns out to be the problem, but i want to avoid taking the instrument to a shop if possible, because instrument repairs tend to be hecka expensive.

-What is causing the buzzing? (Is it the position of the strings, bridge height, my cruddy indents...)

-Is there anything i can do to fix it??

Thank you!

Answer 1

The other issue may be that the fingerboard has a backwards bend to it, also a problem cheaper instruments developed from low quality materials.



What you need to do is to take it to a violin repair shop for a proper diagnosis where someone can actually look atbit and see what's going on. I might be able to tell from photos but as Lainie said, you can't do a bridge, they don't just get slapped on, its about 90 minutes work for a professional. If it's the fingerboard, do you have a plane and do you know how to use it.

Answer 2

i'm guessing your bridge was probably too low but high enough to keep the strings off the fingerboard up until serious winter weather hit. If you carved your own grooves in the bridge, you probably didn't do it in a way that kept the grooves stable and the strings may have cut further into the bridge over time.



The other possibility is that the grooves in the nut are too deep.



Putting a piece of cardboard under the feet of the bridge is not going to help the sound at all.



Buying a new bridge won't help much because what you can buy is a blank that needs to be fitted to the cello. If you just take a blank bridge and make some notches in it, it will be way too high.

Answer 3

Yeah, the problem is that the strings are to close to the finger board. Normally raising the bridge should have fixed that, I don't know why it didn't. This often happens with mine to in the winter. Because in the winter everything on your cello shrinks. If you wait for the spring it will probably go away. I don't think getting a new bridge would do any good, unless there's something wrong with the bridge you have now. Talk you your teacher about it. :)